Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.
A set of brilliant blue eyes peeked through a crack in the wall. They scanned from left to right, and then back again. Once they were sure that the coast was clear, they left the crack. At the top of the wall, a blond tuft of hair rose quickly, followed by those blue eyes. They belonged to a young boy, who could be no older than 8 from appearances. The face was one that was easily recognizable; as not many people had twin sets of whisker marks on their face. The eyes that belonged to that young face held fear within them, but also a sense of determination was there.
For this child, today was not going to be a good day. It was October 10th, his birthday in fact. While for many, this would be a day that would cause much joy and fortune; it was quite the opposite for this young child. Though he did not know why the people of the village hated him so much, he did know that today was the worst day of all.
He had found that out the hard way a few years ago, when he had tried to join in the celebrations that also happened that very day. To say that things did not turn out how he expected would be a vast understatement. He barely made it away from the enraged mob with a few scratches and bruises. He knew now that things would have been much worse if hadn't happened close to the main plaza where the Hokage had been.
The old man was one of the few people who truly treated the boy nicely, and for that, he was one of the boy's treasured friends. He would do anything for those few people, but only the ones that proved to be true. He had been fooled before by people pretending to be nice for a little while, just to hurt him more than they would have been able to otherwise. Through those experiences, the boy had withdrawn into himself, erecting a mask of idiocy to hide behind. People had to earn his trust, even if he seemed to be open to everyone.
All this of course, had little to do with his current predicament. He had left his house this morning without looking at the calendar, so that he could go to the academy. When he arrived, he noticed that the doors were closed and no one was outside to welcome the students to the school that morning. It only took him a second to figure out that meant there was no school today, which meant that is was probably a holiday. After a few seconds of more thought, his eyes widened and he clenched his teeth. It was THAT day.
The boy quickly realized the danger that he had invoked by venturing out of the relative safety of his house that day. Running up to the wall that surrounded the academy, he looked for a way to see outside of the academy without showing his telltale hair and whisker marks. He had found the crack in the wall and looked around.
Of course, while his position was safe from the prying eyes of the villagers, it was not safe from the shinobi who could leap from building rooftop to rooftop. One such shinobi was now perched on top of the academy building, looking at the young boy with more contempt in his eyes than should ever be focused at anyone, let alone a young boy.
'Finally, I found the brat. Now he'll pay for what he did to my family…but I shouldn't be the only one to enjoy this.' The shinobi thought to himself quickly, and then pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a quick note on it. With a few handseals and a whisper of kuchiyose no jutsu, a small pigeon appeared in a poof of smoke. The shinobi tied the paper onto the bird's leg and gave it a mental command to give the message to his teammate.
'Now, he should be able to round up some guys to help get rid of this brat once and for all, while I track him if he decides to move.' The shinobi thought, then started chuckling to himself.
Ironically, at the same time that the shinobi on the roof had that thought, the boy pushed himself over the wall at the back of the academy. It was safer for him to exit that way, because the entrance to the academy opened up onto one of the main avenues in the city. The only reason he hadn't been accosted on the way there was that he had left before most people awoke, a trick he had learned to avoid the harassment he would get everyday on his way to school.
Moving quickly into a back alley, he started his trip back to his house. It wasn't very far away, so if he moved quickly and didn't attract too much attention, he might be able to get there in one piece for once. The boy had learned all of the possible routes to his house from nearly everywhere in the city. One might consider that to be paranoid and slightly obsessive compulsive, but as the saying goes 'It's not paranoia when there are really people out to get you.'
From the academy, which was one of the main points of interest to him, there were five routes he could take. Two of which involved him getting into the sewer, and the last time he had done that, he couldn't get the stink out for three days. So he would rather not use the sewer if at all possible.
Deciding to take a route that would get him to his home quickly but sacrificing a little safety, he set out. The boy figured that while this route was in fact riskier in the short term, the safest route, which was the longest, would have the risk compounded by time, since everyone was set to be waking up soon.
Obviously, very few people would consider the boy possible of thinking of things along that line, but while the boy portrayed idiocy, he was in fact very clever. Not a genius by any means, but he had a quick wit, and highly developed self-preservation thought process.
The boy hopped onto a nearby trashcan, and grabbing the ledge of a nearby building, dragged his small frame onto the rooftop. From there he made short work of running and leaping from building to building. The village had become so crowded in the last couple years that the buildings had continued to edge closer and closer to one another, so much so that now even an academy student could run safely on the rooftops. The risky part was that up on the rooftop, while less visible from the villagers on the roads, he became glaringly obvious to any shinobi nearby.
After a few more leaps between buildings, his apartment complex came into sight. That sight gave the boy a little more determination and he quickened his pace a little. It was at this point, that everything the boy had been trying to avoid came crashing down around him.
Hearing the soft whistle of metal slicing through the air, the boy dropped to all fours, just to see a barrage of kunai and shuriken fly through the space his body had just occupied. It seemed that the god of luck was not with him today after all. The boy quickly turned around to try and gauge his chances of escape. What he saw nearly made him whimper in fear. Five shinobi had surrounded him, all wearing flak vests, which signified they were either Chuunin or Jounin; the boy was unable to tell the difference, though it hardly mattered.
"So, demon, are you going to continue to run with your tail tucked between your legs, or are you going to accept your death for the atrocities that you committed to this village?" One of the men asked, with a sneer pasted on his face.
"Wha...What are you talking about?" The boy whimpered out, even as he dropped into a basic defensive stance. It wouldn't really do him much good, but if he was at least able to protect his vital organs, he might make it out of this with his life if nothing else.
"Hmph, still acting the part, eh? That's fine, since you obviously won't repent; we'll have to serve justice to you the hard way" Another man said, with a similar sneer on his face.
The boy hardly knew what hit him, the shinobi moved so fast that he only caught bare glimpses of them. That in itself was quite a feat, though the boy didn't know that, the only thing he knew at that moment was pain, a lot of pain. They had started with bare knuckle punches, beating the boy blue, all of them attacking and getting a punch and kick in. After a few minutes, they were frustrated, the damn brat hadn't cried yet, just taking every hit with a grimace.
One of the men pulled out his kunai and approached the bleeding, bruised, and completely defenseless boy slowly, making sure that he saw his death coming.
'So, this is the end, is it? It's not the way I wanted things to end, but maybe things will be better on the other side.' The boy thought to himself as the corner of his lips twitched slightly upwards.
Seeing the boy smirk at his oncoming death enraged the shinobi who quickly ran forward and plunged it into the boy's stomach. The man then slashed the lodged kunai to the side, ripping the boy's abdomen from one side to the other, directly over a strange tattoo that was on his stomach.
The last thing the boy saw was both surprising and horrifying all at the same time. The shinobi that had taken his life from him was now lying on the ground, the side of his head caved in from a gigantic blow from a sandaled foot. The sandaled foot was connected to a powerful leg covered in green spandex.
As the boy's vision started turning black, a red flash erupted in his vision, before returning to the encroaching darkness. The last thought of the boy reflected on his current state, that his mind was malfunctioning from the body failing on it.
'Those are the biggest eyebrows I've ever seen in my life…'