Okay, so I'm finally back after a very long hiatus. I have to apologize for not uploading anything new recently. For any of you who have read my Twilight story, you know that I had a baby this past January. His name is Dean. He's 7 months old now and he is my entire life. I started this story right before I had my son, so, as I'm sure you can understand, I've had little time to write. When I do have time, I'm usually too tired to. But the way I do fanfictions is I have everything finished before I post, so this story is completely finished. You don't have to worry about never getting the ending, and posts will come regularly. My friends on this site helped me through my pregnancy, so I've had really good experiences on here and I hope they continue.
As for this story, I'm actually not really much of a Naruto fan. I was back in high school before it got really big, but after that I just sort of fizzled out. I have not seen any of the anime. The voices in the commercials I have seen are so entirely different from what I imagined them that I just never bothered to watch. I also got bored in the manga by the time it got to the time skip, so everything in this story is AU-ish based on the first part of the manga. If the later novels contradict what I say in here, as I'm sure they do, I apologize but this is a pre-time-skip fanfiction. I own very few of the characters in here, and I'm sure you'll recognize the ones I do. I'm actually pretty fond of them and I really hope you enjoy this story. Wow, this intro is way too long so I apologize for that too. Please review for me!
The sun overhead was nearing its peak in a clear, cloudless sky. The light filtered down through the thick foliage in a green haze, casting gently wafting shadows on the hard-packed earth of the forest floor. The heat smothered everything like a suffocating blanket.
Aburame Shino sat slumped at the base of a Larch tree deep within the forest, his shoulders hunched, his breathing labored. His left leg was visibly broken, and there was a gash somewhere on his forehead that dripped a steady stream of blood down his cheek. He had been victorious in his battle, but he had depleted all of his chakra.
The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps reached Shino's well-trained ears and, despite his extensive injuries, he jerked to attention. He dragged himself to his uninjured leg, drawing the few kunai knives he still had. Even in his injured state, he reasoned, if he could manage the element of surprise, he might be able to emerge victorious against an enemy.
Shino held his breath as the footsteps grew closer. The bushes parted and the person came into view. Whoever it was had wrapped themselves up in layers of loose, dark-colored fabric so that it was impossible to make out any features. The hood was pulled low over his face, obscuring all but the tip of a suntanned nose. He carried a carefully rolled pack on his back and moved with a fierce determination.
The stranger had almost made it all the way across the clearing when he stopped suddenly and looked directly at Shino, hiding behind the Larch. Shino ground his teeth together in consternation and cursed under his breath.
Moving almost painfully slow, the stranger reached into the many folds of his cloak and pulled out a shinobi headband. He held it up so the metal plate on the front caught the sunlight filtering in patches through the leaves: a Hidden Waterfall ninja.
Shino sighed in relief and sheathed his weapons. Konoha was allies with Taki, the shinobi village in the Waterfall Country. He slipped out from behind the tree.
The stranger was at his side instantly, moving so quickly Shino almost didn't catch the movement. He slid an arm around Shino and helped him to sit down, giving a cursory glance over Shino's wounds. Then he shrugged out of his pack and unrolled it on the ground, revealing an extensive amount of medical supplies. Shino could only remember seeing so much medical supplies at the Konoha hospital.
"Thanks," Shino said as the stranger began mixing a tonic from several different liquids contained in vials inside the medical pack.
The stranger nodded in acknowledgement but didn't speak. His hands moved quickly as Shino drank the tonic, fashioning a rudimentary splint out of pieces of wood found around the clearing. After fastening the splint around Shino's broken leg, he moved to apply a thick poultice to the gash in Shino's forehead, which stemmed the blood flow substantially almost at once.
"Where are you headed?" Shino wondered, feeling the throbbing pain of his injuries subside.
The stranger paused long enough to nod in the direction Shino himself was going.
"Konoha?" Shino guessed, and the stranger nodded. Shino, who was usually a quiet and introverted individual, found himself talking just to fill up the silence. "Do you speak?"
The stranger chuckled to himself and nodded.
"But you're not going to," the Leaf shinobi surmised.
Again the stranger nodded, wrapping a bandage around Shino's forehead and putting away his medical supplies. He extended a hand and pulled Shino to his feet.
