1 All-Time Low

Naruto Uzumaki supposed she must've been a criminal in her previous life. And she must have been the worst of the worst. And if she wasn't, then the rest of her life had better be a gold mine of good luck for the karmic retribution she was owed.

Naruto hadn't been born with much in life. Just her name and the rest was swept away like many other children. That happened the moment the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had attacked her home village of Konoha.

She was left in the orphan system with nothing to her name, except the last name. Which at times she hated. Being at the end of the alphabet, she was always last. Last to shower, last to get her food, last to be allowed all kinds of privileges. But she figured that having the last name, however bad it was, was much better than some of the other kids. At least she had a family connection, not something that the large number of orphans tossed into the system after the Night of the Demon Fox's Attack could lay claim to.

But it was this very same last name that had landed her in the position she is in now.

People hated her. It might not have been noticeable at first, but Naruto could tell. She was smarter than the other kids, something that she should've been praised for. And she knew this because she had seen the Matron praising one of the older kids in the orphanage. But the second she tried showing off her intelligence, the Matron looked at her in fear and quickly locked her away in her room, before taking all the books she had away.

Any other signs of her exceeding in anything were met with this very same attitude. Fear, hatred. They looked at her, not as a human, but as a monster. They didn't see her as a little girl that was losing her mind because of the isolation and hatred. They saw a monster, with large teeth and terrifying killing intent. They saw it wearing the skin of a little to make them let down their guard, as its monstrous qualities bubbled under the skin. They saw the shadows of nine-tails trailing behind her back, threatening to bring back the memories of that horrid night.

And the other kids saw this. The adults did not like her. The adults raised them so the adults were right. It was a simple, childish thought process. But it was what had finally, completely isolated her. And as soon as they heard the adults describe her as 'monstrous,' and 'inhuman,' she was no longer 'Naruto' who had been a sweet little girl to the kids, but the 'monster' that took away their parents.

And, in the end, their jealousy got to them. How dare that 'monster' have a last name. How dare she have a connection to her family, while they were left with nothing. How dare she get something they don't when she isn't human and they are.

And so they framed their mind. The kitchen was trashed in the middle of the night, the food and utensils were strewn across the floor with all kinds of things covering it, making it inedible. Something that was obviously not Naruto, but in their childish minds it was genius. Any capable-minded adult could easily tell this fact. But the matron needed a reason to kick the demon out. And who was she to decline something handed to her on a silver platter?

And so here she was. Naruto's lively face, which used to express so many emotions was replaced by an icy gaze. The cold, bitter rain slowly pelted her small figure as she lay curled up in a ball in front of the orphanage home. The sun that should still be shining brightly in the sky, completely blocked by the clouds that had gathered high in the sky. The laughter of the children slowly melding into static-like noise in her ears as the rain pelting the ground became the only thing she could hear, along with the pounding of her heart. The cold, lonely streets stretched for what seemed infinitely in front of her. And yet with this endlessly long road in front of her, she had nowhere to go.

Naruto bitterly laughed to herself. To think, she would meet a bitter end at the tender age of five years old. Doomed to die not having ever experienced a shred of love. She wouldn't even get a gravestone. Who knows, she might even die in an abandoned alleyway and not be found until she was merely a pile of bones.

The cold rain slowly seeped through the thin clothing that hung to her body, threatening to freeze her small, malnourished body to death.

And to think she once had the lofty goals of becoming Hokage. Back when she had just begun reading, and before all her books were confiscated, she read the tale of the Fourth Hokage. An orphan like her, who climbed his way to Hokage, and had been admired by all. Just imagining herself like that had immediately made Naruto's heart beat faster.

But she couldn't even make it to the academy. Just one more year and she could've been out of there and into the six-year academy program.

How pathetic. Tears slowly streamed out of her dull eyes, blending in with the heavy rain surrounding her.

The red handmark on her cheek slowly began to bruise, along with the stinging sensation the followed. Naruto's teeth also started to chatter as she finally realized the position she was in. After the adrenaline from the events prior finally wore off, she could finally feel the slap from the Matron that occurred before being thrown out, and the cold that had accumulated from the freezing rain, rapidly dropping her body temperature.

Slowly exerting the little energy she still had in her body, Naruto rose to her feet. Her legs threatening to buckle under her as she stumbled forward.

It was her pure determination to survive that drove her forward now. Naruto knew she was at the all-time low of her life. But she only needed to survive one more year. Then she could finally enter The Academy. This would allow her to get the stipend of money allotted to orphans attending the academy. This was due to the need to regularly update ninja tools when they became dull, but Naruto could also use it to survive.

And so, with the determination burning in her icy heart, she struggled forward, her hand clinging onto a collapsed wall to the side of her for support as she walked down the lonely street.

The orphanage was located in a part of one of the abandoned parts of Konoha. After the Demon-Fox attack, the village didn't have enough funds to repair all the damage. So they focused on the main parts of the village, like the academy and different ninja training grounds, leading to some of the residential districts being abandoned. But because of the influx of orphans, the Third Hokage had opted to just repair the orphanage and expand it. Because there was no room for a building that housed hundreds of kids in the residential or commerce district, because of the limited space and a large number of refugees.

