For them it was only the beginning of the story, but where every story begins another must end.
And so nothing ever truly ends nor does it truly begin. Fate is set and it spins on and on for eternity...
They were on a mission, just like any other mission. At least that's what he thought. They were to transport somebody from this backwater little village to Konoha. A normal, mundane, everyday mission. C-rank, but only because they had to leave the village. They were just walking into the bar that was supposed to be the pick up point.
Normally he, or anyone his age for that matter, wouldn't be allowed anywhere close to that place. But the headband him and his teammates wore gave them access to almost anywhere, as long as they were on a mission.
"Alright, the client is supposed to be in there," spoke up their teacher, lazily contemplating the faded sign hanging from the roof, "Make sure to behave yourselves- especially you Naruto. No goofing off, they won't hesitate to kick you out." Kakashi muttered the warning almost perfunctorily, no real admonishment in his voice.
"What!? Why me? What did I do?" Naruto shouted, flailing one arm in protest.
"Because you're always goofing off, Naruto. At least try to act professional for a while." Scolded the pink haired kunoichi to his left with a sigh.
"Aw, don't say that Sakura-chan!" he whined.
"Tch, moron," scoffed Sasuke under his breath. The dark haired boy had been groggy since they broke camp that morning and Naruto was becoming rather adept at pretending he didn't hear his poisonous jabs.
"Alright, alright, let's get going." said Kakashi, breaking the building argument before it occurred. They all walked into the dim establishment following his lead, subdued and bitter.
Kakashi had learned to hate missions like these since he took on these genin. Long spans of constant movement with no reprieve from each others company was enough to make his already hot-headed team a restless and tense powder keg of irritation and hormones.
He didn't miss his youth so much, when he thought about it.
The first thing they noticed when they made it inside was that the bar was barely lit and smelled heavily of smoke and alcohol. Nothing too out of the ordinary for a dingy bar, in a dingy town. If anything the place was painfully cliche. Shadows clung to the corners and any ninja worth their kunai would have been easily concealed in moments.
Slowly Naruto's eyes adjusted and he looked around curiously, after all he'd never been in a bar. Well, not in a situation where he had the luxury to stand around and snoop, at least. Unsurprisingly he saw several patrons heavily inebriated, to the point where it was a miracle they were standing. But to his surprise a large majority of the patrons were actually quite lucid and looked unassuming and non-threatening. He pouted a little, disappointed.
It looked like the mission would stay boring for a little longer.
"This way," said Kakashi, lowly so as to not draw too much attention to them. Not that Naruto thought a cloaked man and three children would pass for innocuous. They made their way over to the bar counter slowly, staying near to the edges of the room.
"Excuse me, is the owner here?" asked Kakashi pleasantly, flashing his headband to the bartender as he adjusted his hood. The bartender grunted in acknowledgment, nodded, and disappeared to the back. Not too long after, a large middle age woman, who looked like she could win in a wrestling match with a grizzly bear, walked out from the back.
"You the ninja?" she asked, with a voice that rumbled with age and no doubt years of smoke inhalation. She looked over Kakashi approvingly before flicking her gaze to the genin with obvious doubt.
"Yes, we are." Replied Kakshi, with fake cheer. She looked them over with one last sweeping gaze, and Naruto felt like he was going to snap like a twig just from her gaze. "So they let kids like them be Ninja now?" she asked, gruffly.
Naruto felt Sakura fidget uncomfortably to his left and Sasuke tense in what was no doubt offense. His pride never did care for gruff laymen throwing around assumptions.
"These brats couldn't scare a fly, let alone kill it." She declared, with a gruff chuckle that sounded like a morbid mockery of amusement. Kakshi shifted minutely on his feet and Naruto thought that he would sigh if they weren't conducting business.
"I assure you these are fully trained Shinobi," he let the false cheer in his voice harden in surety, "Even though they're young they're more than qualified for the job." He said with confidence.
"Is that so?" The owner said, looking him in the eye challengingly. An intense stare down ensued and lasted for a few tension filled seconds as the two seemed to have a battle of wills. Most civilians had the sense not to challenge a Jounin to a staring contest, but this woman had likely never seen a hidden village in her life. She couldn't be blamed for her ignorance. Finally the woman cracked a smile and started to laugh.
"Alright, I guess you'll do." She said, with a harsh nod as she leaned more fully on the counter. She threw a roguish smile to the three children in what Naruto assumed was supposed to be a reassuring manner. He was anything but reassured.