"I have companions also fighting battles in this wood," Shino explained as the stranger again slipped an arm around him to support his weight. "If you help me find them, and tend to whatever wounds they may have, I'll gladly take you right to Konoha."
The stranger didn't even bother to think about it, just nodded silently.
So the two of them set out, moving slowly due to Shino's broken leg. With the stranger in such close proximity, Shino was afforded an opportunity to study him a bit more closely. Though the face was in shadow, what he could see of the stranger's nose was a bit sunburned and sprinkled with freckles. The stranger was almost an entire head shorter than Shino, and he exuded a smell of some sort of tropical flower and an array of herbs.
They had ambled along awkwardly for a quarter of an hour when the stranger suddenly ducked away from Shino, leaving the Leaf ninja to grab hold of a nearby tree for support. The stranger rushed to the side of a rather large spiky-haired boy lying face-down in the dirt, unconscious.
"That's Chouji, of the Akimichi clan," Shino explained, breathing heavily from the exertion and the toll his injuries were taking on his body. "His fallback plan is a series of pills that produce an excess amount of chakra. He very rarely uses them. The last time, it took the Fifth Hokage almost a week to come up with an effective antidote."
The stranger nodded almost imperceptibly at this information, rolling the corpulent body over with more strength than Shino would have guessed he had. Then, unrolling his medical pack, he set about mixing something together. He trickled his quickly-made antidote down Chouji's throat.
Chouji's eyelids fluttered for a moment, then he rolled onto his side and promptly vomited noisily.
"Thanks," Chouji muttered weakly, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I thought I was a goner after that last fight..."
Shino frowned. "Chouji, didn't it take the Fifth a week to come up with an antidote last time you used those pills?"
Chouji lumbered heavily to his feet, using the stranger's offered arm to steady himself. "Yeah," he agreed, rubbing his head wearily. "Whoever you are, you're the best healer I've ever heard of."
"He's from Takigakure," Shino explained. "He's helping me find everybody and get them back to Konoha."
"Well, I owe you too!" Chouji grinned cheerfully, holding out his hand to the stranger. "I'll help you any way I can!"
The stranger politely shook Chouji's outstretched hand and they went in search of the remaining three Konoha shinobi.
The going was much quicker with both the stranger and Chouji supporting Shino between them, and it was only a little while later when a kunai knife sliced through the air like a musical instrument to lodge itself in a tree just before them.
"Damn, it's you guys," a voice croaked.
They found the thrower of the knife, introduced to the stranger as Hyuuga Neji, standing beside a tree. He had very large, odd-colored eyes that seemed hazy and unfocused. The bones in his left hand had been entirely crushed, a bloody mass oozing blood at the end of his arm. It seemed to be his only injury, but it was severe.
"Who the hell are you?" Neji sneered as the stranger pulled a roll of bandages out of his medical pack and attempted to separate what used to be Neji's fingers.
Chouji quickly explained about their silent assistant and the agreement to take him to Konoha once all their companions had been successfully located and patched up.
"He's a better healer than the Fifth," Chouji added defensively.
"That's not possible," Neji replied, but his tone had lost some of the sharp edge.
Neji refused the stranger's pain medicine, preferring to be in complete control of his senses, so the stranger packed up his supplies again and they went in search of the final two Konoha shinobi stranded out in the forest.
"Hidden Grass ninjas have been infiltrating Hi no Kuni," Chouji explained to the stranger as they walked, burdened down by Shino's broken leg. "We've been exterminating a scout party that was seen by some genin a few days ago."
He might have continued, but they spotted another Konoha shinobi then. This one was lying on his back near a bloody mess that must have once been his opponent. The front of the Leaf nin's jacket was soaked with blood. His hand was tangled in the fur of a small white dog that lay, unmoving, beside him.
When the shinobi saw them, his face split into a painful, exhausted grin. "I'd about given up hope that you were going to find me," he croaked.
The stranger hurried forward to Kiba, noting just how much blood he seemed to have lost. Out of his medical pack he produced a poultice similar to the one he had used on Shino's forehead. Removing Kiba's shirt, the stranger spread the poultice gently across deep gashes that ran the entire length of the man's torso. Then, careful so as not to cause any more damage, the stranger wrapped bandages around the injured area and gave him a tonic for the pain.
"Please, I know you're not a vet or anything, but could you do something for Akamaru?" Kiba pleaded. "He's used all his chakra protecting me..."
