Standard Neglect Naruto World

He was 18 now. His two sisters and one brother being elite jōnins.

He, on the other hand, was still a genin. His team having been brutally slaughtered in his first chūnin exam, leaving him as the sole survivor. Not being able to participate in the same chūnin exams as his siblings when they were nominated for one and he and his team were not.

'And for good riddance,' he darkly thought.

They had been slaughtered even after 2.5 years after that chūnin exams when they were nominated for the next one in Konoha. His parents may not have cared for him but if he died, it was still better for his corpse to be on Konoha grounds, he guessed.

A field promotion wasn't happening, even Naruto knew as much.

His siblings had their own halves of the Kyūbi's chakra, or some residual chakra that kept regenerating by some bullshit logic he didn't get. He had the soul. Supposedly.

Naruto wasn't sure. He could not remember ever meeting it. Then again, with the amount of memory sealing seals on him, because of the trauma of having watched his first team die, there was always a chance it was locked away in those memories. He remembered his team alright. Just... the incredible sadness just wasn't there when he thought about their deaths. Not even he knew just how much mind manipulation had been done on him over the course of his life.

He lived a life that was assumed to be that of luxury, guaranteed prestige, and respect.

He felt like he had none of that. Sure, he lived in a place of luxury, but he had access to very little. The food he ate was just ramen being **** into his face every day.

Granted... Naruto wasn't exactly against ramen everyday and didn't even view this as a bad thing.

Access to tutors? No more than any other random ninja. And Naruto meant RANDOM ninjas, not future clan heads that were ninjas.

Access to the names of Namikaze and Uzumaki he may have had—even if only one was in his name—he did not have access to almost anything his siblings or parents did.

He was the disgraced son. As the oldest male—and just the oldest—of his siblings, many clans had expected to see him be the clan head of either the Uzumaki or Namikaze clan. Being the head of both was not allowed.

As they all grew, expectations changed. They saw him remain stagnant as his siblings thrived. They slowly began to hope for him to not become a clan head. Not all, of course. Some, like the Hyūga, believed that the firstborn was fated to rule a clan. They still believed he had the right to lead.

Fast-forward to later and his sisters were the designated as the future clan heads, much to his jealousy and mild surprise that he was actually moved to the side.

He wasn't the only one that felt jealous and surprised, though. His brother, too, felt that he was deprived of a position he was destined to get ever since it came to him that Naruto likely wasn't going to become a clan head.

Sure, one of his sisters was going to become the future clan head of one clan, but he had always assumed he would be the head of the other.

This presented feelings of inadequacy in the boy and led to him acting even harsher to the one family member that he still felt was lower than him.

It had not been a pleasant few years while his brother's feelings of inadequacy were at their peak.

Dealing with his sisters had been tough as well. For more reasons than just that and with more emotions thrown in than Naruto wanted to think about right now.

All of this and more led to the current moment of Naruto traversing the village and pondering over all this. The two-time failure of Konoha chūnin exams couldn't help but feel bitter about his life.

Chakra he had in SPADES but almost no techniques to use it in. He felt so limited. So damn restricted.

It was his birthday and here he was on the streets, no one to wish him a happy birthday and unwilling to be at home and witness his siblings be showered with gifts.

Did they deserve them? Well, they certainly had feats to their names now, unlike Naruto. And they had certainly put in effort towards it all. But, at the end of the day, Naruto wasn't sure if he could ever look beyond his bitterness to acknowledge that. They gained all that from having help. He was sure he'd be of the same level if he had help.

Albeit... Grudgingly, he could accept he would still lose against them. He had felt the Kyūbi's chakra a few times in his life as they used it. He... Nothing he could think of would ever overcome that.

Feelings of inadequacy were strong there.

Naruto hadn't seen his siblings train much in his life so he did not know what it was like, but he knew he himself was no genius. And hard-work with his dumb mind had not led him far. If only there were more of him. Quantity to make up for lack of quality.

It was this reason that made him doubt he would have ever been able to be equal to his siblings if he had help. He wished he would be but he doubted it.

He wouldn't have even passed the genin exams without intervention. He never did manage the clone technique. But knowledge of one of the Hokage's son not becoming a genin would have been bad.

He wondered what life had in store for him now that he was 18.

He was sure his siblings would go on to become legends now that they were 18 themselves. But what did that leave in store for him?

About to let out a sigh, he suddenly sensed something that put him on alert.

He couldn't sense chakra. He couldn't tell something amiss, but something was wrong.

Something was oh-so terribly wrong.

Without his brain telling them to, his eyes moved to the air right in front of him. Before his very eyes, cracks appeared in the air as reality started breaking down in front of him.

"Kai!" He released chakra to get out of the obvious genjutsu. Nothing happened.

'Crap, it must be one of the very high tier genjutsus.'

The cracks spread as darkness showed beyond it all. Naruto had no clue what it was. His senses were both bombarded and not bombarded with information he couldn't get. His eyes struggled to see what the blackness actually was but failed.

And then, something gold began to emerge from it all.

TWO "somethings".

He should have stepped back. Something told him not to. This was destiny. This was prophecy. This was HIS moment.

Something dark awakened in his mind.

As the "somethings" became more visible, it became evident that they were just earrings.

He held out his hand just as they dropped out and watched the cracks disappear.

Earrings...? That was it?

His disappointment was immeasurable and his day was ruined. Um... More ruined.

"Put them on," a dark, terrible sounding voice said.

Normally he would have questioned why there was another voice in his head. Today, it just urged him on.

Without even looking at the details on them, he put one next to his ears, wondering how much he'd be judged for this if someone saw this. As far as he remembered, only girls pierced their ears.

With but a mild look of discomfort, he clipped it on, the **** he used being enough to make a hole in his ear.

'This is stupid, isn't it?' Man, his ears would take a while to heal if this turned out to be nothing. Not too long, though. He healed fast.

He looked around. Wondered if anything changed. He felt nothing. Everything was a normal as before.

Except... he was feeling his father on his way here. Sensor he may not be but the feel of his father's chakra had been burned into his memory. This was a chakra he could sense when it wasn't hiding itself, even over quite a range.

He panicked. His father was a master of space-time ninjutsu. He probably had ways of knowing it had just been broken in front of Naruto in a weird way.

'Oh shit!'

What to do, what to do!?

The earring! He had to take it off. He would look so much more suspicious if he had it on. People didn't tend to take his side too often anyway. Supposedly having the fox's soul ruined people's perceptions of you.

"No!" the roar in his mind stopped his hand from going to take the earring off. "Put the other one on!"

It was too late. Just as he was about to put the other one, his father appeared in all his glory.

He just panicked and blurted out, "Hey, Dad, I swear I didn't do anything."

His father looked at him but with a look Naruto couldn't quite identify... He had seem similar looks but none quite as... INTENSE as this one.

"Um... Dad?"

"Yes, that's nice, Naruto, but I am busy." He waved off his son. He had to figure out what happened here. He had to find suspects in the area. Not Naruto, though. It was normal for him to be here.

"Human," the voice from earlier growled, "whatever you do, do NOT take off that earring."

Eyes wide at his father's casual dismissal of him, Naruto felt incline to agree with the voice in his... head... He should probably get that checked.

He slowly walked away, as if any noise would rouse his father's suspicion towards him.

Nothing.

He was ignored the whole way.

Naruto was used to being ignored in many situations but not like this. Never like this. Something about this felt... otherworldly.

He quickened his pace away.