Disclaimer: Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto.

Shi-Rudo Chapter 1

The rooftop was, by all measures, plain. It was missing a few shingles and would likely be described with words such as shabby or run-down. It was made distinctive only by the figure, barely outlined, on top of it. If the moon had been out, or it had simply been in the day, her loose brown hair would have been seen slightly covering her face. Her eyes were a regular brown, not very distinguished at the first glance, but they did hold an understanding and care when peered into. She was much like the rooftop, plain. However, nobody would use word such as shabby or run-down to describe her for two reasons. The first was that she was not, she held an unusual attraction about her that could only be felt and seen, not identified directly by any particular feature. The other was much more simple, whoever did would find themselves in incredible amounts of pain before they could say, "Sorry."

Said woman was looking into an apartment window, belonging to a building three rooftops away. She was at this distance to avoid the detection of masked person only one rooftop away from the apartment. But back to the apartment. If the rooftop was said to be shabby and run-down, any person would be hard-pressed to come up with the word to accurately describe the apartment. That person would have to use words like despicable and filthy. The window that she was gazing through was broken, as though it had been smashed, which it likely had, and had no curtains to keep out anything. The walls were bare, devoid of any paint, with several stains ranging from food to less appropriate things. The floors had dirt scattered about and probably more stains than the walls, though they were in close competition. It consisted of two rooms, one all purpose room containing both the bedroom and the kitchen. The other room was a bathroom, barely big enough for shower, sink, and toilet that it contained. The "bedroom" did not house a bed though, it had a mat, which was as soft as concrete and as smooth as it as well.

Of course the apartment was not the important thing, after all, who wastes time looking into empty apartment. The apartment had one singular inhabitant, a child whose age could match the number of people who lived there. He had no parents and no guardians. Normally a child in a condition such as his would live in an orphanage, but none of the ones in the village would take him in out of fear of what he would do to the other children. He did nothing to deserve this fear, it was only a matter of ignorance on the part of the majority of the population in the village. The child managed to survive due to the village's Hokage, he paid, remarkably well, a woman to care for the child. Simple visits a few times a day to assure that the child would survive was all that she was willing to do. The short five minute visits left her shaken, showing her complete fear for the small, harmless, child.

The woman on the rooftop observed this with disgust. She could not stand the stupidity of the attitude the people held to the child. She could not understand how someone could not adore his untamed blond hair, or the look of his fair blue eyes which radiated warmth all around him. Most young children could be described as cute, but this child was far more than that. Despite all the troubles that beset him at such a young age, the child did not cry. He had accepted his condition and pushed through it, as best he was able at his age. It was a testament to strength he would have later in life, that was one thing that this woman was sure of.

A man appeared next to the woman as silent as the wind on a still day. According to most standards he was attractive. He was different from the woman in that you could pinpoint the basis of his looks. His face was hardened, and he had a rough look about him. Everything about him screamed fierce, except for his eyes, which were soft and intelligent, the color green. His hair was like the child's, rowdy and blond. He began to speak in a voice so quiet that only people with the most trained ear could hear, which, albeit, was much of the village; however, since nobody was observing the two, this fact mattered little.

"Kea," he whispered.

"Ryoku," she replied.

"Anything worth noting?"

"He certainly won't be missed in this village," she said bitterly. "But he'll be strong. He has this look about him, it's almost as though the whole world could be against him and he'd rise above them all and triumph."

"Hmm, interesting. Nothing else?"

"I've been analyzing his chakra of course, though its been hard from this distance. It turns out that he has more than the average shinobi, a testament to how much he'll have later. He also knows three words."

"Which are?"

"His surname Uzumaki, his given name Naruto, and," she paused, "demon."

"Tch," he said, disgusted.

"Did you look at the detailed report yet?" Kea asked.

"Yeah, it turns out he's not just the container of a demon, he's the son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina."

"Talk about a martyr."

"The father?"

"Who else? Not only does he give up his life to protect his village, but he gives up his son to seal the rest. Ironic how they repay him, no?"

"Yeah, but what can you expect? These people are too blinded by their own loss to care about their actions or the loss of others. They don't know he's his kid though. I'm not even sure if the Third knows."

"Even more ironic; the son of the greatest Hokage is forgotten and brushed aside."

They were both temporarily distracted by the slight shifting of the masked ANBU member.

Ryoku continued, "The Namikaze was amazing. They say that he was on par with even the best of us. Several of the techniques in our library were made by him, not to mention the tons of information that he compiled on seals. It's surprising he wasn't recruited into our organization."

"Perhaps it was decided that he would develop better outside of Shi-Rudo. It wouldn't be the first time to happen. That's what was decided for two of this village's Legendary Sannin."