"Thank you; now you wouldn't happen to be the person we're protecting, would you?" he asked good naturedly. The smile abruptly slipped from her face and a guarded look passed over her, that even Sasuke would be impressed with.
"No, that I'm not." She replied shortly. Just then something in the air changed, the room seemed much less inviting. "Over there." She grunted, nodding her head toward a small stage on the other end of the bar. Obviously set up for the odd local performance and bar room pianist. It was completely dark. Kakashi had had them training their five basic senses since leaving Konoha, prohibiting chakra sensing while it would be safe enough to train with a handicap. They would have to lift the ban as soon as they started they're mission properly.
"I can't see anything," murmured Sakura, in that self-conscious tone of hers, "What about you, Sasuke?" she asked, her voice getting high and overbearing when she reached the name. Naruto forced himself not to roll his eyes.
"Nothing." Replied Sasuke shortly. Even without his sharingan his eye sight was almost perfect- typical of him as far as Naruto was concerned. If even his 20/20 vision- and Naruto suspected the only reason it wasn't better was because even the Uchiha genes had some respect for hassled optometrists- couldn't see anything, then they would normally assume there was nothing to see. Naruto looked intently at the stage himself and he was surprised that he could barely make out something moving in the darkness. He strained his sight and could make out the silhouette of a person moving around.
"There's someone up there!" He exclaimed; equally as surprised at the fact as he was of his certainty. His teammates made small questioning sounds in response as Kakashi just looked at him curiously. He looked closer, and could barely make out that the shape was feminine.
"A girl, I think," He said, surprised he could make out that much, "Or a real elegant guy." He knew by now that appearances could be deceiving in that regard and would rather not be wrong in front of his teammates. He ignored the suspicion in the back of his mind that his keen eyes had more dubious origins than good genes.
"Wow, you're pretty good kid." Praised the owner, with an approving nod.
"Thanks." he replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, embarrassed.
"So is 'she' the one we're supposed to protect?" asked Sakura.
"Yeah, that's her. She sings here every night," replied the owner, a hint of bitterness in her smirk, "She's actually about to come on; you should sit and watch, she's good." There was both sadness and pride in her eyes when she said it.
Kakashi looked at the owner in a way that would seem blank to anyone who didn't know him, but Naruto could tell he was searching for something in her mannerisms to give him information. Jounin, and any good shinobi Naruto had found, were naturally hungry for information. The smallest missing piece of intelligence could send a mission straight to hell, and so they learned to weasel out secrets as easily as breathing. The only problem, Naruto had been told by Iruka once, was knowing when to stop looking for answers.
A good ninja craved information, a wise ninja knew when to be satisfied. Discretion was always key. Or something. He looked at the owner then back at his teacher. He had no idea why she seemed so sad and happy at the same time. It confused him, but he decided to give up on trying to figure it out. After all, he never was any good at all the deep thinking people swore up and down he'd have to do.
"Alright, we will." Kakashi agreed to her offer. He herded the genin toward a table near the bar and they all sat and waited for the show to start. The owner brought over four glasses of water, smirking at them and muttering a 'no drinking on the job' before ruffling Naruto's hair and walking away. He was about to protest loudly when the lights on the stage turned on.
Sitting on a stool, leaning gently over some stringed instrument Naruto vaguely recognized, was a girl who looked to be about their age. Naruto blinked dumbly at her, surprised at being a bodyguard for a kid no older than himself. He looked around the table at his teammates and they seemed just as surprised, if only mildly. He turned to his teacher questioningly but the man just shrugged and turned back to the stage. He was still confused but turned to the stage as well. He didn't know what lead a civilian girl from some back water one horse town to hire legitimate shinobi for protection but he figured that there were stranger things in the world. After all, if a twelve year old needing a bodyguard was strange then so was a twelve year old being one.
He looked the girl over to see if he could find any hint as to why she would be in danger. A child heiress, or priestess, or some kind of public figure- a musician, maybe? - would perhaps justify hiring elite bodyguards. Certainly some random village girl wouldn't need, much less be able to afford, to hire a Konoha squad even if they were only genin.
She was skinny, and average height, maybe a little over five foot tall. She had long dark blond hair that was braided over her shoulder meticulously. She was wearing blue pants, wrapped at the ankles shinobi style, that seemed to be well-worn, and a light worn shirt secured loosely around her neck in a holster style. Average dress for a girl in any village, no red flags or clan symbols to hint toward her plight.
Her face was round and her skin pale, pretty but unremarkable. Still, there was something off about her, he couldn't say why but something just felt wrong. He watched for a little longer as she tuned her instrument. It was her eyes, he decided.
