Chapter 1

A little girl's shadow could be seen running through the heavy rain as the storm raged on, a mob of people had been chasing her for so long. The girl's young body could barely handle the excursion it is was being put under, her leg's ached and her body shivered as the rain drenched her thin, old and torn clothing. The large crowd of people, most of which who were carrying weapons such as pitch forks and kitchen knifes, screamed and yelled for her demise.

For her death.

She screamed and pleaded for someone to help her, anyone to help her. But the doors and window's stayed closed, even if the lights were on inside the buildings. Subconsciously, she hoped that her begging was drowned out by the storm, hoping that they couldn't hear her, because if they could, it meant that they were just ignoring her and hoping for her death as much as the people chasing her were.

That they saw her as just a rat to be exterminated.

A pest.

Just like the dirt under their feet.

Her long, ankle length skirt, that had been reduced to a tarnished and muddy piece of scrap fabric, caught around her feet and she fell to the wet and harsh concrete road. She scrambled to get up before the mob of people calling for her death caught up with her, but she wasn't fast enough. A pair of large, rough hand's hooked under her arm's and dragged her kicking and screaming into a nearby alleyway, tossing her back onto the ground, the rough surface tearing at her fragile skin.

The man who had dragged her into the alleyway stood in front of her now, grinning sadistically down at her as he retrieved a knife from his pocket, the numerous people behind him leering at her with a hunger for suffering, her suffering.

"You murdered my family, demon." He said as he approached the girl who was shivering in fear. "Now, you will get what you deserve. . ." He lunged at her and slammed the girl's body against the brick wall, the heavily exhausted girl yelping in shock.

Tears slipped down the girl's cheeks as she weakly struggled against the older man's grip. "P-please, I didn't d-do an-anything!" The storm's rain water mixed in with her tears, making her crying unnoticeable, although it wasn't likely that anyone would have cared even if they could see them.

Her vision flashed white as the man violently slapped her, the right side of her face harshly meeting the brick wall. "Do not pollute the air with your lies, you disgusting monster." He yelled, bashing her head once again to the brick wall.

The red haired girl's vision had started clouding over as the man hit her head against the brick wall. Her small hand's wrapped around the man's hands and tried to pull them away, her small body unable to stand the abuse.

"S-stop!. . ." She choked out, feebly pulling at the stronger man's arms.

The man laughed at her plea's and brought his knife to the young girl's left cheek, grazing it slightly to bring the girl's attention to it. Gasping, she tried to shift her face away from it but the man kept her head still with a rough hand wrapped around here neck. She struggled but instantly stilled as the knife slightly cut into her cheek horizontaly.

slicing through the skin, the man deeply cut into her cheek's, giving the girl "whiskers" as he put it, saying she didn't deserve to look like the humans she had slaughtered. Screams and sobs reverberated through the streets as the man sliced through the child's skin. But nobody listened.

Nobody came to stop him.

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Gasping, Naruto jolted from the warmth of her bed and shivered as tears leaked over her scared cheeks. Hesitantly, she raised her left hand to her right cheek, brushing her thumb over the indents upon her otherwise soft cheek's. Realizing that it had not been a nightmare, but a memory. Her red hair was plastered against the pale and clammy skin of her face, creating a curtain affect around her head, shielding her fearful expression from the world around her.

Pale, lithe legs shifted underneath her thin blanket and her ruffled hair shifted against the piece of stained foam she used as a pillow, unsatisfied with the warmth barely kept within their layers. She had found the thin blanket in a set of dumpsters as she was looking for food or clothing, the blanket was obviously made for warmer weathers and didn't help her much in the middle of winter.

The piece of foam had been ripped off of the arm of a rotting couch, she would have scavenged more of it's part's but the rest of it had vomit or some other unsavory substance stained through it. Luckily, the foam was only stained with water and sweat, she used a couple plastic bags as a pillow case and had found a teared apart teddy bear that had some of the fur and stuffing left in which made the pillow somewhat bearable.

The red haired girl lifted the blanket off of her and half stumbled in her tired state to the entrance of her room, it couldn't really be called a "door" since it was just an unusable sheet that she had nailed into the doorway, giving her the illusion of privacy. The reason it was unusable was for the factor of fabric always giving her a nasty rash if she slept on it, and it wasn't like any doctor would help her with such issues, but the sheet was in a very good state, so she didn't want to throw it away.

