A Village Hidden in Hope
By Marz
The Sand Spirits: Part II
Jiraiya woke unsure of where he was, and not really caring. The air was dry and there was a faint mechanical hum in the background. He rolled over in the too-soft bed and finally sat up, struggling to find the floor and then the bathroom. Trying to figure out how to flush the strange, waterless toilet finally brought his mind back to the present. He was in the desert land, looking for Naruto.
After failing to understand the sink, shower and other items that may or may not be meant for washing, he gave up and wandered out into the hall. His legs weren't shaking as they had been when the… Wookie had helped him find his way to his room the first time around. He had regenerated some chakra, probably because he'd been asleep for at least a day, but he wasn't anywhere near ready for a big battle. That jutsu had taken every last bit of his strength and then some.
He could hear people in the kitchen. It wasn't far from his room. The subterranean house was smaller than he'd expected, especially for someone who seemed to have as much pull in the village as Shmi Skywalker did. He took his time making his way along, stopping to look at the pictures hanging there. Most of them were video playing or still on small, paper-thin television screens, but a few were on real paper. He stopped to peer at a childish scribble; three stick-figure people--a woman and two blond boys. He realized one of the boys was Naruto, though the orange crayon used wasn't quite the same as the boy's real jumpsuit. That figure also had bold whiskers on its off-centered circle of a face.
Looking closer, Jiraiya saw the picture had been labeled in his own language.
Me, Shmi-mama-sama, Anakin
Damn, that kid could not draw.
He rubbed at his face and sighed. He focused his chakra into his ears and listened to the talking in the kitchen again. He identified Shmi and a stranger, and both of them talking in another language, though he did hear them mention Naruto, Anakin, and Kage.
What had they called the kid? Their Kage? Jiraiya doubted they knew what the word meant, or that Naruto had bothered to explain it to them. He was glad the kid hadn't ended up somewhere horrible, but he shouldn't have been granting himself titles he hadn't earned. He let his feet drag a bit so they'd hear him coming.
There was an old man sitting at the table with Shmi. He had snow-white hair and deep lines around his mouth, but his gaze was steady and his eyes were clear. Other than old, Jiraiya couldn't guess at his age. He wore what looked like an armored vest over his tan robes, and there was some sort of machine attached to the side of his head.
"Morning," Jiraiya said hoarsely.
"This is Contras Avora; he's one of our most experienced military advisers," Shmi said.
"Ero-sennin," the man said, nodding respectfully.
Jiraiya frowned. "Did the brat ever explain to you what that meant?"
They nodded. Jiraiya's face fell.
"Hungry?" Shmi asked.
He nodded and a moment later had been served a bowl with a lid and a cup with a lid. He supposed it was to keep the contents from evaporating before he could ingest them. He opened the bowl and stirred the tan substance within.
"It's a protein / carbohydrate base ration," Avora said with barely a hint of an accent. "The med-droid did a scan yesterday when you didn't wake up. It recommended a boring diet until you've had a chance to settle in with the local microbes."
"Does everyone here speak my language?" Jiraiya asked, trying a spoonful of the bland mush. "And what's a med-droid?"
"We learned your language from Naruto," she said. "Well, not all of us learned it directly from him, but my other son Anakin set up a language program so a droid could record as much of it as possible and make a sort of primer for us to work from. It's actually a very good language for sending coded messages with."
"Oh, right," Jiraiya said.
"And a med-droid is a big, creepy robot that poked you with needles while you were passed out," Avora said.
"Oh, right. No, wait, what?" Jiraiya asked. "What's a robot?"
They started explaining and it sounded like something that was halfway between a computer and a puppet that didn't need a puppeteers' chakra to move. It didn't make much sense to him, but he decided it was easier to nod. And then Avora had to go do something with "telemetry" and left them alone. Jiraiya finished his mush and looked from his mug of tea to his hostess.
"So…is the brat doing alright?" he asked. "It took me longer than it should have to figure out how to follow him."
"Naruto is doing well," Shmi said. "Though I'd hardly call him…a brat. He's an adult by most standards."
