Little six years old Naruto closes his ears, and hides behind the Hokage's chair. Hokage-Jiji raised an eyebrow but made no move to inquire or lift Naruto's little body to his laps, because the office's door opened and another old man enters.

Naruto gasped.

The new old man, with bandage covers one of his eye and one of his hand; a black bird (crow? Eagle?) perched on his shoulder. A black bird with black glinting eyes who squawked when Naruto's blue eyes looks at it, and he yelped. Completely unaware how the old man looks at him or how Hokage-Jiji frowns at him.

Naruto hides behind his surrogate-grandfather's chair, covering his ears from those discord and painful melody from pieces of—of—something precious which turned to pieces.

( "Danzo, my old friend, what brings you here?" )

Hokage-Jiji talks with that old man. Danzo-jiji, was it? He talked and talked and Naruto doesn't understand what are they talking about, too distracted by black ashen armor the other Jiji uses, too scared to look for too long because there are ghostly gray faces (crying, laughing, wailing, human faces) which twists on that armor, twist on the sparkling precious prieces which littered the black plate. And the bird's clicking parrot everytime it pecks those—those sparkling precious pieces makes his stomach churn.

The golden monkey frowns; Jiji's golden armor shines, as if trying to assures Naruto that everything is fine but little Naruto is, embarrassingly, still scared. Naruto grabs Hokage-Jiji's white robe in front of him tightly, closes his eyes, and wishing for the discord melody to stop, wishing for the other Jiji to just go away.

( 'Warmonger,' Naruto peered just in time to see one of the faces cries and wails, 'warmonger,' the other faces giggled and laughs and then cry even as the precious pieces littered around sparkled an eerie light; they chant, 'warmonger, warmonger warmonger warmonger war—' )

.

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The first time Chouji Akamichi meets Naruto Uzumaki, it's also the first time he becomes friends Shikamaru Nara.

Chouji was nine years old and they were mocking Chouji again, those civilian kids. Said that he will never be a proper ninja because he's fat, and he's ugly, and there will be no ninja who wants him to work for them, and that he should just give up his bento and just go home already, and—and Chouji can't bring himself to fight them because Chouji knows that they don't know. His clan's jutsu which needs big bones.

"—hey! It's not true! You know that'tebayo!"

The ring-leader stopped, and turned away to sneer to a one blond kid who scowls fiercely and pointing at his marry-band group of bully. There's another kid, which walks slowly behind the blond (he's literally dragging his feet, Chouji realizes), which he recognizes as Shikamaru Nara, a son of his father's friend. They met several times, since their fathers are close and sometimes they play together. But it's only that. They are... never really that close to be called friends.

"Crap, boss, it's the crazy-demon!" One of them muttered.

"Yeah? What of it? He's crazy, and he's a demon, so what?" The ring-leader sneered.

"B-but boss! He could—"

"Stop whispering to them! It's not true and you know it'tebayo!"

The leader's attention, to Chouji's dread, has turned fully to the blond. "Hah?! What are you talking about, demon?!"

But to Chouji's surprise, the blond (Naruto, Chouji's dazed mind rememberd, Naruto Uzumaki, the kid who speaks nonsense and nicknamed crazy because of it. Naruto Uzumaki who is eerily calm and boisterous at the same time, who always look everywhere yet nowhere at the same time. Chouji rememberd how his blue eyes meet Chouji's brown orbs that one time and Chouji shudders) turned his blue eyes at the ring-leader, and stared.

Stared, for a seemingly long time and one of them stepped back in (to Chouji's amazement) fear, and the others are obviously wary to the blond kid.

"She is hurting, but she doesn't want you to do this."

Chouji blinked, most of the bullies blinked.

Their leader, however, abruptly stiffens.

"I like your drumming melody'tebayo. They do, too. And she must love it. After all, it's fueled by her too."

