Prologue: October Tenth
October tenth, at night. A night that wrapped the village of Konoha in a stillness more deceptive than peaceful—a calm that wasn't calm at all, but the prelude to something simply inevitable, even though the event in question had taken place long, truly long ago.
So, what hung in the air that night was neither fear nor hope, but the purest form of resignation—even if it was a resignation no one dared to acknowledge. Just over ten years ago, this date would have been marked with laughter, lights, and anything the villagers desired, all leading up to the grand finale: the Fox Festival, where the village streets came alive for an entire week, the skies bursting with fireworks, and a thousand other marvels.
But... the past is the past, and now everything had simply changed completely. Things would never return to how they were before the tragedy—before the disaster.
A disaster that turned the fox hunt—the event that once concluded the great festival—into a bitter memory, a memory of glory they could now only recall, and not with joy or nostalgia, but as one remembers their greatest and most devastating failure.
That day when they rid themselves of what they believed to be the embodiment of the fox that had ravaged their village twenty-five years earlier... but in truth, they had only condemned the hero they failed to recognize.
Ten years ago, the figure of a young boy would have looked over the village, searching for answers that would never come. His gaze lost on the horizon, desperately trying to know whether he would ever be accepted by the people who rejected and treated him like an outcast—for no reason other than being a constant reminder of their own pain.
But to truly understand the wound that had refused to heal for ten years, one must return to that fateful choice the village made: the worst decision possible. A decision that affected the child they condemned to the purest hatred without any justification; the same child who cried and bled for them without asking for anything in return, and who still kept fighting for them.
That child who, ten years ago, looked down on the village one last time from atop the Hokage Monument—far from those who would never be able to meet his gaze, far from those who called themselves his friends yet were nothing more than hypocritical traitors. But most of all, far from the only people who truly loved him, and whom he couldn't bear to see suffer because of the decision the village had made so coldly.
That was the moment when Sasuke Uchiha—the so-called prodigy the village had spoiled—simply ran away, or rather defected, in search of the village's most infamous traitor, chasing after power... unaware that this act would only lead to his own downfall.
He listened to no one, not even his younger adoptive brother, who tried everything to stop him from making the greatest mistake of his life.
That younger brother was the true protagonist of the village's tragedy.
Naruto... Uchiha Naruto, though the village never recognized him by the name of the family that had taken him in when he was only a few years old, and taught him the fundamental values that shaped his entire life.
"All the power in the world is meaningless if you're alone in it."
That's why, without a second thought, when Shikamaru Nara recruited him to go after his older brother on a retrieval mission, he didn't hesitate for even an instant. After all, Sasuke and he—despite everything the village had done to them both, separating them, treating them unequally—still were, and would always be, brothers... or so he had believed.
No one ever truly knew what happened during that fight, or what drove two brothers—whom the entire village knew loved each other more than anything—to fight as if they wanted to kill one another.
But when they were found, Naruto was badly wounded, yet still standing, walking back to Konoha with the unconscious body of his older half-brother on his shoulders. Step by step, he moved forward, as if simply refusing to leave him behind—even with two Chidori wounds gaping in his chest, wounds that still bled and burned like hell.
As expected, Kakashi and the medics only took Sasuke and returned to the village, leaving the younger brother entirely alone and forgotten, allowing the fifteen-year-old boy to collapse into the mud, as though all his will had shattered the moment he was left behind.
As if completing the mission meant absolutely nothing.
As if saving his older brother, despite everything he had endured to do it, had not been enough.
Because once again... the village, as always, simply chose to ignore what it didn't want to see.
–Council Chambers, two days after the retrieval mission–
"Genin number 012607, Naruto Uzumaki." Tsunade could barely speak—her voice cracked under the weight of guilt, and her usually steady gaze couldn't even meet the young man standing before her, his eyes hidden beneath bandages. She simply couldn't do it. She didn't want to, didn't feel capable of watching this already broken boy shatter even further as she delivered the news she had been forced to carry against her will.
"The council has voted and made its decision." She had to pause to breathe, to steady herself enough to say what she deeply wished she didn't have to. "By majority vote, seventeen to eight... you are stripped of your genin rank and officially exiled from the village. This order takes effect immediately. The official reason is the grievous injury inflicted on Uchiha Sasuke during the retrieval mission."
It was a lie, and she knew it. Naruto knew it too. And of course, the council knew it. But no one would ever speak the real reason aloud—doing so would mean admitting that they had felt the dark chakra of the Kyūbi during the battle between the two brothers, and, in their ignorance, simply assumed that Naruto had lost control of the beast.
