Chapter 4

Hiruzen Sarutobi groaned aloud. The last three weeks had been the longest of his life. After Naruto had left, he had done everything he could to keep word of the disappearance of Naruto and Hinata from spreading. Despite his efforts, however, word had already somehow reached even as far as the Hidden Rock Village, if the message he was currently reading was to be believed. The message, like most of the ones the old man received, was in code. It read, "Have heard rumors of a sacrificed human and a deposed future head roaming free. Did the foundling pack an extra suitcase when it left the nest?"

Hiruzen chuckled at Jiraiya's word choice as he reread the brief message for what had to be the fiftieth time since he received it. He had already responded, telling Jiraiya that his suspicions were, in fact, accurate. His main worry, however, was the contents of Jiraiya's message. It was clear that, somehow or another, he had heard about Naruto and Hinata leaving the village from a completely independent source. If that was so, it was safe to assume that the Tsuchikage also knew about it...and would likely be searching for Naruto...or, rather, for Hinata. "Oh, Naruto..." Hiruzen said softly. "Be safe out there." Taking a deep breath, he added to himself, "If I survive two years of this, it'll be a miracle!"

Just as Hiruzen finished saying this, there was a knock at his door. When he called for the person to enter, it turned out to be Iruka Umino. The young teacher with the high topknot haircut and the scar across his face was usually a happy man and had a smile for everyone. Today, however, his face was grim, his mouth set, his eyes determined. "Lord Hokage," he began, "I need to speak to you concerning a matter of grave importance."

Hiruzen had to smile a little at Iruka's manner. He had liked the young man ever since he was a boy. He had watched over Iruka as he grew up from the class clown of his own generation to the fine young Chunin who stood before him now. Even if Iruka's current attitude was atypical of the young man, Hiruzen couldn't help but smile; he had missed Iruka and was glad to see him. "Yes, Iruka, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"I had noticed for a couple weeks that two students had disappeared from the Academy," Iruka said. "And now I hear that Naruto and Hinata have in fact left the village entirely. Is this true?" Hiruzen looked into Iruka's eyes a moment before nodding gravely. Iruka sighed, deflating a bit. "I was afraid of that." Iruka seemed to consider what he had learned for a moment, then he continued, "In that case, Lord Hokage, I feel it is necessary that I begin training and testing immediately to become a Jonin."

Hiruzen gasped. He had been trying to get Iruka to put himself forward as a candidate for Jonin promotion, but Iruka had always said the time wasn't right. Now, here he was, practically demanding it. "Why the sudden change of heart, Iruka?" he asked.

Iruka sighed. "Apparently, my skills and dedication are not enough, if two of my students can vanish from the village for weeks before I become aware of it. If that is the case, I feel I must better myself and become a better shinobi...and I feel that the best way for me to do that is to become a Jonin," he said. "I wish to remain a teacher, if possible, but I feel that the time for me to become a Jonin has come."

Hiruzen nodded. "I will see to it that you remain a teacher, Iruka; you are an exceptional instructor, and I feel that you serve your village best there. If you wish to become a Jonin, however, I will do what I can to help you, including training you myself if need be. I can also suggest others to help you train if necessary. Regardless, Iruka, you have made an old man proud. Your Will of Fire is strong, and I am proud to call you a Leaf shinobi," he said, smiling at the Chunin. After a brief pause, he added, "Is there anything else, Iruka?" Iruka shook his head. "In that case, you are dismissed." Iruka bowed to his leader and left his office. Hiruzen leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe. Puffing on it thoughtfully, he muttered to himself, "I still wish you could have stayed in the village, Naruto...but maybe there was a reason for this. I wonder...will you even know this old place by the time you return?"

Jiraiya

The Toad Sage was pacing back and forth across his hotel room, impatiently waiting for the toad he had sent to his old sensei to return. If the rumors he'd heard were true, not only was Naruto running around out in the wilderness, he had the former Hyuga clan heiress with him, and she wasn't sealed! On the one hand, that would certainly explain why Naruto was out there to begin with, and having someone with him was better than being alone, but, on the other hand, that would mean that Naruto wasn't just taking care of himself, he had a young girl, probably his own age, relying on him to take care of her, too! And Naruto was only eight years old! Jiraiya was sure the kid had at least some survival skills, having grown up alone, but could he really keep both himself and someone else alive for two years?

Before the Sanin could continue down that depressing trail of thought, a puff of smoke appeared from nowhere, and, when it cleared, a toad was sitting in his room with a scroll attached to its back. Jiraiya reached out and removed the scroll. His hands shook as he opened it and began to read. He read the message over three times. The message itself didn't say much, and it was immediately obvious to the sage that his old sensei's words contained a hidden message. The scroll simply said, "Foundling's departure from the nest proves that the flame burning amongst the leaves burns brightly within him."

As Jiraiya read and reread the scroll, he slowly smiled as he remembered all the times his old sensei had referred to the "flame burning amongst the leaves". Once he realized what that meant, the message became clear to him, and the smile faded from his face as he came to understand that his worst fears had been realized. His godson, at the ripe old age of eight years old, was wandering around in the wilderness with a young girl his own age relying on him to keep her alive and safe! Jiraiya gave a slight growl. He hated feeling helpless, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do for these two for, at the very least, seventeen months! The aging man had berated himself at least a thousand times in the last three weeks because of his helplessness. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked the toad rhetorically. It croaked in response. "Yeah, that's what I thought." He resumed his restless pacing, muttering to himself as he barely restrained himself from screaming in frustration. "Please, Naruto, please be safe," he whispered as tears of frustration slowly spilled from his eyes.

