Uzumaki. In days bygone, days forgotten to many who now lived, there had been great power in that name. Power of fame, of dread or hope over the minds and hearts of those who heard it, the power to move nations. Uzumaki had been a name feared and respected by all, equal even to the likes of Senju, or Uchiha, or Hyuuga, and their home had been impregnable, a bastion of secret might equal to the Five Great Hidden Villages.
But that was long ago. Thirty and some years have passed since the Fall of the Whirling Tides, and the Scattering of the Uzumaki clan to the far-stretched corners of the world. Such a span is reckoned as a very long time, among shinobi, whose histories can rarely be traced accurately back much further than living memory, and even that oft is suspect in this world of intrigue and lies.
Yes, despite its former glory, the name of Uzumaki now held little meaning among the younger generations of shinobi, unless as a reference in the speech of some aged campaigner. The Hidden Whirlpool Village was forgotten to most, even the sons and daughters of its once long-time allies.
To most folk nowadays, Uzumaki means nothing.
But not to you. To you, it is everything. It is glory, it is pride, it is the memory of former grandeur and strength, an ideal to uphold, and a sacrifice to honor, the very blood which runs through your veins.
Yes, you are an Uzumaki, a survivor of that forsaken clan, a ghost of days gone by. Old you are, perhaps to the reck of most men, but your hair still holds the scarlet hue of your youth, if a touch dulled and grayed by time and weariness, and your limbs are still strong, if the slightest bit stiff in the morning. Your face is lined, perhaps, with the wearing of sorrows and joys over many long years, but your eyes still shine brightly with a youthful vitality, for if the Uzumaki were slow to age in body, they aged even more slowly in spirit. And you are young, yet, by the measure of your people, few and estranged though they had become.
Carrying the burden of naught but a scroll and a sword, garbed in raiment practical, if outdated, you reach your destination at last. Gazing up, you behold the mighty gates of the Hidden Leaf, and a rare smile chances across your lips as nostalgia overtakes you for a moment. Much has changed, and even those mighty walls could not stand the test of time and war, from what you had heard, but they were replaced now, same as they had once been, if perhaps less guarded, for times were peaceful now, truly so.
Your smile widens.
You are here at last, after a long, lonely journey. Here is the Leaf, home to longtime allies of your people, and home to the last Uzumaki of renown, young though he was.
"Naruto... Uzumaki..." you murmur to yourself as you approach the gate sentries, and for the first time in far too many years hope wells up in your chest.
Greeting the sentry, you ask him...
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