AN: So this is my first story
Cloudy skies loomed over the hill like a dark blanket. The rain had not fallen yet but he felt it in the air a sort of electricity. The boy knew something was going to happen. It was an instinct almost something you would expect to see in animals like when they flee from earthquakes. He wanted to hide from the rain but on the small hill there was nothing that would give him much in the way of Shelter. The grass was long though. It had made a good bed the other night. He had been walking for so long the other day when he finally collapsed on the hill. He wanted to hide from the rain but his stomach growled. How long had it been he thought since he had eaten. Maybe he would find food after the storm. He remembered how he used to like the rain. He used to laugh and enjoy it because no one would bother him when it rained. But now the rain filled him with to many bad memories. It really would not due for him to move other than it would keep him warm. Brush and grass were all he could see.
The boy stood up. It also would not do him any good to stay here. He started to walk, continuing a journey that he had started a long time ago. Perhaps boy would not be the right word for him but he looked like one. His face unchanged. Light flashed and suddenly he heard the crack and rumble. Behind him not even a few feet from where he had been sitting lightning had struck. He decided to move faster. The walk turning into a jog and eventually the jog turning into a full blown run as the rain started to fall. It had gotten a lot colder. The rain stung against his face like small slaps. It reminded him of home. A home that was so many miles and years away from him. A come where people slapped him and hit him, where their eyes were colder than ice. Were they looked at him with contempt and were he did not want to comeback until he was ready.
He had improved himself over the years. His muscles were stronger, he was both faster and more agile and even his stamina had improved. It was hard to imagine because even back then he had great stamina he supposed it was because he had to run away from those eyes so often. His knowledge of the world had also improved, he knew how to cook and clean, and simply put had learned how to live. He also had improved on hunting and foraging and knew how to treat poisons, the later he had learned while he had stayed with an old hermit that would go into the local village to treat the sick and injured. He also had worked on the things that home had taught him especially how to hide. He used to be loud in everything including what he wore as if to shout to the world, "I exist, notice me." Now he wore drab grays and browns with a little forest green thrown in there. He wore torn rags that he had wrapped around himself but underneath it all was a simple mesh shirt from home, it was one of the only things he kept from home. He still had the necklace, he would never let anyone take the necklace, he had won that in a bet and it was his.
He shivered in the cave. He was out of the rain but he was still very cold. At least now he had something to eat. The caves previous resident had been a small mountain cat. He was also working on making a small fire, the wood from the brushes was still wet but he would make it work he had to dry off. He might not get sick but he hated being cold. And wet cloths made him cold. He was in a state of undress because he simply needed to dry off his clothes. He thought it funny that here he was naked and no one complained or thought him weird he was alone.
In the distance a wolf was howling, it was more like calling to him like it wanted him to join it and give it company, but he knew better the only company wolves enjoyed were bones. With that thought he grabbed a leg of mountain cat still slightly raw. It was tough and chewy and altogether not pleasant but it was food. He would be able to stay here for a while and regain some of his strength. It would do him some good. He had shelter and food and when the rain stopped, he had a feeling he would have some water. Before it got to dark to see the cave entrance by fire and it did get really dark at night almost like looking at the cloak of Death himself, he set about securing the entrance from predators and humans after all he did not want to end up like the mountain cat.
The mourning sun scorched the earth quickly drying away hat water had fallen but on the bushes small bulbs about half the size of an apple had formed that he had not noticed before. He grabbed one and yanked it off the brush. He brought it to his nose and smelled it, it did not smell poisonous, carefully he bit into it, the outside was hard to crack but his teeth that had grown sharper as he aged and had become one of the only real changes that he noticed made short work of thee skin. It gushed out water. He thought for a little while contemplating if he should stay or go.
After some careful deliberation he set about drying the mountain cat and collecting more of the bulbs. After all he really did not like places like this. There simply was too little to forage and so far he assumed he had been lucky. It was a quick process that had only required him to turn some of his rags into sacks, which he hung from his trousers. Soon he was on his way, he wondered if he would find some civilization. He wanted to talk to someone other than himself although that could be rather easy to do. As one of his few friends might have said being alone could be too troublesome.
They seemed to keep their distance from him. It was not the same loathing and fear he was used to seeing like he had back home, but it was a related to what he had experienced all the same. He assumed he smelled a little and no doubt looked a little rough, being out in the wilderness for several weeks could do that to you, his face was also not the most human face he had seen, it was graced by whisker marks, coupled with his teeth and he probably looked like one of the children raised by wolves he had heard about. He was not one of the children though because wolves never raised those children, they ate them.
He moved towards one of the stalls and people backed off from him, he heard whispers, he hated whispers. He looked into the man's eyes with his blue ones, his eyes were always good at reading people and they would get to practice the skill today, he needed to ask some questions.
"Excuse me could you tell me the name of this town, I seem to be a little lost on my travels?" He asked. In years past he may have shouted it or been indignant but know he spoke in a calm and relaxed voice. The stall worker was chewing his gums for a few minutes, his eyes told the boy he was thinking. Finally with a few smacks of the lips he cleared his throat to talk. His voice had a slight drawl like a lazy afternoon.
