The little boy standing in the street alone went unnoticed; everyone around him was oblivious to the shiver in his body as the wind and rain tore through his ratted dirty clothes too caught up in their own lives, in their own arrogance that everything in the world was right.

People bustled through the streets of the hidden leaf village, past the small huddled figure like he wasn't even there, like his presence was so pathetic that he was beneath their notice. Children raced each other happily playing chases, knocking his small frame to the ground as they whizzed past him. The children didn't look back to see who they had hit or maybe they had not even noticed they had hit somebody but they continued to laugh and play as if his huddled fallen figure wasn't even there. As if he didn't exist.

His stomach was empty his body was crying out for sustenance. The boy sat on the street, too exhausted to cry, too torn apart to scream, too agonised to call for help. Too delirious to remember why he wanted help in the first place, no one had listened to him before, why would they now?

He had been long since cared for. He had nobody in the world. People were all around him yet he not only felt like he was alone but he felt like he was tainted, a useless dirty pest upon the world he had been thrown in. He wanted to scream to the people around him that it wasn't his fault, that he was sorry that he was not of worth or purpose. His only value being his body that would serve as food to the earth and even in that he had not much to give. He was barley skin and bones, his body o weak and fragile. It had not always been like this, not that he could remember that time.

His mother and father had died when he was born. The third Hokage had looked after him financially until when he was five and the third Hokage had died. He had been too young to understand the full meaning of death, but all the same he had grieved. The third Hokage had been the closest thing he had known to a parent. However when he had died the government had closed down his pension he had been receiving for his care, deeming him a waste of money. Without support he had been kicked out of both his home and school then dumped onto the streets.

He had begged, bargained, sold the clothes off his back and with his own blood and tears had managed to barely stay alive. Now at the tender age of eight he still had not gotten anywhere, he was as homeless and as poor as he had started out. His next meal had always been uncertain but this time he had gone without one for too long. Not that it mattered; he had lost his will to live. Happiness was a foreign feeling to him, to the point where he believed that pain and sadness was all that he was able to feel anymore.

The little boy didn't feel the man sit beside him his senses where so dulled from malnutrition and pain until the man lifted a hand to his chin to turn him toward his face.

He didn't fight, even though he knew the man could be a paedophile or a killer. He didn't care anymore; he just wanted to fade away with the dying sun. Maybe then the painful throb in his heart would cease, maybe then is gut wenching sadness would fade, maybe then the hunger would be quenched. The little boy didn't pray for the strength to live nor happiness or even a loving family again, he prayed for nothingness. For the heart shredding pain to end.

The man wore a black robe that covered him from head to toe imprinted with red clouds; the pattern to him looked like the clouds were bleeding in a dark storm. The man's face was obscured by a hood, but a rich deep voice emanated from the darkness.

"Hello. My name is Nagato. What is your name child?"

The man spoke to him as if he wasn't trash like he was really interested in the answer, like he mattered, like they were equals.

Even in the boys state his interest with piqued, weakly but still even that was a small miracle in its self.

"I-"

The boy faltered agony filling his eyes.

"I-I can't r-remember." He whispered his voice hoarse. It had been so long that somebody had cared enough to learn his name. He had just been 'you!' now nearly half of his life. It took all his efforts to keep his head up and his mouth to make the right movements, his tongue feeling like lead in his dry parched mouth.

The unknown man raised his hands to pull the hood back, not completely but enough so that he could see his face. The boy froze, if he had been stronger he would have felt shocked. He ran a hand over the piercings all over the man's face with a violently shaking hand. The piercings were black thick bars three in his nose, two at the corner bottom of his lip looking like fangs and multiple piercings lined his ears. On anybody else it would have looked stupid or ugly, but on him… it looked oddly beautiful. He had stunning short orange that fell into his eyes that were strangely ringed. Those eyes held warmth and understanding despite how unusual they were. He smiled gently, kindly.

"That is okay." He reassured him. Nagato used simple language short and to the point.

Nagato paused as he watched the child sway as if he were a leaf in the wind. Nagato had just been just passing through the hidden leaf village when he had spotted this boy from the corner of his eye. Nagato had seen poverty in his travels, had seen children and women's bodies litter villages after the Great Ninja War had swept over it in all its glory. Yet the sight of this one child so skinny so young…so alone dying on the street water pelting down on his completely unprotected body as people bustled past him avoiding looking at him, like he was an ugly piece of art of their world of beauty, captured his attention and intense disgust. Not one of them stopped to offer him even a tissue.

Nagato didn't know what had possessed him to sit down in the pouring rain but soon he found himself staring into the blue eyes filled with so much pain it made him want to wrap this child in bubble wrap and protect him from the world, whispering promises that no one would ever hurt him again. When the boy lifted his hand to his piercings he let him. What amazed him was that there was no fear in his face as he did so. Most people saw his face and their faces screwed up in either aversion or alarm. But the child's face was one of acceptance and faint curiosity.

"I am looking for a companion in my travels." Nagato said even though had been looking for no such thing.

"Would you care to fill that position?" He asked, inspired all of a sudden, he mind made up. He would take care of the boy, like obviously nobody had. Why he had no idea, but a cord stuck in his heart with the thought of leaving him there. He wanted the boy to make his own decision to come with him however time was running out he was about to collapse at his feet. How he remained upright Nagato had no idea. He looked so weak and fragile, like a thin glass statue slowly fracturing under the pressure of the wind.

The boy looked up at the man, his head jerking as if the strength to move his head was an Olympian fete. The boy's eyes

"I- I…too weak to m-m-move, let al-alone travel with y-you."

"I will carry you to my hotel and get you cleaned up and fed."

"It's okay m-mister, I'm n-not worth the trouble. I-I would hate to burden you."

The boy looked away waiting for him to leave him like everyone in in life had. Nagato wasn't taking no for an answer though. He thought for a moment.

"How about I make a deal with you."

Nagato watched the boy's eyes flash in surprise even though he looked about ready to pass out any second now. Nagato continued,

"I will give you food and board and anything else you might need. In exchange you travel with me all over the world as my companion and as my student."

"You're…student? Why would you….?" He asked weakly his eyes drifting closed then open.

"I feel…great potential in you and I would like to have someone to pass on my ninja skills and training on to."

"Why?" He whispered again, refusing to give in to the blackness that was fringing his mind with obvious difficulty.

"Well, I guess in a way I want to be remembered, I don't want what I have trained so hard to get be lost forever simply because I have passed onto the neither lands. I know you may not understand, but one day when you are as old as me, you will. So what do you say, do you accept our deal?"

There was a moment of silence were all that passed between that was pelting rain and the sound of it hitting the pavement.

The boy's whispered 'yes' was lost in the sound as he fell to the ground, unconscious.