No need for lengthy introductions, stories should speak for themselves.
Esthesis
Chapter One: Akasen
A young, blonde haired boy laid awake in a silent, square room. His red eyes were following the numerous cracks in the apartment walls for the thousandth time, just this night.
God knew how many during his whole.
It was detestable.
The boy took a desperate, panicked intake of breath before falling silent immediately. The sound of his own voice had scared him.
His apartment was on of several hundred identical ones made specifically for shinobi; practical, simple, small windows with reinforced glass, all corners and angles. It was, in essence, a square block of concrete with a bathroom. An ugly, square bathroom, unsurprisingly.
And the boy hated it. From district eighteen, Akasen, laughter and screams came rolling in a sweet symphony to the boys ears. His own district, number seventeen, was just temporary lodging for the poorest of travellers and ninja, effective mazes in times of war. It was a district consisting of forts turned living places.
The kid rolled over to his side in the small rectangular bed, tried to ignore to cheery Akasen. He focused his eyes on the wall three metres away from his bed, wishing for something soft… something coloured.
It was a gray square with just one detail, drawn by himself with a piece of cold charcoal.
Naruto.
The boy whimpered at the sight, threw his body over to face the other wall in an effort to escape the horrible nothingness-
-only to face another wall, though it could just as well been the previous. They were like mirrors of dead material, always the same wherever he looked. Everything in the room had it's edges blurred due to the sparse light – since he had no lamps. It was a smothering, dull silence that filled his lungs with lead.
In the far corners of Naruto's mind, his very being screamed at the horror of repetition.
Of nothingness.
Few knew just how horrible the meaning entangled in the word "nothingness" was, and even less were as intimately familiar with being subjected to it as Naruto was.
Naruto whimpered and shut his eyes tightly. Prayed for his dream... his wish...his something!
A feeling hard to chain to one, measly word.
It was a force reaching from his center, pulling and ripping at every cell in his body... it was a need.
A terrible, terrible need.
You see, the citizens of Konohagakure, while not hitting him or causing any corporeal damage, avoided him.
They didn't look at him.
Speak to him.
Listen to him.
Acknowledge him… his existence. He was locked out.
And that cold indifference, the sheer brutality of complete isolation, had caused Naruto to flee from the nothingness they offered him. You wouldn't find him at the plaza, at the training grounds, at the marketplace or the playgrounds. For he was in his concrete complex, his dull, silent, and undoubtedly effectively constructed palace(prison).
When he shopped, it was only the utmost necessaries from the local storekeeper, also in a gray, silent building. When he ate, it was in a dark corner of his room. And when he tried to sleep… he failed to do so.
For as long as his memory could stretch, it had been like that.
Every move he took was made in the slightly downfallen District Seventeen, where everything was made for practicality, everything served a rational purpose. Softness and aesthesis were hardly needed. They lived in a village of ninja, after all.
Sarutobi had given him the apartment before he could remember; the apartment had been the one great constant in his life. A dozen times or so he had spent some of his money on smooth, colorful objects to liven his room up. A pillow and lava lamp had been among his first purchases. That night he had slept well, his eyelids slowly falling down as his eyes took on a purple tone, the deep glowing red of the lamp reflected in his soft blue eyes.
He had smiled then, however small a smile it might have been.
When he woke up, they were gone. No signs of anything, nothing destroyed. Simply gone.
By the twenty-seventh time, he understood, and stopped buying things.
So now, his room only contained a hard bed, and him.
And the silence.
Silence broken only by his struggle against the sweat-drenched sheet covering his naked body.
In the beginning of realization, the struggle had been joined by sobs too. Loud ones, the first times.
The silent tears of mature adults later.
By now, he had stopped crying entirely.
It was his fourth birthday this very night. Most of Konoha was matted with grief and silence because of some horrible event years earlier. For those that sought to drown their sorrows in sake and the pleasures of flesh, however, the red-light district remained as cheerful as always.
Needles ran all over Naruto's body, his mind was screaming and his heart was crying, for he was hollow. Hollow as only a broken child could be.
The room was gray, dull, angular and silent. A heavy blanket.
Everything he detested, avoided, feared and fucking hated so much.
Naruto had a wish, a highly private(no one cared) wish. He wanted someone to see him, for even Sarutobi with his kind eyes, didn't see him.
(He saw legacy, failure, hope, symbol, a child, a responsibility – not Naruto)
He was alone in a dull silence and just wanted to scream, cry and laugh.
He wanted to fucking live, he realized with surprise while struggling with the thin sheet(everything).
Besides, it was his birthday, right? He needed a present, right? Hadn't gotten one in years, so he needed to compensate, right?
Only the present of a lifetime would do.
Someone would look at him, and see him.
