You don't remember the screams. Not clearly. Just flashes.
A woman with hair the color of burning fire. A man with calm eyes but shaking hands. You were crying. The room was cold. There was blood everywhere. And a monster loomed in the sky.
The first time you dream of it, you wake up sweating, your heart pounding so hard it hurts. But no one hears you. No one ever does.
You're five. Hungry. Alone. And the only thing the villagers give you is hate.
They say things when they think you're not listening.
"Demon.""Monster.""Why is he still alive?"
You pretend not to hear. You smile. You keep moving.
But deep down… you remember. You remember the way their eyes changed when they saw you. The way they whispered behind your back. You remember being chased. Being beaten. Being ignored. And worst of all… you remember that no one ever came to help.
The truth is, you're not like them.
You don't know how, or why—but your body, your chakra, your everything feels different. You heal too fast. You don't get tired like the others. And when you get angry… things happen.
Once, when a shopkeeper threw a bottle at you, your body moved on its own. The bottle froze midair and exploded into dust. You ran. He never spoke about it again.
Maybe he was afraid.
Maybe he should be.
The Scroll
It happened on a night like any other.
You were in the orphanage—cold, hungry, trying to fall asleep on the hard floor. You felt it before you saw it—a tug. Like something calling you. Whispering.
So you followed it.
Past the broken door. Past the old walls. Down a hall you'd never noticed before.
It ended in a storage room, dark and dusty. And inside, behind a loose brick in the wall, was a scroll wrapped in red cloth.
You almost didn't touch it.
But something in your blood screamed for you to take it.
And when you did, something clicked.
The second you opened it, red markings glowed across the paper. They twisted, curved, shaped into seals your eyes couldn't read—but your soul understood.
A whisper echoed in your mind.
"To my son… the last of the true Uzumaki."
Your knees gave out. You sat there shaking, the scroll trembling in your hands.
Inside were notes. Drawings. Instructions. All written in a woman's handwriting. Her name was on the last page.
Kushina Uzumaki.
Your mother.
She wrote about a technique—an ancient one. Forbidden even to their clan. Called Crimson Ascendancy.
It wasn't a jutsu. It wasn't a seal. It was… something else. A way to awaken the sleeping power in your blood. A way to become more. To grow your chakra beyond your limits. To become a force no one could stop.
There were warnings too.
"It will burn you. Break you. Maybe even kill you. But if you survive… you'll never be caged again."
And at the end, scrawled in hurried ink:
"Forgive me for leaving you alone."
You didn't cry.
You sat there, in the dark, with your mother's scroll in your lap and a heart that had forgotten what warmth felt like.
And for the first time… you felt something else.
Purpose.
You trained in secret.
Every day.
Every night.
While the others played or laughed or wasted time, you were bleeding. Breaking your bones. Pushing your limits.
And every time you passed out from exhaustion, every time your vision blurred or your muscles tore, you heard her voice in your head.
"Push harder."
"Don't stop."
"You are my son."
The Crimson Ascendancy wasn't instant. It took time. Pain. Months of small growth. But it worked.
Your chakra grew. And grew. And grew.
Until one day, you realized something.
You weren't normal.
You weren't even human anymore.
The Eyes of the Fox
Kurama noticed it first.
His voice in your head, usually full of hate, paused.
"You… what did you do, brat?"
You smirked.
You could feel it now—your chakra moving like a living thing. Pulsing. Hungering. Matching his.
"That's not possible," he growled. "You're just a child—!"
But you weren't. Not anymore.
You were something else.
You started testing things.
Watching jutsu from the Academy, then copying them. Not with Sharingan. Just... seeing them. Feeling them.
One try. That's all it took.
Transformation. Clone. Substitution. Fire. Water. Lightning.
It all came easy. Too easy.
And when you made a clone—it didn't just copy you.
It learned.
Your clones could train all day, then return to you—and the moment they vanished, you knew everything they did. Techniques that should take years took hours. Days.
You were becoming a storm.
And no one knew.
The Promise
You swore you wouldn't show it. Not yet.
Not until it mattered.
Not until they saw you for who you really were.
Not until you could stand on top of the world and say, "I was never the demon. I was the answer."
Let them laugh now.
Let them mock you. Hit you. Ignore you.
Because soon, very soon…
They'll all know the name Naruto Uzumaki.
And when that day comes…
You won't hold back.
[End of Prologue]