The stranger didn't answer, but his swift, deft hands began to mix some sort of ointment. Using his thumb, he wrenched the dog's jaws open and spread the mixture onto the tongue. The dog shuddered for a moment, then wearily opened his eyes.
Once both man and dog were able to move, they set off in search of the final shinobi. They didn't have to look far. His battle had just ended, and it had been a very noisy one.
Shikamaru jumped down from the tree he was standing in to join his comrades, pressing one hand over a particularly nasty wound in his shoulder that oozed blood through his long, skinny fingers.
"Who's this?" he demanded in a bored tone of voice, indicating the stranger.
"He's a healing shinobi from the Hidden Waterfall," Shino explained in his cool, quiet voice. "He's quite adept at his art. We're showing him the way to Konoha in exchange for tending to our injuries."
Shikamaru peered suspiciously at the dark hood, unable to see anything past the tip of the stranger's upturned nose. "Let me see your face," he demanded.
The stranger shook his head, reaching for a weapon. He made it quite clear that he would use force to defend his anonymity.
"How troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, but he didn't press the matter. "All right, patch me up then."
The stranger moved faster than before, possibly afraid of having his identity discovered, but he stopped the flow of blood in Shikamaru's shoulder and gave him something for the pain.
With all the Konoha shinobi found and alive, the six of them, plus Akamaru the dog, headed back towards the village. The sun was encroaching on the horizon now; the late August day was coming to a close. It was almost sunset when the odd group crested the final hill and looked down the valley at the village of Konohagakure.
Kiba let out a low whistle. From their vantage point on the hill, they could see that the village was overrun with foreign shinobi. Kiba sniffed the air experimentally. "They smell like... Waterfall ninjas..."
They all turned to look at the stranger, whose entire body tensed up beneath the layers and layers of loose cloth. The suntanned nose twitched.
"Are they after you?" Neji demanded crossly.
The stranger nodded defiantly.
"Well, he helped all of us. I'm not just going to turn him in," Chouji said. "We can sneak him out of here before they realize-"
The stranger shook his head emphatically, refusing to leave. He pointed with a fabric-draped hand towards the tallest building in the village of Konoha, the building that housed the shinobi government.
"You want to see the Hokage?" Neji demanded skeptically. "You think that we're really going to take you to see her when all these Hidden Waterfall nins are looking for you?"
The stranger reached into the heavy folds of his cloak and pulled out a handful of kunai knives. He tossed them on the ground at Neji's feet. A few shuriken followed these, and then it seemed like the stranger was out of weapons. He spread his arms out, as if daring any of them to check him for more weapons.
Neji, the jounin among them and their leader, hesitated a moment. Then he nodded at Shikamaru, who was closest to the stranger.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru grumbled, putting his hands inside the cloak and patting the stranger down. The stranger tolerated all this with his usual silence. Shikamaru stopped and gave the stranger a suspicious look, but the blazing eyes within the hood silenced him. "Clean," he muttered, dropping his hands to his sides. "There are no more weapons."
Neji frowned. "Fine. We'll take you to the village. But if something happens after that, we won't defend you."
The stranger nodded in understanding and they set off down the hill for the enormous gates leading into the village.
They had barely made it through the gates when they were spotted by a group of rough-looking Anbu scouring the streets and alleys. They were dressed in all black and all were heavily armed.
"There!" one of them called to his companions. "That's the one we're looking for!" He was pointing to the baggy stranger.
The Anbu advanced on them slowly. "We're not going to hurt you," a female Anbu told the stranger. "We're just going to take you to see the Hokage. She has a few things she'd like to say to you."
"Go," Chouji hissed through clenched teeth, lowering himself to a defensive stance. "We'll hold them off for as long as we can."
"No," the stranger said, pushing the hood back. Long blonde hair tumbled out of the hood down the stranger's back. Her face was suntanned and heart-shaped, with big black eyes and a rosebud mouth. Her eyes were hard as she faced the Anbu. "Take me to see the soulless old whore. I've got a few things to say to her."
Chouji, Kiba, and Shino gaped at the girl. Even though she was dressed in frumpy, dusty cloaks, she held her head high and looked down her nose at the Anbu. Neji scowled at her, and Shikamaru muttered, "Troublesome," under his breath.
