An Unfair Advantage.
By Azarni-chan.
Rated: M
Warnings: Adult concepts, yaoi, yuri and a lot of language.
Disclaimer: Naruto is copyright Kishimoto Masashi. I do not make any profit from the making of this fan fiction.
Chapter One.
The sky was hauntingly dark, its mysterious shadows cloaking the streets and alleys of the village akin to a mother tucking her child into bed, whispering sweet fables of fairies and magical creatures that came to whisk away little boys and girls to a magical place full of wonder.
There was a small sun, however, roaming the village, refusing to succumb to the opacity of the night. Its rays shone brightly, yet the shadows clung to it persistently, claiming it as a thing of darkness, of anger.
The villagers despaired of this small, stubborn sun, and the dark rays of light that it occasionally shone forth in place of its normal near-blinding ones. The sun seemed to be discontent, its gloom occupying a space tightly wound around its form, its frustration and anger flicking out occasionally to startle a small animal with its ferocious intensity.
Konohagakure no Sato lamented the times when its small sun was not present to omit its gloom on the village. The only improvement was that most of its inhabitants were abed, unaware of the phenomenon that was transpiring outside their windows.
Uzumaki Naruto was throwing a tantrum.
--
Why did nothing ever go his way? Why must it be him who bore the full brunt of every attack, every snide remark and barely concealed glare? Why him that had to mask his emotions lest they turn into something lethal? Why did this have to happen?
Why did Uchiha Sasuke have to surpass him in every possible way?
"I can't believe that that stupid, idiotic, pansy-assed sissy is taller than me! What's he thinking, huh? That if he's taller than poor little Naruto that he wins?! No way!"
How dare he think that anyway? Uchiha Sasuke was nothing but a show-off, parade-around show-pony. What was he thinking, belittling Naruto the way he did, smirking at his gained height, his gained advantage, slyly raising an eyebrow to insult Naruto's newly-underlined shortness?
Did he think he was some kind of royalty?
It didn't matter that the smirk came after Naruto tripped over himself due to his flustered anger, or that the raised-eyebrow was in response to a badly-formed insult describing how the outfit Sasuke had worn whilst with Orochimaru had been "So stupidly stupid that I could've ripped the stupid thing off your stupid body in three bloody seconds flat if you hadn't been waving that stupid knife around like a stupid maniac!"
It also didn't matter that said "knife" was actually a very well-made, very sharp samurai sword, or that said knife had almost sliced Naruto's head off on quite a few occasions.
Naruto was furious.
And storming through Konoha at nearly eleven at night, he was pretty damned riled up, that it was that he didn't notice the three burly village-men walking his way, bottles in hand.
"What the hell makes that moron better than me, anyway?" He scowled, kicking an empty bottle to the side as he stormed on through the dark streets towards his small home.
Sasuke just had to exceed him in every way possible. First, all aspects of training, then with the girls, then with intellect and snide remarks, which Naruto seemed to have a severe lack of, then all the teachers seemed to like him better. Now, the icing on the cake, he was taller than him.
Naruto could swear that he did it on purpose, that he got some kind of twisted pleasure out of it.
A loud noise startled him out of his anger-fuelled reverie, and he hurriedly turned around, immediately in guard position.
In front of him stood three large, obviously very drunk villagers, toting large, nearly-empty bottles of sake and very angry expressions.
Directed at him.
Naruto blanched, and immediately fell out of guard position, taking a few steps back. The blonde knew all too well the laws set primarily regarding him, stating he wasn't allowed to raise fist, chakra, weapon or claw (if the case arose) against any villager, for any reason. Even to protect himself.
The risk, apparently, was too high to allow the demon to kill half the villagers on a whim. The real reason, Naruto was sure, was that they just wanted legal freedom to "punish" him for his crimes.
The council was unable to curb shinobi's actions to harm Naruto, so they gave the villagers freedom instead.
Somehow, that was worse. Naruto knew how to deal with nin. When reasoned with properly, which was the only weapon in his arsenal he was free to use in situations such as this, shinobi tended to calm down a lot faster than the average person.
When faced with the average person, however, Naruto had nothing up his sleeve except escaping.
And more often than not, he couldn't run fast enough. Without the boost of chakra, which had been used to persecute him on a previous occasion, Naruto was about as fast as a ten year old when it came to running.
He had a large portion of stamina on his side, but no amount of endurance could save him from someone that was faster. Someone that could catch him.
And these men could easily catch him, Naruto reasoned, quickly scanning them to gauge the level of the threat. The bottles could be weapons, he noted, but the men weren't so drunk that they would throw away good sake.
Besides, those fists alone looked like they could crush him, shinobi training or not. He was pretty sure that fists that big, and fuelled by the inconceivable, drunken anger he now was witnessing, could probably crush even prissy, steel-headed Sasuke.
