Hey! Here's the new chapter.
To all of those that don't think I'm a crappy author: please review! It makes me magically type twice as fast! Critisism welome. No flaming the pairing. All flames will be fed to Lee and Gai to fuel their Flames of Youth (And then I will hunt down the flamers and tell said duo that they lack Flames of Youth)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, so all of you bored lawyers out there with nothing better to do than harras fanfic writters can go bug someone else.
Please read the author's note at the bottom.
Pain. That was all he could feel. The sharp feeling of a blade or fist meeting skin, before fading into a dull ache, joining its fellows.
He could hear voices, filtering in through the haze of red. He felt as if he was in a cocoon. He felt the pain, he heard their insults, and yet he did not. It was almost like a dream. Maybe if he waited long enough he'd wake up, and find this nightmare to be nothing more than a phantasm.
Another voice penetrated the haze. This one was different. It, like the others, was furious and filled with hate, but the hatred was not directed towards him. No, instead, it was directed towards the other voices, the ones that cut him physically, mentally, and emotionally.
That fact alone convinced him that this whole occurrence was nothing more than a bad nightmare. After all, who would stand up for the demon brat? The scourge of the village and the spawn of Satan to boot, if you listened to what the villagers said.
The broken and battered boy felt the dark, cool void that had been lurking on the edge of his consciousness ever since the beginning of this strange dream began draw closer, attempting to swallow him up. He drifted into the nothingness, and felt no more.
As his spirit flickered for what he sincerely believe to be the last time, he could've sworn that a faint, ghostly voice shouted in a hushed whisper, 'Kid!' But he was probably imagining things.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Itachi had always been annoyed by the constant beeping of the life support system. Now he felt like ripping in from where ever it was bolted and tossing it out the window.
He'd been standing there for the last couple of hours waiting for the kid he'd saved from the idiotic villagers to wake up. Itachi briefly amused himself by thinking of the punishments those that had been caught were going through. After all, the law protecting Naruto, the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, was the strictest and most serious of them all. And for a good reason. Just look at what had happened with Gaara and so many more before him.
Itachi tensed when the boy shifted in his sleep. Naruto groaned a bit, obviously in pain.
The blonde groggily began to open his eyes, only to squeeze them shut once more when a blinding white light filled his view. 'What? Where am I?' he wondered.
Itachi tensed when the boy's eyelids fluttered. Straining his ears, it sounded like he was trying to mumble something. He could not hear what the blonde was saying, but Naruto was obviously confused about something.
Walking forward, he sat down in the chair next to the boy's bed. "Hey, brat, you up?" he asked.
The blonde's eyes shot open as he yanked his head around to look at Itachi. He paled visibly, shrinking away from the chunin. He obviously thought that the raven haired man was going to kill him.
Seeing the boy's fear, Itachi said, "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. Hokage-sama assigned me to be your bodyguard in light of recent events."
Naruto was clearly still wary though. "How do I know I can trust you?" he asked.
"Because if I wished you harm then I wouldn't have saved you, and Hokage-sama wouldn't have assigned me to your care," Itachi replied in the same monotone as before.
Naruto's eyes brightened and his posture shifted from cautious and frightened to slightly wary and hopeful. "Really? It was you that was kind to me?"
Inclining his head slightly, Itachi said, "Yes."
Naruto's face brightened up and a grin almost split his face in half. "Thanks mister!" he shouted, shooting forward and hugging Itachi around the knees. Wondering how the hell the boy was able to move so soon and so fast, Itachi tried to pry the hyperactive ball of sunshine from around his legs, failing miserably.
After Itachi had been trying to get Naruto to let go of his legs for about a minute, the Hokage walked in. "I see that you've met your new bodyguard, Naruto-kun" he said. "If you would be so kind as to release him I'll tell you about your new living arrangements."
His face a picture of curiosity, Naruto let go of Itachi and turned to the Hokage. Itachi wondered what he was talking about. Nobody had said anything about new living arrangements for the blonde when he'd been given the mission.
(Flashback)
"Itachi-san, please come here," the Hokage said. "I have a solo mission for you."
