A/N: A little story I wrote to try out a new writing style. This particular story is complete, but I plan on writing another one with Dragon-san in it that's an AU version of this. And yes she has a name, and if you read this you'll probably figure out why I didn't use it. Enjoy, and tell me what you think!
The ANBU Dragon was perhaps the most fearsome assassin that Konoha had. She hadn't always been that way, but her life had hardened her heart. Since she first became a chunin, at 10, she had spent about 94.2 percent of her life away from the village she had sworn to protect.
(Not sworn to the Hokage, not sworn to her comrades, not even sworn to herself. Sworn to him.)
She returned late, the evening of October ninth. It was the first time in five years she had been in Konoha on the anniversary of the attack. The only other time had been during the attack itself.
(Her memories of that day were of fire, death, and the golden hero who had saved them all.)
The festival held to honor Yondaime-sama and the dead was in full swing. The villagers rambunctiously celebrated the sealing of the Kyuubi.
(The monster, terrifying, made of fire, who took him from them.)
Dragon was skimming over the tops of buildings, returning to the Hokage tower for debriefing, when she heard something that made her blood run cold.
(She was a dragon, wasn't her blood already cold?)
A child, young, and screaming in pain. People laughing, yelling, jeering at the child. Dragons were curious by nature, and she diverged from her path.
("Curiosity killed the cat." "But satisfaction brought it back!")
If the screams made her blood cold, the sight of him made her heart stop. A little boy, blond and tan, curled into a ball and crying. He was covered in cuts and bruises, like prisoners when Morino-san was finished with them. The villagers were slowly torturing the child. The Kyuubi-child, those scars on his cheeks could only mean one thing.
("Sensei, why do you have whiskers painted on your cheeks?" "For the festival, I'm a fox you see!")
Dragon jumped from the roof and landed between the crowd and the child. She was deaf to their catcalls and their swear words. The only thing she could hear was the child crying. His child.
(No one was supposed to know that, but that had never stopped her. "I'm not stupid sensei, and I have eyes!")
Oh Kami-sama, the child looked just like him. She knelt by his head, and he looked up at her. Terrified, thinking she would hurt him too. She just picked him up, cradling the little mirror to the past. She couldn't just leave him.
("I'm his student! So is Dog! He should stay with one of us!")
"You…. All of you are the most wretched, pathetic excuses for human kind to have ever befouled these streets!" She yelled. Why saw she yelling, the Dragon had perfect control. "This child is the only thing standing between Konoha and disaster, and you beat him! He has done nothing wrong! If you kill this child, the demon will escape and tear this village apart. And I will stand by and watch."
(And she would too. Watch Konoha be destroyed. There was no Yondaime now, to die for them.)
Dragon carried the child with her to the tower, shaking the whole time.
(Her meeting with the Hokage was a blur. All she remembered was shouting the same things she had shouted five years ago, and having the same replies shouted back at her.)
In what was clearly a gesture to placate the Dragon, the Hokage told her that she would be in charge of the boy for two weeks. Enough time for the villagers to get their heads back on their shoulders, and for the boy's broken wrist to heal. The medics he had called in said it wasn't very bad.
("This child did nothing wrong! He has never harmed anyone! And not even for his father's sake will you protect him!"
She argued, saying he should stay with her permanently. She knew what the signs of long-term abuse looked like. The Hokage gave her an unreadable look and sent her away.
("You don't deserve to be Hokage!")
She laid him down in her bed and went into the bathroom to clean up. Blood itched when it dried on your skin. She had expected the child to be asleep when she came back out, but he wasn't. His clear blue eyes were darting between the door and the windows, frightened that more pain would come.
("You're safe now. I promise I won't let anyone hurt you, ever again.")
He curled into her arms when she sat on the bed, and he fell asleep in a matter of moments. She stroked his blond hair and remembered how she had met his father, what a great day it had been.
(Her own sensei had died very early in the war. Since she was a chunin, she was not given another. She was on her own, with no one to teach her. One day he came by her favorite training ground. His student had died, and maybe it was that her eyes reminded him of the dead boy. He had offered to train with her, since what remained of his team was in the hospital.
Training became a regular thing, at least it was as regular as could be with both of them going off to war at odd times. Sometimes his students came too. The girl told her that Sensei trained her because she had no teacher and he was missing a student.
It was pretty much as she figured. But she fell in love with him anyway. And then she was invited to his wedding. He grew more and more edgy as his new wife's pregnancy progressed. On October tenth, the village found out why.)
The man she called her Sensei, the man she had fallen in love with, the man whose wife she had tried to kill twice, was taken from her that day. And his son, a little mirror image of him, was left in his place.
("Sandaime-sama, please! You cannot put him in an orphanage. Give him to me! I'll take care of him." "No, you have a duty to do." "But-" "I said no!")
But no more. If it meant she could keep this poor child safe, she would quit ANBU. Hell, she would retire as a ninja altogether.
("My dream is to be a great ninja! I want to be the first female Hokage!")
When he woke up the next morning, she told him her plan. He said he would very much like to live with her! She put in her papers with the Hokage, resigning from ANBU.
("And if I'm not made his guardian, I'll quit being a ninja! I know how much you need me, Sandaime. Don't be a fool.")
He eventually conceded. But first, one more ANBU mission. They needed her badly in Iwa.
("I'll be back in a week, I promise. Then you'll live with me forever." "Come back safe! I'll remember your promise!")
Her captain was at his door five days later. "I'm sorry, Naruto. Dragon-san is dead."
(The Dog ANBU stayed with the child while he cried. And then he went to a friend of his and called in a favor. The woman wasn't happy, but soon Naruto was living with her. And the villagers never attacked him again, knowing that Dog-san would protect him.)