Prologue: Missing
Was he far enough yet?
Naruto breathed heavily as he jumped from branch to branch through the Leaf territory. He was tired, his muscles almost at the brink of collapsing from lack of rest, but he would not stop. Stupid Sasuke, stupid Konohagekaru village. He was leaving and no one would stop him. Not if he kept on going non-stop. Though he doubted anyone cared enough to notice he was gone, let alone come searching for him. He wouldn't return anyway. Even if he became a nukenin, he wouldn't return.
Naruto landed skillfully on the branch of a tree and prepared to jump onto the branch up ahead, but his body gave way. He was falling to the ground a second later. A loud thud sounded from Naruto's still body landing on the hard, grassy, forest floor.
Minutes passed before Naruto tried to get up. His body was tired, but he was still to close to Konoha for his own sanity. A few more miles and he could rest for a scant number of minutes, but he would not stop now. Staggering to stand up, Naruto's breathing was even more agitated then before, his body screaming for more rest. He would not stop after all not only was he still to close to the village, but a lone shinobi could always count on getting into trouble.
Naruto, once he was standing, looked up to the branches, the safest place to be at but his body was running low on energy and chakra. Damn, even he had a limit. Damn! Well walking was the only way of moving right now. His body, though protesting every step, relaxed itself and slowly but steadily regained the exhausted energy.
The blow came out of nowhere, sending Naruto's tired body a few feet away. As Naruto's body slumped to the floor, four shinobi landed around Naruto, with the one responsible for the blow coming slowly toward them.
"Well, well if it isn't a Leaf shinobi.... care to tell us what you're doing out here all alone. Are you on a mission?" One of the ninja asked as Naruto stood up, facing the one heading towards them. His body was not up to the challenge of five adult shinobi, but it was either fight, flight or die and Naruto could barely move, let alone flee.
"He's but a child." One of the ninja behind Naruto muttered, but Naruto ignored him.
"Answer twerp," the ninja heading toward spoke, but Naruto said nothing.
A scant second later the shinobi heading toward him disappeared and reappeared in front of Naruto, landing a punch on his stomach and then another on his face sending him back to the ground once again.
Laughter flowed from one of the ninjas as two of them came straight at him. Anger flashed through Naruto and he managed to dodge the next attack and retaliated on the second, this time sending the enemy back.
"Shadow Doppelganger!" Naruto yelled as two clones appeared beside him and aided him, though it took all three of them to fight off the remaining ninja from the double attack.
Naruto grinned as the remaining four ninjas glared at him and three of them launched toward him all at once. It had always helped him to show a courageous front even if he knew he was over his head in trouble. As the attack came Naruto and his clones were separated from him and defeated seconds afterward. Naruto himself was not doing any better, but whether it was luck or his opponents bad strategy, Naruto dodged the attack from the two ninjas that had taken on his clones and they ended up hurting each other instead of him. Naruto then went forward and finished the job on the hurt ninja, kicking him to unconsciousness.
Landing with a bit of difficulty on his feet, Naruto never saw the attack from the fifth ninja behind him. The blow to his head rendered him just like two of his enemies, unconscious.
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'Owww . . .' Naruto thought as he awoke. 'Where am I? . . . why does my body hurt so much? And my head... it's killing me! . . . killing me? . . . wait-!'
Naruto opened his eyes as the realization of what happened came back to him. His body wouldn't respond to his mind's order to stand up in his frenzy, but a few seconds later he stopped his fruitless struggling and took in the scene around him. It was empty of his enemies. But how? He was unconscious and the kyuubi hadn't helped him at all so how was he alive? Unless they thought he was dead and left his body to rot. Damn them!
Now that he was calm, Naruto slowly sat up, his body less reluctant then before to obey him, but as soon as he sat he felt like he was going to puke from the dizziness that overcame him partly because of his throbbing head.
"Lie down or you'll puke child..."
Naruto froze. The memory of his attackers was still present in his mind. Out of the corner of his eyes, Naruto caught a glimpse of movement from some bushes. A second later the person came out of them and began walking toward him.
"I said lie down." The person said as he kneeled in front of him. He was covered from head to toe in white attire reminiscent of the samurai that worked directly under the Daimyo and lords while his face and hair were hidden behind a loose mask and turban; only his white-blue eyes were visible to Naruto.
"W-who are you?" Naruto asked though he did as the young man said. Once on the floor, Naruto could not help but close his eyes. Sleep bordered around his mind but it was stubbornly put aside. Naruto could not sleep without knowing who his apparent savior was and what he wanted.
"Name's Siel, I guess . . . I'm not good at healing, it's not my forte no matter what others think, but I can at lease bandage you up until we arrive at a clinic and-"
"Clinic?"
