G3F\\\ Gaiden of the Three Failures

Chapter One

Hello! This story is a sort of spinoff with sidestories relating to my main fic "Journey of the Three Failures." There will be chapters about the main characters Naruto, Hinata, Lee, Hanabi, and Neji, as well as backstories on OCs like Kurogiba, Akane and Midori, Hanabi's guardians (like Hiyuki, Harumi, and Hiryuu), and maybe more. Basically, when I come up with a sidestory or other sort of skit I want to write out that doesn't fit into the main storyline, I'll put it here.

Note that this WILL contain fanfic spoilers for people who aren't reading Journey of the Three Failures. Also, some chapters (like this one) can stand alone fairly well, but some will not.

Disclaimer: I don't own NARUTO.


Thin, trembling fingers gradually clasped into the grass beneath them. Their owner's mouth opened with a feeble, nondescript utterance as the watery apple-green eyes of a pale face winced with a small stir of emotion, still so tragically tender to the cutting light that blazed from everything in this bright, open world. The blinding color might have dazzled, brilliant if not for the throbbing, lethargic mass of pain it pressed into her eyes and left rocking and bubbling in her skull; similarly, the mingling of diversity present in the fresh air, a phantasmagoric whiff of her most desperate dreams of the past, may have been something wonderful, glorious and liberating, save for the feverish itch its sharpness ignited in her dripping nose. A parched throat burned under the strain of another soundless murmur, and the perpetual shaking of the child's frame intensified as she cringed, watching the teen calmly eating a simple meal.

Her watery eyes widened as the kunoichi stood – turned – stepped into her tent. The food – meat, rice – an immeasurable twenty meters away – perfectly unattended. The girl almost began to move instinctively before her heart crumpled, sank, and she ducked her head and grasped a freshly scarring wrist close to her chest, clenching her teeth as it throbbed in time with matching rings of darkened tissue on her other wrist, her skinny ankles, cut in around her hips and waist. They itched furiously; she dared not scratch them for the pain.

Despite that the waiting sustenance called out to her pleading, agonizingly hollow tummy, she wasn't sure what she felt. If she were only to perhaps muster the strength to creep beyond these bushes, into the lone kunoichi's camp, and seize the uneaten remains of her meal, she would either be discovered and killed on the spot or miraculously successful enough to prolong her existence just a bit further. She wasn't sure – walk over there and die, or walk over there and successfully condemn herself to a renewed period of wandering about in the miserable search for another meal.

She was nine years old. She could ascertain no longer whether either outcome was worth the energy to be spent in standing up, in traversing the distance, in the very acts of chewing and swallowing, or if it would be preferable to simply shut her eyes…

To lie down here…

And–

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

The child did not so much as flinch either at the uninterested words or at the accompanying feel of keen, icy metal on the back of her neck. She turned her head a bit, and met the violently chilled crimson eyes of the same Oto kunoichi she had just watched step into her tent.

The teen watched coldly, steel grip on her katana not moving an inch as the piteous creature in thin, tattered grey garb turned her head, shallowly cutting her flesh on the blade with her motion. The kid seemed not to notice, and her tiny, bony hands met the ground as she haltingly shambled around to face her bodily, grunting weakly with the effort. Skin was drawn tight over the bones of her emaciated frame, and the sunken, dark eyes that peered up at her out of a grimy face seemed embattled in a struggle for focus. Unwavering, the teen glared severely down at the spying runt and curtly repositioned the blade under her throat.

She was fifteen years old. She had just finished a rough mission, she ached from exertion, and she really wasn't in the mood.

But then the child lifted her twitching little hand, and as though it took from her all the strength her pathetic body had left, she reached out and – though it pressed her neck all the more firmly against the icy edge – grasped the kunoichi's sleeve.

Akane would never forget Midori's face at that moment. Even so, she would never be able to decide for certain if it was something of a smile that graced the child's pale lips when she first spoke to her, and rent the ninja's stone heart in two.

"Shinobi-san, could you… kill me…?"


Gaiden of the Three Failures

One: Red and Green

When she stepped back and sharply cast down her sword, the response on the girl's face seemed to imply she had seen Akane take up the blade rather than drop it. The Oto-nin's knees nearly buckled.

Maybe it was because she was a shinobi. Maybe it was because she was a disarmed shinobi, and had been so stripped of her weapon by means uncertain to her, an unidentified genjutsu or other. Maybe it was a look she caught in those green eyes as they left her to gaze at her fallen sword. Maybe she simply couldn't bear to see that face a moment longer. But for a purpose Akane could not hope to determine, she kicked the kid in the face.

She was thrown onto her back with a short cry. Akane was slammed by immediate regret. All of this – she had never felt anything like this before!

For a moment she feared the girl dead – she had really killed the fragile thing. But as soon as she found enough of her senses to discern the slight rise and fall of her chest, she eschewed them just as quickly, losing them again.

