The Truth in Darkness
Disclaimer: I do not own the franchises of Harry Potter, Naruto or Type Moon. Which is a real pity. I could do wonders with the amount of money that these franchises pull in every year.
Prologue: The Seeker Arrives
Izumo was the first to notice the approaching figure, some instinct making him look away from the small game of shogi he was playing (and winning) with his longtime partner in battle, Kotetsu, from their current station as gate guards of the village behind them.
He sighed slightly as he rose from his seat, memorising the position of each piece carefully, his partner was rather sly and wouldn't hesitate to cheat if it meant winning, a typical attitude of a shinobi. He only wished the figure in the distance had come at a later time, he was on the verge of winning the game completely.
"On your feet, Ko," he grumbled to his friend, his hands already reaching for the sheaf of forms that conveniently hung on a hook just outside the guardhouse, paperwork that this obvious visitor to their village would need to fill out in order to enter. "Time to look professional."
His friend grumped and complied, absently scratching the bandages that ran across the bridge of his nose and shrugging his shoulders slightly to ensure the large kunai blades he wore on his back were comfortable and within easy reach of both of them.
Both of them stood quietly in their designated places before the gates, watching carefully as the figure approached. Nor were the two friends the only ones. Izumo could faintly feel the air become just a little heavier, an invisible force or presence filling the atmosphere around them both. It would have made many uncomfortable, backs itching in fear as invisible eyes watched them.
Izumo, however, couldn't help but feel safe and secure, though still cautious. He knew the reason for the slightly charged atmosphere and felt semi-relaxed.
Few would be willing to face the wrath of the Konoha ANBU. Even if they were still recovering from the Bijuu attack eight years ago, just like the rest of the village, shinobi or not, they were still not a force to be trifled with.
"Is there anything that we should know?" He said conversationally to no one. He didn't bother to raise his voice or turn his head, much like a non-shinobi would do when speaking to someone that they cannot see. If the squad of the elite couldn't hear his that he had voiced, then they weren't the elite at all.
There was a brief silence before he was answered, the voice a mere whisper on the wind but clearly understandable, by the invisible squad of masked shinobi hidden in the trees. His partner also heard them speak. Izumo didn't move his eyes away from the slowly approaching figure in the distance.
"The Barrier Teams have detected some...odd readings," the whispered voice floated down to them, soft and nigh silent, almost like a thought entering his mind rather than spoken words entering his ears.
Izumo's eyes narrowed slightly and traded a fleeting glance with his partner, caution rising higher within them. Odd meant Unknown and Unknowns were Bad News. It meant that a precise plan was not available and that they would have to play things by ear.
"Orders?" he asked crisply, switching his eyes back to the walking traveller he could see. On foot, the traveller still had a distance to travel. The figure didn't seem to be in any hurry, contentedly ambling along.
"Act normal," the reply came shortly, "The sensors have picked up no signs of active hostility. Only a degree of determination, a form of yearning and, strangely, hope. Someone will be attached to the anomaly when, and if, they enter the village."
That made Izumo and his partner relax a bit. If the sensors didn't detect any hostility, and he didn't doubt them, it was damn difficult to hide anything the sensors of the village, particularly since the majority of them came the Yamanaka clan, one that specialised in the study of the human mind and how to manipulate it, then it was unlikely that this person was coming to cause any trouble, at least of the bloodshedding kind. Who knew what the person's business was?
He casually observed the lone approaching figure, the rest of the highway that lead to the great gates of Konoha completely absent of traffic, not unusual considering the time, the day and the season. In fact, it was very unusual for anyone to be entering the village at this time, something that made Izumo eye the figure far more carefully than he normally would have, helped by the information from the lingering ANBU guardians.
The approaching traveller wore a full length black cloak that shielded the rest of the solitary individual's clothing beneath and reached the person's strange leather boots (the leather didn't look like the majority of leather that he had seen. It was shiny and dark, almost black. It put him in the mind of a purse that he had seen a wealthy noblewoman wear a one time. Her strident voice had proudly claimed to him, much to his discomfort due to the volume of her voice, that it was made of crocodile skin. The traveller's, though, looked more...scaly he supposed, but that wasn't quite accurate either.) that were liberally splattered with the mud of the roads that the person had no doubt travelled. The person's cloak had also not escaped the mud and dust of the road, though it was far less than Izumo expected, with the border of the garment, done with thread of scarlet and a dull silver, also looking to be quite dirty and soiled.