Ignoring the grumblings of his fellow chunin against the unfairness of him, instead of them, getting a solo mission, Itachi walked up to the Hokage's desk.
"What is it Hokage-sama?" he asked uninterestedly.
"This way. I'll tell you about the mission in my office," the Hokage replied. As Itachi walked out he heard his teammates complaining quite a bit, although they quieted down when one of the mission people told them that they wouldn't want the mission anyways. He was out of earshot before they got to what the mission was specifically.
"It has been brought to my attention, Itachi-san, that you were the one that stopped the attack on Naruto-kun?" the Hokage asked.
Wondering if this had something to do with his new mission, Itachi replied, "Hai, Hokage-sama."
Nodding, the Hokage said, "In light of recent events it has been decided that the threat against Naruto is much higher than had been previously thought. You are being assigned as his personal bodyguard. There will also be a squad of ANBU that'll watch over him from time to time, but it'll be your job to guard him around the clock."
His face impassive, Itachi asked, "When do I start?"
Taking out some papers, the Sarutobi said, "As soon as possible would be preferred. He's staying at the general shinobi hospital right now."
Bowing, Itachi jumped out the window and headed towards the hospital. He didn't see why the people who had been handing out missions had believed that this job would be particularly undesirable. It sounded like it would be blatantly easy, in fact, unless some crazed ANBU or jounin, or an entire mob of chunin, decided to try and kill the boy again. Unless, of course, they believed that the job was undesirable because it was easy.
"In order to make the job of guarding Naruto-kun easier, Itachi-san, the two of you will be living together until it is decided that the threat against Naruto-kun has abated," the Hokage said, looking slightly amused.
Naruto paused for a second, apparently trying to figure out whether or not he liked this new turn of events, before screaming, "Yatta!" and hugging Itachi again. He'd come to the conclusion that it would be really cool to have a roommate.
Itachi, meanwhile, could care less. Although he did hope that the blonde would stop hugging him at the slightest thing, and he was beginning to see how having to guard Naruto 24/7 might get on one's nerves, he was a shinobi and shinobi never complain about their missions or show emotion.
Once again trying to remove Naruto from his death grip on Itachi's legs, the raven haired shinobi asked, "Hokage-sama, what are you going to do about the reactions of the Uchiha clan?"
The head Sarutobi blew out a poof of smoke and replied, "I have already spoken with your parents on this issue. It seems that not only they but the vast majority of the clan don't want Naruto-kun anywhere nearby them, so the two of you will be moved to an apartment. Here is the address and the keys."
Managing to get Naruto to let go of him, Itachi took the piece of paper and the key from the Hokage. "I will take Naruto to get his things," he said.
"No need! I don't have anything I wanna keep!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly.
Sighing, Sarutobi Hogosha (AN: that's not his real name, just what I've decided to call him since I'm tired of calling him 'the Hokage') said, "Alright, then Itachi-san will take you to your new apartment. Do you have anything you need to retrieve?"
"No, Hokage-sama," Itachi replied. He could care less about the few items that decorated his room at home.
"Okay. You two are dismissed," he said. Itachi bowed.
Deciding that walking to the apartment would take to long, Itachi picked up Naruto and, ignoring the blonde's protests, settled him on Itachi's back. "Stop squirming. We'll be able to go faster this way," Itachi told Naruto. The boy quieted down as Itachi jumped out the window and started running across the rooftops, heading towards the apartment.
Naruto gazed around as they ran. His new home was in a better neighborhood than his last, but it was still in the poor sector. The council hadn't provided much money for the mission to protect Naruto, which was why it had been given to a chunin.
Graffiti had been scrawled on many of the walls, and trash littered the streets, but the apartments generally weren't in too bad a state of repair, and there were only one or two people slumped over on the side of the street. The building that Itachi stopped in front of, which Naruto assumed was theirs, was an apartment complex which, for this area, was in fairly good condition. Itachi set him down and walked up to the ninth floor, Naruto following close behind him. They entered the room farthest down the hall from the stairs.