Jiraiya was really baffled about how they judged such things here. Would Naruto be able to handle all the bad news Jiraiya had for him? He doubted it. Maybe he should just leave the kid here if he was so well off. He'd be safe from the Akatsuki and the Village hadn't exactly encouraged Jiraiya's efforts to retrieve the demon prison.
To kill some time, he asked Shmi about the Village Hidden in Hope, and she did her best to paint a picture for him. The village was one of the largest cities on the planet, and had become the capitol after a war with the planet's former rulers, the Hutts. The other cities, including their closest neighbor, Mos Espa, were still troubled by crime and the justice system wasn't much better than mob rule, but it was a great deal better then the previous system of Hutt rule.
Jiraiya wasn't terribly surprised. Fringe places tended to be run toward survival of the fittest. Shmi explained that most of the sentient beings who lived on Tattooine were prospectors or former slaves. And even after they lost political control, many of the Hutts stayed because of business investments. There was also a primitive race called, surprisingly enough, 'the sand people', living out in the open desert. It was a very harsh place, but many were trying to change it for the better.
Though Jiraiya did not know a lot about this world and had only the barest understanding of how he and the brat had come to be there, he was sure it could have been worse. Naruto had a lot of luck to end up in a place like this. Jiraiya made the mistake of telling Shmi so.
"It was our luck, not his," Shmi said.
"I just mean he's lucky you found him and brought him to your village," Jiraiya said.
"I don't think you understand at all," Shmi said. "Why do you think we wear his marks?" she said, pointing at the whisker lines drawn on her face. "He saved us. He saved all of us."
"Yeah, sure," Jiraiya said. "I just meant I'm glad he ended up in this village and not…you know, one of the other ones you described."
"He did not 'end up' in this village," Shmi said. "With his help, we built it."
Jiraiya couldn't think of anything to say in reply. He waited for more of the story.
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The First Days…
Naruto knew he was pretty much the opposite of a genius, but even he had figured out instantly that he wasn't at the bottom of the ravine in Konoha. He remembered falling, and the dark sewer that held the Fox. He remembered the monster's chakra flowing up over him, and then a panicked scramble to form all the seals before he hit the ground and died. He thought he might've done one wrong, but the blood from his nicked finger splashed out, and the chakra drained into the seals, and there was a lot of smoke….
He sat up and winced away from the sun. There had been a feeling of being pulled. And he remembered seeing bright things blur past through a long dark space…and then this. He figured he'd sent himself away rather than summoning a toad. And since he came to while lying on a sand dune, and there was no ocean in sight, he figured he was in Wind Country.
He hoped he wasn't near that Gaara kid's village, Hidden Sand. If that kid was a Genin, he never wanted to come across a Jonin, especially since he didn't have permission to be wherever it was he had landed. Sure, Sand Village was allied with Leaf, but he didn't know how friendly they'd be.
"Maybe if I do the same thing, but backwards, I'll send myself home!" he said, nodding to himself as his whole body prickled with sweat.
He bit his thumb and tried to make the seals in the reverse order. Nothing happened. He couldn't focus his chakra at all. He realized there was nothing to draw on. He frowned. He'd exhausted himself before, but even then he could feel something. Now there was nothing.
"I'll walk for a while, and try again. I don't want to be right where I started, anyway. I'd just be falling in that ravine again," he said.
Nothing in the endless desert answered him.
Though exhausted, he walked until it was dark. There was some weird optical illusion; he saw the sun set twice. Or maybe it was genjutsu. He had the horrifying thought that he'd just been walking in a circle all day, getting more and more thirsty, trapped in an illusion, like he, Sakura, Kabuto, and Sasuke were during that last part of the second test. Maybe that was how Sand village defended itself. Maybe if you weren't invited you just walked in circled until you died of thirst.
He fell asleep as soon as he lay down. He woke up to the sound of flapping feathers.
There was a strange-looking bird a few yards away, watching him. There was something very wrong with its face. It looked like it was halfway between a bug and a bird, with bulging milky eyes and a circular, fanged, cavity of a mouth instead of a beak.
"Go away!" he shouted, horrified.
