Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto

A.N. A short mental ramble that I had to express. The thunderstorm and lack of computer has me in a low contemplative mood and my minds wandering from the path it normally goes has this idea stuck in my head.

Similarities: A short story

You could place them side by side throughout their histories, and if told how they closely resemble another, give the speaker a look of incredility. Perhaps the person was insane, you'd think, to imagine the two had anything in common.

You would be wrong of course. For in the very root of it, Rock Lee and Kabuto have uncanny similarities at the heart of what makes them.

"But how could that be?" you'd ask skeptically. "For surely the cruel and sadistic egomaniac has nothing in common with the kind hard working and self preclaimed 'Azure Beast of Konoha'!"

So let us return to the past and the hearts and minds of two lost children. Both orphans, raised in hardship, trying to define themselves on the unstable and turmulous, constantly changing social scene around them. No family, no history, hardly a name. At the very soul of these two children is a pained and jaded outlook. Shown affection by slight few, they try to absorb and assimilate every drop of it.

Life and dreams shattered, the illusion of tranquility broken, one child is told his dream could never exist, and another is ripped away from the only family he ever has known only for to be reunited in a painful and miserable manner.

Support in their life came from an unexpected corner. This is the key defining moment for each child. One child, mind in pieces after having killed the mother who had been brainwashed to forget him, is picked up by the worst type. A sly and twisted man who is more the devil's own serpent than human.

"Create who you are," he would tell the child, molding him in his own image. "Take from the innocent and rework yourself into the image you want to be." A lost child given direction to a dark path of no return would distort his own reality until only a monster remained.

Another child is found by an exuberant and pure soul with a drive to succeed that no one could match. A father figure in the child's life, a role model, someone just for him. It is a irreplaceable gift to a lost child such as this. The boy would come to emulate his mentors every detail, and that same drive to succeed would fill him and begin his path to accomplish his dreams, a thing that he had been told would be impossible for him.

Two lost children, two different paths. In a different world they could have been friends. In a vastly different world they could have swapped places. It is frightening to imagine that, but not impossible.

On two opposing sides of an epic and bloody battle they would never realize how much they have in common. "Maybe that is for the best," you'll decide. I know it was my decision.

-fin

A.N. Finally an idea I've managed to express! Whew! Hope my people like it.