The ring-leader's face become as pale as sheet but by the way Naruto frowns and hums, he is obviously isn't finished. Chouji almost shudders when he looks at Naruto's sky blue eyes, staring up and straight, unflinching and stand tall even if he's thin and obviously the ring-leader could pummel Naruto to the ground in a second. Those blue eyes which eerily stares down and deep yet stares nowhere at the same time.

"The fae are meany, you know. They've led you astray for a long time, it seems. It just needs to be repaired a liiitle bit'tebayo." Naruto awkwardly shuffles his feet then, "she—she misses you."

Then, to everyone's surprise, the ring-leader turned around and abruptly runs away. Soon, followed by the distraught bullies, who also runs away while glancing warily at the blond.

It was a quiet, awkward moment, before Naruto turned to face Chouji and his blue eyes lit under the sunset's sky, and he grinned so bright it should hurt,

"Hi! The fae are so mean to them, i hope they don't really mean to you'tebayo!"

Chouji looks at Shikamaru, he's confused and he's lost to what the blond means. His childhood friend gurdgingly muttered 'troublesome,' before he stepped up to stand beside Naruto and lazily, with a completely flat tone which is unique of his, says,

"What he means is, 'I'm Uzumaki Naruto and this is my friend Shikamaru Nara. Are you okay, Chouji?'"

And that's how Chouji befriends Uzumaki Naruto and Shikamaru Nara. It was how he, no matter how lost he is at times with what Naruto says, find himself always enjoy Naruto's story and soon, Chouji finds himself listening to dances of wind and leaves and chiming wind bells.

(Later, Chouji will learn that his bullies's ring-leader's mother has been sick (it's a bad sickness, she needs to be bed-ridden); that he has not been a bully before and he apologizes because he has vented his frutration on Chouji.

Chouji, on the other hand, remembered how Naruto mentioned a woman that day he talked the bullies away. Rememberd Naruto's firm 'she is hurting, but she doesn't want you to do this' and 'she misses you' and could only stare at Naruto, who is currently looking up at the sky, then tilted his head to thin air, then grins to the trees, "Hi for you too, little one!". Then Chouji turned to Shikamaru to ask for an explanation, but the Nara only yawns, glances lazily at Chouji, and shakes his head. A nonverbal for 'don't ask.')

Naruto Uzumaki is odd, and maybe a little bit crazy, but as long as Shikamaru Nara ("And you too, mini-giant! Now you are my friend, too'tebayo!" Naruto quipped) and Chouji Akamichi is there with him, everything would be fine.

("I don't understand why they called you fat. You just have big bones, mini-giant. Not fat. Fat are ugly things, mostly. Your big bones are not." Naruto nonchalantly says, as he looks at sunset sky, distracted by waves of rainbow which floats and dances in the air.

Silence.

Then, the mini-giant cried. His flickering, white strong bones inside his skin bristles as the mini-giant rubbed his eyes with his hand.

Naruto looks at Shikamaru in horror and confusion but Shikamaru just stiffly shakes his head. Meaning that even the star-eyed-shadow-bender doesn't know what happened. The stars have not been helping him on this one! What should Naruto do now?

Awkwardly, Naruto begins, "I—uh, mini-giant I'm sor—"

"Thank you."

Naruto blinked. The bones shimmer softly as the mini-giant grins, and even if Naruto is still confused, Naruto also nods, and mimicks his grins.

"I don't know what happened, but sure'ttebayo!")

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A/N I guess, i'll focus on childhood arc for a while. I mean, well, i want to show you guys that Naruto's life is already different from his childhood. For one, he's more calm and he doesn't do pranks that often as he's mostly distracted by everything around him. And he have friends, too. I hope you enjoy this short piece.

P.S. I'm actually itchy to write how Naruto meets Itachi for the first time but... it would be spoiler so you have to wait for a few chapters. Thanks for the review, fav and follow, guys! 30+ favs, 70+ follows, and 10 reviews! Wow you guys are rock!