It made a sort of hissing sound and took off. He didn't see another living thing for the rest of the day. When he sat down to rest again he passed out, and woke in the dark. He tried to look at the stars, to figure out if he was going in the right direction, but he couldn't find even one familiar constellation. He wished again that he'd paid attention in the basic survival classes.
He walked some more.
He wished he still had his goggles. His eyes stung from three days of glaring light. They prickled and he tried not to cry, because he wasn't sure if it would be from frustration or physical injury. He didn't plan to give up. He wasn't going to just lie down and die, but every step got harder and his legs ached, and his breath rasped in and out past his parched lips.
He tried to summon a few times, but nothing happened. He tried to make the Fox talk to him again, but he couldn't find his way back to that sewer. He wished desperately he was back in that dank tunnel, so he could drink the water puddled on the floor.
He thought he heard the word Fool echoing in the distance somewhere, but he decided it was just his mind playing tricks. The tricks got worse after that.
Consciousness took on a strobe-like quality. He would blink and find himself stumbling across the sand. He'd blink again and he'd be in Konoha walking down empty streets. The fountains were empty and none of the taps worked. He tried to drink from a garden hose and it bit him on the face. He blinked himself back to the desert. It was dark, but he got up and shuffled along anyway. Light came and went, he moved when he could, and lay staring when he couldn't.
"I'm not going to die here," he rasped to himself. "I'll get home. I don't need to be rescued. I'll get up…in just one minute…"
Naruto woke up to someone smoothing his hair back from his forehead and pressing a cup of water to his lips. The water tasted murky and metallic, but he drank it anyway. He tried to open his eyes but they were swollen shut. A voice murmured in his ear. It was a woman's, but her words didn't make any sense. He groaned--at least, he tried to groan, but all that came out was a sort of strangled huff. He was given more water and slept again.
It went on like that for he didn't know how long, coming half-awake and drinking until he felt his stomach would burst, all the while some woman speaking quiet nonsense in the background.
When he finally woke all the way, he really had to pee.
The lady who showed him how the bathroom worked was really nice, but she looked really tired. Naruto realized, after being shown the entirety of the small house, that he had been sleeping in her bed. He'd tried to apologize, but she hadn't understood. He hadn't heard that they spoke another language in the Village Hidden in the Sand, but it seemed to be true. She didn't even know where the Kazekage's office was, or where the diplomatic station thing was. Iruka-sensei had told him he had to check into one if he ever went to another village officially.
The lady's kid came in; the little boy was probably about the same age as Konohamaru. Naruto was pretty sure the little brat didn't like him much, though he was polite in front of his mother. They spent an hour talking, but got nowhere. Well, Naruto, Anakin, and Shmi-mama-sama exchanged names, but Naruto still had no idea where the diplomatic station was.
Eventually he decided to look for it on his own. They both tried to stop him from leaving. The woman made pleading gestures, and the little boy kept calling him a word that Naruto was pretty sure meant "idiot". But they'd get in just as much trouble as him if they were caught harboring a missing, or in Naruto's case a lost nin. They called after him as he walked away from their house and followed him out to a road that lead to a larger city Naruto could just see sticking out of sand dunes beyond. He set off through the desert with an unhappy trudge.
He walked through the gates of the village, which hung open and were guarded by men in armor who didn't seem to care that Naruto was walking in past them. They didn't give his Leaf headband a second look. Of course, he didn't spot a Sand symbol on any of the guards, either. He thought for a moment that it was some other city in Wind country, until he finally saw the ninja.
The Village Hidden in the Sand had the freakiest bunch of blood limits Naruto had ever seen. There were people who looked like lizards, people with too many arms, people covered in fur. He started to wonder if maybe they weren't summoned creatures instead of people. He even saw several groups using wind jutsu to float wheel-less wagons along through the streets.
He wandered through the village, looking for ninja headbands, but nobody wore them. He didn't even see any ninja insignia, which was feeding a growing suspicion that this wasn't the Village Hidden in the Sand, despite the sand everywhere.