Siel nodded, unsure if he had crossed some unseen boundaries, "If it's okay with you? In good conscience I can't leave you alone as injured as you are so please don't argue."
Naruto grimaced, he'd been hurt pretty bad and the bruises were not his only concern. Had he been hit anywhere but his head he would have shrugged it off, but right now there was no way out of visiting a medic. "Fine."
"Well, then, good. Can I bandage you up first?"
"Sure."
Naruto moved to sit and found a pair of slim but strong hands helping him up. He said nothing, no thanks or complaint, while the masked person worked on him and found himself missing Konoha with Tsunade and . . .
No.
He would not think about her or any one. His life there was over.
"Done." Siel stated, "It'll do if I do say so myself."
Naruto blinked and glanced at the pale-blue eyes full of merriment. He hadn't noticed when he'd finished. "Thanks."
"No problem. Ready to go?"
"Where?" Naruto asked, finally having the mind to do so. As far as he knew, Konoha was still the closest village but he'd be damned if that was where this stranger was going to take him to.
"Well, it's out of my way, but Konoha's the closest-"
"No."
Siel froze. He hadn't expected that. "Why?"
"Not there. Anywhere, but there." Naruto struggled to say as he stood and found himself towering over the still kneeling Sil.
"You from there?" Siel asked.
When the young man in front of him refused to say anything more, Siel inwardly sighed. So he'd picked up a runaway? A shinobirunaway, by the looks of him. Hell, what a pickle this was, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this happened to him or someone related to him. Oh, well. He had accepted his fate of savior long ago. At that, Siel almost laughed out loud. Savior? Right. It was pure bad luck on his part that people with problems always seemed to find him at their worst time . . . Or he found them.
"I thought you would get dizzy standing up." Siel said; decision made and thus changing the way the conversation had been headed.
"I am."
"Sit down then."
"No. We'll go our separate ways from here, but thanks anyway."
"Where are you going?" Siel smiled beneath the scarf tied around his lower face.
"Somewhere."
"I can not let you go injured as you are." When Naruto glanced at him, Siel pointed at her head and said, "conscience, remember?"
"I'm not-"
"Of course not. You stated your desire to avoid that village so we shall go elsewhere to get you checked, where to, I don't know. "
Naruto blinked at the stranger before him. So Konoha was out? But that was the closest village and the nearest one was around half a day's distance. But wait . . . Naruto had just given the guy before him the perfect excuse to leave; yet he hadn't. Could anyone honestly be this nice? Yeah, Shizune was, and Iruka, and Hinata, and . . . no one. None of those people were a part of his life now. No matter how much it hurt him to depart from the people who had been his true friends, the price for remaining with them had been too high and he would not pay up.
"Well, I was headed homeward, wanna come?"
"What?" Now it was Naruto's turn to be surprised. He hadn't expected this.
"I was headed home. Wanna come? With me?"
"Where, exactly, is your home?"
"Well . . . a very long distance to the west of here. It could take weeks on foot, days on a fast method of transportation."
"So, if I go with you, I get no medical help for who knows how long?" This was ridiculous.
"No. Not really. I'll just call one of my cousin's and have them pick us up." Siel said as he stood and walked toward the small bundle he'd left at the base of a tree and began rummaging through it.
"I think I'll just chance it here alo-"
"Found it. Ready?" Siel asked, his voice a touch warmer.
Before Naruto could say or do anything, Siel pressed a small button on what appeared to be a miniature remote. One moment he was surrounded by quiet and nature and the next . . .
Chaos.
People were running to and fro from who-knows where going who-knows where. Except most of these people didn't look human - not completely anyway. There was always something that marked them as different. Ears, noses, teeth's, eyes, fingernails . . . tails.
"What the hell?" Naruto asked Siel only to find that the young man was leaving. Unwilling to be left behind in such a crazy place, Naruto sprinted to catch up to him. By the time he stopped next to the young stranger, Naruto felt dizzy, sick and, well, not well.
"You shouldn't have run." Siel said only to find the blond shinobi falling face first to the ground. With uncanny speed, Siel caught the poor youth and dragged him out of the facility he had in-avertedly landed them in. That was why he hadn't wanted to use the teleport; no one ever knew where he or she would arrive. And no matter how much the creator worked on it, this kink could not be gotten rid off. Then again, at least it had landed them close to where he wanted to be instead of two miles away in a gentleman's spa . . . or lady's spa . . . or actually landing them at the hospital like it had happened to him once before except, that time, he had found himself inside a surgical room where a surgery was being held. And he had landed on the patient, for god's sake. It had been a good thing that the surgery hadn't even begun yet.
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Hello this be Yoru no Chandra,
This chapter was revised from the original chapter I uploaded some two years ago. After that, the next ones are new. That's right people, I'm finally continuing this story. Reviews please.
Ja'ne.