Thus, breathing fast, rattled to her core, the kunoichi scooped up the unconscious, skin-and-bones child with the matted green hair and moth-eaten clothes, cupped her head in her hand, and hastily bore her in her arms to her camp.


What… am I doing?

Akane could hardly be considered adept in the field of medicine – unsurprising, of a warrior hailing from the Youkou Clan – but she was no fool. The kid had been close enough to death before she kicked her; even an idiot could have told that much.

So she mashed her rice down, cut the meat to tiny pieces and mashed those up, too, and set a can of broth heating over the fire. The kid lay full within her sight, unmoving for the long minutes. Halfway into her grave, Akane mused darkly. 'Nether realm's already working its darkness over her…

And so, again…

What am I doing?

Wasting time, for one. She was due back in the village. But even more, what on earth had come over her? She ran the risk of sacrificing her life on a weekly basis at best. Enemies, shinobi, civilians, women, children – if they were her targets, Akane would cut them down without batting an eye – she would, and at fifteen years she had already more times than she could count. She bore the cursed blood of the Youkou. She'd flirted with Death since the day she was born.

Yet here she was, compelled inexplicably by some alien paroxysm of will and emotion that she couldn't begin to comprehend. What would Lord Orochimaru say? What would that oaf Torakou say…?

She took some consolation in that she hadn't abandoned all sense to this bewildering impulse; she had already stripped the girl down to check for bombs, but had discovered only scars, and welts, and scars. Shackle marks, surgical incisions, chakra burns, the marring of repeated needle injections to the arm. Somehow these had affected her all the more unpleasantly, provoking feelings Akane didn't intend to try to figure out. She'd dressed her up again.

Crude as it was, the soup was done. Awkwardly Akane pulled the scrawny little whelp into her lap. She had no choice but to see the unwaking face of desolation now.

Akane shuddered, and a flashing pair of golden eyes loomed mountainously in her mind.

I feed her now, she told herself. Then I'll be on my way.

"Wake up," she growled, almost as if in threat. She shook the girl lightly. "Oi."

Without great force she slapped her in the face, and the child stirred with a warbly murmur. Her eyes cracked open the tiniest degree, and as Akane sensed some meager semblance of consciousness returning to her body, Akane held the bowl to her parted lips. A small amount of the mixture she eased into the kid's mouth, but after moments in which she did not appear to swallow she coughed and hacked.

"H-hey!" Akane cried, sitting her up to strike her back with a flat hand. Choking averted, she tried again. "Now swallow this time, you stupid…" She trailed off at the dull green stare that emitted from the cracked, unblinking eyes. Akane scowled, placing her hand on the kid's chin. "Swallow it… Come on…" she growled, manually working her lax jaw. Akane's eyebrows drew inward when the soup drizzled from a corner of her mouth, and the kunoichi froze.

Death's already caught a whiff of her. Scenting a paling spirit, it had found the hapless morsel Akane held in her arms, pitiful in her frailty, had surely already seized her within its Eye, and stood at that moment poised to claim her as its own. Everything Akane lived by told her to give up. This was the Time – and for Youkou Akane, it was time only for dutiful acceptance. Leave it at that. Accept. Death indiscriminate had touched this fading creature, had numbered her breaths, and it would not stand to be denied.

But she did not abide. She did not stand by humbly and witness Death's working.

Akane continued to work the child's jaw.

"Swallow it, kuso…!"

The ninja's teeth ground.

"Come on… Come on…!

"Come on…!"

Her breath caught.

She had not realized she had come to lean over the girl. Nonetheless, with their faces a sparse few inches apart, Akane saw when the light returned to dimming eyes, and saw as, within a few seconds time, those deep emeralds came to focus on Akane's own steady gaze.

The girl blinked, and swallowed.


- -

End Chapter One

Akane: What have I done here? Where did this kid come from, and what's her story…?

Midori: Um… Shinobi-san…

Akane: Forget it. You're on your own.

Midori: B-but why?

Akane: I should never have intervened in the first place – you couldn't understand! Just stop following me!

Naruto: So… If this is Sidestories of the Three Failures, where are we exactly?

Lee: I suppose we are a bunch of four and five years old in Konoha!

Naruto: Whaaaat? What's the point of that?

Hinata: N-Naruto-kun, don't be rude! This is where the other characters get a chance to tell their stories! We still have the main storyline to hog the spotlight!

Naruto: Oh, I get it! I guess that works then. Next in the Red and Green sidestory is Hidden Power. Don't miss it!

A/N: Yep, so... first chapter, done! Note that the next post to this fic may be either a continuation of 'Red and Green', or a separate short story, or a oneshot... Whichever I write first. I do have the gist of this particular sidestory planned out, though, so it ought to be finished eventually.

Also note that as Red and Green continues there will likely be shoujo-ai implied. If you've read J3F, you probably already guessed this. Nothing hardcore, of course, but if you know you'll freak out at the concept, you may want to skip future 'Red and Green' chapters.

Please tell me what you thought of the chapter!

See ya!

:o)Hinata0321:o)