Naruto looked about his new home, clearly amazed. The main room was a cross between a kitchen and a living room. The third closest to the door was tiled. There was a small refrigerator, an oven, several cabinets, a sink, a folding table, and two folding chairs. In the living room section was a faded rug, a couch, another small table, and a single chair. There was a door that opened into the bedroom in the living room. From what Naruto had seen he concluded that, like his previous home, the bathrooms here were communal, there being a shared bathroom for each floor instead of a personal bathroom for each apartment.
"You can sleep on the couch," Itachi said, walking into the apartment. Naruto grinned and ran over to his new bed before jumping onto the cushions. "I'm going to bed now."
Opening the door to the adjoining bedroom, Itachi was briefly annoyed at the living conditions. He'd slept in hotels when on missions before, but that had been for a week at the most and he would be here for months, if not years. Pushing aside his exasperation Itachi took an inventory of all the things located in the room before climbing into bed, intending to go to sleep.
No such luck. Just as he was getting comfortable a certain hyper active bundle of raw energy barreled into the room and jumped on the bed, landing square in the middle of Itachi's chest. Seeing that Itachi was about to reprimand him, Naruto whined, "'Achi-chan!!! I can't sleep!"
"And why not?" Itachi asked, beginning to get seriously annoyed.
Naruto formed his lips into a pout and crossed his arms. "I haven't had anything to eat all day!!! I want ramen!" Normally he wouldn't complain about the lack of food, but what was the point of having a super cool bodyguard if you ended up starving to death?
"Well, why don't you get yourself some ramen?" Itachi asked, his annoyance growing. He knew that the kid was fully capable of taking care of himself, as evidenced by the fact that he'd been living alone for quite some time.
"Cuz, baka, there ain't any!!! 'Achi-bastard didn't get ramen!!!" Naruto scolded.
Sighing Itachi push Naruto off of his stomach and onto the floor. "If it'll make you go to sleep I'll get you some ramen," he said, annoyance leaking into his tone.
"YATTA!!!" Naruto shouted, excited at the thought of his guard buying ramen for him.
Turning to Naruto, Itachi asked, "Can I trust you to stay here and not break anything?"
Nodding, Naruto said, "Duh!"
Mentally gripping that he didn't have a reason to ignore the brat and go back to bed, Itachi calmly exited the apartment and started running towards the nearest store that would sell ramen. Hogosha had provided a map pointing out the local places, knowing that Itachi lived in the really rich old clan section of town and therefore wouldn't know anything about the locations of places like grocery stores.
Arriving at his destination Itachi was hit by a sudden jolt of Uchiha pride and decided that it would be degrading to be seen in this place. So he did what any over prideful ninja would do: he transformed himself. Turning into a brown haired brown eyed chunin he entered the store nonchalantly and made his purchase. Not knowing what Naruto would want he brought four miso, four pork, and just for the heck of it one oriental and one chili. He knew that what he'd brought wouldn't last to long, but until he knew what Naruto liked he didn't want to give the over reactive blonde any reason to throw a temper tantrum. He valued his eardrums, and had no wish for them to be shattered when Naruto started yelling.
He ran back to the apartment and opened the door, setting the bag of ramen down on the counter. "I got your ramen," he said, wanting to go back to sleep. "You can make it yourself."
"'K 'Achi-chan!" Naruto shouted, running into the kitchen and tackling Itachi around the legs.
"Don't call me 'Achi-chan," Itachi ordered, prying the blonde off of him. It annoyed him how much he was annoyed by the boy. Only weaklings feel such petty things as annoyance, let alone emotion, and Itachi was no weakling. Also being annoyed by Naruto meant that he hadn't succeeded in demolishing his emotions just yet, and had therefore failed. And Uchihas do not except failure.
Naruto let go of Itachi's legs and went over to the grocery bag, looking through it. "What should I call you then?" he asked.
"Itachi-san is fine," the Uchiha answered. Ignoring the blonde's further words he went to his room, slamming the door behind him. Finally free of the annoyance that was Uzumaki Naruto he collapsed on the bed and drifted off to sleep.
(six months later)
"Where're we goin'?" Naruto asked, bored. He and Itachi were currently walking somewhere, and for some reason or another weren't taking the normal route, instead opting to walk through the streets on ground level. By now it was known throughout the village that Uchiha Itachi had been so unlucky to be saddled with the job of guarding the boy. They also new that Itachi took his job seriously, rather than letting the more minor transgressions, such as insults and the occasional flying stone, slide like most would do.