After a couple of hours repeating "Kazekage", "shinobi", "Konoha" and a dozen other words he though should inspire directions, he was no closer to finding his way home, and his mouth was completely dry. He spent another half hour looking around for a well or a drinking fountain, but there was nothing. He went so far as to enter a bar, where he was given a lot of creepy looks. He saw people getting cups of water at the counter, in exchange for large piles of triangular coins. He frowned and went back outside, slapping away a hand as a large man tried to grab him.
He went out and found an alley to slump in. A weird, rat-like creature ran by his feet.
He didn't have any money for water. He didn't have any money for anything. A shadow fell over him. It was the man from the bar. He had some weird thing in his hand. It looked kind of like Sakura's blow drier. He pointed it at Naruto and tried to grab him again.
Naruto swept the man's legs out of under him and hopped to his feet.
"Leave me alone, you jerk!" he demanded.
The man pointed the blow drier at him. Naruto wasn't really afraid of it, but dodged out of its path on general principle. He was glad he did. A red light came out of the blow drier and burned a hole in the wall. Naruto dashed around out of the line of fire and kicked the weapon out of the man's hand, and then kicked him in the face for good measure. The man went limp. Still scowling, Naruto went through the man's pockets, but there weren't any of those little coins.
"I guess you were going to rob me, but the joke's on you, jerk," he declared.
He kept the blow-drier-fire-shooting-thing and went wandering again. As he walked away, he saw a couple of short people in brown, hooded robes running out to rob the man he'd knocked out. The small robed people made strange bubbling sounds at each other as they fought over the downed man's shirt and boots.
It was so stupid. In Leaf there were rivers and fountains and wells, but here blood seemed cheaper than water. Naruto considered robbing someone else, but he didn't really understand how the money around here worked.
He climbed up on a roof and watched the street vendors sell what looked like dried-out frogs, small bottles of liquid that were definitely not water, and more of those strange, fire-shooting blow-driers. Some people were exchanging the little triangle coins, but then others would give a crystal-looking thing to a merchant and then get it back. Others would press their thumb to a glowing board. If he was going to mug someone, he didn't know if he'd be taking coins or buttons or what off of them, and he really didn't want to take a thumb.
Feeling defeated, he trudged back out to the huts outside the village.
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The strange boy came back to them at the end of the day. Shmi was relieved, but worried all over again. Apparently Naruto hadn't found any of his people to feed and house him. Somehow he'd acquired a blaster, though. He chattered for awhile and then made motions like he was drinking from a cup.
She was glad she could keep an eye on him, as he didn't seem to realize what a harsh world he was on. Of course, he had been to Mos Espa and come back alive, unharmed, and still free of controller implants, so he must have some survival instincts.
She managed to trade the blaster for enough credits to replace all the water the boy drank, but it wasn't going to be enough for more than a week of upkeep. She hoped Anakin would be able to find the boy's people before that ran out. But one week ran out, and then two, and Anakin still couldn't find any trace of Konoha in any of the databases he hacked.
Shmi tried to keep Naruto inside and quiet, but always failed. She was worried for his safety as much as she was about being held responsible for his conduct. His understanding of Basic was less than rudimentary, and he only understood the word "no" when it was yelled at him. She knew Naruto's presence was taking a toll on her son. He was sullen and came close to snapping at Watto's customers. She tried to ask him what was wrong, but he would just growl "nothing" and slink off to his pile of scrapped droids.
She thought he was jealous of the other boy but that was only a very small part of it.
Anakin was not fond of their house guest. His mother had tried to get them to share a bed, since he was too old to share with her, and they only had two. But Naruto kicked in his sleep, and not just a little. Anakin just dragged two chairs together and stole the best blanket after his mother had tucked them in.
He wanted to tell his mother that he didn't want to share a room at all, that Naruto's presence gave him strange nightmares about a huge red-eyed thing in a cage, but he couldn't figure how to say it without sounding like a stupid baby. He used to think there were monsters in the closet, but all he ever found in there were rats.
More than anything, he wanted Naruto gone.
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More than anything else, Naruto wanted to begone. Time crawled by, and nobody had come looking for him. He wasn't sure how long he had been in the desert village, but he'd been living with the Skywalkers for at least a month. The third Exam was long over.
