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Naruto is raised in an orphanage.
He thinks he must have been raised by someone at some point, but he can’t remember their faces. He grows from an infant to a child to a teen within the same four walls. It’s an ugly place out in the countryside. A stain compared to the open fields and fresh air. He hates it there.
School isn’t too much better, despite everything. He’s not made for academics, too much energy thrumming in his bones. It’s too hard to concentrate on droning voices and numbers that he knows he’s never going to use in the future. Honestly, it’s not like anyone expects him to actually end up as an office worker or something. He’s too rambunctious for such a stationary job.
He’s too strong.
It’s a fact that everyone sort of knows, but doesn’t really think about. They see it as something funny, even if abnormal, and rationalize it in their minds.
But normal people can’t shatter concrete without injury, or leap two stories up to the second floor window. So he’s aware that something is different, that something is off, but he doesn’t….care. Not really. It’s fine with him to ignore it because — because it means that he can pretend to be normal, and he can fit in.
Naruto’s greatest fear is being alone.
So in a way, he’s always scared.
When he said he was scared of being alone, he definitely did not want this as a result.
Kurama screams obscenities and bangs on the bars of his mental cage. The King of Curses is not happy to be here and likes to make it very well known. He throws tantrums like he’s five and likes to make as much racket as possible while doing so.
Naruto screams into his pillow. “Gah! Will you shut up?”
The Jujutsu world is a dangerous place. They mostly want to kill him; desperately so, in fact. But his new sensei, as lazy and porn-addicted as he is, looks at him...differently. Protects him, though not to his face.
Naruto knows that it was Kakashi-sensei who managed to stall his execution. Sometimes it feels like there’s something the man isn’t telling him, and that’s annoying. But for the most part, Naruto is grateful. Kurama aside, he has friends now. Sakura, Sasuke and Sai are the only other students in his year, making them a class of four. It’s perhaps the smallest school population in the world! At least, in Naruto’s opinion. Even with the second, third and fourth — because Jujutsu Tech is a four year school, gross — years, there’s only like….under fifteen of them. Actually, he’s pretty sure the ‘graduating’ class is only two people.
They had a third, once.
Naruto rolls around in his bed. He doesn’t like to think about death and dying, it only makes him depressed. His world is now another set of four walls; Jujutsu Tech. His world is now monsters and cursed energy and the resounding fact that he is, one: the perfect vessel for Kurama, and two: the victim of a heavenly contract.
Victim is a strong word, but it sums up the situation pretty well. His natural body was not made for cursed energy, instead he was gifted inhuman strength. It’s Kurama’s cursed energy and technique that flows through him now. So it’ll never really be his own.
That kinda pisses him off too.
There’s a bang on the wall by his head. Sasuke.
The other is probably mad at him for yelling at three in the morning. Well, it’s not his fault that Kurama can’t stop yowling like a wet cat! He needs to meditate more. Maybe then he can build strong enough mental walls to keep Kurama from giving him pointless nightmares when he’s trying to sleep.
Naruto smacks the wall back without remorse. Sasuke is going to be pissed in the morning, but the blonde can’t bring himself to think that far ahead. He’s pissed right now.
“Shut up, mutt.” He scowls at nothing, and then feels a flash of rage from the curse in his head.
But at least it’s quiet for a bit.
Maybe in the morning he’ll ask Kakashi-sensei to fight Kurama again, just to see if it’ll send the curse running into the recesses of his mind with his tail between his legs. Then perhaps Naruto will get a break.
Yeah. That sounds like a plan.
You’re annoying. Kurama mutters.
Look who’s talking, Naruto replies internally.