"The Uchiha compound," Itachi replied, not caring to elaborate. Naruto knew him well enough by now to detect the faint change of tone in his voice, signaling that he was tense about something.
"Why are we going there?" Naruto asked, trying to get further information. He knew that if you asked a nonspecific question or a senseless and useless question Itachi would just ignore you, and even if you ask a question with a specific answer he'd give you the minimal amount of details required.
"I have a clan meeting to attend," was the monotonous reply.
"What's it about?"
No answer. Apparently either it was about several things, Itachi didn't know, or he didn't feel like sharing the information with Naruto.
His brief source of amusement expired, Naruto looked around for something else to do, before discovering that apparently he could understand alley cats just as well as he understood wild animals. This discovery in mind he struck up a conversation with a local tabby cat.
She was intrigued by this boy that looked human and acted human but smelled and spoke like a fox. She was fairly certain that he wasn't a fox spirit in disguise, on account of the fact that he was actually speaking to her, instead of plotting something devious. She'd met several fox spirits, many of them having come to see the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, their Crown Princess, and none of them had been this open or childish.
His companion was also interesting. He was obviously of that dreaded clan the Uchihas, but he didn't smell quite like them. Most of the Uchihas that were older than kitten-hood were power hungry, and gave off a constant aura of pride and coldness. You could tell by looking at them that they'd betray you in a heartbeat, stooping to the lowest of lows to get what they wanted. One that was not tainted was rare. According to the other cats there'd only been one other that didn't follow the typical Uchiha path, and he'd died even before the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked. To top the fact that he didn't smell as power hungry as the rest of his clan, her new friend's mysterious companion smelled really tasty, quite unlike most humans, although she suspected that it wouldn't be a very good idea to try and eat him.
Naruto really liked his life recently. Yah, sure, the villagers were still cruel to him, and the teachers still went out of their way to screw up his education, but now that he actually had a bodyguard that neither hated him nor was too lazy to come to his defense he wasn't attacked at all anymore, and the insults were reduced by half. He was also experiencing a rise in the quality of his living conditions. The couch he slept on now was far more comfortable than his old mattress, and he had more and better food. He had also sort of made two new friends, if you could count a bored alley cat and the emotional equivalent of a brick wall that was paid to stay near him as friends.
His new friend the cat was interesting, too. She'd just recently had a litter of kittens, and had been hunting for some food for herself so that she could feed them when she met Naruto. Her name roughly translated into Crimson Mare. She apparently came from the Horse Tribe of cats. Cat Tribes were loose structures, and they were only distinguished from each other based on their traditions. Not all cats were in Tribes, too. The Horse Tribe of cats always gave birth in stables, and preferred to reside in said stables. The females' names always had Mare somewhere in then, while the males' names always included Stallion.
She tensed suddenly as they approached the Uchiha clan district. The raven haired guard of her new friend was nice enough, but she wasn't willing to go anywhere near the rest of the lot. Itachi agreed with her, wishing he could skip out on the meeting too. He also didn't wish to leave the cat behind. Her constant chattering was almost as annoying as Naruto's, but she gave the blonde fox boy someone other than Itachi to bug. Itachi didn't even bother to dwell on why he could understand animals far better than the average human, having accepted it a long time ago as just one of those things.
Seeing that his friend wasn't going to accompany them, Naruto bid her farewell and offered her a place at his house, kittens included. Before Itachi could protest she agreed and Naruto gave her the address and told her how to get in.
"Naruto," Itachi said, "You can't invite every stray you find into the house. It'll end up overrun."
Naruto looked at Itachi, his eyes wide and pleading and his bottom lip stuck out slightly. "Please Achi-chan! I really want a friend and Crimson is really nice! I know she won't make a mess, and I won't invite any other strays over to live there! I promise!" he whined, puppy dog look turned on full blast.
Itachi could see the sense in Naruto's argument, despite how it was delivered. The Hokage had told him, after all, to try to help Naruto make one or two friends. He was fairly certain that a cat wasn't what the Hokage had in mind, but it was Naruto's first friend. His decision to let the cat stay had absolutely nothing to do with the cute begging look on Naruto's face. Nothing to do with it whatsoever.