Naruto almost wanted to cry over that. He'd lost his chance to show up that Neji jerk, and he wouldn't get to fight Sasuke and impress Sakura. And old man Hokage would never acknowledge his awesomeness. Naruto hopped the old pervert who'd been teaching him to summon had explained that he had gotten lost doing a jutsu. If he just vanished, people would think he'd chickened out. He had enough problems with people thinking he was dead last. He didn't need them to think he was a coward, too; a coward wasn't worth looking for.
He kept up with his training, wandering into the desert away from prying eyes to throw kunai and practice his chakra control and jutsu. Summoning still wasn't working, but he could still make clones and do all the academy basics. That day he stayed out until the first sunset, and then wandered back to the Skywalkers' hut.
He frowned and looked up at the sky again. It was still cloudless. Shmi and Anakin were always showing him maps, trying to figure out where he was from, but their maps didn't make any sense. Their maps showed no hint of the elemental countries. It didn't even show the ocean. He tried to explain, but they just looked confused as they struggled to find common words. They seemed to know what an ocean was, but they insisted there wasn't one.
He didn't believe them at fist, even when they showed him pictures of the planet from space. He knew you couldn't just go into space. But he saw those ships take off from Mos Espa and go up into the sky until they disappeared. He wanted to go up into the sky in a ship, certain he'd be able to spot his homeland from that vantage point, but the Skywalkers didn't have one, and he certainly didn't have enough money to get one. He couldn't even steal one, because he had no idea how to make it work.
He hadn't felt this crushed since Mizuki told him about the demon. And that had only been bad for a few minutes, because Iruka-sensei had shouted right back that he believed Naruto was human and worthy. But now there was nobody. He could hear the Skywalkers inside as he approached, and suddenly he couldn't face them. He channeled some chakra into his feet and climbed onto the roof. He spent the night looking at stars that weren't in the right place.
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Shmi went to wake up the boys and found Anakin alone in the bed. She shook him gently.
"Did Naruto get up already?" she asked.
"I don't think he came back last night," Anakin said.
She couldn't fail to notice the pleased hint in her son's voice, but didn't reprimand him for not telling her. Instead, she started looking. She sent Anakin to search the junk heap at the end of the street where the local children sometimes played, while she looked around their small house and the alleys around it. She found no trace of him, but as she came back, she saw the lost boy sitting on the roof. Against her better judgment she crawled up to join him.
He was watching the suns rise with the saddest look she'd ever seen on a humanoid face, and having spent most of her life among despairing slaves, that was saying something. When he saw her struggling up the wall, he held out a hand and when she took it he pulled her up with impossible strength. Again she wondered what kind of humanoid he was.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"There are two," he said, looking down.
"Two what?"
"I think…might be wrong…might be seeing wrong…but there are two…"
Naruto waved at the sky as the first sun crawled above the horizon.
"Two suns," she said.
"There's only one…this place…this place is too far…I don't know where is my home…"
She put an arm around him, and he started so badly he almost fell off the roof. When he realized what she was doing, he leaned against her, shaking a little but not crying.
"Our home is your home as long as you need it," she said.
Then he did cry.
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Anakin was not having a good morning. His mother had been in a panic looking for Naruto, and when she found him, the older boy wasn't even hurt. He was just being an idiot and hiding on the roof. And the time they wasted looking for Naruto meant Anakin didn't get a chance to finish the circuit he'd been working on before he had to leave for work. He left the house in a bad mood, and it didn't get any better when he noticed the whiskered boy was following him.
"Why you all the time go before Mama-sama?" Naruto asked in broken basic.
"I start before her. Watto has me start inventory and programming as soon as the shop opens. Mymother goes to clean his house and run errands for him before she comes to the shop. She can start later since Watto doesn't know how long the errands really take."
"Why work for…Watto? That blue guy is jerk."
"I don't have a choice," Anakin said.
"You quit," Naruto said.
"I can't quit, you idiot. I'm a slave!"
"Slave?" the older boy said slowly, as if slowing down the word would make it easier to comprehend.
"It means we do what he says or we die. He owns us."
The older boy's eyes narrowed. Apparently he understood.
