Naruko, Elemental Nation's Traveling Mage

For most children, they see their birthday as the day when they are the sole attention of others and are given gifts that let them feel loved. It is a day to spend feeling joy and acknowledgment from their parents and friends. However, for a little girl of five-years old named Naruko Uzumaki, this is not the deal.

She also saw her birthday as a day where almost everyone had their sole attention on them, but she wasn't introduced to new toys or games. No she was introduced to new heights of pain and torture by the mobs that would tear down her old apartments doors.

Today, October 10, was no different and lead to Naruko escaping the mob that had followed her by running into one of the many forests surrounding the village. A part of her just wanted to end it, let herself be taken by the mob and get done with it, but that suicidal thought was beaten into submission by her own self-preservation. Yet, even if she did give herself up to the mob, she would most likely wake up unharmed, like always.

Some days it was a blessing, but others it was an outright curse, forcing Naruko to bear with the agonizing pain of her bones snapping into place and her muscles healing. The only thing Naruko could hope for today was that her tormentors would leave her unconscious so she wouldn't have to deal with it.

Naruko darted through the streets as fast as her feet could carry her, frantically looking around for some sort of safe haven. A naïve thought of asking someone for help only briefly crossed her mind before her logic repressed it.

The people walking around her, who weren't participating, only gave her looks of scorn while they provided the mob with subtle looks of envy, obviously wanting their own time to teach her a lesson. Naruko looked as far as her sight would reach and saw a sign stating in bold letters, 'KEEP AWAY, DANGER'.

Mentally comparing the warning of danger in front of her with the promise of threat behind her, Naruko put on a burst of speed and went straight past the sign. She could hear most of the crowd stopping and only then did she realize that the place she was in scared them. Should she be happy at that or join them in their united fear of this particular forest?

However, her thoughts were put on hold as the sounds of leaves slightly rustling still continued behind her. Chancing a look, Naruko's eyes widened as she spotted three very serious looking ninja. One with a dog-like mask on his head while the others only wore a mask that screamed 'imminent threat'.

Naruko tried to swallow the new pound of fear in her mouth, but was stopped as her foot caught onto an above ground root. She was only able to turn her head slightly before she felt the impact.

Her head fell against what felt like the twin of the root that had caught her foot, but that was the only detail she was able to make out before her head realized that it had been hit.

Trying to stand up, but staggering all the way, Naruko's addled mind tried to make her self run, but was stopped before she even started to try.

She looked up with what was definitely unfocused eyes and saw the ninjas from before talk to each other, discussing something most likely. Inside, Naruko gathered herself for what was most likely going to be a painful experience. However, the feeling she had not been expecting was a sensation of being dragged in a direction.

It wasn't until Naruko opened her eyes that she realized that they weren't heading back to the village, but deeper into the forest. The fear in her stomach made it revolt, prompting Naruko to struggle to keep her vomit down. She didn't need to give these guys any more reason to be mad at her.

Even as she felt the dirt of the ground find its way onto her clothes, Naruko could feel the beginnings of unconsciousness. The corners of her eyesight started to waver and become darker as the seconds ticked by. The hit on her head must have done more damage than she had originally thought.

Yet, Naruko welcomed the relief the darkness would bring with a small sigh of relief

Coughing, Naruko grunted as loudly as she could in pain as she felt her muscles start to tighten and relax, a constant pressure that came with her unnatural healing power.

After being awoken from her previous dreamless nap, Naruko wasn't even given enough time to make sense of where she was before being subjected to torture a certain scarred ninja would flinch at. However, to her it wasn't anything new. Though, it did seem the ninja were trying extra hard to hurt her in her most recent experience.

They had taken out their kunai and started laying down random strikes against her skin and other horrible things. They began using techniques on her ranging from burning parts of her body with Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu and one of the Jonin almost hitting her heart with his arm covered in electricity that seemed to sound like chirping birds.

It was interesting to muse at really. At the moment she could remember all the pain in detail without getting pain from it, yet now at the moment she was, it had felt like hell had descended upon her.

The ninja had left once their visible anger had been washed out by her low sobs and rare loud scream. One of them seemed to be even slightly disappointed at the lack of her screams.

It wasn't really weird that her rate of real screams were going down. With all the torture she had been put through, the mobs had to start getting creative if they wanted the reaction they desired. Naruko grunted once more as her left arm bone snapped into place, followed by the right one.

As the feeling of her muscles on her arm begin their regrowing, Naruko let the darkness on the corners of her sight once again take her.

Naruko woke with a start and held her head trying to get rid of the headache that had made its home in her mind. She got up and looked around trying to figure out where she had ended up this time, when she saw this strange hole in the ground, right behind one of the trees, a rather thick one.

Even though she had never been in this part of the forest before now, or even the entire forest, the hole seemed out-of-place, it being to circular and perfect to be naturally made one.

'It looks like it went unnoticed by the ninjas' Naruko thought. Naruko walked over to the hole and peaked into it, trying not fall and hurt herself while simultaneously sating her insatiable curiosity.

The unnatural look to it had really made her mind fly, wondering why such a whole exits in such an obviously unused location. Popping her head down into it, Naruko thought she saw a bit of stray light that made her gasp and lose her grip on the side of the hole, letting her fall heads forward into the darkness.

The silence of the hole was broken as a terrified scream filled its passageway.