Pushing the sheet to the side, she walked down the hallway, looking up and noticing someone had broken in and spray painted the word "Monster" over her recently cleaned walls. Snorting, Naruto mentally noted that they were probably too cowardly to confront her instead and made her way down the hall to the small bathroom.

She hadn't had enough money to afford an apartment that had a bath, so all she had in the bathroom was a metal instead of ceramic sink, a small bin and a space for the shower, closed off by half-rotten shower curtains.

Pushing the shower curtain to the side, Naruto twisted the cold water nozzle, she also hadn't had enough money to have hot water installed, and got ready for her next day in the ninja academy.

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Opening the mostly non-rotten wooden crate she used as a wardrobe, because if she didn't hide them somewhere the rats would get to them, a damp haired and faintly shivering Naruto contemplated what she would ware today. Of course, she didn't have many choices of clothing, she could barely afford food, why the hell would she waste money on nice clothes?

Either way, the only clothes she had to ware were a clean yet slightly stained white shirt, a pair of torn black shorts, a very skimpy and slutty pink dress (That she had been given by a balding old man who had been looking at her like a piece of meat), a knee length dark blue skirt that had once reached her ankles, a slightly torn knee length old black coat that she had gotten from a blind old lady that she was certain hadn't known she was Naruto, and a pair of old slip on shoes that were a little too big for her, she had been fortunate enough for a lady who was running home from the rain to leave the shoes behind as she ran past the red haired girl.

Sometimes if it was really cold she would wear the jacket while she was sleeping, but she didn't want it to get dirty too quickly and have to wash it in the cold river water so she only wore it to bed on the unbearable nights.

She decided she would wear her slightly stained white shirt with the old black coat over it and her slightly torn black shorts, that reached to her knee's just like the coat did. Bunching up her long, straight crimson hair behind her head she held it back with a piece of string, leaving only her bang's falling in front of her face.

Slipping into her shoes, Naruto left her ratty apartment and headed towards the academy.

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Reaching the large gates that stood in front of the school, Naruto leaped and climbed over it instead of opening it the normal way, it was one of her routines that kept her in a somewhat good shape, considering she didn't have much money for good food.

Landing in a crouch, she got up and looked around at the other kids hanging around the school ground, the all avoiding her because she smelled horrible and because she was Naruto, but she liked acting normal for once, like she was just another girl at school, dreaming of becoming a great kunoichi (Even though the only reason she joined the academy was so she could defend herself from the people of Konoha).

She slowly made her way towards Iruka's class, since she was early she didn't have to rush herself into a room of people she mostly hated, the exception being Iruka himself, of course.

Entering the class, she slightly bowed to Iruka-sensei and looked to see what chairs were available, most of the girls weren't here yet because they were probably still prettying themselves up, so the seat next to Saskue was empty and, because she despised sitting next to most of the female students and since Hinata's was also taken, she decided she would sit next to the teme.

Approaching the desk, Naruto addressed the Uchiha was a small nod and sat down, earning a "Hn" from the quietly brooding boy, although he did shift away from her slightly when her clothe's smell reached his nose. Leaning back in her seat and pulling out a school-owned book, she waited for the girls to arrive, which would obviously cause quite a commotion (Although she kind of liked the attention anyway).

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Shikamaru was definitely one of the easier people to talk to for Hinata, since most of the time he was asleep anyway, although he always seemed to hear everything anyway, Hinata wondered how he did that. At the moment Hinata was talking about a book she had recently read and enjoyed, nothing really that special but definitely notable.

Although she wasn't having an overall bad time speaking to Shikamaru, her mood noticeably brightened with the appearance of a certain red head, Shikamaru observed this with a single thinly opened, sleepy eye.

Looking over to the seat unoccupied by Shikamaru, Hinata's expression was dampened at it already being taken by Kiba. 'Oh, well' she mentally shrugged, 'I can talk to her at recess'.

She continued talking with Shikamaru about her book, earning half-conscious remarks from him, when her conversation was once again interrupted. Although, this time it wasn't just Hinata who's attention it drew.

Two girls, infamous for their feud involving a certain Uchiha, stormed into the class room. Butting heads like arguing bulls, they made a B-line towards his chair, Hinata's noticing it was already occupied by her fiery red head.

Hinata really wasn't worried, Naruto could beat Sakura and Ino in a fight any day, and it wasn't like she would feel sad afterwards anyway, she was above petty insults after all.

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Finally, a certain pink and blonde haired pair of girls entered the class room, bickering about who would sit next to "Sasuke-kun". They rushed over to the seat only to see that the spot was already taken.

