When the twilight foretells of darkness,

Then shall the candle burn

And I await the spirit of magic

With the hope it will return.

I hearken closely unto the silence

And thereof the voice within,

For the spirit speaks unto me

And tasks upon my pen.

When the bewitching hour is chiming

I yet dwell in the candlelight,

For the shadows have lured me to a world

That only thrives at night;

And so I hearken unto the silence,

Tho' it be colder than the grave,

Yet the spirit there comforts me

And provides me line and stave.

When this my room be deathly dark

My candle comes alight

And I toil silently nigh the shadowy form

That only comes at night;

For when the silence encroaches upon me

And thus the voice within,

The spirit relates to me the mystical words

That move my lyrical pen.

-R.L. McCallum

Life can be difficult, hard and painful. Who am I kidding? Most of you probably have already experienced first-hand, all the difficulties, hardships and pains in life that I talk of, so rather than listen to me teach the lessons on how you should stay strong and look forward to the good things, I think you'd much rather prefer me to just get on with my story, and that's exactly what I'll do.

My name was Uzumaki Naruto. I was a genin of the hidden village of the leaves, and the team-mate of Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. My parents were the Fourth Hokage and the Jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox before me, and I was what people called, a failure.

I grew up, in a town with ninjas, with weapons being lodged into the walls a daily occurrence. In that world I survived alone, wondering who my parents were, and the reason why people avoided me. I didn't have a name, not that I knew of, and not a single person bothered to tell me the ways of life. So, imagine my surprise when I see the Hokage and his wife walk past me, waving at the citizens with smiles on their faces, until they see me, and I see them.

They gasped in horror, and Lady Kushina let a tear fall. The villagers had told my parents that I was dead, and I only came to know that later in my life.

"Naruto? Is that you?'' The voice came from the blond-haired man.

I stared at his face, then turned around, then at the people around me.

"Are you talking to me?" I remember asking. They both nodded, and I looked at them once more. He had blond hair and blue eyes, with tan skin and the title of Hokage on his coat and hat. She had bright red hair, brown eyes with a tint of purple, fair skin, with her hand on her mouth, trapping the sob about to escape.

"We are. Do you have a name?"

"No. Most people just call me demon." Lady Kushina looked down and Lord Minato had a dark gleam in his eyes.

"Well, from today your name is Naruto, okay?"

"Like the ramen topping?''

"No, like a maelstrom." I nodded. I liked that name at the time. It brought a smile to my face every time someone called me by it.

"Naruto, would you like to come with us and live with us as our son?" Minato asked. I was so happy when he said that. I felt like my heart was going to burst. If I had known better, I would've stabbed the heart of mine which did that, but I was ignorant then.

"Yes!!" Was my reply at the time. The people who had gathered around us had their jaws on the floor, their eyes popped out of their sockets and their hair standing on end. Still one of the funniest things I remember.

~oOo~

So, the years went on, and I was the new son of the Fourth Hokage. Responsibilities grew, expectations grew, though worst of them all was that the hate from the villagers grew.

When I failed my genin exam the first time, my parents dismissed it as stress. The second time, they started to get slightly worried, and the third time, well I guess it's safe to say that the neglect they would show to me in the future had begun.

They began to forget my existence like one would with an old classmate, they began to forget the promise they made when they signed the adoption papers, to look after me and care for me. Though when they forgot, the villagers remembered.

I was safe for the first thirteen years of my life, but my protection seemed to have an expiry date, because the fourteenth year, my torture began.

It was raining on the first day they ganged up on me. I remember I was helpless against the adults, with knives and flames, one even had a fork, but anything was a weapon if you were strong enough.

No one questioned the scars on my body, the bruises on my face, the blood on my clothes. Dismissing it as a prank gone wrong, they oversaw it all, simply using nonsense as their shield against common sense.

The sun shone brightly on a summer's blue sky when I joined team seven, a girl with pretty pink hair and a boy with pale white skin, a teacher with a mask and a perverted orange book. Not for long though, because how can life be called life if it stayed easy?

My torture worsened and I heard thunderstorms above when I could no longer keep up with my friends in the team, who had families to teach them, the do's and the don'ts. They were still oblivious to my scars and wounds, the fact that there were no more pranks recently seemed to go in one ear and escape from the other.

On my fifteenth birthday, things changed. My parents began talking to me again, the torture subsided, I got some training done, and I was back on track, though that was the night when I heard them talk.

"He must be banished! Look at how much trouble he has caused!" I frowned at my mother. She should know, shouldn't she?

"Kushina, we can't be sure yet. Give it another year before the demon reveals its true self." Minato replied, and my face sunk.

Of course, they didn't adopt me as their child. They only took the roles of parents to keep check on the demon sealed within me. I looked at my stomach and whispered softly.

"They care about you more than me. Aren't you lucky Kurama?" I heard him grunt an apology, but I dismissed it, intending to get more out of the conversation.

"Have you practiced the jutsu you will use when he does go berserk?"

"Yes. He'll be gone forever."

"To where though?"

"I can't be sure. This jutsu sends people to random universes, we can never be sure."

"Well, it's their problem once he's there."

"Not ours anymore! We'll finally be free from that burden!"

That was when I fully snapped for the second time.

Kurama was unleashed, and now that was satisfying. The jutsu which Kushina had prepared for me was used, and that was the story of my life until now, where I've been taken to a world completely opposite my own, in a body, opposite my own as well.

One thing I did know, which I couldn't tell whether good or bad, was that Kurama was gone, meaning that I would be alone; though the good thing was, that would mean he was released in Konoha, yet again, this time without a container.