But that was an outright falsehood. In a rare moment of honesty—one Tsunade believed he had only ever shared with one other person—Naruto had entrusted her with a secret he had carried his entire life: he wasn't the Kyūbi's jinchūriki. He didn't know the beast, didn't bear the seal on his stomach, despite what Jiraiya had always assured her. His stomach was, in fact, completely unmarked.
Still, he knew that even if the truth came out, it would be ignored. That was his life's pattern: no matter how much he was hurt, no matter how often he proved them wrong, they would simply look the other way.
And now here he was, standing before the Konoha Council, with more bandaged skin than bare, and yet he hadn't protested once. He watched everything unfold with total apathy—not because it didn't hurt (oh, it hurt... it hurt deeply), but because this was something he had known, for a very long time, would eventually come.
The civilians and elder councilors didn't even try to hide the satisfaction on their faces. It was clear to Naruto that this trial had been nothing but a damn performance—a formality to finalize what they had long been waiting for. His condemnation was deeply gratifying to them. Their eyes, as always, were filled with sheer contempt, as if Naruto's departure was their greatest triumph. Fools. Every last one of them.
Of course, Naruto knew that Danzō had executed his move with surgical precision. His two controlled votes hadn't made a difference numerically, but it was obvious that he had been the mastermind behind this entire twisted performance.
What Naruto couldn't forgive—what he found most revolting about the old man—was that after all the harm he had caused, from the death of Naruto's family to the downfall of his older brothers and the suffering of countless others whose pain he barely even knew, Danzō not only felt no remorse, he had even dared to use the Uchiha Clan's vote against one of its legitimate descendants.
If that bastard could blame Naruto for all of Konoha's ills to serve his own ends, then Naruto had every right to hold him accountable for every single tragedy his mind could imagine.
Even so, that wasn't what concerned him at this moment. He had known since childhood that Danzō wanted him under control—to turn him into yet another soulless soldier: obedient, cold, efficient. But that was never going to happen. Not as long as Itachi was alive. Not while Naruto himself still had a will forged in steel and, above all, that unshakable stubbornness of his—the kind that would let him look the gods in the eye and say, "I will not kneel before you."
But none of that mattered now. He remained still, his body exhausted yet upright. His eyes were still hidden beneath his forehead protector, a decision he had upheld for fifteen years. Only Sasuke had ever seen the gaze he kept hidden. Neither Jiraiya nor Tsunade had ever seen them, nor did they know why he covered them.
He had already been exiled; there was no longer any reason to maintain that symbolic connection to the village.
So, without drama, he reached up to his forehead and removed the protector once and for all.
The cloth hit the ground with a faint metallic clink that echoed throughout the council chamber. For the first time, everyone held their breath at once. Before them were Naruto's eyes: two orbs of piercing electric blue, intense, radiant... powerful. They glowed with an unnatural light, as though some dormant force lived within them—something beyond any jutsu they had ever seen.
Tsunade didn't know what to say. Those eyes didn't appear in any known lineage of Naruto's family—not among the Uzumaki, nor the Namikaze, who until Minato had ascended to Hokage, had been mere civilians. She, the Fifth Hokage, had no idea where that gaze had come from.
But Naruto paid no mind to their reactions. His eyes shifted to the necklace hanging around his neck—the one he had earned from Tsunade when they first met, the one that carried her hopes, her faith, and her affection. Gently, he brushed his fingers over the gem. It was the symbol of a promise.
A promise he could no longer fulfill—not after being exiled. He was about to remove it when Tsunade raised her hand to stop him.
"Keep it," she murmured with effort, fighting to keep her voice steady. "You earned it... I just hope you'll remember that someone actually did love you."
"I don't need a necklace to remember that," Naruto replied with what was perhaps his first genuine smile in more than ten years. It carried no bitterness, no irony—only sincere warmth and fraternal affection.
Without another word, he turned and left the council chamber with a step surprisingly steady, despite the condition he was in.
What Naruto didn't know—because Tsunade hadn't had the heart to tell him—was that before the official announcement of his exile, a second vote had been held.
And in that vote, once again, the civilian council had gotten its way: they had fully revoked the Sandaime's law that had protected Naruto since he was a child—or more accurately, the law that had kept hidden his supposed identity as the Kyūbi's host.
Now, that information would become public knowledge.
And just as expected, the news had spread with the speed of wildfire. So much so, that by the time Naruto had made it halfway back to his apartment, he simply had to stop. It seemed fate had decided to use him as a punching bag one more time.
Standing before him, as if it were some kind of sick joke, were the remaining members of the Konoha Twelve. Or at least nine of the original twelve, excluding him—for obvious reasons—and Sasuke, who was still in the hospital. Luckily, they hadn't seen him.
