Strength From Within (A Naruto Neglect Book)

3

-Edited-

After leaving the Namikaze-Uzumaki estate, the blond boy ran to a training ground. He went to one that he hadn't seen anyone go to, one that he had been to a couple of times before when he had run off for the night. The villagers hadn't beaten him too many times, but they threw verbal insults and he had no doubt that if they had the chance they would hurt him every night and would try to kill him.

As he got to the training ground, Naruto sat down on the soft, lush grass. Training ground 98 was a long abandoned place, left for nature to roam freely. It was mostly forgotten about since it was further from the village and wasn't as big as many of the training grounds around. Animals and wildlife were scattered throughout the area, and vibrant green surrounded Naruto as he followed the exercise he had seen his siblings attempting. It was difficult to know simply based on watching alone, but from the shadows he had heard his parents explanation of how to unlock chakra and tried following that.

He sat on the ground, seeking within himself the supposed 'well of energy' sort of thing he was meant to find. Finding it was the easy part, it seemed so big and vast that he could hardly believe he held all of that chakra within his body. When it came to actually unlocking it was the hard part. He couldn't figure out how quite to use it, it was an odd sensation that took some getting used to. It took Naruto about an hour to finally unlock his chakra, and once he did he felt a flurry of emotions.

He was exhausted, for one, but after that exhaustion came more energy, almost like something was replenishing him, but that was probably just the feeling of unlocking his chakra. He felt his chakra, it was more natural and less like something he had to search to find. There was something else there, something that seemed darker and more dense, but he didn't put much thought into what it could be since he didn't have anyone to talk to about. For all he knew, that could have been natural for anybody to have within their chakra. For all he knew, he could have small chakra reserves and others had much bigger than him.

Other than those unanswered questions, Naruto was excited that he had done something meaningful in his life. There was a part of him that was sad that nobody was there to congratulate him, however. He always had hoped that his parents would be the ones to teach him, that they would be proud of him and might start training him because he had proved he wasn't useless.

He didn't have much else to do though, but he had also heard from his parents to meditate and get used to chakra once it was unlocked. This was all advice given to Motoshi and Katsuko, and there was a bitter feeling inside him just thinking about it. It wouldn't have taken long to just tell him that, he could have learnt it on his own and they would have only had to take a minute of their time.

He pushed those thoughts aside, deciding to meditate in the peaceful environment. Naruto explored his chakra, channeling it throughout his small body, looking within himself once more and exploring it until it seemed like there was nothing left for him to discover.

How wrong Naruto was, because in the time it took to contemplate that, there was the weird replenishing energy coming through, and the same darkness from before as well. Latching on to it, exploring it as he had done his other chakra, he felt the anger and violence radiating from it but a distinct sadness as well, underneath it all.

Naruto dove deeper into the energy, desperately trying to find the source, despite it seemingly becoming frustrated at his attempts. He hadn't heard about chakra replenishing itself so quickly, it took time. He remembered one time when his parents were being taken care of because they had chakra exhaustion and that took time for them to recover. It was all confusing and hard for him to comprehend, especially when he wasn't very informed about the workings of chakra.

Let me in, Naruto thought, thinking about the sadness in his own life. He didn't know what it was that was sad inside him, be it his own sadness or something else. He just needed to know what it was and the only conclusion to him was that he had to delve inside his chakra and learn from that. I want to discover what this is.

That was the last thing Naruto thought before having his chakra enveloped by red, so much red. His chakra before had felt light and full of life, but the darkness and the red chakra was surfacing and taking over. His vision clouded, and his body fell limp onto the grass.