"What about the third?"

"It was Orochimaru. Sousui-sama decided that he was too much of a risk with his attitude; I'd reckon that he was right."

"I'll say. When are we taking him?" he asked.

"Soon. The ANBU guard will be changing in another few moments."

He nodded. Hogosha Kea and Hogosha Ryoku sat in silence for the remaining minutes watching the guard, waiting for him to move. The guard, of course, was on orders from the Hokage to protect the small child, though he liked to believe it was the other way around. He felt he was protecting the people from the child. Most of the ANBU held this attitude about the kid. At precisely one o'clock he stood up and dashed away at intense speeds. Fortunately for the two Shi-Rudo members, the next guard for ANBU had a habit of being late.

They dashed next to the window in one leap. With chakra in each feet and in one hand they connected to the wall, standing parallel to it.

"Remember," Ryoku said, "We need to only temporarily disable the alarm. It has to trigger on our way out. This can't seem like a professional job, it can only look like average ninja did this."

"I know," she said. She began adding seals to the main one guarding the window. They would trigger in thirty seconds, disappearing permanently while simultaneously setting off the alarm. As soon as she finished they both jumped into the room. In two seconds Ryoku was holding the sleeping child; in another one they were both out the window. By the time the alarm sounded another twenty seconds later they were already a good distance outside of the village.

Hatake Kakashi, the ANBU who was supposed to be guarding the child, was at the memorial stone. There were three names there that he cared about. His hair was a strange mix between gray and silver, and seemingly defied gravity. His forehead protector was tilted, covering his left eye from view. A cloth mask coming out of his shirt covered up to the bridge of his nose. He sighed, and then walked away from the stone and to his current charge. It was right at this time that the alarm connected to all assigned guards went off. At this point he used his favorite cuss word.

"Fuck!"

He pushed energy into his legs, running at break-neck speeds, to all who weren't ninja at least. A turn, a jump, and a dash, and he was there. Whoever had done this was certainly a ninja he evaluated. The window was not broken, and was in fact left in its normal state, the seal undisturbed. Based upon this he determined that they must not have known of the alarm seal, and only tried to protect the obvious. Kakashi wasted no time in summoning his nin-dogs, which was the exact time that two ANBU teams arrived. Noting the dogs and lack of child, they prepared to execute a pursuit.

"Based upon the smell there were two people in this room aside from the kid," one of the dogs declared, right as the final person arrived, the village leader, the Hokage, himself.

"Kakashi," he asked sternly, "What happened?"

"Currently declared abducted. Pursuit about to proceed." With this he looked toward the dog.

"They left a trail," the dog continued, "let's go."

The group rushed across the village well-known to them all, Konoha, and eventually crossed the high walls. They came to a spot in the woods where the dogs stopped.

"Here." he declared.

The scene that they saw horrified them. Blood was splashed across the trees and forest floor. A few body parts lay strewn about, only adding to the unsettling seen. Even the hard-stomached ANBU were feeling disturbed by the scene.

Once again looking toward the dogs, Kakashi asked, "Can you pick anyone out?"

"They cleared their scent here. No further trail can be picked up. If I smelled them again I could identify them, but that would have to be in a closed environment, without too many other scents distracting me. Chances are my nose won't be to pick them up."

The silver-haired ANBU sighed, "Hokage?" he asked.

"It's possible that the child killed them and this is their remains. There is no telling what the power of his beast is. Conduct a full-scale search in the morning. It is far to dark now."

The Hokage held himself together very well during those short lines, very professional, very by-the-book about the whole business. Really he wanted to just scream and destroy, to find out who did this, to begin the search now. The child did not deserve the treatment that he got, but the Hokage couldn't do much of anything. The Fourth's one wish was that the child would be treated as a hero, it seemed that the exact opposite had happened. However, he composed himself; it would not be suitable for a village's leader to go rampant.

He left, letting the ANBU crew finish any sealing off of the area necessary to prevent tampering. He sighed. All he knew was this was going to be one hell of a problem to deal with.

Kea was wondering about something entirely different.

"Was it really necessary to do all that?"

"It was more realistic than anything. If you'd ever seen a jinchuuriki battle where the demon came out you wouldn't be so worried."

"I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the fact that you used two Orochimaru's pawns to make the scene."

"Sousui-sama assigned me the mission to take them out, might as well put their bodies to good use. Besides, you're a trained kuonichi, you know just as well as I do that the more disturbing the scene the less anyone will want to be there, and the less they want to be there the fewer details they'll uncover."

Kea was silent as they continued the rest of the way on the long journey.