Naruto A Stranger's Promise: Chapter 2 Hey kid
Daremo walked along the familiar forest again. However, this time it wasn't on fire so he smiled happily. It had been quite some journey for him, across the entire continent and many of the countries. But the seven year journey paid off, he was now no longer a stranger in a strange land. He could understand all sorts of things that he hadn't known before, such as ninjas and tailed beasts... especially the tailed beasts. He wanted to learn as much as he could about them in order to help out the Naruto child that he'd promised to look after. The boy should be a little brat of seven by now. Daremo glowed at the thought, 'kids certainly do grow up fast' he thought to himself.
"Passport?"
"I don't have one, but I have a meeting with the hokage." Daremo replied to the guard's question.
"Uhuh and when did you arranged the meeting?" The guard looked at Daremo's face when he asked that question. "I arranged it around seven years ago, but it was rather unofficial." Daremo told the guard happily.
"I see... well that was before my time, so er, yeah, we'll get you an armed escort and take you to the hokage. But the escort are trained ninjas, so don't even think that you'll be able to pull anything." The guard warned him and signalled another guard, after five minutes wait a group of three ANBU agents hit the floor and surrounded Daremo. "Ah, this should do nicely. Thank you for your time, goodbye now." Daremo left after saying this to the guard and the ANBU agents followed.
Hiruzen blow out smoke and sighed deeply, it had been seven years and like promised, the man who called himself Daremo had come back. He looked a lot more cheerful this time around, but then again, this time around the circumstances were a lot calmer. "Let's get to it." Daremo finally said to the third Hokage. "I'm here to become Naruto's foster father." Upon hearing this, Hiruzen decided to take this into stride.
"Seven years." He began. "I have spent seven years making sure Naruto never learnt about his parents in order to protect him and now some ghost from the past expects me to just hand over the boy without a fuss." After finishing his short story he looks long and hard at Daremo to watch his reaction. "Yeah, that's pretty much the short version of the story... so when do I get to meet the kid?" Daremo asked, much to Hiruzen's dismay. There was nothing wrong with the answer, but he was worried about the trouble that this stranger might bring. "You can meet him immediately, at this time he'll be around the village somewhere. Go find him and don't cause any trouble." After Hiruzen said this, Daremo thanked him and left.
"Lord Third." A bearded man, that had stood in the corner of the room, began but was stopped by Hiruzen. "Don't Asuma, I know it's risky letting some stranger we don't even know about look after the nine-tails child. But he helped Minato and Kushina after the Kyubi attacked and Naruto needs a father to see as his pillar of strength. With luck they might be perfect for each other."
A group of villagers crowded around a crying boy. "Monster. Scum. Go die you filthy little child." These words echoed around the child's ears, but what hurt most was the cold stares. Nobody wanted him, everybody thought him better off dead. 'Why does everybody hate me' Naruto asked himself. "HEY! Leave that kid alone!" A voice rang out and the villagers scattered like children that had just been caught doing something they were told not to do five minutes ago. But some of them stayed behind. "What's it to YOU what we're doing here?" A thin looking villager with a single chin hair said to the man that had just called out. Naruto stopped crying, but couldn't clearly see the man through the tears left in his eyes. But he did see the man raise his foot up high, before stomping it back down causing the whole ground to shake. The villagers fell over and as the man walked towards them they ran away to join the others. Naruto watched this strange man as he walked towards him. "No, get away from me!" The blonde boy cried out. He turned to the villagers and shouted to them "Help! Help me!" But they turned their faces away from him. Naruto tried to run away but he fell over, so he shook violently until the man reached him. Naruto closed his eyes in fear, but felt a hand softly placed against his head. He opened his eyes and saw the smiling face of the man. "Hello Naruto, my name's Daremo. I'm going to be taking care of you from now on." He told Naruto and Naruto, not sure what to make of this, just nodded.
After entering a ramen stand, whereupon Daremo helped Naruto up onto a stool, Daremo ordered two ramen for them both and watched as Naruto helped himself to seconds and then thirds and finally cut in to stop him from the fourth. "Hey, my wallet's going to go bust and your belly's going to burst. If your still hungry we can get some later." After saying this to Naruto, Daremo paid for the bill and stood up to leave. "Are you coming kid?" He asked Naruto. Naruto scrunched his eyes up tight as he leered at Daremo. "My name's Naruto." He said to Daremo in a rather bratty tone.
"I know Naruto. But your still a kid to me." He said to Naruto before adding with a gleam in his eyes. "If you want to me to call you Naruto then earn my respect, kid." Naruto jumped down from his stool and scrunched his fist.
"I will! I'll become Hokage!" Naruto declared not just to Daremo, but to anybody who could hear him.
"Oh, so you plan to surpass everyone do you?" Daremo asked before adding. "Well then, kid. I guess I'll call you Naruto if you ever reach that position." Daremo said this while smiling. 'Minato, Kushina. You're child seeks to surpass even the two of you. He'll be a fine man just like you both wanted.' Daremo thought this to himself and stretched out a hand for Naruto to grab a hold of. Naruto studied it and slowly held it looking up at Daremo and smiling. Daremo beamed and said to Naruto "I promise, now that I'm here I won't let anything bad like what happened earlier. Not while I'm around." Naruto gave him a grin and they both walked away from the Ramen stand, leaving an empty fourth bowl behind.
The next day Naruto was picked up out of his bed and was being used as a mop to clean his own apartment. "Hey, what are you doing!" He yelled as he spat out his mouldy T-shirt.
"This place is a mess, you won't get friends coming round if you don't clean up." Daremo said to him sternly but with an added hint cheerfulness to his nature. " I don't have friends anyway." Naruto replied almost mournfully.
"Maybe not now, but when you become a ninja you'll be forced to work with people and there's no time for hatred as a ninja, not if you want to stay alive, you put your life on the line for your country and well, if I'm brutally honest, that's a good way of bringing people together." Daremo said all of this to a bleary eyed Naruto. So he just set him down, handed the kid a mop and barked out "clean" making Naruto clean, sourly. "When you're done we'll start training." He added and Naruto spun to face him.
"Training?" Naruto said with mixed feeling. Daremo bent down to Naruto's level and said "I've got to get you prepared for the academy, most of the people in there will be from their retrospective clans and I can't let them see you as a weakling, so from now on I'll get you ready with training. It will be gruelling, it will be hellish and it will make you ready for Ninja Academy."