Even if it would kill him.
The boy stood up, throwing the sheet away – it was too thin anyways – and slid one of his three dirty T-shirts over pale shoulders and weak body. Took a look around his room. Dull gray, heaviness, cramped efficiency, ugliness, emptiness, smothering everything that was him, choked his throat.
Naruto slammed the door to his room open, and ran as if the hounds of hell were after his heels. He continued to run until he reached the district next to his, the one place in Konoha where grief was not carried out in silence, but in life.
He panted heavily despite the short run, a shrill wheezing the only sound emanating from his lungs. Naruto's whole body was covered with sweat and dirt and longing. The small boy waited until he had caught his breath, and then raised his head up.
And gasped.
Naruto saw starry eyes, money flowing from one hand into the next.
Flickering, smooth orange flames against a Prussian-blue evening sky approaching cool black.
Naruto heard laughs, moans, warm songs hummed gently.
Chilled sake being swallowed with relish and content sighs.
Naruto breathed musky scents, saccharine sweetness.
Women, inviting, so colorful and appreciative, smiling and accepting.
Naruto felt the life he had been desperately seeking.
And took a step forward, eyes filled with something akin to awe. The colors screamed at him, the lights screamed at him, the people screamed happily at each other, and the sheer motion present screamed at him.
The world screamed at him so loudly that even his restless soul, stopped screaming.
And he cried for the first time since long, long ago. It was everything he had imagined… no, it crushed how he had thought the world everyone else shared would be.
It was beautiful.
Art.
The steadily darkening, rich sky, the dirty ground… heck, through his blurred eyes even the pebbles on the ground made his heart feel warm.
"This…" he choked out, and sniveled.
Oh god, how happy he felt.
(But life is no fairy tale.
Life is unfortunate.
And life, is unjust.)
A laughing man, chummy face tinted red with an alcohol-induced blush moved past the kid, something managing to work it's way to his senses. That dirty blonde hair that sought to defy gravity, that tiny body with a too large T and blue shorts…
It was him. The man stopped, and stared. Others stopped to see what the man was looking at. And stayed, when they realized what it was. More and more gathered, drawn by the mysterious event that caught so many eyes, like moths to fire.
Or, in this case, wolves to a lamb.
Soon the laughs and joyful screams were several blocks away, and a silent ring had formed around the boy.
"Uhuu… uhuu," Naruto wailed, rubbing his tired eyes with a pale, weak arm. He had a bleary smile on his face, and hiccuped.
He was happy!
Then he noticed it.
The silence.
It choked his sobs off as effectively as a garrote around his throat.
Silencesilencesilence.
It screamed at him. Howled at him. Ripped his joy away, gutted his emotions, leaving them to bleed out and soaked up by the uncaring earth.
He had their eyes on him, as he had wished. Only now, he knew that this attention was bad.
Very bad.
The people here had come to forget, to live on, to strive away from their painful pasts.
And in the midst of their struggle, Naruto, the very SYMBOL, the very REASON for all their pain, had arrived. And cried with a happy smile.
What a fucking mockery.
The men and women in the ring went through various emotions. Pain. Anger. Sorrow. Somberness. Hate. Hate. The kind hard to control.
Someone threw a rock. It missed.
But another rock followed, which hit. Then another. Soon screams joined the hail of rocks.
And Naruto, smile long gone, covered. He had stopped crying though, pain being more familiar than joy. Pain was better than the solace even, since he actually felt something. This was his comfort under the one minutes, sixteen seconds that sharp rocks ripped his flesh, words ripped his mind and emotions ripped at his soul. Then a woman clad in ANBU gear arrived in the middle, a few rocks hitting her as she just stood there. By force of her presence alone, the circle of broken humans shattered and fled in the face of her silent protection.
They were grievers, not warriors.
She waited until they were all gone before she turned her face, hidden under the standard animal mask, to the boy on the ground, and sighed forlornly.
"My protection last only for the moment," she said solemnly. The boy didn't respond, wounds not lethal but bleeding still, both the visible and invisible. He had passed out, the strain too much for his weak body and mind to bear.
He looked small, she thought. Small, and lonely.
And the ANBU knew, more so than even the Hokage, just how lonely the boy was. For all her debriefings where she would explain that Naruto, once again, had mostly kept himself inside his room and stared at the roof, could not give the Hokage the sheer insight that thousands of hours with just observation could give. The woman knew she was unfair, knew of the heavily restricted ability the Hokage had to move through the political waters, but she still felt he paid the boy too little attention.
She did not outrule suicide. Or even worse – madness, as probable future for the child if things continued like this.
The great many red paper lanterns were lit one by one, illuminating he district in the red it was known for.