"That idiot deserves to die for what he did to Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shrieked, her voice laced with hysterical rage, as if she actually had the strength to back up such a declaration. Everyone knew that, compared to Sasuke and Naruto himself, she was completely useless.
"Yes! We should hunt down that demon and kill him!" Ino yelled, venom dripping from every word.
Naruto had to suppress a snort of amusement at the threat—or rather, at who had made it. Ino? Seriously? Even in his current state, recovering and bandaged, he could defeat her without even trying. Ino was weak. It was no surprise she had tied with Sakura during the chūnin exam preliminaries.
"I always knew he was the fox. That stench… it couldn't be human," Kiba growled, his eyes fixed on the ground as if Naruto had personally offended him. Or more likely, as if he knew Naruto was there. And being an Inuzuka, that wasn't unlikely—he had probably caught the scent. Still, he refused to look in Naruto's direction.
"How unyouthful! Naruto deceived us all this time! He was the fox all along!" Lee exclaimed, his face flushed with anger and disappointment.
That one hurt. It truly did. Almost as much as the wounds Sasuke had left on him. Naruto had always seen a reflection of himself in Lee. They shared the same stubbornness, even if not the same talent. Naruto was undoubtedly more gifted. But to hear those words coming from him... that cut deeper than it should have.
He was tempted to step forward and demand Lee repeat those words to his face. He knew Lee wouldn't have the real courage to do it. Because deep down, Lee was a coward—one of those who parrot what others say, incapable of forming his own opinion. Because thinking for himself would force him to face a truth he couldn't bear: that no matter how hard he trained or how much effort he put in, his life was pathetic and hollow.
But Naruto didn't need to say anything. He wasn't the one to put the thick-browed idiot in his place.
"Shut up, Lee," Neji snapped, his voice so cold the temperature in the air seemed to drop instantly. He looked at Lee with a hardness and fury Naruto had never seen in the Hyūga prodigy.
"He's like me… no, he bears something even worse. He carries a tremendous burden on his shoulders, and yet everyone looks at him with hatred and contempt. I, on the other hand, have a name behind me, a place I belong to, and a family that supports me. He... he carries a curse, and he did absolutely nothing to deserve it—other than being born. And still he fights. Against the world. Against you, who are too blind to see the truth. Even against himself. He taught me that fate is not something fixed, but something that flows with every choice we make... that the current is forged each time you stand up after being knocked down."
Naruto was pretty sure he had never said anything like that. In fact, what he remembered saying was: "I make my own destiny, because I spit on the one I was given."
"Clearly none of you even understand what a seal is," Tenten mocked, crossing her arms. "You can't tell the difference between the container and the weapon it holds, and yet you still dare to judge him."
To be honest, Naruto felt more offended than grateful. The comparison to a weapon, even if well-intentioned, was deeply insulting. Was that all they saw in him? A sealed tool, dangerous, tolerated only as long as it didn't explode?
Hinata, for her part, was crying. Of course Naruto knew why... but he didn't care. "Love," what did she know about that? She had blinded herself because Sasuke flew into rage whenever he looked into her eyes, and since she never wanted to leave her brother alone, she simply chose not to see. That was love? Not sacrificing everything so the one you love can be happy—but being there when they need you, even if they push you away. Hinata never showed him she loved him. And if she was suffering now, it wasn't because of love. It was desire. A shattered ideal she never had the courage to defend.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered without lifting his gaze. That was all he said, because honestly, he didn't have the words to describe how he felt.
Chōji, meanwhile, just ate anxiously while hiding behind his lazy friend, not daring to say a word. He clearly wanted to speak, but his mind was too full to shape anything coherent.
Naruto, however, stopped. He took a deep breath and leaned back against a wall, his bandaged back aching, his body at its limit.
"Some friends you turned out to be..." he muttered to himself with a tired sigh. "You only speak when there's nothing left to do."
He probably should've felt more grateful. After all, they had defended him... at least a little. But at this point, it hardly mattered. So he simply turned on his heel and chose a longer path back to his apartment. The sooner he got out of this village, the better.
Before Ayame and Teuchi could find him.
He couldn't bear to tell them they would never see each other again. Not them.
End of Chapter
A/N: Well, you've probably noticed by now—this is a complete reboot of the story. Why? Because I relied way too much on AI to create it the first time, and in the process, I killed the style that made it mine. As a result, I was never truly satisfied with my work… because it didn't feel like it was mine.
Now it is.
I only used AI to translate it into English (this version, obviously) and to clean up the spelling, because, well... I'm dyslexic.
Anyway, before I go, I have one question—and it's very, very important.
Even though it'll take a bit longer to release, since I'll be making chapters shorter and quicker from now on:
Who should the 30 wives be?
That's all for now.
Trevor out.