He examined what he could see of the border pattern on the cloak carefully. There were many clans, shinobi or otherwise, that embroidered certain designs on their garments, making the person that wore them identifiable. As a Gate Guard, not to mention his own preference and belief that 'information was power', it was part and parcel for him to know a great many designs, incals, icons and symbols that were linked with the great many clans and organisations, both foreign and domestic, in the Nations.
Hidden Villages always wanted to know who was in said village, particularly foreigners.
Unfortunately, for him, it seemed that cloak was a rather simple one, if very finely made from a very dark silk, with no decals and simply had a few lines of the two different colour threads on the borders. Nothing that stood out and nothing that he could link to any clan that he knew, which made him more than a little annoyed. He absolutely despised the concept of Unknowns.
The person's face was also completely hidden behind the cloak's hood, something that made Izumo frown. Custom and courtesy within the Elemental Nations demanded, by law, that a person always lowered their hood upon approaching a village. It was sign that they had nothing to hide and no reason to conceal their face, thus meaning that they meant no harm to village that sought to enter. To have one's hood blatantly up upon approach was the height of rudeness and few would trust such a person.
He would have to demand the person that they lower their hood before all else. Standard procedure of course, sometimes people forgot about the old rule, or simply wanted to keep their heads dry in ill weather, but considering the person was an Unknown...Caution was the watchword of the day.
The person (Izumo couldn't quite figure out what gender the traveller was, the black cloak that the traveller wore being rather baggy and capable of hiding quite a bit within its folds, though he was leaning towards male through the person's height, easily exceeding six feet, something that wasn't very common in the Elemental Nations.) also lacked any visible packs of travelling equipment, which made him further raise his guard, inwardly. Yes, there were quite a few things wrong with the entire picture, but as they had no definite proof, as yet, that this person was going to attempt to endanger the village, there was little he could do but follow the standard procedure and hope the ANBU could deal with the fall out.
Hopefully the standard checks would turn up some information.
"Halt, Traveller!" He demanded as the person came within range of his voice.
The person paused in their steps immediately, obviously hearing the seriousness in his voice. The shadowed hood cocked itself slightly, as if silently questioning the chuunin gate guard.
"I must ask that you lower your hood before approaching further," Izumo went on firmly, the hand that didn't hold the clipboard and papers resting against the kunai pouch on his thigh, ready to draw one at a moments notice. He felt the shift of his partner at his side as he did the same. A slightly greater heaviness in the air told him that the unseen ANBU were doing the same.
The hood swayed further as the person seemed locked in thought. A few moments passed, making the tension in the air rise and Izumo's fingers slowly glide toward the tinge on his kunai, before the hooded traveller responded.
Out of voluminous sleeves, hands emerged, calloused and rough but still retaining a great deal dexterity and finesse and grace to them as they slowly raised to the person's hood. It only further set Izumo on edge. Those were a warrior's hands, even more, they were a ninja's hands. The perfect blend of grace and power. This person was no simple civilian.
He quickly noted some very distinct identifying marks. On the back of his (and the traveller was definitely male, the subtle shape of the hands made that clear.) right hand was a distinct set of scars, a series of curved and looping lines that flowed across the back of his hand. It was like they were etched there by a slim knife. Evidence of torture perhaps? A sign of possible mental disturbance if the male had done it to himself? Whatever the case may be, it would be rather easy to identify him again, especially with unique markings such as that upon his skin.
His left hand didn't have anything like that, but it did have two rings. One on the ring finger and another on the middle digit. The one on the middle finger was a simple plain circle of silver mounted with a modest dark stone that seemed to shimmer and swirl with a variety of colours, like a rainbow enshrouded by darkness. It was not a stone or gem that Izumo recognised, but it was singularly unique and worth making another note of it.
The other ring, by contrast, was far more identifiable. A thick and clunky band of gold, ostentatious and ugly, mounted with a cracked black stone the size of a pebble. Hideous and awkward, it was definitely something someone would immediately notice, full of pompousness and pride. Even a beggar wouldn't be caught wearing such a specimen of rotten arrogance. It made Izumo wonder at the man's choice of wearing it, considering the crafted simplicity of the other ring.
He halted his observations of the man's hands as they finally drew back the hood of his cloak, revealing the face that had been hidden within its deep shadows.