"Fine, the cat can stay, but if she or her kittens make a mess you get to clean it."
Naruto's face was nearly split in half by a grin. There was actually some basis behind this grin, which was abnormal for him, but he was over exaggerating it quite a bit. He felt more like giving Itachi a small smile and a sincere thank you, rather than the "Yatta!" he shouted.
"Quiet down. We're entering the compound now," Itachi told Naruto.
Naruto for once did as he was told, sensing the sudden rise in killer intent. Apparently the Uchiha clan had no problem with ignoring the fact that Naruto was escorted by their prodigy, and were actually glaring more than was normal in the village without Itachi there. He figured that it had something to do with the fact that he was taking up Itachi's time, also managing to ensure that he didn't get any higher ranked missions, being confined to missions within the village.
Itachi was just ignoring the glares. The opinions of idiots such as these mattered not to him. If they couldn't see past their own noses enough to realize that the boy in front of them was not a demon, and that any even remotely demonic acts he preformed were all their faults because they turned him into that, then they might as well be dead. Shinobi who couldn't look underneath the underneath, or at the least put their own feelings at bay in favor of the greater good, were of no use to their village or people.
Seeing the raven's indifference to the stares Naruto relaxed a bit, but made a mental note to later on apologize to Itachi for reflecting badly on his reputation. He didn't want his only human friend to get mad at him, after all.
They soon arrived at the main household of the Uchiha clan. Itachi slid open the screen door leading to the kitchen. Mikoto was standing there, preparing lunch.
"Hello, Itachi. It seems that you decided to show up for this meeting after all," she said briskly, her tone cold. Then she saw Naruto, and instead of cold dislike her eyes shone with hatred. "What is he doing here?" she asked, her tone now conveying anger on the point of exploding.
It was no secret that the Uchihas as a whole tended to have bad tempers, angering easily. This was carefully masked by a visage of cold indifference. Most people took them at face value, not realizing how quite a few of them could go from perfectly calm to raging in a matter of seconds. Itachi was one of those few.
His fist clenched, he replied to his mother through gritted teeth. "In case you forgot, Mikoto, I have a mission to protect Naruto, which requires me to stay by his side as much as possible. I am aware that I cannot take him into the meeting room with me, so I thought that it would be fine if I left him here for the duration of the meeting. Unless of course you have so little honor that you'd attack a defenseless child, or allow him to be attacked?"
She was angered in return. "That demon is hardly defenseless!" she spat. "It should be killed!"
Naruto didn't even pay any attention at all to the raging Uchihas. He was used to comments like that, and had lived with them all his life. He briefly wondered if she'd been among the ones to assist in his beating six months ago. He'd been fairly certain that there was at the least one Uchiha there. Even if she hadn't, she wasn't going to get off free for insulting his friend. The gears within his mind were already turning, coming up with some ingenious prank or another that he could pull off while Itachi was preoccupied and he was actually in the compound. This was going to be fun…
Before the tension between Itachi and his mom could grow Sasuke barreled into the room, interrupting Naruto's devious line of thinking. "Aniki!" Sasuke shouted. "You're back!"
He was confused as to why his older brother had been gone so long. He'd been away on missions before, but they never lasted more than a month. And now he came back suddenly with a weird blonde kid that Sasuke had never seen before in his life in tow. Wait, who was that blonde kid anyways?
"Hello," Sasuke said, making it clear he was addressing Naruto. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. What's yours?"
Naruto had noticed that all traces of hatred had disappeared from both Mikoto and Itachi when Sasuke entered, and had drawn the conclusion that this was Itachi's little brother. His conclusion was proven when Sasuke called Itachi his older brother. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" he announced.
"I haven't ever seen you before. Are you in the Academy?" Sasuke asked.
"Yah," Naruto said, nodding. "But I'm not with kids my age. I entered two years early, so I'm in my third year."
