章 1: An Advice
It was another day, the same day but on a different date especially for someone like him.
He was just five years old. His body was small and he wore a black t-shirt with orange pants. He had strange whiskers on his face and blue eyes.
His bright yellow hair shone profoundly under the light of the sun. Whenever he walked in the street, everyone just ignored him and gave him hateful glares.
He never understood why. He was just three years old when he began to notice those glares and hateful eyes.
When he turned four, he was beaten many times, admitted to the hospital, and even traumatized. Somehow he managed to recover from all that.
But, at the end of the day, he couldn't forget why everyone hated him so much. And even more so, why would everyone ignore him as if he was a plague?
Right now, he was walking on the street, hoping to find the only person who treated him with kindness. He was a very busy old man but always made time to meet him.
He wanted to get out of those glares. He wanted to run away so that they couldn't give him those glares. He just wanted to find an empty place and do something.
He was given an apartment when he turned five but it didn't help since he always gets lonely.
He tried to get more friends and he tried to make others laugh. But nothing he did truly helped him.
After he made his way to the Hokage's Office, he was once again met with a hateful glare from the secretary.
He tried to ignore it but she just had to stand in front of the gate.
"What are you doing here? This is not the place for you." She sounded as cold as ice when she spoke.
It broke his heart but he couldn't cry about it.
"I am here to meet Old Man." He tried to sound tough but his voice was still that of a child.
"He is busy. He doesn't have time for someone like you." The secretary gave him a cold glare and snarled. It didn't help that her body was bigger than him, making her more intimidating.
"No, he always has time for me." Naruto stubbornly walked forward. He didn't care about the secretary anymore. He just wanted to enter the room.
"Damn you brat! Didn't you hear what I say?" The woman angrily tried to pick up Naruto. She succeeded in doing so and was about to throw him when a ninja walked near her.
"Hey, hey, what's going on here?" This voice startled the secretary and she dropped Naruto. Naruto landed on his legs but it did hurt him since she put quite an effort into dropping him.
"Ninja-san, why are you here?" The secretary quickly asked while giving a polite bow to the ninja.
Seeing her attitude change in an instant, Naruto found something really interesting. He found that despite not doing anything, the secretary would actually show so much respect for the ninja.
And, it made him even more excited when he saw that the ninja was actually quite young, not like the Old Man Hokage.
"So cool!" Naruto's eyes turned into stars as he stared at the man and shouted.
The ninja was stunned by Naruto's admiration. He didn't even do anything while the secretary was a bit confused but still had that same glare in her eyes.
"Who are you?" The Ninja knew Naruto but he still showed a surprised look and asked.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. Are all ninjas like you?" Naruto asked excitedly.
"Like me? Nah! I am one of a kind. But, I do want to know what made you so excited." The ninja chuckled and asked. He had a strange needle in his mouth and he was wearing a cloth over his head.
He had brown shoulder-length hair but a bandanna on his head hid most of his hair. He wore a green jacket and blue clothes underneath the jacket.
"Because you instantly made her respect you so much. I have only seen people show such respect to Old Man. Do you think if I become the Ninja, others would respect me like you?"
Naruto excitedly answered while asking a question at the end.
The ninja paused for a moment. He could see where Naruto's excitement was coming from. Unfortunately, he couldn't say Naruto was correct.
So, he thought of something and chuckled.
"Well, if you do become the Ninja and protect the Village like us, you will be respected by others. You can't earn respect from words. You have to earn it through your actions."
"You are what four?"
"Five!" Naruto interrupted.
"Five! Next year, you will join the Ninja Academy. Study hard and train until you graduate. Let me give you some advice that someone gave me a long time ago."
"Every problem has a solution. You just have to find it."
Hearing his words, Naruto paused for a moment and his eyes sparkled even more as he stared at the Ninja. The determination flashed in his eyes as he spoke.
"I will definitely become an awesome Ninja, believe it!"
"I will wait for it to happen. Now, I have something to inform Hokage." The ninja said and walked toward the door with the Secretary quickly running back to her spot.
"Hey, you haven't told me your name." Naruto shouted.
The ninja turned and smiled.
"My name is Genma Shiranui."
Naruto remembered the name deeply in his mind and left the Hokage's Office. He didn't even get to meet the Hokage but it didn't matter anymore.
Because Genma had given him something that might change his life forever.
He went to his apartment and took out the books that Old Man had brought him.
He never understood these books so he found them very boring. But, Old Man had told him that these were essential for him to become the Ninja.
Because of his boredom, he tried to ignore it or skip reading those books.
But because of Genma's words, he started looking at those books from a different perspective.
Every problem has a solution. You just have to find it.
He didn't know how to find it but he wasn't giving up that easily.
First of all, he needed to learn how to read these books. They were normal books on the alphabet, maths, and some common knowledge of the village.
............
"You had quite a deep conversation with Young Naruto, Genma. I am glad that you didn't see him like most people do." Hiruzen puffed out smoke from the pipe and spoke.
"I might not know a lot but I do know that he is not Nine Tails. He just the container to hold the Nine Tails. If he hadn't been here, Nine Tails would've continued to wreak havoc in our land." Genma replied.
But, deep in his mind, he had some other thoughts.
'Besides, he looks too much like Lord Fourth. I never got the news about his child. But, I did know that Lady Kushina was pregnant when that incident happened.'
'If he is really Lord Fourth's son, I do understand why the information is hidden. But, because it is hidden, he might suffer from the villager's hatred.'
"That's why civilians and ninjas are different, Genma. But in the end, even ninjas are civilians. People like you come from a normal background so many Chunin and Jonin still harbor a lot of hatred against Young Naruto."
"It has much to do with their lack of strength and lack of faith in Minato's work than their hatred against Nine Tails." Hiruzen sighed.
Genma paused for a moment and said.
"Lord Hokage, I might be stepping out of my boundary but I think we are not looking at his problem from all perspectives. Lord Fourth taught me that every problem has a solution."
"This is just another problem that also has a solution. We just need to find it."
Hiruzen frowned for a moment and soon, a smile bloomed on his face.
"Minato was indeed correct. We might have to use different perspectives to solve this problem and I might just have the idea for one of Naruto's problems."
"Did you already find the solution, Lord Hokage?" Genma was surprised but also excited when he asked.
Hiruzen smiled and said.
"I have been thinking about Naruto's problem from other's perspective so much that I forgot to take his own perspective for the solution. We might not need to find the solution to his problem."
"We just need to let him find it on his own."
Genma paused and frowned. He didn't understand how a five-year-old child would find a solution for problems that even they couldn't.
Hiruzen saw his confusion and continued.
"Of course, it is not possible to find solutions in an instant. But, what we can do is give him a suitable environment to find solutions, an environment filled with knowledge."
"We will introduce him to the Library."
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