Prologue - Humble Beginnings
Run. Run as hard and as fast as your legs can possibly allow you, and then run some more. Because those who don't know what you're thinking can not possibly understand why you've done what you've done. And if they don't understand something, well, they'll try to erase it. And they'll succeed. Unless you run.
Torches pierced the cold, dark night sky with bright light and eerie warmth. There were hundreds of them-- no, thousands. Perhaps tens of thousands. They were huddled together in a massive clot of chanting and screaming that shattered the ears and broke the mind. Their strained voices, all muddled collectively into a barely distinguishable cry of anguish, tore across the once silent desert. Sands whirled restlessly and flames licked the stars. Turmoil.
Behind the mass of civilians sat a colossal wall; one that blanketed the peaceful and prosperous Wind Country's ninja village from violence both natural and artificial. Sunagakure, the place was called. But walls do nothing to prevent aggression from the inside. Not quite aggression, per se. More like misunderstanding. Unfortunately, misunderstanding is most often contagious.
The crowd's roars and jeers were getting louder now; clearer. There were "Stay away, you monster!" 's, and there were "Just leave us alone!" 's. "We hate you, Kojisuke!"
There were those, too.
About a mile further into the desert, far from the dangerous and crazed throng's reaches as well as those of the shadowed and empty Sand Village, a young boy was running across the windswept landscape. He was able to surmise that it was just before midnight by the sheer chilliness of the air: the desert, you see, was not a safe place to be at night. Not only because of the various bandits who roved the sands, preying on weak-hearted travelers, but because of the extreme drop in temperature. In fact, if it hadn't been for the thick white shawl the boy had taken from his home prior to his narrow escape, he probably would have died that night. But he didn't. He lived. So ended the tale of Kojisuke of the Sand Village, and so began the tale of Tei-kon of the Leaf.