"I kill him," Naruto said, taking out one of those strange triangular knives he kept in a pouch on his hip. "You not owned."
"No!" Anakin shouted. He didn't really think the orange nuisance could do it, but if he even tried it, Anakin knew he'd get them all in trouble. He tried to explain it. "If he dies, whoever gets his stuff gets us. We'll be sold again, maybe to different people. Maybe I'll lose my mom. If you try anything, I'll kill you!"
"Why not try?" the orange boy asked. "You like be slave?"
Anakin couldn't help it. He forgot everything his mother taught him about being polite. He kicked the other boy with all his might. His boot struck Naruto's shin. The other boy hopped back and rubbed at the injury, looking a bit annoyed. Anakin didn't really notice. Pain was shooting through his foot. He tried to balance on just the one and fell over. His eyes were tearing up. Naruto stepped towards him and Anakin lashed out with his good foot.
"Just go away! Just go back into the desert and disappear again!" Anakin shouted.
"You want to…run away from Watto?" Naruto asked, still not getting it.
"We can't run!" Anakin shouted. "If we run away, we die! Do you understand that, you idiot? Die! Do you remember what that means? So it's this or it's nothing!"
"How you die?"
"We explode. Boom! You get it? We explode and there is blood all over and we die!" Anakin said, remembering another slave he'd seen.
It was one of the earliest things he remembered. The man was big and strong and he couldn't stand to be ordered around. His owner had told him to do something. Anakin couldn't recall what, but the big man had refused. He'd crossed his arms and said 'no'. A minute later he was dead, with blood leaking out his nose and eyes and ears.
"Just go away!" he said to Naruto. "You aren't like us, and you aren't helping. You just make it all worse!"
Anakin got to his feet and tried to walk, but every step felt like he was bringing his foot down on needles. Hopping along on his good foot would take forever. He was going to be late for sure. Anakin thought he might've broken his toes. Watto was going to be mad. He was going to be late and get in trouble and Watto would punish him, maybe cut his ration and they were barely making it anyway…
He was shaken out of his doomed thoughts as Naruto picked him up and swung him around onto his own back. He let go and Anakin wrapped his arms around his neck to keep from sliding off. He hadn't had a piggyback ride in a while. It was years ago when he realized he was hurting his mother's back. The older boy took off at a dead run toward Mos Espa.
"You kick all wrong," Naruto said. "Mama-sama not teach you fight?"
"Fighting just gets a slave in trouble," Anakin said.
"But good trouble, yes?"
Anakin didn't know what to say to that. He wanted to punch Naruto and struggle along on his own, but he didn't want to get in trouble. There was no good trouble.
They got to the city in a quarter of the time it would have taken Anakin to run there, and Naruto didn't look the least bit tired from the mad dash. They blurred past guards and shop owners, but the streets were still mostly empty. Anakin looked down at his transport. Naruto could run without getting tired and had shins made out of steel. Maybe he was some kind of droid.
Anakin had never seen Naruto come into the shop, but he apparently knew where it was. He was a little surprised to realize Naruto had never come to bother them there. Maybe he understood he'd get them in trouble, even if he didn't understand the stakes. The shop was still dark and closed. Watto hadn't even arrived to open the security gate yet. Naruto set the smaller boy down in front of the shop, and then dropped to the ground next to him.
"How long you slave?" Naruto asked, picking up handfuls of sand and dropping them again.
Anakin pulled off his boot and rubbed at his injured toes. He considered ignoring the older boy, but he'd probably just keep asking. A lot of his anger had worn off by then, anyway.
"Since I was born. Mom used to be free, but that was a long time ago. She's from another world, but she doesn't talk about it much. I'll never see it, so I guess it's not worth thinking about."
"You talk like you give up," Naruto said.
"Give up what?" Anakin asked. "I was born with nothing but this. There isn't a way to change it. Fate picks who wins and who loses."
Anakin didn't really believe he was going to be a slave all his life. But those dark thoughts were always in his mind. He figured that if Naruto thought he wasn't going to do anything, he wouldn't try, either. He was very wrong.
