Naruto: The Stubborn Hero

Heroes are made, not born. This figurative line is nothing but mere ordinary text, no fancy. However, this has always stimulated my mind to think and understand it more deeply.

Unfortunately, the only hero that I know, who obviously born not as a hero, lived in a fictional world. His name is Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto has suffered a lot in his childhood. He was the reservoir of the demon nine-tailed fox, which destroyed Konoha when Naruto was only an infant. The beast was locked inside his body. People knew what happened and their resentment to the beast was diverted to Naruto. What was more painful that Naruto didn’t know why people just hated him for doing nothing? The Third Hokage made a law not to talk about it, especially to Naruto.

Naruto didn’t have a lot of friends. Ultimately, because he has a rude behavior; he was the prank of all pranks. Mostly, he was alone. He usually went to the playground but his peers would immediately vacate the place once they got a glimpse of him. He was rejected. Although some could see the gentleness and the goodness of the boy, the anger overshadowed it, and they feel because of the pain the beast inside Naruto’s body had inflicted on the villagers. What worse could he get? Naruto was also an orphan. Both of his parents have died protecting the village. He suffered for the loss, and suffered more because he was all alone, no one to run to, he has no one to comfort him.

Well, life is always maintaining a balance. When all you have is suffering, life would suddenly send forth hope. Iruka, one of the first teachers of Naruto, saw the pain Naruto was bearing alone. He reached out to him and the two became friends. They shared a special bond to the extent that Iruka would give up his life to save Naruto. That was the first time Naruto felt being acknowledged by a teacher, someone he thought was indifferent towards him. And little by little, his team mates, Sakura and Sasuke, as well as his teacher, Kakashi was able to acknowledge his existence and found a true home to team number 7. They became his family, although he felt inferior to Sasuke, though he never admitted it, and got always beaten by Sakura, he felt belongingness in them. After series of missions and problems as a village, in which Naruto played part on the success of it, he gained respect and admiration from people of the village. Instead of seeing him as the nine-tailed fox, he became Uzumaki Naruto, the hero.

But of course, Naruto didn’t arrive in making people see him as a hero by doing nothing. For a few missions, he was the “burden” of the team. He made wrong decisions that compromised the team’s plan. By his irresponsible actions, he had put the life of his team in danger. However, the dominant trait of Naruto that will never leave him in every battle, whether he transformed into the beast or not was his courage to fight as his way of the ninja goes “I will never run away” and his dream to become the Hokage of his village. Naruto had defeated some formidable enemies, sometimes because of luck but always because of his strength to protect the ones he loved.

You see, being a hero is not about being in the spotlight. Sometimes, you need to forget yourself. Naruto had done countless of risky moves, to the extent that he could’ve died doing and throwing all what he had dreamt of. Being a hero is about being there to someone who is special to you. It is the self-sacrifice you do for the person you love. It is the way of achieving one’s dream. And for Naruto, he valued his village a lot and the most important is that he will protect them with the best of his abilities, even if it means death to him and to his dreams.

Right now, he continues to achieve his dreams and in his way there, I will always be watching him every step of the way. Thanks to www.onemanga.com/naruto.