Izumo had been right guessing that the traveller had been male, there was no mistaking those facial features, and had one of those faces that made it difficult to pinpoint an age, possibly in his late teens to mid-twenties. Sharp though they were, they didn't tread into the territory of slight femininity that made so many teenage girls go nuts. The traveller had a practical birds nest of black hair, as if he had just encountered a gale wind, atop of his head. His face was angled and sharp, but square enough to give him a firm, but not jutting jaw. The thing that most stood out about him, though, were his eyes.
They were a bright luminescent green, almost seeming to glow from where he stood, that Izumo had never seen before, looking almost unnatural. They were also sharp and assessing, the pupils almost slitted, like a predator, as they narrowly looked at him, as if picking him apart and boring directly into his soul, green blades that probed and prodded and cut away the veils of ignorance to find the Truth buried beneath. And behind those blades, a thousand eyes watched, inspecting and tallying the numbers, recording all that had been found.
Izumo found himself hating it. Screw what many people said about the 'all-seeing Byakugan' of the Hyuugas! Those pale eyes had nothing on this man's!
Taken together, the man's face gave Izumo the impression of a great bird of prey gazing upon something that they considered prey, wondering if they were worth the chase and effort to kill and devour. A slight chill went down his spine and he fought not to gulp.
He suddenly really really hoped that nothing came to blows. While he was no sensor, much to his misfortune, he didn't need such a skill to know that this was a powerful man and not someone he should mess with.
"Is this sufficient?" The man questioned, his voice calm and cool with a tinge of annoyed sarcasm, neither helpful nor hostile, and a slight accent that Izumo couldn't quite place a finger on. Just the voice of man who wanted to put his feet up for a time and thus had little patience to humour those he saw as fools.
Izumo got the feeling that he and his partner had made that man's mental list of idiots.
"Yes, sir," he responded, a professional mask in place while, inwardly, he was rather pale. His voice, aura and face gave him a rather frightening presence, but he was well trained in keeping a straight face. Maybe not as good as those in the T&I Department, but good enough to both keep one and spot one, "You may continue your approach."
"Obviously," the man said sourly, a slight frown on his face and his eyes rolling ever so slightly in exasperation, and continued forward, his scarred hand dipping deeply into the wide sleeve of his cloak briefly, making Izumo tense slightly, before withdrawing almost immediately, a clipped sheaf of papers in hand.
"My papers," the man said curtly as he came to stop before both chuunin, offering them to Izumo.
The hand not holding his clipboard took the offered papers and tucked them close to his chest. He would go through the normal questioning before verifying the man's travel papers.
"Name?" Izumo questioned, a pen appearing in his hand with a flick of his wrist and a bit of sleight of hand, a minor trick that he used to give a subtle warning to visitors that he was quicker than he thought and could cut them down in a moment, should it be his desire. It normally only worked on civilians however.
"I go by Haruki within the Nations," the man replied, "my birth name is almost impossible to pronounce in your tongue, so I chose one that is similar enough to it so I don't have hear the offensive butchered attempts made those I speak to."
That had Izumo raising an eyebrow and he could feel the interest from the hidden ANBU rise. The tongue spoken by Konoha was the universal tongue spoken within the Elemental Nations. There were, of course, some dialects in far flung regions, beyond the main trade routes and in small isolated villages, that were almost incomprehensible to those that only spoke the common tongue, but those were few and far between and those that spoke those tongues almost never set foot outside of their villages or had reason to.
This person, Haruki, however, didn't carry himself like one of those isolated villagers, who rarely saw anyone save for those that lived in the village and the occasional trader that passed through. Nor he did have the rough features that one could associate with those people. It would be something that the ANBU would no doubt look into.
"Occupation?" Izumo continued.
"Landowner and Lord," Haruki answered promptly, making Izumo inwardly choke while his partner openly spluttered in shock.
Well...that just made things far more difficult and way above his pay grade. He wasn't even going to speculate why a Lord, if the claim was true, didn't have a retinue or arrive in carriage or palanquin. He would have to step carefully now, more than he already was.
The rules that applied to Lords and those that applied to those of lower rank in society were quite different. A Hidden Village rarely had to be wary of offending normal people, the regular commoners and lower merchants, that made up their clientele, at least to a point, as, even if they took offence, they were almost never in a position to strike back at them, lacking the power, in any shape of the word, to do so.
Lords, however, from wherever they may be, were a different matter altogether.