Even among her companions in the secretive agency known as the ANBU, the woman knew she was seen as calm, indifferent, callous and correct – the picture perfect soldier for everyone that looked. For people like Sarutobi, who looked a bit deeper, she also had a heart. The very reason she had been given this mission... though she had been explicitly told not to interfere in any way with the blonde, save for fending away dangers to his body.
A small smile graced her sharp face.
There was some saying that the best subordinates should take independent steps to further the vision of their leader. Or something like that. And it was certainly in Sarutobi's best interests – both as a leader and an individual – to ensure Naruto's wellbeing. And those thousands of hours of watching had mostly gone into figuring out some way to help the kid, if only a little. Hayate's words to her, "It isn't right to seal his life off like this", had helped her to arrive at one conclusion.
What the boy needed, more than anything else, was life. It was painfully obvious, a civilian would probably have pointed out that fact within seconds. But for someone whose entire profession revolved around snuffing those lights out, it was a difficult concept – or, at the other end of the spectra – a far too easy one.
She was quite powerless, she knew that. She couldn't be seen by him, heard by him, bring stuff, remove stuff, aid him unless he was subjected to corporeal punishment, and were to disappear just as fast as the threat.
He was a mission.
A highly ranked one at that.
But alas, good soldiers knew to take their own steps.
And it was better teach a man where to find the fish instead of fetching them for him.
So she would give the boy a lesson at her expense, the costs be damned. Sarutobi would probably stick up for her if she could prove some valid points, if not...
Well, she had lived a decent life.
Sha Minami looked at the woman in front of her in disbelief.
"You want me to do… what?" she asked, nervously twirling a black lock between delicate fingers. The ANBU didn't take her mask off, but Minami had no trouble imagining the pleading look underneath. She knew the woman personally after all.
"Minami… if you do this for me, consider everything you owe me void," the purple-haired woman said seriously. Minami stopped twirling her black hair, eyes widening.
"Y-" she paused. She knew she wasn't supposed to know the ANBU's identity. Then again, she had never asked what animal the woman's mask was supposed to portray, so… "Anbu-san, why?"
Such a simple question, but with so many layers. What Minami owed the woman… was her life in freedom. Freedom too chose whatever path she wanted to walk.
And that favor declared gone…? For the pariah? The One Who Don't Exist?
Unlikely.
The ANBU sighed.
"I believe he should be entitled love, at least." The lanterns shook slowly in a breeze, the rhythmic thumping of music blending with the sound of life in general. Neither women paid attention.
Minami just stared at the woman. She had always known that Yuugao was a romantic far down beneath everything she showed the world in general, but to go to such lengths… she was far worse off than she imagined! Yuugao seemed to have read her thoughts; a bitter tone crept into her voice.
"Believe me, Minami… this kid deserves it, this village needs it… for the greater good." Minami hesitated before nodding. She couldn't quite understand her long-time friends' reasoning, but she could bend.
Time had proven that, again and again.
"Okay," the black-haired woman agreed, leaned against the wooden wall. She had relaxed some – she could trust Yuugao. And it was a helluva nice deal for her part… probably more so than Yuugao could comprehend, even if it was she who had stood up for her, had allowed her roam free from her bindings all those years ago.
A melancholy smile got Minami's smooth face to soften even more.
This bond, this guilt, this favour… was the last thing binding her.
And soon it would be gone; for the sake of a child neither knew that well.
How… vexing.
Yuugao shifted, dropping the boy on the wooden tiles before the door.
"Don't teach him jutsu," she ordered suddenly, and Minami raised an eyebrow at the sudden display of authority and haste. Now why would she do that, jutsu was the damnable thing that had gotten her in a bad position in the first place.
Well, her curiosity actually, but who cared.
Yuugao's silence probed at her.
Minami withheld a few seconds longer, then;
"Sheesh! I get it I get it… no techniques…" her deep crimson eyes suddenly pierced the faceless woman outside the house.
Sudden insight.
Yuugao didn't even shift, trained as she was.
"You are putting yourself at risk." A monotone statement, part accusation, part disbelief.
And also an accurate observation.
One that Yuugao saw no need to comment on. Couldn't comment on.
"Take care of him," was all she said before disappearing in a torrent of leaves, momentarily causing her purple hair to whip around in the chakra-infused breeze.
Then the wind died down, and only the small, dirty child was left on her doorstep.
The boy whimpered.
Minami sighed, a frown dragging the corners of her mouth down.
"You better be worth it, kid. Better be worth it."
In the shadows, Yuugao was apprehended.
Joanna's notes:
Well, this could act as a sort of prologue I suppose... Naruto's childhood will last a few chapters, then the story will pick up speed.
Glossary:
Akasen: Red line, or Red light district