My present from me to you this Christmas!

Big thanks to the following people for reviewing on the first chapter! alchemists19; luckyschoolgirl; Ex10; I Love Lollipops; Lord Rahl Master of D'Hara; TigrezzTail; Shadow Curse; Stargazer; wong jowo; VampiricBloOdyRose.


Life on the Run
Chapter 2

The trees flew past at a speed that would have terrified Naruto if it were not for his current unconscious state. Itachi continued to push onwards into the night with the child in his arms, as he dashed the fastest he could through the forest that surrounded Konoha, his home village. He had aimed to get out of the village unnoticed, as any sane ninja in his position would have, however it seemed Danzo had sent NE members out to look for Naruto. They had been spotted just as they had made it to the village's outer wall and since then there had been two teams hot on their heels. And they were slowly gaining.

Itachi finally came to the conclusion he had no choice but to fight, however this only brought on a new disadvantage as he would have to protect the golden haired child at the same time. Thinking quickly he came to a decision. Dropping down from the branches and onto the soft moss laden forest floor, he approached a hollow amongst the roots of a tree. Itachi gently lowered Naruto into the hollow, and then, reaching into his pack, the Uchiha removed two items. The blanket he tucked around the injured child, and a blank sealing tag which he deftly wrote the appropriate seal to hide a chakra presence in his own blood and then placed it on the boy's forehead. Afterwards he left the pack beside the boy and immediately turned and headed in the opposite direction to before, towards the pursuers.

As he neared the trackers he felt their chakra presences split so that they approached him from all sides and a few moments later they broke through the trees around him and the plain white masked figures surrounded him with ease, bringing him to a halt.

Whilst normally Itachi preferred an open area to take on opponents, with the six against one statistics he found himself thankful for the amount of cover and strategies the forest terrain would offer him during the battle that was about to take place. One of the NE members took a step forwards towards him and spoke in a clear and emotionless tone to voice the custom procedure on the account of meeting a nuke-nin as he now was.

"Uchiha Itachi, by the decree of the Sandaime Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village you have been labelled a traitor of Konohagakure and all shinobi have been given the permission to kill on site. If you wish to come quietly, now is your opportune moment to do so." Itachi resisted the urge to role his eyes, as he did with every action that showed any amount of emotion, and instead shook his head once, efficiently, to show his refusal. "Then you leave us with no choice." Came the leader's voice with the same blank attitude as before.

All six of the came at him from all sides, each one wielding a different but just as deadly weapon. The one female amongst the group came at him first, a sai held in each of her hands and crossed across her chest. She threw the first at him, which Itachi immediately dodged and deemed a waist considering she was now down to only one weapon, and then advanced with the second making an intricate variety of swipes and stabs with the three pronged weapon. It was after a particularly vicious attack that she suddenly made an unusual move with her sai-less hand and Itachi felt from the air current something heading towards him and dodged just in time to only receive a scratch as the first sai sped past him and back into the female ninja's hand through the use of ninja wire wrapped around its hilt. She immediately threw the sai again and the process repeated.

If the Uchiha had been a lesser shinobi, he most probably would have fallen into the sense of security as the kunoichi repeated the same moves, making it easy for him to dodge ad counter attack where required. As it was though, when the other NE members used the false similarities to attack unexpectedly, Itachi was prepared and leapt out the way allowing the two new assailants to counter the woman's moves for him as they got in the way of her rhythmic hits.

Seeming to grow frustrated, the other ninjas under Danzo's control stepped in as well, causing havoc to break loose as they each sent a stab, slice or hit in his direction and then backed up to negate any counter attacks and allow the next shinobi to have a turn at him. Itachi, despite his superior power and training was fast becoming a sweat streaked mess and his previously controlled breathing was coming in short gasps. Finally beginning to notice a patter to the shinobi that attacked, he took a chance and blocked to his left the swordsman's blade with a kunai, sparks flying as proof of the power of each of their blows. He then kicked the man behind him in the stomach, who he predicted to be the next to attack, and used the split second pause that should occur to rush through familiar hand signs.

It appeared he had been right, whether through chance or the pattern he did not know, but the fire jutsu swelled around him forcing the enemies to retreat a distance. Not wasting a second, he used the borrowed time to jump back amongst the trees and hide amid shadows of the branches and leaves of the enormous trees and vegetation that blocked out the full moon's ghostly glow.

From there on out, he picked them off.

First he got rid of the bothersome woman. She stealthily made her way past the branch on which he crouched, her senses ranging around her trying to locate him. When she had passed just enough for it to count as her back facing him, Itachi pulled tight the sharp ninja wire which he had placed there not moments before she arrived. She had no time to scream as the wire sliced straight through both her left arm, right thigh and neck simultaneously, severing the limbs and head from her body. Her body dropped to the ground with a muted thud; the moss drank in her crimson blood.

The Uchiha's second attack got rid of the next three all at once. He utilised a single shadow clone to distract the three shinobi. The shadow clone allowed its chakra to be detected, but hid the majority of it so as not to appear suspicious. The real Itachi then watch from above as the three shinobi surrounded his clone hidden within a group of bushes. In the split second their attack absorbed their attention, Itachi's clone caught their eyes and they immediately became trapped within one of the sharingan's trademark genjutsus.

Since the shadow clone technique involved splitting chakra equally between the original body and the clone, half the amount of chakra seriously weakened the strength of the illusion. However Itachi had used this method purely for the opportunity it would give, and he dropped from his hiding place to land behind the three NE shinobi and decapitated all three with a single strike of his katana.

However these three had not been silent in their deaths, one had let out a shriek of fear due to the terrifying genjutsu and had given away his position to the remaining three shinobi.