Mikoto wasn't surprised by the information. She'd been among the ones protesting that the Kyuubi no gaki shouldn't even be allowed into the Academy at all, let alone two years early. Hogosha's excuse, which had somehow convinced the council, was that if Naruto was required to go to a certain place everyday it would be easier to keep an eye on him. He completely ignored the fact that Naruto could always skip school, and did so often. (At the least that's what he did until Itachi was assigned as his bodyguard. Itachi had several very strict rules in place. Among them was a mandatory 'go to school' rule.)
Sasuke, however, was shocked at the news. He'd known that it was possible to graduate early, but he'd never heard of anyone ever entering the Academy even one year before the age of five, let alone two years. "How'd you manage that?" he asked.
Naruto just shrugged. "I guess Hokage-jiji didn't want me on the streets, so he allowed me to enter the Academy early."
Sasuke just blinked. Naruto was a street kid? Then how did he get into the Academy? The only kids who went to the Academy were either from prestigious ninja clans or were from families well off enough to afford paying for the child's education, seeing as how training someone to be a shinobi costs much more than training them to be a librarian or something of the sort. Rarely a poor kid would be entered, and it was unheard of for anyone from the streets to become a shinobi. Maybe that was why his mother didn't seem to like Naruto so much.
"Why were you with aniki?" Sasuke asked, still not having noticed that his older brother had disappeared at the start of their conversation.
"Hokage-jiji told him to protect me because nobody seems to like me and several people have tried to kill me. I don't know why they don't like me, though. I'm just a street brat," Naruto explained. Sasuke was also confused. Why try to kill a street brat? Maybe he had connections to some Mafia boss or another. That would explain it.
His mind settled on an answer to the puzzling mystery that was Naruto, Sasuke noticed Itachi's absence. "Where'd aniki go?" he asked. Naruto looked around too, also having missed it when his constant companion slipped away.
"He went to the meeting when you two started talking," Mikoto said. "Here, have some lunch."
She set the plates down on the traditional Japanese table. Sasuke kneeled down on the mats in front of his place, waiting for his mother and guest to join him. Mikoto and Naruto both sat down. With a quite 'Itadakimasu,' Sasuke and Mikoto began eating. They looked up when they say that Naruto hadn't even picked up his chopsticks.
Seeing that Mikoto and Sasuke had noticed his lack of appetite, Naruto hastened to explain. "Gomen, but I'm not hungry at all. I don't think that I can eat anything right now. The food looks delicious, though," he said, fox grinning. Naturally he was fibbing. He was currently starving, but he didn't trust Mikoto to not poison him. The second thing he'd learned as a Jinchuuriki, right after to not show how much he hated the villagers and shinobi of Konoha, was to never eat food that he hadn't made himself or trusted where it came from, and when he made it himself to always triple check the ingredients. He'd gotten poisoned a few to many times for it to just have been accidental.
"That's alright," Mikoto said, smiling. "I'll just make some for you to take home with you, so that you can eat it later." She actually has poisoned the food, but not majorly. She knew that if Naruto got poisoned after she feed him that Itachi would suspect her, and so had slipped an herb into his meal which would only serve to make him slightly sick, giving him a bad stomach and head ache. Anymore was too dangerous the way she saw it.
"Arigatou," Naruto said. He was planning on dumping the food when he got home, but if he declined the offer then she might get mad.
He watched Sasuke and Mikoto as they finished eating, and briefly wondered when Itachi would get back. The atmosphere here was hostile, and Naruto was bored. In addition, for some reason or another, the only animals here were the occasional horse, which moved through quickly and only stopped to drop things off. The lack of wildlife, even insects, was much more unnerving than the way the Uchihas acted.
There you go! The next chapter to Path of the Not So Righteous Warrior
This version of the story is going to be ItaNaru. If you want me to write a NarutoxFemKyuubi version of this please say so this chapter. Otherwise my lazy self will take over and either A) it'll never be posted in the first place or B) it will be posted but almost never updated
Can anyone guess yet what the Uchiha clan's big secret is? I want to know whether I'm being to obvious or not. If I give the secret away before it's revealed it'll ruin the surprise, but I don't want it to come out of the blue suddenly.
Translations:
Hogosha-Japanese for protector
Kyuubi no gaki-nine tailed brat
Itadakimasu-something said in Japan before eating
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