They were protected by laws and custom since the earliest days of the shinobi system. The Daimyo, the Ruling Lords of the various nations, had seen what damage a shinobi could cause by eliminating the lesser lords within their courts or other such actions and had moved to prevent such chaos from expanding out of their control.
An immense massing of the largest army even assembled in the Nations, marching under the united banners of the Lords and Daimyos, had then pointed in the direction of the shinobi clans as the Daimyos had then forced the shinobi clans to play by their rules.
Even the greatest of shinobi could fall to sheer weight of numbers.
Izumo wasn't entirely sure of the deal that had been struck been the Daimyos and the Clans of the time, a deal that had then shifted to encompass the Hidden Villages once the system put into place by the Shodaime had come to fruition, but he knew that a shinobi or kunouichi attacking a Lord had better have their Kage at their back or there would be hell to pay, likely with their own life...if they were lucky.
That meant that, despite the anomaly that was this Lord, unless he did something completely stupid, like murder someone in broad daylight, in full view of a crowd on distinguished individuals of Konoha, like the entirety of the Clan Council, then they couldn't touch him.
Oh he would be watched, that was a certainty, but they would not be able to act on those observations without either permission of their ultimate superior, the Sandaime Hokage, or if he was in the middle of S-Class felony.
This day was just getting better and better.
Still, Izumo didn't let his unease show on his face. He had a job perform, a duty to Konoha to fulfil.
"Reason for visiting?" He continued to question, making an admirable effort to seem unruffled to the young Lord. A gleam in those unnatural green eyes somehow told him that he had failed miserably.
"Familial and Legal," Lord Haruki responded in a cool monotone.
Izumo frowned inwardly. Those two reasons were rather expansive, covering a large umbrella of possible reasons, but taken together...
His eyes briefly flicked over the self-proclaimed Lord. He didn't seem sorrowful or grieving, so maybe it the true reason for him visiting wasn't because of a death in the family, or at least his family. Perhaps a friend of said family helping to settle affairs? Though that begged the question on who in the village was linked to this clearly foreign stranger. Something for the ANBU to look into.
"Duration of stay?" Izumo continued calmly, noting down the man's responses in the appropriate places in the sheaf of forms as he did so.
"Undetermined," Lord Haruki responded, a slight frown crossing his face, "it all depends on how my business goes. A week at the very least," he frowned deeper, his scarred hand drifting down towards his waist and resting at his side, a dexterous finger tapping said side and, surprising, producing a muted wooden sound, as if he were striking a partially filled wooden box. "Possibly even years if things go a certain way."
That made Izumo frown hard and quickly scribble a message on a note. Had the Lord given a definite answer as to the duration of his stay, things would have been much easier for him. But due to the uncertainty...
It, however, did allow the ANBU to have a more valid reason to shadow him. And if they should turn up more than they initially thought? More power to them.
"That makes things a bit more difficult," he admitted to the Lord, looking eyes with him, "Provided your papers check out, I can let you in, but with your uncertain business...?" He gave a feeble shrug as if to say 'what can you do?'.
The Lord humphed slightly in irritation, his green eyes narrowed, the subtle glow seeming to brighten, and exasperated, "Am I to assume that I will assigned an escort or a guard for the duration of my stay?" His eyes cut towards to the trees on both sides of the road, making Izumo suddenly stiffen slightly in apprehension as the man's voice, smooth as silk but hard as iron, then continued speaking, "Perhaps one of the masked warriors in the trees?"
Beside him, Izumo felt Kotetsu tense again, even as, between one moment and the next, the seemingly vacant trees seemed to come alive, as beings in full length cloaks and painted porcelain masks suddenly appeared, as if out of the ether. Where there were once tree leaves and branches now stood these intimidating figures, surrounding those on the ground below them, making their collective presence known now that their cover was compromised. It was eerie, to Izumo, how suddenly they appeared, appearing in places he could have sworn were unoccupied a moment before.
Such was the prowess of the elite.
And this Lord had spotted them almost easily.
Izumo knew that this was well beyond his pay grade.
The assembled ANBU stood as motionless sentinels, looking down on those below like hawks at a rabbit, but stayed silent. Though they were revealed, and the Lord had surprised them at his insight, it was not enough to rank him as a hostile threat...yet. Thus this meant that they could do little but look on, giving their chuunin comrades below a bit of intimidating leverage, to try and make this proclaimed Lord sweat a little, maybe even make a mistake for them to all capitalise on.
