Konoha Village
Three-year-old Naruto Uzumaki trudged through the snow, his small ninja boots with open toes sinking with every step. The snow was piled high, and it wasn't easy for someone so little to walk through it, but he kept going—smiling as always.
He finally reached a small shop near his home and knocked on the wooden counter.
"Boss! my kettle broke. Can I buy a new one?"
The shop owner barely looked at him before slamming the window shut. "Get lost. We don't serve your kind."
Naruto stood there for a moment, blinking, still smiling—but just barely.
Then came the voice. It echoed in his head like it always had.
"Give it up. No one's going to sell you anything."
That was Toji Lee. He wasn't from this world. He'd been stuck here for three years now, ever since he made a birthday wish back on Earth—to explore countless worlds. Somehow, it came true. But things hadn't gone the way he imagined.... Literally
At the very least he thought he'd get powers. Adventure. Excitement. But he didn't even have the chakra to train. Physically, he was just an ordinary guy.
The only thing he had was a strange system—a blackening system—that gave him a way to influence things here. Specifically, he was tasked with completely turning Naruto to the dark side. Why? Because that was the only way Toji Lee could move on to the next world.
The system let him talk directly into Naruto's mind and even take control of Naruto's body during certain moments—like when he was asleep or unconscious. It was weird, yeah, but over time, Toji had quietly been taking care of Naruto behind the scenes.
Naruto didn't know who the voice in his head belonged to. He'd just grown up with it, assumed it was normal. Nobody ever told him otherwise. The voice had been there for as long as he could remember—cleaning up his apartment when he was too little to do it, changing his diapers, comforting him when he cried.
He trusted it completely.
But that voice always had a habit of telling him to stop trying so hard.
"That's not true," Naruto muttered quietly, still smiling. "There's gotta be at least one shop that'll sell to me."
And with that, he pushed forward through the snow, heading to the next shop.
"Go away! We don't sell our supplies to a brat like you!"
No reaction. Naruto kept smiling.
"Monster! Get out the fuck out of my store!" shouted the owner of the third shop.
Still smiling.
But at the fourth shop, before the owner even said a word, someone threw an empty tin can at Naruto. It hit the ground with a metallic clang, just missing him. Naruto froze.
Toji sighed again in his mind. "How long are you going to keep this up? Smiling won't change how they see you. You're wasting your time."
This time, Naruto didn't respond.
But he didn't cry either.
He turned around and began walking home.
On the way, he passed a wide, snow-covered clearing where a bunch of kids his age were playing together. Their coats were thick and warm. They looked happy. He watched them for a moment, his fake smile fading into something real—just for a second.
He wanted to play too.
He wanted friends aswell.
He took one step toward them, but the voice came again.
"Don't bother. You know how this ends. They won't let you join."
Naruto hesitated.
Because… yeah. The voice wasn't wrong. Every time he tried to join in before, he'd been pushed away. Called names. Sometimes even chased off.
He didn't want to believe it.
He didn't want to believe that no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn't make a difference.
He thought maybe if he smiled enough, if he stayed kind, people would eventually see he wasn't dangerous.
He wanted to prove the voice wrong. He really did.
But today had already been too hard. The rejection, the cold, the can thrown at him—it all wore him down more than usual.`
So he didn't move forward.
He stood there, looking at the kids laughing in the snow, then quietly turned and kept walking home.
Even as he walked away, a small part of him still held onto hope.
But it was getting harder.
He thought he could hide. But with his messy yellow hair and thin, ragged coat, he stood out like a sore thumb in the snow.
And before long, the kids in the clearing noticed him…