After a brief episode of screaming Naruko hit the ground with a dull thud, not helping her already stiff body that was till sore from healing the injuries gifted to her from the Ninja.

Naruko stood up and tried to shake off the stiffness that had accompanied her the way down here before noticing her surroundings and letting her arms drop to her sides.

looked around and saw a humongous room that had light spraying across the room due to the candles that seemed to never give out, they were weird in that instead of flames, that had what looked like little glass orbs with a small floating orb in the middle.

With this stable source of light, she almost immediately she realized that she was surrounded by bookcases, filled with books, that seemed to be covered with dust, giving the implied notion that this place wasn't exactly visited often.

Naruko thought about why there would be these many books when she looked over and saw a desk with a piece of paper on it silently calling for her to read. She slowly walked over to the slip of paper and started to read it.

Dear Reader,

I would like to explain what you are most likely seeing now. You see, thousands of years ago before there were shinobi, there existed people who used a simpler, and more devastating power called magic. This magic was much easier to use and had many more uses than Chakra has. Though, as I was saying, this type of energy had been used for many years, but slowly people stopped being able to use it. This alone caused distress,but the worst part about it was when, after everyone stopped being born with the ability to use magic, a great beast started terrorizing the land. This beast seemed to have be made of energy similar to Magic, but was different, as it was much more dense than regular magic.

People ran away in fear, and many were dying every day, but one day a man who went by the name of Rikudo Sennin rose up with a new type of energy called Chakra which, we learned, was what the beast with ten tails was made up of. After a great battle, between the man and the beast, the man sealed the beast away and gifted the people of the world his power of utilizing Chakra. Magic, however, was not completely lost, my ancestors, were a people who tried to find a way to get their magic and original ancestry back, and they found that this energy of Chakra was derived from the same basics that magic had been formed from. My people, for many years, gathered a great deal of books on the different type of magic and tried to find away to change their Chakra to Magic once more.

I am the last of my people, but I am also on my death-bed , having finished the Chakra converting technique that will gift people who have Chakra the ability to wield Magic instead. Whoever finds this place please help preserve the power of Magic and get the magic community up and running bringing it back to its predestined spot back at the top of social hierarchy, please help yourself to any of these magic books that will teach you the way to greatness.

From, Lance Heartfilia

Naruko looked utterly shocked by this turn of events, she didn't understand some of the words that the letter had used, but she got the over all meaning. She had, out of luck, stumbled into a treasure mine of potential strength. She looked around the room and thought about what she should do.

She knew, even though the Hokage subtly tried to not to let her find out, many things that were kept hidden from her. Some of these things included the Hokage's mask of concern and warmth that he would put on for Naruko. He didn't really love her, though he didn't hate her like the rest of the village, and he really only saw her as a scapegoat for the people.

She also knew how she actually didn't carry the Nine-tails, though she was a pseudo-Jinchuriki from spending all that time in her mother's stomach. She had once been in her mind and all she had found was a big place filled with filing cabinets and other forms of information holders, which seemed to be her rather organized memory.

Also, through some spying and accidental finding in the Hokage's room while he was in a meeting, she had found a note from her "dead" mother who was actually alive with Naruko's sister, Akane, saying that she hoped their plan of throwing off the hate and evil plans on to Naruko in the place of Akane worked. Then her mother began to explain how she was going to begin Akane's training shortly.

That hit her hard along with the fact that Akane was the true Jinchuriki for Kyuubi. She had dreams of becoming stronger and then show how powerful she was as she beat her sister to the ground and make her beg for mercy. So yeah, she had some issues, but who wouldn't if they were abandoned for a life full of beatings and lies.

She thought about it long and hard but finally came to the decision that she would stay here in this cavern for as long as it took, to become strong and revitalize the magical world.

She walked over to one of the book cases and pulled out one of the books. It read Beginner's guide to Shadow God Slaying Magic.

AT THE HOKAGE'S TOWER

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, was stressing over the loss of one Naruko Uzumaki. He knew this day would come, she didn't have the full capabilities in the domain of regeneration like real Jinchuriki, but it still put a bit of a hamper on keeping up a scapegoat for the civilians. He also knew Kushina wouldn't care very much, but she never really did care for Naruko, focusing on Akane more. The real problem was the loss of a minor weapon when it came to the pseudo-Jinchuriki.

He knew it would work out in the end, though when it was all over. He still couldn't get that chill out of his bones that meant something monumental was happening at this moment.

One Week Later

Naruko was having a hard time. She had only begun reading the Shadow God Slayer Magic book and she was already having problems. She was able to read the theory quite rapidly, but getting into the frame of mind needed for the magic to work was a much harder task than she had expected. She probably would be more into her magic studies, but she also had other studies and duties. Her physical training was a must while the problem of a constant supply of food and clean clothes was still a problem. Naruko sat down and closed her eyes breathing in deeply and holding her breath.

Naruko let out a small breath of air pass through her lips. She often did this to concentrate on a problem, it had always helped her come up with solutions for situations where there was no favorable method in sight. The breathing also calmed her and if what she read in a book, would help her during the meditation parts of her training. Naruko sucked in another breath and wiped away everything in her mind except for her problem.

After a few minutes of focusing, the blonde's eyes suddenly widen an inch. She quickly darted up and out of her position on the floor and rushes over to the book with a new gleam of determination residing in her eye. With thoughts of the promise she made to the Magical World, Naruko set out to master her magics.

'I never break a promise!'