Judging by the finely arched eyebrow the green eyed Lord raised as he looked impassively around him with his piercing raptor like gaze, that was an unlikely possibility. He didn't look threatened at all, merely acknowledging the show of force and, probably, coming up with a plan to take them down should they choose to attack him. His body language, from what little the chuunin could read beneath the voluminous cloak, was completely relaxed and at ease...or at least seemed to be.
"Unlikely," Izumo answered as calmly as he could, hiding the apprehension he felt being between a Lord, who clearly had more power than just wealth, and an eight man squad of semi-antsy ANBU. He really didn't want to be caught between the two sides if it came down to a dust up. He opened the sheaf of papers that the Lord had presented him with at the beginning to distract himself from the subtle, but heavy, air of tension between them all. "You have not shown any hostility, as of yet. A chuunin is likely to be assigned to you instead before you can enter." He said calmly as he read through the papers, inspecting them with an experienced eye.
They were definitely the real deal, the hidden watermark interacting with a subtle pulse of his chakra in the correct manner, but they were also very new, issued within the last year. Odd but not unknown, sometimes paper just wears out with enough use.
His name checked out, though there seemed to be two words written in a script he had never seen before just below that of 'Haruki Kuro'. A script that looked oddly like that of the markings on the back of Lord Haruki's right hand. This Lord was definitely from further afield than he originally thought, even isolated villages used Elemental script. In fact, he only knew this was a type of script due to his training in cryptography, even if he couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was completely foreign to his understanding!
A chill went down his spine once more as an idea hit him like a meteor. Was it possible that this man was a Lord from beyond the boundaries of the Elemental Nations? As absurd as it sounded, none of the Nations having heard or seen anything from beyond their respective borders for centuries, it was not beyond the realms of possibility. It could explain the odd accent, the unfamiliar cut of his clothing and the strange script that was clearly used, none of which matched any region within the Nations that he knew of.
He checked the place of issue, just to give himself an idea of the viability of his suspicion. Sure enough, the place of issue was Iron Country, the westernmost Nation, and was, furthermore, issued within a region of Iron Country that Izumo knew for a fact bordered the very fringes of civilisation known to the Elemental Nations.
He groaned inwardly, pleading to the lords of the Heavenly Plains, high above, to know why this had to happen to him? Outwardly, he showed little, just making a show of inspecting the younger man's papers once more.
"Everything seems to be in order," Izumo announced, jotting down a pair of notes add rolling up the man's papers as he did so, "if you could only wait a few more minutes, I can organise your escort within the village," Izumo requested as he handed the papers back to the now irritable looking green-eyed man.
"Please do hurry," the man, Lord Haruki, requested back, a scowl across his admittedly handsome features as he tucked his papers away from where he got them, the sheaf vanishing up the man's sleeve, the voluminous fabric doing well to hide the Lord's hands and actions, "my patience wears thin and I have other things to try and accomplish today before I rest my head."
"It will only be a few minutes," Izumo assured the young Lord before looking up to the ANBU squad hovering in the branches, "Captain!"
One of the masked elite shinobi instantly responded, dropping to the ground in a blue of motion and landing with fluid grace, and without a single sound, right next to Izumo.
One half of the gate guardian duo handed two rolled notes to the ANBU squad captain, his hands flickering in silent hand language for the elite shinobi to deliver the notes to the appropriate places. One of which was to go directly to the office of the venerable Hokage.
He would need to be informed of both events that had transpired and the suspicions that Izumo had in regards to the origins of the strange young Lord. There was an opportunity here, it wouldn't do for his inexperience in such weighty matters to foul things up.
The squad captain vanished without a word, Body Flickering away at high speed, when the squirrel masked shinobi received the notes. It was only a matter of waiting for a time now for the notes to be received and acknowledged and responded to in the appropriate manner.
Time that was met with an awkward and tense silence between the two chuunin, the ANBU squad in the trees, and an impatient and irritable travelling Lord from who-knows-where.
Izumo let the uncomfortable silence hang for a few moments before he tried to break it, trying to make conversation while he awaited his requests to go through the chain of command. Trying to get more information on an Unknown was rarely a bad idea.
He was interrupted, however, as the Lord himself decided the break the silence instead.
"Can you tell me where I can find a decent inn?" The Lord requested, his face set into a frown.
