The Neglected King

Chapter 1: Finding the Catacombs and meeting its keeper

(Village Hidden in the Leaves: 8yrs after the Kyuubi attack)

After the eight long years after the Nine Tails attack the village of Konoha was slowly but surely getting back on its feet as one of the strongest powers in the Elemental Nations. In the Hokage tower located in the center of the village one would find the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, working through several stacks of paper work with the help of three shadow clones to double check his work due to him working for the past four hours and his eyesight was leaving him with all of the fine print he was reading. Finishing with one more page of paperwork that never seems to end Minato looked a picture on the side of his desk with his family and felt two different emotions; happiness and sadness.

In the picture was himself wearing his average clothes (how he normally looks just without the cloak), his beautiful wife Kushina Uzumaki (same  as canon), and his daughter Natsumi (I know it's not original but go with it) who was wearing a pair of blue ninja sandals, a white shirt with a flame symbol on it that went a bit past her waist and some black training shorts with her red hair tied into two ponytails. Minato had a sense of happiness when he looked at his daughter who the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, sealed the Nine Tailed fox that attacked their village into even though he was the one who wanted to do the sealing instead Hiruzen had knocked him out and performed the sealing himself summoning the Shinigami to seal the beast away at the cost of his own soul. Minato then looked at the little boy in the background of the picture who was looking at the camera with a sad look in his eyes and an emotionless look on his face wearing a black shirt, shorts and shoes with blue eyes that looked dark blue from sadness and his blond hair looked faded due to him not being outside that often. Minato felt bad because he told the village that Naruto was the one who had the fox sealed inside him because Minato knew the life that a jinjuriki had and didn't want his daughter to experience that kind of life so he lied to the village to protect his daughter from even more harm to her person than just being his child would cause. Minato knew about all of the attacks that happened upon his son and knew that he would hate him for it but he knew that as the Hokage he can't just bend the rules for one person so with a heavy heart Minato signed a form that would release the ones who had attacked his son yesterday just like they have since his fifth birthday (Naruto and his sister are both currently 7yrs old). Minato hoped that one day he could explain to his son and make him understand the reason behind his pain.

(Forest of Death, Uncharted Sector)

In this unknown portion of the forest of death one Naruto Uzumaki can be found curruled up into a ball with his back against the bark of a tree as he was reminising about all of the faults in his short life. His parents neglect him for his brat of a sister who just because she gets to be trained first she gets to treat him like dirt, the villagers that would attack him everyday and brutally maim him on his birthday and its thanks to a small portion of Kyuubi chakra that he absorbed durring his youth he was able to heal each time but not at a rate like his sister could thanks to having the whole beast sealed inside of her (though neither of them knows of this because their parents were going to tell them when they graduated from the academy). As he was thinking of the last time he tried to ask his parents for training he could remember his "mother" slapping him for asking and calling him a useless needy brat and his "father" who told him that he just has to wait to be taught in the academy because they probably weren't going to teach him anything at all. As he was thinking more about his past Naruto suddenly felt a pulse and a pulling sensation in his stomach and decided to follow these feelings to a certain area of the forest that he would go into to be alone and stumbled across a graveyard that was quite big and clean considering the area that he went to doesn't normaly have anyone coming to it.

The graveyard looks like any normal one except that it had a sign hanging from it the read 'Land of the Lost Steves' on it. This confused Naruto but he didn't pay much attention to it because he was following his feelings that were leading him to the monolith that was at the far right of the graveyard near the back were the feeling in his stomach was burning as he entered. The monolith had an opening in it that was lit up by torches and had a staircase that was leading downwards. Bracing for anything Naruto traveled down the stairs and came across a room with four chests along the left and right wall together and a few skulls and dried blood on the ground. The middle of the room had a grave that was open but instead of a rotten body there was a ladder that was leading downwards into more torch lit passages. Naruto decided against any better judgement to go down into the catacombs to see what he could find.

The catacombs looked to be in good conditions minus the couple of pieces of cracked ground and some less than simple passages, the catacombs were in very good conditions. Naruto followed his stomach to a passage that went in two directions and went down the left hall which lead to another set of stairs that kept going down. Naruto was then faced with a room that seemed to go in one big circle and had a giant chistled stone column in the center of it. Walking around the  column a few times Naruto was about to go back up the stairs until a portion of the column that he had passed became a spruce door which confused Naruto because he had passed by this portion several times and never saw this door. As he opened the door he came upon a large and wide staircase that he traveled down and was met with a tomb that had portions of the floor made of clear but sturdy glass that was above lave (somehow without melting the glass) the tomb was made of chiseled quartz as well as the walls with a giant structure of some polished stone that made the light coming from the lava reflect off the room in a warm yellow color. Along the walls there were words burned into signs around the room that were faded except for the last sign the said the grave belonged to someone known as the "Nightmare King". For some reason the title didn't get any sort of negative reaction out of young Naruto because in his head he believed that for this person to get the kind of title he would have to have been harsh and dangerous to his enemies and ruled over some sort of kingdom to get the title of king. As Naruto was about to explore the tomb more he heard the door to the room open and someone walking down the stairs. Not wanting to be caught Naruto hid behind one of the pillars in the room and watched as the person walked down the stairs and was rather surprised at the state he saw the stranger in.

The man in question had a pale shade of skin that made him look like he spent a long time indoors as well as in the darkness. He was wearing a ragged shirt that was gray from all of its color having faded from time and other circumstances as well as the strangers pants. The odd man also had a head full of dark grey hair not like an old man's but like his hair was made of the ashes of charcoal. His eyes were a grey color and seemed to hold a calculating look in them as he surveyed the room around him. The final thing that Naruto noticed was that the stranger had shackles around his wrists with the chains having been broken at different lengths and rattled as the strange man walked around the room. He passed the pillar that Naruto was hiding behind and didn't appear to notice the other warm body in the room and headed to the stair case to leave and do another walkthrough of the catacombs.

Naruto looked from behind the pillar and let out a sigh as he realized that he had dodged a kunai (seeing as guns don't exsist in their word so putting bullet wouldn't make sense). He was about to leave the room as well until he felt the hand of someone harshly grip his shoulder. He was forcefully turned around to see the face of the man who thought left the room and felt a knot tie in his stomach out of fear of punishment. The mysterious mad looked at Naruto and asked the question that was bothering him since he sensed Naruto enter the catacombs.

"Who are you," the stranger asked/demanded.