Naruto's P.O.V

I suppose I should have been more excited about my birthday. I should have worn my goggles, grinned brightly, proclaimed my dream to be Hokage and made various annoying statements ending with 'dattebayo'.

I was not in the mood.

The tenth of October meant different things to different people.

To some, it was a reminder of the day the Kyubi no Youko attacked Konohagakure.

To others, it was the day the Yondaime Hokage sacrificed himself to save the village. Truthfully, this was the same thing as the first meaning, but people loved to differentiate between them.

For this reason, there was a festival held every year on that day. People used it as an opportunity to pay their respects tall those who died in the attack, to revel in the glory that was the Yondaime Hokage, to celebrate another year without incident.

It was also the day to be more... direct with their hatred of me. Usually, the villagers ignored me. They gossiped about me, they instructed their children to stay away from me and they made me regret my very existence.

I felt it better to be physically abused than to be treated as though I was a plague. Alas, they did not touch me.

On my birthday, they made sure to vandalize my home, wreak havoc on my kitchen and shred my clothes. It was a mess.

Two years ago, I'd been kicked out of the orphanage, so Jiji got me an apartment and gave me an allowance once a month.

I continue to wonder how dense he could be to give me, five and a half years old at the time, a home in the red light district.

This led up to now.

I woke up, feeling uncharacteristically low. I rubbed at my eyes, clearing my vision. I wasn't ready to wake up. I was still bone tired.

Nevertheless, I left my bedroom and went to the living room, blindly making my way to the kitchen through half lidded eyes.

I smelled it before I saw it. My walls decorated with poop, couch designed with claw marks and rug soaked with a questionable yellow looking liquid.

I'd scrunched up my nose in disgust, tempted to hurl. Of course, I couldn't. I didn't have anything in my stomach to hurl.

Sniffling slightly with tears threatening to escape my stinging eyes, I walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

Milk.

Jam.

Watermelon.

Water.

Nothing interesting. Nothing nutritious. And I certainly wasn't in the mood for ramen, which was strange considering I was Uzumaki Naruto, self-proclaimed ramen addict.

I settled for eating the watermelon and the seeds as well. I'd never been told otherwise.

Somehow, I managed to ignore the stench of my living room and walked back to my bedroom. I set aside the clothes I intended to wear; a black shirt with an orange Uzumaki spiral on the front, forest green shorts and black sandals, before making my way to the bathroom and performing my daily routine.

Fully dressed twenty minutes later, I left my apartment and made my way to the Hokage tower, studiously avoiding the villagers. As I mentioned earlier, they didn't touch me or even speak to me, but they didn't have to.

Their expressions spoke volumes of the complete and utter loathing they had for me.

Everyone ignored me as I slowly made my way up the stairs, still rubbing my eyes. When I finally reached the doors to Jiji's office, I had to stop and catch my breath.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to design the tower with fifty stairs must have been pure evil.

Or a ninja. There really wasn't much difference.

"Ohayo jiji," I yawned after pushing the doors to his office opened.

The Hokage who had come to be my grandfather figure sat alone in his office. He wore a smile on his face and in that moment I fully believed that smiling made one look younger. His wrinkles were still present, as were the liver spots on his light brown skin. His hair and beard were still white, as were his traditional Kage robes and hat with a few touches of red here and there.

It was starting to scare me a bit that I hadn't even considered putting on the Kage hat, if only to further enforce my dream to be Hokage. But I was so unnaturally tired and I ignored it, attributing my slight change in attitude to the fatigue.

For once, stacks of paperwork did not occupy the table. Instead, there sat a bowl of dumplings, a variety of fruit drinks, dango and ramen noodles.

"Happy birthday, Naruto-kun," jiji said as I practically tumbled into his arms behind the desk.

My eyes grew as wide as saucers as I stared at all the food in front of me.

"It's all mine, jiji?" I asked, eyes still trained on the table.

Jiji chuckled. "Of course, Naruto-kun. It's your birthday, you can have whatever you want," he told me.

I think I grinned for a split second, before descending on the food and practically inhaling it.

While I ate, I wondered what my mother's cooking would've tasted like. Would it be mouthwatering like this, or sour like the orphanage food? A feeling of pain washed over me I had to pause. Who was my mother anyway?

I'd asked jiji who my parents were a number of times, but he always said he'd tell me when I was old enough.

Hope blossomed in my chest as I decided that I was old enough to know.

"Jiji?"

No answer.

I twisted around to look at the Hokage and called him again.

Still no answer.

He had this faraway look in his eyes, as though he was recalling a long forgotten memory. At a point, his eyes took a hard glint and the temperature seemed to drop.

I gasped for air, choking on my juice.

Was this what KI felt like? It was terrifying.

"Jiji!" I wheezed, yanking on his robes.

My grandfather turned to look at me, and his glare chilled me into my bones.

"Why...?" I struggled to say. Why was he doing this? What was going on?

A fog seemed to clear from his eyes. He blinked rapidly.

"Naruto?"

I stared at him, mouth agape, body completely shaken, sweating all over.

"Naruto, what's wrong?" Came the Hokage's voice again.

I shook my head, getting to my feet and wobbling a bit.

"Naruto." He was firmer this time. I flinched, he furrowed his brows.

I turned around and ran, away from his office away from the tower. I wasn't sure where this path led to but I just had to get away from that- that- that two-faced man!

I paused in what seemed to be a cherry blossom garden as a thought occurred to me.

Was it possible that every ninja had two faces? Was it possible that the Hokage's niceness was all an act?

A/N

I never liked Hiruzen, and Tsunade, just so you know. But I'm not bashing them.

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