"The Burning Leaf Inn would be your best bet, especially given that its the quiet season," Izumo answered promptly, hiking a thumb behind him towards the closed gates. They were generally almost always open during the busy merchant season but, as it was the dead part of the year, they only opened it when they needed to, preferring to use the small single gates set inside the larger ones that allowed access for singular and small groups of travellers rather than entire wagon trains. "Its two blocks away from the gate, right on the main street. Just look for a large red sign, you can't miss it."
"Reasonably priced?" The Lord asked, Izumo quickly nodding in agreement, "That is good to know. How about the location of a money changer?"
Izumo frowned slightly, "You would have either go to the Bank, going straight for three blocks and then going left for two, its situated in a white brick building, or to the red light district, over the east side. They have a few places near the gambling halls. The ones in the district give better rates than the Bank, but they would only be willing exchange a certain amount in total. The Bank would be needed if you wish to do larger transactions."
"My thanks," the Lord said with a nod of gratitude, the frown on his face lifting ever so slightly.
Any other conversation that could have happened between them was halted by the return of Squirrel, along with another familiar face, to Izumo, wearing a chuunin vest.
"So you got tapped, Umino?" Izumo smirked slightly at the young chuunin, one that had only recently earn his vest during the last six months, despite being only a year younger than Izumo himself, who had been a chuunin for a just over three, and was stilling learning the ropes in regards to his newly acquired rank. It took generally took a little time for a former genin to get uses to the change in circumstances that one had to face when ascending from genin to chuunin, mostly due to them having to get used to the fact that they no longer had a jounin looking over their shoulder, making them have be more proactive and self-sufficient, becoming more independent.
An escort/bodyguard/espionage mission for an unknown Lord would be an interesting way for the new chuunin to get his feet wet.
"Yes, sir," the tanned figure of Iruka Umino said with a respectful bow to Izumo, who had just been handed a brief note from the Squirrel ANBU, one that came directly from the Hokage's office. He scanned the contents quickly. It didn't contain anything that he didn't expect, but it made his course of action clear and ensured that he was still making the right choices.
"Very well then," Izumo said, quickly scribbling in a form and stamping it with his chakra, making the reactive paper turn a deep green, before handing it the impatient looking Lord as he spoke, "Lord Haruki, may I introduce you to Iruka Umino. He will be your guide and escort while you are in the village, free of charge and with the compliments of the Sandaime Hokage, until tomorrow afternoon, where you will have a face to face audience with the Sandaime Hokage to ensure that your business can be concluded in a timely manner or, failing that for whatever reason, to ensure that neither yourself, or the village, comes to harm in any way from any actions that you take afterwards." He then frowned at the Lord, his face becoming more serious, "You are Unknown quantity, Lord Haruki, and that makes the Leaf uneasy, especially when your entering the very heart of our village. Shinobi don't like being uneasy."
The Lord merely sighed and rolled his green eyes, "Shinobi and their paranoia," he grumbled softly, something that was still heard by one and all present.
"It is our paranoia that keeps us alive," Izumo returned, his eyes slightly hard. It had been one of the first lessons that his late jounin instructor, may he rest in peace, had made sure he had learned, along with his belief that 'knowledge was power'.
"Understandable," the Lord grunted, slipping the green pass into his large sleeves, the odd dark rainbow stone on one of his rings winking in the sunlight as he did so. "Still doesn't make it any less annoying to deal with though."
"Perhaps," Izumo shrugged, slightly unbalanced by the change in the Lord's attitude, going from coldly formal and irritated to a more casually annoyed. "But in either case..." He smiled slightly at the young Lord as he heard the subtle grinding of old gears and wooden squeaks due to the gates behind him slowly opening.
"Welcome to Konohagakure."
Lord Haruki, as he was known within the Elemental Nations, sighed heavily in relief as the door to his rented room closed and heard his escort-cum-possible-assassin-and-subtle-interrogator slide a small chair in the hallway, taking his watchful position for the night.
He honestly felt he was more under house arrest rather then being protected from the overpowered fiendish warriors that inhabited the Nations.
Bloody ninjas and their paranoia. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of it.
"Finally some privacy," he grumbled to himself as he divested himself of his bag filled with various travelling accessories. Not that the bag meant anything to him. It was a ruse that contained nothing of value or importance to him, but was necessary to keep the overly suspicious ninja out of his affairs as much as possible.