"You call me idiot," Naruto said, letting his head sink down until his chin touched his chest. "Fate…that word…I always hear…from idiots."
Naruto looked up then, and Anakin thought his eyes looked red. Not bloodshot. Anakin's heart felt frozen in his chest. The irises had changed, though maybe it was just the dawn light. They looked like the eyes in Anakin's nightmare. He blinked until the other's eyes looked blue again. Naruto's glare remained fixed even after his eyes returned to normal.
"Idiots say Fate this…Fate that…there is only Fate if you don't fight. You maybe don't fight for you…but for Shmi-mama-sama you fight…for later…for…for…"
Naruto trailed off, looking confused. Anakin supposed he had exhausted his vocabulary. They sat for another twenty minutes in silence.
"You should go before Watto gets here," Anakin finally said.
"I will stay and help," Naruto said.
"You don't know anything about droids or engines. How can you help?" Anakin challenged.
He shrugged. "I will…help. Help is D-rank."
Anakin, of course, had no idea what that meant, but he knew Naruto didn't know a grounding portal from his own butt. He thought about kicking him again, but then he saw Watto fluttering up the street like an unhappy bug.
"Who's this?" Watto asked. "I think maybe I've seen him around before."
"He's my mother's sister's son," Anakin said, rushing to come up with a good lie. "He's from a free part of the family. They sent him to find us, but his money got snatched. The ship he bought passage out on got impounded by a corporation creditor, and the bankrupt captain won't give him his money back-"
"I didn't ask you for his life story, human," Watto said. "What's he doing here if he has no money?"
"I hurt my foot," Anakin said. "He came to help me out."
"What are you giving him to help you?" the Toydarian asked.
"Nothing, sir," Anakin said.
"Then why's he doing it? You aren't going to help him steal from my store, are you, slave?"
"No, sir."
"Then why?"
"He's family."
"Family works for free?" the Toydarian asked, snorting. "I need family like that. I wouldn't need slaves. Nothing better be missing at the end of the day, human."
"Yes, sir."
Naruto was scowling, but Watto either didn't notice or didn't care. He unlocked the security gate and the servos raised it. The older boy helped Anakin to his feet and lent him an arm as he hopped inside. Watto pointed out the pile of fuel pumps that he'd bought from the Jawas, and muttered something about inventory, before fluttering to his office. Naruto helped Anakin find a seat by the pile and fetched the data pad and cleaning tools Anakin pointed at.
While the Toydarian was in the other room, Anakin sliced into his computer system. He found the file he wanted, and waved Naruto over. The older boy peered at the controller displayed on the screen. He tried to keep his explanation simple.
"They put these things inside us. If we try to get away, they set it off. It explodes and kills you."
Naruto had a hand pressed to his own stomach.
"Thing inside you," he said. "How it get there?"
"With a really big needle," Anakin said, bringing up a picture of the needle on the monitor.
Naruto's face looked more than a little green.
"How you get it out?" Naruto asked.
"Same way, but you have to turn it off first," Anakin said. "Otherwise…boom."
"How you turn off?" Naruto asked.
"With a master controller and the right codes," Anakin said.
"Where they keep them?" Naruto asked, looking into a bin of junk as if they might be hidden among the fuel pumps.
"It's not something you can just snatch. It's code and tech," Anakin said, turning his data pad and showing Naruto the characters scrolling across it.
He nodded in satisfaction as the other boy's face clouded in confusion. The confusion left his face a moment later, replaced with a defiant stare.
"Then you tell me about code," Naruto said. "I will learn to steal it."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
The Present…
"Wait," Jiraiya said. "Naruto broke some kind of computer cipher?"
"No," Shmi said. "He can just barely operate the com system even when it's turned on for him. He has many talents, but he isn't a slicer."
Jiraiya had no idea what a slicer was, but nodded like he did. He had a suspicion she saw through it.
"So how did he end up freeing you?" he asked.
"I am getting to that," she said. "What's the rush? Do you have somewhere else to be this morning?"
Jiraiya thought about mentioning the woman with the tentacles who'd been on the flying ship with them. Then he sighed. "Not unless the brat came back," he said finally.
She shook her head.
"Then please continue."