More Than A Name (Naruto Fanfiction)

Second Exam: Saviours

Team 7 circled back to the small creek they had stopped at earlier. Sakura scanned the area and found no one nearby. Karin was in the creek, wiping away the blood and grime on her.

Naruto sat cross-legged. Since Karin's reveal, his mind had been trying to process the concept of him having a family, not only a family but a clan. His mind was coming up with thousands of questions for Karin, but he first needed to explain his burden to his team.

Sakura was sitting on a stump while Sasuke leaned against a tree, patiently waiting for Naruto to begin. Karin finished washing up and sat nearby in a position similar to Naruto's.

"How should I even start telling you guys this" Naruto said

"Maybe start by telling us why Gaara said you were the same."

Naruto put a hand to his stomach.

"He's referring to what we both have inside of us; twelve years ago, when the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked the village, everyone thought the fourth killed it, but the fox couldn't be killed and had to be sealed away into something," Naruto explained, his voice betraying the emotional turmoil he was experiencing.

"Or someone," Sakura said, her eyes wide in recognition.

Naruto nodded, lifted his shirt, and channeled chakra to his stomach to reveal his seal.

Karin gasped

Sasuke and Sakura just stared at the seal, the emotion on their faces hard to decipher

"Well, that's the truth, I'm actually a monster; I understand if you guys look at me differently now," Naruto said, his voice getting heavy

Sasuke snorted

"If you think this changes things, you're wrong. You're still an idiot to me, but now you're just an idiot with a chakra demon inside him."

Naruto wiped away some tears. "Thanks, Sasuke."

He then looked at Sakura, who was wiping away some tears of her own

"Sorry, it just all makes sense now how you are treated like an outcast in the village; I'm sorry, Naruto if I knew.." Sakura's voice tapered off as she started to shed more tears.

"It's not your fault. Only the adults know about it; Gramps put a law that made it illegal to talk about it so that our generation wouldn't treat me differently."

"Did it work?" asked Sasuke

Naruto looked up at the sky.

"Not really; I was ignored when I was in the orphanage; the attendants kept me away from the other kids. It may be a surprise, but I didn't talk much as a kid; I just wanted someone to play with or talk to. The only one who would was Gramps."

Karin whispered over to Sakura and asked

"Who's Gramps?"

"It's the Hokage"

Karin's mouth widened in shock at her cousin's apparent close relationship with the Hokage.

"He saw how miserable I was in the orphanage and thought getting me a place by myself was a good idea."

"How old were you," asked Sakura

"I think I just turned five."

"Five," Sakura said in disbelief, trying to imagine her living by herself at that age.

Sasuke nodded, his sympathy for Naruto's upbringing increasing as he realized how it felt to be alone at such a young age.

"Staying in the apartment didn't help; after heading out by myself, everyone would just ignore me and act as if I didn't exist. I ended up sitting in my apartment angry and sad, wondering why people would acknowledge me."