The Anbu scowled, probably at the girl's use of "whore" for the Hokage of Konoha. "Come along," she muttered, grabbing the girl by the upper arm and escorting her rather roughly towards the tower building.
"You lot too," another Anbu said gruffly, herding the injured Leaf shinobi after the lumpy girl and the female Anbu. Neji gave Chouji a withering look as they followed.
The girl didn't speak again as the Anbu took them up a series of winding staircases to the office at the top of the central tower. They found the Hokage poring over a map of Fire country with two of her jounin. Tsunade appeared to be in her early thirties, blonde, with a low cut shirt that revealed quite a bit of cleavage. She looked up, frustrated, when the Anbu and younger shinobi entered. Her jounin, Hatake Kakashi and Nara Shikako, Shikamaru's father, turned their attention to the door as well.
Tsunade's eyes narrowed when she saw the girl draped in the heavy clothes. "You are in big trouble, young lady!" she exclaimed. "Your father has a hundred Waterfall shinobi scouring the countryside for you! I've got fifty of my own men looking for you when I'm facing an invasion from Kusa no Kuni and don't have the men to spare!"
"Yes, you know, I'd heard you'd become the Hokage of Konoha," the girl said coolly, her voice and eyes like ice. "What has it been? Five years now?"
Tsunade lost her steam and managed to look a little abashed. "Yes, well, I've been meaning to write. It seems I don't have enough time to do all the things I'd like. But, even if I haven't had the chance to write, you shouldn't have run off from Taki like that."
"I didn't come to see you," the girl yawned disinterestedly. "I got bored at home. I thought I'd do a bit of traveling."
Tsunade clenched her teeth together. "You are such a spoiled little brat! When you get home, I'm going to see to it that you are locked away for-"
"Do you remember when my birthday is?" the girl interrupted coolly. "I know it might be difficult for someone as dim as you to remember, but surely you know."
"Of course I know when your birthday is," Tsunade said irritably. "It's in the middle of July, you-"
The girl interrupted again, crossing her arms. "And what is the date today?"
"It's the end of August, you little-" She stopped suddenly. "Oh. That's when you ran away...it was that birthday, wasn't it?"
A cold, tight smile appeared on the girl's full lips. "Why yes, it was. You know, when my Presentation Ceremony was. You were supposed to be there."
"I am so sorry, doll," Tsunade sank down heavily on the edge of her desk. "I really am. My job is so hectic..."
The girl gave another tightlipped smile that was anything but genuine. "I'm sure."
Tsunade sighed again. "You know I'm going to have to send you back. Your father is worried sick."
"I'll just run away again." The girl's eyes flashed defiantly. "I hate it there. I'm not going back."
The Hokage gave a feeble smile. "Well, I don't suppose it would hurt to let you stay here for a few months," she said, reaching out to brush a lone lock of hair off the girl's suntanned forehead. The girl jerked away automatically and Tsunade dropped her hand to her side, the smile on her face never wavering. "Would you like that, doll?"
The girl seemed torn between resenting Tsunade and accepting the offer. "Fine," she muttered eventually. "But not because of you. I just don't want to go back to Taki."
Tsunade put her hands on the girl's shoulders and turned her around to face their awkward audience. "Gentlemen," Tsunade announced with a smile. "I'd like you all to meet my daughter, Katsuki."
The girl looked at them rebelliously, as if daring any of them to notice any weakness. Her eyes were large and framed by heavy lashes, and her jaw was set defiantly. Her face, despite dark smudges of dirt going across one cheek, was coldly beautiful.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Katsuki-san," Shikako said, bowing his head politely. "If I remember correctly, your mother spends most evenings here at her office. Please allow me to offer you more comfortable accommodations at my own home."
"That's very kind of you, Shikako," Tsunade beamed pleasantly. "What do you think, doll?"
Suki stepped away from her mother pointedly and gave Shikako a brief smile. "That would be very nice, sensei. Thank you."
"Shikamaru, why don't you show Katsuki-san to the house. And let your mother know that I'll be home late for dinner," Shikako said to his son, looking over their injuries with a curious look that would demand explanation when time and circumstance allowed. "You boys look like you need a well-deserved rest."
Okay, there's chapter one. Please, please, please review! No flames though please. Constructive criticisms are always welcome but if you want to be nasty this is not the place to do it! 3