"Naruto! What are you doing!?" The pink haired one, named Sakura, said unnecessarily loudly, glaring down and pointing at the blue eyed girl who was silently sitting in the chair.

"Sitting down, I believe" She said with raised eyebrows, like Sakura hadn't apparently noticed.

"No! What are you doing sitting in my spot!" The annoying girl screeched, glaring down at the calm girl.

"I'm pretty sure we don't have assigned seats in this class, Sakura." She dryly stated, going back to reading from the book she had borrowed from the school library.

"That doesn't matter! I'm meant to sit next to Sasuke-kun" Sakura seemed to have been practicing night and day to give a perfect impression of a banshee and she passed with flying colours, maybe Naruto should dunk her head underwater and see if she could breath in it. . .

The bleach blonde standing next to her glared at the pink haired girls shouted statement, starting up another argument with Sakura about who was Sasuke's girlfriend.

Finally, Iruka came up from his desk and over to the two bickering girls. "Girls, girls. What's the problem here?" He asked as if he didn't already know, looking over to Naruto and quietly asking for an answer.

"I'm just sitting here really, I didn't start a fight." She said with a dry look, which the two girls screeched about her stealing their sasuke-kun's seat. If he were any other teacher, Naruto would have to get up and move to somewhere else, most likely getting detention too, but, since this was Iruka, who wasn't as sadistic as the rest, she knew it would be fine.

Iruka looked over to Ino and Sakura and waited for their answer, obviously already knowing what was happening.

"She took my seat with Sasuke-kun!" Ino and Sakura both screeched, giving everyone in a mile radius a headache.

Iruka sighed and looked at the girl's, "Why don't you just sit somewhere else then, I'm sure you will have more opportunities to sit with Sasuke later." And with that he walked away and sat back down in his chair, sitting down and started the name roll. Sakura and Ino looked angrily down at the reading Naruto but left to sit somewhere else.

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It was time for the class's lunch break and everyone but Iruka-sensei left the room, either bringing out money to buy something at the cafeteria or taking out their boxed lunches.

Naruto just sat at the swing set and kept reading her book, she had had a cup of instant ramen for breakfast and hadn't had any food to take with her to school, so she just decided to have food after school was out.

She kept on reading, ignoring the growling coming from her stomach, until a shadow covered her, she looked up and found that Hinata had decided to approach her, blushing slightly from shyness.

"Hi, Naruto-san. . ." She said with her eye's looking at the red heads knee's instead of her eye's. That is, until she noticed something, a frown made it's way onto Hinata's face and she looked up to Naruto's eye's. "D-don't you have any food, Naruto?" She had noticed the growling and had also seen that Naruto hadn't brought anything to eat at the academy.

"Oh! Hi, Hinata-san. Um, no, I haven't. . .actually. . ." She always felt awkward with talking about her money troubles with people who cared about her, because she didn't want to guilt trip them into giving her money and she didn't want to be seen as a charity case either.

"W-well, um. If y-you want. . .I could share some of my food with you. . .I always get two boxed lunches from the servants because m-my father says I'm too scrawny. . ." She said, looking worriedly up at the blue eyed girl.

Naruto felt a surge of contempt pulse inside of her, Hinata was one of the nicest people she had ever met, and her father treated her like crap. Hinata had a lot of hidden potential to, and if only Hiashi wasn't being such a fucking asshole, Hinata would have a chance of becoming what she had the potential to be. Either way, it seemed that Hinata wouldn't be going hungry for her to have food, and so she decided to accept the offer.

"Well, only if you want to Hinata-san. But yes, thank you for your generosity." She said, bowing her head as a sign of respect.

The two friends sat next to each other under the tree's shade and ate their lunches together, until the calm silence was finally broken by Naruto.

"You know, if you don't like the way I smell, you don't have to sit near me." She said while physically restraining herself from scarfing down the wonderfully cooked food.

"N-no. . .It's really fine, you d-don't smell that b-bad anyway. . ." The lavender eyed girl murmured, noticing the way the blue eyed one tried to hold back from eating the food quickly. If it were up to her, she would give Naruto as much food, money and shelter as she needed. But her father would be very angry with her for helping the girl, and would probably find a way of hurting Naruto more just to spite Hinata. Right now, the only thing she could do was give the girl her second boxed lunch, it wasn't like she was that big of an eater anyway.

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Hi everybody! I hope you like this chapter and are anticipating the next!

Please comment, any criticism is appreciated!