Every step Naruto took back, the three men took forward, and soon Naruto was almost stumbling over himself as he tried to navigate a path through the village back to his apartment, to anywhere, whilst walking backwards to keep an eye on his attackers.
He couldn't afford to stumble. He couldn't even afford to pause momentarily to get his bearings. Every millisecond was now precious. The quicker Naruto could make it to a safe place, the quicker he could barricade his door against them. That was his only hope. Without physical self defence granted him, his apartment door, already imbued with countless seals and protection jutsu by the Sandaime, was his only hope.
Against these men, due to the law, Naruto was no better than a small child when it came to defence. They would rip him apart like a rag doll.
By no means had this never happened before. Naruto had been on the receiving end of many a beating, but had managed to avoid most of them due to carefully keeping away from the streets at night time, when there was no one to help him, or to even see.
And tonight, he'd forsaken that sacred rule he'd made so long ago, and all because of Sasuke. Why did everything have to come back to him? He was sure that if Sasuke were here right now, he'd smirk at him and then laugh at his helplessness.
Naruto regretted taking up his dark-haired rival's proposal for late training. And now his sparring partner was back home in his mansion, living it up, while Naruto was here, in a back alley of Konoha's slums (where his apartment was located), trembling and backing away from a very big, very real threat, with no means of protecting himself against any attack, be it verbal, physical or sexual.
Gasping, Naruto realised that he'd lost track of where he was backing up to and had hit a wall, the men advancing on him with devious sneers.
"We've got you now, bakemono!" One of them scoffed.
Oh gods. Naruto thought, panicking, What do I do?
It was too late to run, and he wasn't even given leeway to drop to defence position. And being a village where ninja were prominent, even these drunken louts would recognise martial arts, then he'd be in deep shit.
Naruto gulped, his eyes frantically searching the vicinity for any means of escape. There were none.
"Let's have a little fun, demon."
Shit.
The last time someone had said that to him, he'd lost a lot more than blood.
Eyes wide and panicking, Naruto braced his hands on the wall behind him, completely unprepared but ready at least to drop down and curl in on himself at the first sign of an attack.
That was the only advantage he had from being a shinobi.
Everything else, down to the level of his suffering, was up to his attackers. Naruto had learned the hard way to not cry out for mercy. If you cried out, it was only in pain, and only to placate the attacker so that the beating might end prematurely. It often didn't have any effect, but it was better than asking for it by begging for them to stop.
That only made things worse. Far worse.
And judging by that last comment, this was going to be one of the worse beatings. Not just a beating, this promised to be a pounding.
Biting his lip, Naruto readied himself to drop to a foetal position, his heart hammering in his chest as if it were trying to seek a way out, his breathing heavy and sharp in his panic.
As the men advanced ominously towards him, knowing their prey was trapped, Naruto tried not to let his tears of fright fall, lest they see and punish him all the more for it. It was bad enough that he was shaking like a leaf, obvious for all to see.
When a ninja had nothing left but his hands, and when he couldn't even use those, there was nothing left for him but despair and defeat. And when a ninja was defeated, there was nothing left but to surrender to being conquered. For a conquered ninja, after all, was no good to anyone.
And Naruto needed to be something for someone. Anyone.
But his options were no better than facing defeat, and he didn't think his psyche would be able to handle that again. Not after the Valley of the End. That defeat had left him weak and frail inside for years, and he'd only just begun to heal that hurt.
No, there were no options for a defeated shinobi.
And Naruto didn't dare to hope.
Analysing the situation in a detached area of his brain, he realised that with three of them, he had a very good chance of sustaining injuries that wouldn't be able to be healed by Kyuubi. Or maybe even Tsunade.
Which meant that he'd have to heal in normal time. And he couldn't afford to be injured for an continuous amount of time; not with the Akatsuki still doggedly pursuing him.
The non analytical part of his mind, however, was a completely different matter.
Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!
Naruto squeezed his eyes tightly shut and instinctively threw his arms above his head as the first blow swung down, the leering face behind it displaying a cruel mirth at his trembling, terrified form.
"Stop."
Naruto's breath hitched. The swinging arm stopped, the clenched fist centimetres from Naruto's poorly protected head and shuddering arms.
The men looked up above Naruto's head, to the roof of the building he was backed up against. Turning slightly, not taking his eyes off the now cautious men, Naruto couldn't see his defender; could hardly believe that anyone was defending him.
Whenever someone witnessed him being beaten, they either looked away or joined in. No one had ever defended him except Iruka, and he was out on a mission in Kirigakure.
So who…?
"Stop." His protector repeated dangerously.
There was a growl in his voice that made Naruto gasp. He would recognise that anger anywhere. It was usually directed at him, though the tone was not this incensed.
Sa-Sasuke?