"Well this here is Sora, I reckon you're gonna need some more bearings before you know where that is. Hmmm, try going a few days west as the bird flies and you will hit some low hill that eventually grow into mountains. Past the mountains is a large thing of water, now what did my father cal the darn thing, an ocean, head much farther that direction and you drown. I don't figure I need to tell ye what's east seeing as you come from that way so down south ye have some woods a starten to appear takes em awhile but eventually they be there. I don't know much what's beyond those seeing as not much comes that way. The to the north well I know there's another village up that away as that is were my trade is from but what's beyond that I just don't know." The boy was impressed. He had not expected the man to be quite so forth coming on his directions of sorts. He know was moving on to a place he could possibly stay. When he saw someone he never expected to see. If he did anything rash they would find him suspicious, she was that kind of person. So he kept a dialogue up with vendor hoping to whatever god was out there that she would not notice him.
She had a picture and was showing it around. He wanted to think she was here by chance. He wanted to think that she was looking for someone else. Maybe she had forgotten him, he hoped that was the case he did not want the pain of home again. She looked so much older now he wondered briefly if she would expect him to look the exact same; he hoped not, he hoped it would be enough for him to get away. He thanked the vendor and made his way to the inn. It was not the only inn of the town but it was cheap and the vendor had been willing to buy his perishable so he could sleep inside. Made the streets safer the vendor said as the boy left, the boy chose to ignore the comment.
He did not know when she planned to stay awhile or was just passing through. He however did count on being one of the few who would be staying in the inn, it was rather small, and if he was polite he would call it rustic, which meant it was a cheap piece of shit. Which meant it was an utter surprise to him that as he opened the door he pumped into another person he had never seen before, he briefly wondered if they were holding a convention or something, but that did not matter because the worst had happened, recognition had flooded into the mans eyes followed with a gasp.
"Naruto!" The man's eyes were wide now and for a moment every thing seemed to freeze. They just stood there staring at each other. Finally like a falling glass it crashed to the ground.
"Shit." Naruto said almost offhandedly and with that he bolted. He kept telling himself they would not catch him. He kept telling himself he would get away but where to and finally somewhere in the back of his mind like waking from a long dream he knew he would not get away. The fact that his gut told him he was going back home wither he wanted to or not did not deter him though. He ran as fast as he could, further augmenting his speed with wind and chakra.
He never saw it coming, maybe he had gotten rusty or maybe his subconscious had made him not notice, but the punch connected. It would be some time before he woke up again.
He was groggy, why was he groggy, oh yah because someone hit him in the head really hard. Why had he been hit really hard, because he was going back home, then it dawned on him, he was going back home. He did not want to go back home, he wanted to get stronger before he came back. He struggled and found himself tied up. Well it figured sort of, he did try to get away. They noticed him struggling. He could tell there was more than one because of their footsteps.
She had so much to ask them she did not know where to start. First was why he disappeared, why he never returned. The more obvious question though was that he had not changed. Oh he might have been a little leaner and feral, but he looked the same. He had left her behind again in a way that she could not explain. She had grown older she was twenty seven now it was becoming more noticeable that she was not the girl she had once been but a woman, whereas he… he seemed just as young as she remembered him like the photographs she kept that they had taken when he had returned from the first training trip. She grew angry when she saw him struggle, as if he was desperate to get away from her, as if there friendship had stopped meaning anything. She just wanted answers.
So many emotions were overrunning her that she just wanted to let it out until finally she mustered the strength to speak, "Why did you leave?" Her voice croaked, almost crumbling against the waves of emotion that bashed against her heart as she saw him continue to struggle. He stopped struggle for just a moment, one moment as his ice blue eyes assessed her as if seeing her for the first time as if they had never know each other. And then the moment was gone and he started to struggle against his restraints again. That was to much for her she just wanted to scream but all that she could do was run , she ran outside of the room and cried, she did not want to see him cry . She had not been able to answer the question she really wanted to ask, "Why did you leave me?" She whispered before she continued to cry silently whispering that question like a mantra over and over again.
"You really are a piece of work Naruto." The other captor said with a sigh. "She has been looking for you for some time now. She wanted to bring back her friend because I guess she realized how important you were to her. And the first time she has seen you in ten years you are struggling to get away from her without even saying a word. Are you afraid?"
"Enough Kakashi, It will hurt less if she forgets about me. As I am I will only remind her of the past. I can't come back to Konoha, not until the people forget me, because people ask questions and one of them I simply will not be able to answer. The simple question of why I stopped ageing, I know the answer and it frightens me. That night, the night I ran away, was because I knew something was going wrong with me. I did not run away because of Danzo or the council, those people never concerned me, I ran away because I did not want to hurt those I loved until I had learned to adjust to what I am.
"What you are?" Kakashi asked quizzically.
"I guess it should have been expected and all, trying to be the container to Kyuubi is not something really possible for a human. So in time I stopped being one. I am still not the Kyuubi but I am no longer a human." Naruto's eye held tears in them that would never fall. He still wore that smile that towards the end his friends had begun to loathe so much. Kakashi just sat there speechless. What do you say to that?
So Kakashi settled for what he could. It was not great, it did not help the situation, but he knew they could not just sit there. "Get some sleep Naruto. We have a long journey back." He said.
AN: Tell me what you think. Does it suck or is it good? What do I need to improve?