Eyes of the Serpent, Heart of the Tiger
By
Pikachu909
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto but I do own Inari and Kana.
It was a dark night, in the Hidden Leaf Village. Everyone was in their homes, sleeping in their beds. But everything suddenly changed when the nine-tailed fox attacked a part of the village with its nine tails.
Many brave ninjas fought to protect their home by driving it away from the village and into the forest, near the mountains. They hold it off the best as they can but one by one the nine-tailed fox took their lives. Just when it seems a hopeless situation, the Fourth Hokage arrived and sealed the dreadful nine-tailed fox away, with his own life.
A couple of hours after the nine-tailed fox was sealed away, a small, four year old girl came out from hiding to see if all was calm. She had a creamy tan skin with slit pupil light green eyes along with purple eye markings that snakes around the lash line and stopped at a quarter of an inch beyond the eye and stopped at a half an inch at the top of her nose. She had raven locks that went two or three inches below the shoulder. She wore a purple cloth ribbon in her hair that goes with her eye markings in her hair and her mother's gold locket with a name Hana on it attached to a light blue choker.
She saw an elderly couple in a crowd of people and went up to them.
"Grandma, Grandpa. Where's my mother? I couldn't find her, after the nine-tailed fox disappeared." The young girl asked innocently.
"Your mother is dead Inari. She died underneath the rubble of a destroyed building." The elderly woman answered her in a cold tone. Her eyes showed nothing but bitterness to the child. Inari's were wide open in disbelief of her mother's death. Her husband looked at Inari with the same bitterness in his eyes as the other people in the village.
"Inari ever since your mother brought you into this world, your grandmother and I know that one day your existence will bring heavy burden to this village." The elderly man told her with disgust. "And our prediction of you was right, your four years of existence brought the nine-tailed fox to the Leaf Village not only to destroy part of our home but also took lives of innocent people." Angry villagers growled in agreement with the elderly man.
"But grandma, grandpa I didn't done anything bad to bring the nine-tailed fox to the village, honest!" Inari pleaded for innocence.
"Silence, riffraff!" The elderly woman bitterly told her as she grab her by the wrist and throw her to the hard ground. "When I took a good look at your eyes, it had the eyes of a treacherous snake." One villager suggested she would be thrown in a pit of vicious dogs. The other villager suggested that they should kill her by poisonous needles. But most of the villagers chose to banish her from the Hidden Leaf Village and everyone agreed to that decision. Her grandmother gave Inari her hairbrush and told that if she step foot in the village, she will be killed.
Not wasting any time, the young girl fled. A few seconds after she started to flee from her grandparents, a few villagers started to throw kunai knives and shuriken at the poor girl in their attempts to injure her. Two or three villagers rain poisonous needles down on her in hopes that their needles can poison her. But she made it out unharmed. As she navigates through a maze of alleyways in the village, another villager released a pack of vicious dogs after her. As she heard the sound of dogs coming behind her, she bumped into a wooden fence in front of her. Without a moment to spare, she leapt on top of a garbage can and onto the fence. Next, she leaped off the fence and landed on her feet. She was thankful that she had the balance and the ability to land on her feet like a cat, which she inherited from her mother. When she saw the gate of the Leaf Village, kunai darted at her and yet she evaded every last one until she is out of the village and went into the woods where was not destroyed from the nine-tailed fox.
As she went deeper in the forest, she leaned on to a tree by her side and slowly slides down until she's on her knees. After she got onto her knees, she began to weep over the loss of her beloved mother. Before she was banished, the villagers hated her and mother and she doesn't understand why. Now she is now greatly hated for an event that she didn't took part in. As her tears fill with immense heartache while her heart is filled with complete anger and hatred towards the village that she once called her home.
Unaware to the mourning girl, a rogue ninja hided in a nearby branch. He noticed the locket around Inari's neck and thought it's worth some money. He aimed his three kunai knives at Inari, hoping it would kill her.
Suddenly, a white tiger leapt out of the bush and grabbed her by the top with its teeth causing the kunai to nothing but the ground and the tree. The tiger placed the girl gently on the ground and leaped towards the branch where the rogue ninja was hiding. The ninja didn't react in time as tiger pounced on him, causing him to fell off the branch.
As Inari turned her body around, she saw the tiger's jaws clamping on to the ninja's throat making a small puddle of blood on the ground. Nanoseconds later, the bodies of both ninja and tiger begin to glow as the tiger started to drain the chakra from the rogue ninja. As her eyes were wide open in fear, her mind told her to run but her body was shuddering from her thought that she would share the same fate as the ninja before her. She closed her eyes and covered her vulnerable head and neck.
After all the chakra was drained from the ninja, the white tiger released its jaws on the ninja's throat and turned its attention to the frightened girl. It carefully walked up to the girl, its sapphire eyes looked upon her as it placed its huge paw on her back.
"It's okay little one, I'm not the type of tiger who harms children." The white tiger spoke. After hearing its request, Inari placed her hands on the ground to lift herself up to see the tiger.
The white tiger introduced himself as Kana. After hearing his name she told him that her mother told a story about him on how he was the protector of the travelers and he would strip all the chakra out of rogue ninjas. She told him why she was in the forest and he took pity on her. Kana offered her to live with him in the forest and she gladly accepted his offer. He told her to wipe her tears and told her that she needed to be strong for her mother and for herself. Inari hopped onto his back and went deeper into the forest.