Her eyes shifted between a dark blue and storm cloud gray, familiar in a way he couldn't place. They were the kind of eyes people wrote poems about, he thought. Filled with sadness, longing, pain. So much that it almost hurt to look into them, a thought he almost snorted at in amusement.
Pain filled eyes were common fair in his experience. Crystal blue in the mirror. Inky black in another.
But he couldn't help but feel like there was something else just under the surface. A kindred mischief, he felt all to strongly. She seemed to hide secrets in that mischief; as if she knew a truth that no one else would ever know.
Her expression was one of emptiness, no emotion anywhere but her eyes. An Uchiha quality mask, he thought, flicking his gaze over to his dark companion with a smirk. Altogether she was actually quite beautiful, but she was missing the spark that any living person has. No joy or happiness, but not hate or anger either, not the slightest trace. Just sadness.
It was almost sickening to see. Something about her made you want to run, or at least avoid her, but it also drew you in enough to stare. The sadness, he thought, made her seem dead. A specter of grief walking simply to plague the living and remind them of things they'd rather forget. He glanced at his teammates and they all looked as unnerved as him, even Kakashi looked bemused. He was trying to figure out why, when he noticed it. They were trying to hide it, but in their eyes he could see it. The same way he had grown to learn to see the hate behind hastily built masks he could see the disquiet behind theirs. She made them uncomfortable. A task not easily accomplished where shinobi were concerned.
"You too, huh?" Said the owner; scoffing. "That girl has always been like that," she huffed derisively as she lit a cigarette, and leaned on their table, "She's always been cold. Practically a living statue, she doesn't even react to pain properly. And if that wasn't enough for her to be disliked, she scares them." Her voice was grating, frustration tinging her words with violence.
"Them?" asked Sasuke, mildly curious. The villagers. Naruto thought unbidden.
"Everyone." The burly woman spat, suddenly looking around her domain with disgust, as if for miles all she could see was trash. "From the kindest of people to the worst of scum. Figures, all these back woods losers wouldn't know a good thing when it hit them." Her gaze swiveled back to them, and she could see the way their eyes all but rolled at the prejudice of intolerant small villages.
"Even warriors who've seen things that'd make most die of fear, are threatened by that one child." She said, with a shake of her head, a glare assuring them that city slickers and worldly foreigners alike were no different. They pointedly ignored the silent accusation.
"You know, even the priests at the local shrine say she's a cursed child." She said, with a laugh full of spite, "Self-righteous pricks."
"Well, why aren't you scared of her?" asked Sakura shakily, ignoring the near sacrilege of the angry woman.
"Yeah, I mean if she scares everyone you should be scared too, right?" Naruto piped up curiously, leaning farther across the table top to meet her eyes.
She was silent for a moment, gazing at them as she seemed to think over her response. "Sometimes, she can be damn near unsettling, but..." She stopped and looked at them like she was deciding something. "It ain't like she don't know why they act the way they do. She tries her best to seem more," she paused, struggling for words, "human or whatever the damn hell they want from her." She looked up at the girl as she adjusted her seat meticulously.
"She don't mean no harm. Never gotten into a fight at school, never hurt a person - at least on purpose anyway. She's always bringing home injured animals and helping them heal. A damn good kid." She said with a bitter smile. "It ain't right they blame her for bringing out whatever issues they carry on them, she's just a kid."
Naruto looked back at the girl and wondered if she felt alone.
"Ah, look she's starting!" said the owner, all previous bitterness receding in favor of uncharacteristic excitement. They all looked up at her in trepidation. He looked around and noticed that the only ones in the room that could bring them selves to look her in the eye, were his team and the owner. He heard the strings being plucked and turned back to the stage.
As the first chords from hit his ears he suddenly felt as if he knew the song. From where or when he couldn't say. He was focusing so intently on the sting of nostalgia at the back of his mind that he only faintly registered that she had started to sing. He just couldn't seem to retrieve the almost memory from the recesses of his unconsciousness. Resigning himself to this fact he returned his attention to the girl bathed in the light from the stage.
Her song spoke of loneliness and pain. The despair of knowing that no one knows the agony of such a tortured soul. The coldness and anger that came with such knowledge. The feeling of losing something which you never really had. The most heart wrenching part of the scene was the unchanging face of the girl delivering those melodic, woeful, words.
He knew then that she was alone.
Sad, angry, and in pain. Just like he used to be.
He knew then that he would do everything he could for her.
He wouldn't leave her alone.