For a boy who washed up on their island a few weeks ago, he recovered rather quickly thought Tsunami as she watched the men in her life repair the roof. She watched as the brunette hammered in nails, crouched besides Kaiza. Her husband flashed her a grin, twirling the hammer between his fingers. She could spot her grandfather on the ladder, carrying supplies to the roof. Her son, Inari, carefully carried a small bucket of nails. This was the happiest she had ever seen him. With an older stepbrother and stepfather, all was right in the world.
"Peter-san." Tsunami called.
The foreign boy looked up, waving. He was precariously perched on the edge of the roof, unaware of the danger. At that moment, his attention drawn away, Kaiza pushed him. Instead of falling off the roof, the boy grabbed the underside, turning his body so that he was gripping the edge, dangling a few feet over the ground. Tsunami knew she should be used to this, boys and their antics, but she couldn't help but gasp. He was fine though, a smirk on his face.
"Come on, Kaiza! You gotta try better than that!" Peter called out, dropping to the ground in a crouch. "I'm way too witty and pretty to fall for anything you can pull!"
Her husband just laughed, shaking his head. "Next time. I still got to pay you back."
The boy flapped his hand dismissively. "Wait a thousand years, then you might be ready." Peter to the wall and climbed up it, with his hands and feet. He crawled onto the roof like some sort of spider.
Shinobi thought Tsunami. They're remarkable.
At the break of dawn, Peter Parker woke up, stretched and then climbed out of bed. It's been a few months since he found himself washed up on the shores of the island. All he had with him were scrapes of clothing, a few water stained pictures with his face on it and a watch. The pictures were the strangest, faded images of an older boy and a couple. Were they his family? Did he have a brother? He couldn't remember. Were they looking for him?
The only thing he remembered was his name and the vaguest of memories. Some of it were nightmares, lizard men and goblins. Sometimes if he looked hard enough, he could see faces and with those faces came emotions. When he woke up in the hospital, they said he had a concussion and lacerations. Lucky they said. Peter had washed up after the biggest storm they'd seen, the type of storm that smashed boats and docks.
The man who found him, Kaiza, offered to take him home. Since he had no where else to go after all. With no memories, nothing to tell him where he came from, Peter was lost. Not to mention he was a child, a young boy with no parents, no one to claim him. At Kaiza's home, he met his wife, his wife's father and Inari. He was only supposed to stay for a few days, not a few weeks. But days turned into weeks and Peter found himself fitting in. Even after he found out about his skills.
A few weeks ago there was an incident. Tazuna wanted to build a bridge, so they could trade with the mainlands and not rely on others. He wanted the Land of Wave to stand up for itself. He even had a backer, a man named Gato. Gato was apparently the founder of Gato company and wanted to buy out the shipping routes, and conglomerate all the individual business under one name. Kaiza was rather skeptical of that, having a big named company come in and basically control their exports and imports was suspicious. Not to mention, as a fisherman, this would threaten his livelihood. There was many arguments between the two on what they should do.
Peter and Inari found comfort in not being in the house, instead wandering the mangroves-searching for prey. The doctor had put Peter at approximately eleven years old which made him the eldest of the pair. At first Inari was rather suspicious of the older boy, thinking he was here to steal Kaizo away. They were both the same, both of them rescued by the fisherman. The hostility from the younger boy could have warmed a hut in winter.
Eventually he won the other over.
"Do you think we should build a bridge?" Inari asked, using a stick to smack at a few bushes as they walked.
Peter shrugged, his light brown eyes scanning the area. The knife on his belt was just there as a deterrent, the mangroves weren't safe for little children after all. He had promised Tsunami to keep an eye on Inari. She hugged him when he said that, hugged him and threaded his fingers through his hair-a look of sadness in her eyes.
"Well I think, Kaizo is right. We don't need Gato. We could do this ourselves!"
Peter continued to nod, his eyes narrowed. Some days he woke up on the ceiling, like someone glued him there. And then there was this sixth sense, this danger sense that warned him when something went wrong. He wasn't sure if he could talk to anyone about it. Would they think he was a freak? A monster? Sometimes when he dreamed, there would voices and faces that looked so angry and fearful. What happened to him?
Suddenly, something darted out of the bushes right at Inari. Peter didn't even get a good look at it, he just dove, pulling the younger boy out of the way. The creature stopped, turning around, tusks gleaming in the light. It charged at them both. At six hundred pounds, it could kill a man. The flimsy knife Peter had wouldn't stop it from goring them both. Without thinking, he grabbed the back of Inari's shirt and jumped. They were dozens of feet in the trees before Inari had a chance to scream. The boar made a loud noise seeking his prey before throwing his head to the side and wandering away.
Up in the tree tops, one hand planted on the trunk, his other hand holding Inari Peter breathed. They were on a tree, standing on a tree trunk, and he was casually lifting the other boy who weighed more than a sack of rice. It was like in his dream where he was walking on shimmering glass, swinging through an industrial land with looming towers.
"Woah." Inari breathed out. "That was cool."
When they returned home, Inari immediately spilled the beans. "Then Peter jumped and we were high off the ground!" The boy demonstrated, or tried to. The aforementioned boy stood by the doorway, his posture hunched. He was prepared for the worst.
Kaiza looked at Tazuna before speaking. "Peter-san, have you ever heard of shinobi?"