The first two to reach him faced him down with a mixture of elemental based ninjutsus. It was purely unfortunate for them that their elements happened to be wind and water, both of which could be negated and weakened or even turned against them by his fire and lightning based retaliations. Soon their bodies also littered the ground, both looking burnt, but one by flames and the other by electrical energy.

Within seconds of him finishing them off, and before he had fully caught his breath, Itachi jumped to the side, dodging a kunai by a mere hair's width. The ninja tool buried itself in the dead body of one of the thrower's comrades instead.

By this point Itachi was low on chakra after having destroyed the whole of his own clan, casting a powerful genjutsu on his own younger brother and defeating the five NE shinobi whose bodies now lay throughout the forest. Not to mention the emotional strain from his actions that weighed terribly on his mind. And so the final fight came down to taijutsu and kenjutsu alone.

Itachi Uchiha and the leader clashed with an almighty crash. An intricate deadly dance was woven, and the two bodies separated and joined fluidly by their blades and lethal limbs. The rhythm began quickly in pace, but only proceeded to increase in tempo, reaching an incomprehensible high before they both became still.

The leader smirked beneath his mask at the sight of his blade sunken into Itachi's abdomen and the Uchiha coughed and sprayed blood from his mouth and the same liquid continued to drip from his lips after the original spasm. However when he looked up into the leader's eyes, the smirk faltered at the spark of amusement deep within the obsidian depths.

Then Itachi's body fell apart before his eyes, and each piece that broke away deformed into a crow that took flight up into the night. The process continued at an exponential rate until nothing remained.

Suddenly the leader felt a burning pain in his own stomach and looked down to see the tip of Itachi's sword protruding from his flesh. He fell forwards and came to rest on his side. Looking up Itachi stood above him, heaving in breaths and brushing sweat from his forehead. Then with arms shaking with fatigue the Uchiha raised his blade above his head. The leader shut his eyes.

Itachi removed the head from the shoulders with one fatal swoop and then walked unsteadily away, only pausing to wipe his sword clean on the grass.

-x-

It took a while for Itachi to make his way back to where he had left Naruto, and when he arrived he immediately reached into his pack and dry swallowed the two food pills he found there. In seconds he felt strength return to his limbs and chakra circulate in his previously dry chakra coils. It was then that he actually took the time to look at the child, and froze.

Naruto was curled up on his side and where he had moved in his sleep the blanket had bunched up around him. However what had enticed such a strong reaction out of him was the pair of amber eyes glowing in the otherwise blacked out environment, which were around the area of the boy's stomach. As his own eyes adjusted further to the dark surroundings, Itachi began to see outlines and eventually the full picture of a small everyday fox curled up in front of the boy in what could only be described as a protective manner.

Taking a moment to analyse the situation, Itachi tried approaching Naruto, but the fox hissed and its rusty red fur stood on end. However this reaction caused the golden haired child to stir and celestial blue eyes blinked open and looked around trying to recognise his surroundings. When his eyes landed on the Uchiha, he abruptly sat up but released a startlingly similar hiss to that of the fox when pain coursed through the broken wrist still bandaged tightly and the boy automatically brought the appendage up to his chest, cradling it with his other hand. His eyes never left Itachi's.

"Naruto-Kun, it's just me, Itachi." He said softly, suddenly realising that without his ANBU mask that child may not have recognised him. Again he reached out to console the boy in some way, but Naruto backed away further from his touch and his companion the fox stood up and in between the two humans, baring its fangs in a snarl. "Naruto-Kun, I'm just-"

"You're hurt." Naruto suddenly interrupted in a trembling voice. Itachi brought his hand up to his cheek where he could feel a light stinging from the scratch there, and when he lowered his hand he found blood coating his fingers. The boy looked on wide eyed at the injury as though seeing such a thing for the first time, which of course was impossible, considering the conditions the child had lived in up until then. Hesitantly he approached Itachi, and the fox whined in worry. Reaching out tentatively, he touched the wound so that his own fingers were stained by the ruby red liquid of life. Itachi remained as still as a statue throughout the notion, not wanting to scare the boy off again. "Why?" Naruto finally questioned, not looking at Itachi, but rather at his own tainted hand.

"I had to take care of some people that were tracking us." He answered as quietly as he could trying not to ruin the delicate atmosphere of calm that was slowly being built, however Naruto still flinched, but whether from the sound of his voice or of the killings he had implied, he did not know. Naruto began to back up again, but this time only to sit down on the soft mossy ground, and the fox mimicked his motions and sat at the child's side, its crafty eyes still lingering on Itachi as though he considered the ex-ANBU a threat. Itachi then noticed that the bandage around Naruto's otherwise bare feet had a red stain that was slowly spreading, visible through the eerie glow of the night. "You're hurt too." He stated calmly. "Let me take a look at your feet." He waited until he received an uncertain nod before moving forwards, but the fox hissed violently.

Naruto looked down in shock, seemingly only noticing the creature now, and just as timidly as he had done with Itachi's wound earlier, he laid a small bandaged hand out to rest on its white marked furred head. The fox leant into the touch and its eyes fell to half mast in pleasure as the child scratched him gently. The boy's eyes widened to globes as a purred sigh escaped the animal's throat at his ministrations. Whilst keeping a close eye on the fox, Itachi reached out again and with great care removed the bandages around Naruto's feet. He then proceeded to clean them carefully with some cloth he dampened using a canteen, and then redressed them with clean bandages.

All the while Naruto had continued to fascinate himself with the happy reactions the fox seemed to have to his care, and the animal was pushing at his hand for more and more attention, not unlike a pet would its owner. However Itachi could see the way the child's muscles were tensed, ready to jump away from him at a moment's notice, and the way the boy was watching him out the corner of his eye. It seemed he would have to earn Naruto's trust through time.


Another huge thanks for the previous review, and please do so again!
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