It had worked in the minor villages he had travelled through, as well as in Iwa, but something told him, mostly his experiences with his own brand of luck, that quite a few things would start to unravel for him in this village, one that, according to his instrument, contained his ultimate goal.
He shrugged to himself wordlessly. Things could be a lot worse, he would just have to deal with what challenges will come his way in the same way he always did, boldly and bravely and head on.
Though he had learned how to be cautious and careful and cunning when it was needed, something he wished that he had etched into his mind in his younger years, due to having expanded his horizons after he had left school.
He flopped down on to the comfortable bed that his rented room provided, letting out a sigh of relief and relaxation, looking vacantly at the white ceiling for a time.
It had taken him almost a year of travelling and incidents, some of them providing him good memories and others bad, but the end of his self ordained quest was in sight. He just had to tough it out for a few more, to keep his skills and abilities under wraps just a little longer.
He held out his hand above his head, staring into the dark colourful depths of his black opal ring as he lay on his bed.
Just a little longer...
He flicked his hand and spoke, just as the image of an emerald green flash of light and a woman's cry filled his mind, the image sending a surge of power coursing through his very soul.
"I have arisen from the Abyss."
The air around him seemed to ripple and waver slightly, taking a slightly dimmer cast, as if a veil of darkness and water was moving across the sources of light in the room.
With a twist of his will, those ripples abruptly shrunk, coming together to form a small ball of darkness, the size of his clenched fist, hovering in front of his face. Then it began to change.
The ball shrank further, flattening out and losing its dark colouring, taking on a brighter hue of whirling colours, a rainbow suspended in darkness. The chaotic colours then began to shift and swirl, shades of different colours locking themselves in different places and different shapes, like a painter at his canvas.
Within a moment, he was looking at a floating photo, the one, along with its accompanying aged and yellowed letter, that had set him on his journey to this place.
It showed a man and woman, reclining against a old oak. The woman in the photo was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with long and vibrant red hair and eyes the colour of leaves, a gentle smile adorned the healthy skin of her face as she looked into the camera's lens.
Were it not for the age of the original photo, he could have mistaken the woman in the photo for his long deceased mother, the similarities between the woman and his deceased mother being that close.
The woman was Rose Evans née Pride, his maternal grandmother. He had never gotten to meet her in life, much to his misfortune, she had died years before he had ever been born.
The man, on the other hand, was unique and the reason for him setting on an almost insane journey across the rifts of time and space.
He had shaggy black hair and brown eyes, ones that conveyed a small sense of warmth hidden beneath darkness and discipline, the eyes of warrior from the shadows. His stern features were an odd mix of Asiatic and Caucasian that seemed odd to him, at first glance, but did not detract from a face that many women would have considered handsome. He seemed to be of a like age to his grandmother in the photo, somewhere in his twenties, but the man known as Haruki, whilst in the Nations, could see the soft lines of tension and stress that plagued the man's demeanour, even in the picture.
He had obviously lived a rough and hard life in the time before the photo had been taken and the frozen image had captured it perfectly.
With the fierce and determined, if somewhat tired, air about him, not to mention his more than decent looks, Haruki could see why his grandmother had been taken with him all of those years ago.
'Just a little longer,' thought the man known as Haruki, 'and maybe, just maybe, I can find some family again.'
He sighed once more before closing his eyes, preparing to drift into slumber, weary from the travels and events of the day, his hands idly tracing the face of the man that was pictured beside his grandmother.
In particular, the cross-shaped scar that appeared on the point of his chin.
Author Notes
Hey folks,
I hope you liked the introduction for one of my new stories!
The premise of this story has been kicking around in my head for quite a while, changing a little bit but still keeping it relatively the same.
This story is set several years before the start of 'Naruto' and it also has the time of a certain event shifted in order to a later time in order for the story to be set. In regards to the Harry Potter timeline, it is set several years after the end of Book 7 and ignores the Epilogue entirely, and during those years Harry has changed significantly from the self-sacrificing boy he had been. I might show some important scenes of his past, events that have shaped into what he is now, but it won't be for a while.
As to how he came to Elemental Nations and where they are in relation to the United Kingdom, and Earth, you will all have to keep reading to find out. Just know that a certain fanged King of Trolls has stirred the pot a bit, as per usual.
I also apologise for the lack of action and explanation in this chapter, the next two will be much better on both fronts, I promise.
Keep it real and review,
Kujikiri21