The wall that Naruto was using as her support suddenly disappeared, as her body tumbled into the wreckage of an abandoned building. The pieces of debris scratching her small body as she finally came to a halt at the bottom of the pile.

The building was one of the many that had been destroyed, and a whole half of was ripped off the foundation and had come tumbling down.

Naruto was finally out of the rain, with the half of the building that remained upright above her head. She pulled herself into a seated position on the dirty wall behind her and curled her knees up to her chest to protect the little warmth she still had in her body.

She sat still, like a statue, gazing at the gloomy sky. She finally started considering what she would do next. Perhaps become a street rat, like some of the kids she had seen in the commercial district when the matron had brought them there.

The matron had looked at them in pity, while the shop owners all sneered. But Naruto didn't care, as long as she could survive, no one else's opinion mattered.

Her thoughts were cut off by a soft beeping sound beside her. She looked and saw something similar to the phones advertised in the commercial districts.

She knew these were popular devices for people in the capitals of each country. As most of the countries were moving away from their militaristic village, and transforming themselves into metropolises. Focusing more on advancing civilization technologically than having a militaristic view.

Recently they had also been introduced in the hidden villages, but they still hadn't been adopted into ninja ways. The leaders of each village opting to stay traditional and not use this new technology, in fear that it could have some dire effects.

Another reason was that the hidden villages were always far behind the capital and other tourist or residential towns throughout their specific countries, spending most of their budget on military might. So they still hadn't adjusted to this new technology that was suddenly introduced to the village. The village closest to being modernized, though, was Konoha. They had tried adopting a more modern view while rebuilding themselves from the Demon-Fox Attack.

She slowly reached out with her feeble hands, picking up the device that was much larger than her hands now that she saw it closer.

It had a sleek metal back, and a clean glass screen. The second she touched it, its screen suddenly lit up. The small light illuminating her small figure in the dark, abandoned building.

Looking at the screen, a small wheel of color appeared, before it spun and exploded in a barrage of colors. Naruto's arm flew up to her face and blocked her eyes from the sudden flux of light. As she removed her arm, a string of words had appeared on the screen in front of her. As she removed her arm from her view, she saw a string of words had appeared on the screen.

[To amalgamate with a new user, please provide a drop of blood onto the screen of the device.] As Naruto slowly read this, she was quite confused. For as smart as she was, she had no clue what 'amalgamate' was. But seeing it tell her to drip a bit of her blood on the screen, she figured she had nothing to lose. And maybe this strange device would finally turn her infinite amount of bad luck into a little good.

A cold laugh escaped her lips as soon as she had that thought. To think she was still being even slightly hopeful after all the events of the low amount of years she had lived her life. Maybe she was more naive and childish than she had previously thought.

She took the tip of her index finger and swiped it on a bit of the blood sweeping from an open cut that occurred during her roll down here. Before taking that tiny bit of blood and swiping it on the pristine glass cover of the mysterious device.

The blood sat there silently for a second. Before it suddenly started dissolving, Naruto looked at this process in amazement. The blood that had been a mark on the spotless screen disappeared completely before the screen once again showed another message.

[User recognized. Naruto Uzumaki. Beginning process of amalgamation...] And before Naruto could read any further, a pain unlike any other she had ever known completely blind-sided her. All the things in her life previous to this couldn't even come close to comparing. It felt like someone had siphoned every last drop of her blood, before replacing it with liquid lightning. And moving it slowly, so it felt like every single nerve in her body was vaporized.

And with this unbearable pain, Naruto finally felt like she would truly die. And to think she wouldn't die of hunger or the cold like she had previously thought. But by a deal with the devil.

And with her final thoughts being whisked away by the intolerable pain seeping through every part of her body, her confidence and resistance left with it. And her head fell limply as her tense body lay silently against the cracked wall that threatened to collapse with even this little weight.

And in the dark crevice of an abandoned building, Naruto's shallow breaths finally stopped. Her heart proceeded to come to a halt as all the functions in her body shut down.

And then like nothing happened, her chest suddenly jolted as her body subconsciously gulped in greedy amounts of air, all with her still being unconscious.

And the device that was previously tossed aside had suddenly shown another message on its blank screen. [User amalgamation completed. Updating body and integrating system. Warning - User may experience unbearable amounts of pain incomparable to the startup process, and may fall into a coma.] And with that, the device slowly turned into a liquid-like substance, before seemingly blending straight into Naruto's body.

Nearby, a man with bright silver hair and a mask that was shaped similar to a dog had appeared by the building. As soon as he spotted Naruto's body, his lone visible eye through the mask widened in shock, before he quickly ran over and cupped her small fragile body in his arms.

He prayed to whatever god was out there to let her live, before running as fast as he could to the nearby hospital, unknown of the events that had just occurred in the building, that had just drastically changed one young girl's life forever.