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A slim figure sauntered with the lazy grace of a predator along the spine of the mansion roof, his blond mane and hooded black trench coat lined in white fluttering in the stiff night air. Though his face concealed with a blank white porcelain mask, nevertheless, the mystery added to his character. When the figure reached an intersection, he turned right before proceeding another twenty meters to the end where he crouched.

Directly below the place where the blond shadow crouched was a window; an open window glowing with warm yellow light. Pouty pink lips curved beneath the mask into an ironic smile as Silence attached the pulley and thin metal cable contraption to the roof and the smaller contraption the strong leather abseiling harness around his torso. Quickly bringing out and loading his blowpipe, Silence swung down and bounced down to the window.

The smile turned into a smirk when the roving Love-Me-Not blue eyes landed on the obese Daimyo groping a beautiful, young, scantily clad and, from the look of things, drugged youth of barely fourteen. Silence was so looking forward to killing this paedophile. The pipe was lifted to the slightly parted ceramic lips and the poisoned dart was airborne with a sharp puff.

The man swatted at his neck as if to hit a bug, but when his hand came away with the small grey dart, the man started to blubber. Silence's smirk widened as he stepped in the window and unhooked himself. The man was one the floor by now as the poison inflamed the windpipe, causing swelling that was choking the fat man. The drugged boy just watched with distant incomprehension.

Silence practically skipped over to the still gagging Daimyo, unhooked the hatchet from the back of his belt, grabbed the greasy black hair to expose the throat and brought said hatchet down on the neck and grasping hands.

A few quick whacks and Silence straightened with the head in his right hand. He paused to flick a stray finger out of the collar of his coat, the white mask streaming with nearly black blood.

Dumping the head onto the boy's lap, Silence moved into the strongroom on the left side of the room behind the fake wall, the ring of keys hanging from his left hand, hatchet back in place on the belt to be cleaned later.

Several minutes later, Silence exited the now strongroom, slipping the three Storage Scrolls containing everything in the strongroom into a pouch. Silence glanced at the boy he recognized as Hino Shingo, only son and heir of the Fire Country's Daimyo, missing for two months now to the distraught Lord's grief. Moving to the wardrobe, Silence removed a shirt which he pulled over the boy's head, carefully but hastily pulling the delicate arms through the oversized sleeves.

Silence glanced at the headless mound. A hand dipped into a small pouch and something small was tossed onto the corpse's chest.

The boy was hauled to his feet where he swayed as Silence put the head in a black waterproof bag that wouldn't let blood dribble everywhere. Silence led the boy to the window and hooked himself to the cable. Turning to the youth, the nin hesitated a moment as he contemplated exactly how he was supposed to carry the boy up and, once out of the compound, what he was going to do with him.

Heaving a sigh, Silence wrapped the boy's arms around his neck and lifted the boy up by his small bare thighs and wrapped them around his waist just above the cable.

"Hold on tightly, now. I'm getting you out of here and back home. Your father's been worried about you." The only response Silence's soft, husky voice got was a tightening of arms and legs around his body.

Holding the boy with one arm, Silence swung out the window and hit the remote button which would pull them up.

(space)

The young man, who had quietly left the Lightning Daimyo's compound in the early hours of the morning two days ago with the Fire Daimyo's son and all of the deceased Daimyo's most treasured belongings, was seated against the wall of a sandy cave just inside Fire Country along the Wind-Fire border, carefully portioning out the amounts of the drug Hino Shingo was dosed with.

Uzumaki Naruto, 26-year-old S-Class Missing-nin from Konohagakure, under the alias Silence, was actually pretty impressed with this particular drug; it had taken him two hours to identify the effects of the drug, four more to figure out what was in it and twenty minutes further to duplicate it. The drug, which he had found to cloud the mind, stimulate nerves and provide a mild painkiller to stop pain from over-stimulation, also acted as a poison. If the drug was not reapplied every day at the same time, it would cause a slow agonised death over the course of three to four hours as the over-stimulated blood vessels started rupturing and nerves sent jolts of agony through the body at the slightest touch of even silken clothing.

So Naruto was making enough in gradually smaller dosages to wean Shingo off the stuff when he got the kid home.

Naruto finished the last dosage and put the vial in its place in the small, levelled medicine chest just as the boy on the pallet moaned.

The pale face, marked with three black whiskers on each high sculptured cheek, further accenting the large cat-shaped eyes the same shade of Love-Me-Nots viewed through a tank of water, turned to regard the stirring youth. The mouth that was once known for the wide near-insane grins was used now only for small, close-mouthed smiles that were barely a tilting of lips and the voice that came forth from them was no longer the loud, brash prepubescent yelling, but rather a soft, husky, whispery baritone that rumbled in the chest like far-off thunder.

Naruto closed the box and stood as his free hand snagged the water-pouch as he moved across the cave. Lifting the boy up by his shoulders to rest against his chest, Naruto lifted the pouch to the chapped lips. Reddish-brown eyes fluttered open.

"Who-?"

"Drink and go back to sleep. I'll take you back to your father's mansion tomorrow."

"Who-?"

Naruto sighed. The kid was not going to go back to sleep without the question answered. "I'm Uzumaki, Kid. Uzumaki Naruto. Some call me 'Silence' or 'The Silencer'."

The boy whimpered slightly in fear, his eyes flashing their whites.

Lips twisted bitterly. "The reputation I've garnered is massively blown out of proportion. There are ANBU out there who have done a hell of a lot more than I have; it's just that ANBU work anonymously so they usually aren't that well known." Naruto lay the boy back down. "I, however, have limits. I don't kill kids, I don't kill people who don't deserve it and I don't break my promises."

The blonde moved over to the fire where a pot was bubbling merrily, well aware that the boy's dark eyes were watching him warily. "Besides, your mother was kind to me as a child. There were very few who were and I have a long memory for such things."

When it became apparent Naruto was done speaking for the night, Shingo sighed and went back to a troubled sleep.

(space)

Silence settled back into the tree as the medic-nin of the Konoha hospital rushed the boy clutching the medic-box in into the building.

"Not going to announce my presence, Hatake-san?"

Naruto felt the momentary surprise from his former sensei before the Jounin recovered. "Should I?"

Silence straightened and popped his back and shoulder muscles. The black clad shoulders shrugged. "Your call. I'm not here to do any harm. If you call me out, there is a very high chance Leaf-nin will die. If you let be go, no one but you, me and the kid will know I was ever here."

"Hn."

The presence disappeared. Naruto smiled behind his mask and flickered away

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