The large rolling, forested hills that surrounded the village of the Uzumaki Clan played host to one rather disgruntled mother looking for her only son.
Around thirty years of age or so in her appearance, she had fair, lovely skin, long red hair that reached down past her waist, and pretty violet eyes. Her attire consisted of a sleeveless white blouse with a high collar underneath a long green dress. Not exactly attire befitting of a ninja. More like that of a housewife really.
"That boy…" She said to herself as she walked along in a huff, searching around for her beloved child, "How many times do I have to tell him to stop leaving the village? I don't know where he gets it from."
The least he could do was not leave alone. Even though the lands surrounding the village that was their home and the entire country of Uzu no Kuni in general was markedly safer than the nearby mainland of the Elemental Nations that they were to the east of, it was still dangerous for a little boy to be out there alone.
Ninja or not, he was still only ten. But that was only by proxy.
The only reason he was a ninja was because he was old enough to be deemed one by the society they lived in. Conscripted to be a shinobi of the Uzumaki Clan of which they were a part.
He hadn't been on any missions outside of the island. He had never fought a real battle against a shinobi or taken a life on purpose. None of the kids his age really had to before, fortunately.
This was an advantage of the fact that their nation was a small island, as well as due to the fact that they were allies of the feared Senju Clan.
They were too far out of the way to engage in battle with more often than not for the more aggressive clans in the world, and the fact that attacking them meant incurring the wrath of the most powerful clan of ninjas in the world kept them in relative peace. The Uzumaki Clan was definitely the clan that engaged in the least amount of direct wars against other clans, even though they took a high amount of missions.
Their life expectancy was much higher than other clans. Instead of the usual average expected age of thirty, many reached the ripe old age of fifty years old. Some even got beyond that.
But back with the Uzumaki Clan mother searching for her child.
Fortunately for her he wasn't that hard to track. The trees were marked with nicks and cuts and holes, probably from Naruto practicing with his kunai and shuriken as he wandered.
Eventually stopping as she was tired of doing all of the walking to look for her son, the mother just sighed and held her temple as a vein began to pulse on her head. A short growl gave way to a booming raise of her voice, "NARUTO YOU LITTLE SO-AND-SO, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! IF I ACTUALLY HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING FOR YOU I'M NOT COOKING THE YOU-KNOW-WHAT THAT YOU LIKE TONIGHT!"
Her voice reverberated through the woods and echoed into the open air for what seemed to be miles around, and all the while she simply stood there with her arms crossed underneath her bosom, tapping her sandaled foot on the ground impatiently as she counted down in her head from 120 seconds to be fair.
But eventually that time ticked down to the precious final seconds.
'Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six-.'
She stopped counting when she heard a distant rustle of leaves and a constant chanting of, "Nonononononononono!"
Facing in the appropriate direction with her best scolding face, she put her hands on her hips well in advance as a little yellow-topped blur rushed into sight from the trees and slid to a dusty stop, bumping his face right into her stomach before bouncing off and falling down onto his backside.
A short little boy ten years of age, Naruto looked up at his mother with a wince after running into her. Spiky blond hair and bright blue eyes, he dressed himself in a black t-shirt with the red swirl mark Uzumaki Clan insignia right in the center and a pair of orange shorts.
He just stared up at his mother with a fearful wide-eyed expression and didn't move a muscle, as if he was sitting down in front of a predator that would only attack him if she felt his movement.
She didn't look it at first glance, but in her time doing missions, Naruto's mother had been one of the finest kunoichi that their clan had to their names. A woman with scary skills and a nasty temper to match; the 'Red Hot-Blooded Habanero' of the Uzumaki Clan. He'd seen this woman's performance firsthand sometimes on a handful of low-key missions that he ran with her around the island.
Naruto just called her mom though.
"Okay mom I'm here!" Naruto said, jumping back up to his feet in a panic as he clamored around in front of her, "You were just kidding about that whole dinner thing right? Right? We're still having the miso ramen with the pork in it right?"
"I don't know." Kushina said undecidedly, turning her eyes away from Naruto as she seemingly ignored all of his hopping around, "I mean you keep disobeying me whenever I say-…" She then slammed a hard fist down on top of Naruto's head to floor him, "-To stay in the goddamn village and stop running off all by yourself, 'ttebane!"
"Heh." Naruto grinned through the tears welling up in his eyes from the hit, "You did it again mom, with the dattebane."
"N-Nevermind that!" Kushina replied, though her cheeks did grow slightly rosy at being called on her verbal tic by her son, "Honestly Naruto, listen to your mother, or if you're really going to run off when I told you not to at least pick a better day for it!"
Preferably one that wouldn't result in him possibly being punished by her withholding the favorite meal of his that he knew in advance she was going to make that night.