Naruto

Naruto awoke and slowly opened his eyes. Surprisingly, he found his surroundings were still steeped in darkness. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he realized that he was moving; the "ground" below him was rocking around and clearly in motion. When he was able to see somewhat clearly, he saw that he was in a covered wagon of some sort.

Looking to his side, he saw that Hinata was still asleep beside him. Between the bouncing and rocking of the wagon and the heat, which he had quickly realized was much higher than he was used to upon awakening, he was surprised she was still asleep. He reached over and tried to shake her awake. When she didn't react at all, he guessed that her sleep was jutsu-induced somehow. "We've been kidnapped," he thought to himself. After a brief moment of panic, and some deep breaths to calm himself, Naruto started to think furiously. "Okay, we've been kidnapped. What are you going to do about it, Naruto?" At that thought, he chuckled wryly to himself. "What can I do? I'm just a kid, after all." Then, the blond had another thought. "Wait a minute. I took Hinata into my home, then we both ran away from the village to get away from her clan...all that just to get kidnapped by someone out in the middle of nowhere? Oh, HELL NO!" As he thought about this, his anger began to rise, soon coming to a boil.

As the blond became more and more angry at the thought of him and Hinata being taken like this, a sudden spike of chakra rose from within him, cloaking him in a red, fox-like shroud with a single tail. He let out a loud roar, which startled the oxen pulling the wagon into running, which, in turn, caused the wagon to jolt into rapid movement. The sudden acceleration sent Naruto flying out the back of the wagon, where he landed and rolled across the ground. In his rage, he only spared a split second to notice that he was rolling across sand. In the next instant, he was running toward the wagon, determined not to let Hinata get taken away from him.

Naruto caught up with the wagon a few minutes later when the driver got the oxen back under control. By the time he got there, four men were looking into the back of the now stationary wagon. He heard one of them saying, "At least we still have her. She's the one that's really worth the big money. The other one wasn't worth much anyway."

"So, they mean to sell her, do they? I think not!" he thought to himself. Letting out another roar, he ran full tilt at the four men. They turned and, upon seeing him coming, attempted to get out of his way. It was too late for one of them, however, as Naruto's first attack, a swipe of his now claw-like hand, hit the man across the neck, killing him instantly.

The three remaining men took up defensive positions a short distance from Naruto, not sure exactly what to expect. Growling, the red-cloaked boy ran at them with murder in his eyes, which were now red and had slitted pupils like those of a fox. The three men pulled kunai and prepared to defend themselves. Naruto's next attack chopped off the hand of one of the men. The other two came at him from behind while he was still focusing on that one, but their attacks were stopped by the red shroud. Naruto turned on the two men behind him, rage coming off him in waves, and attacked them with one hand each. Both attacks landed, decapitating the two men in an instant. The remaining man tried to attack Naruto from behind, but the tail of his cloak moved lightning quick and impaled the man through the chest, killing him as well.

By this time, Naruto was covered in blood, none of it his own. As he turned toward the wagon, breathing hard, he saw Hinata stepping down from the wagon and rubbing her eyes. Upon seeing Naruto, Hinata gasped, then ran toward him to make sure he was okay. Naruto, upon seeing that Hinata was awake and all right, smiled slightly, let out a sigh, and fell to the ground, unconscious; the red chakra seeped back into his body moments later.

When Naruto fell to the ground, Hinata stopped a brief moment, then ran as quickly as she could to him, deeply frightened that he might be dead. When she got there, she found that the blood on him was not his own, which calmed her down a lot. After taking a few deep breaths, Hinata lifted Naruto's body and managed to get it back to the wagon. She knew that leaving him out there in the extreme heat of the day would do him no good, so she was determined to get him into the shade. That done, Hinata rooted around in the wagon and found all of their possessions tucked away in a back corner. She also found several bags of feed for the oxen and a good amount of supplies, rations, weapons, and so on. "I'm not sure what happened," she thought to herself, "but it might end up being a good thing."

xxxxxx

While Hinata was taking stock of the wagon's contents, Naruto found himself in his mindscape. Falling to his knees, he cried out, "What have I done?!" It had taken a few moments for him to realize he had just slaughtered four men, but, once he did, he had sunk into a despair unlike any he'd ever felt before. How could anyone ever trust him now? How could anyone ever love him? How could anyone even stand to be around him?

A booming voice sounded throughout Naruto's mindscape. "I'm so proud of you!" it said. "You have finally shown that you are willing to do what it takes."

Naruto looked up and saw a huge, grinning red fox looking at him through a set of bars. "Who are you?" he asked.

The fox raised an eyebrow, seemingly curious or surprised. "Who am I? I'm the Nine-Tailed Fox of course!" it responded, its voice minimally annoyed.

"That can't be!" Naruto responded. "The Fourth Hokage killed the Nine-Tailed Fox! Now tell me the truth, who are you?"

The fox laughed loudly. "Killed the Nine-Tailed Fox?" it asked. "That can't be! You can't kill any of the tailed beasts, I'd have thought even you would know that. No, he didn't kill me, he just sealed me in you. In any case, you know it now, and, whether you want to believe it or not, I am the Nine-Tailed Fox!"

Naruto shrugged. "Whatever, I don't really care," he said, turning his back on the fox. "It's not like anyone could ever love me now...I'm a killer."

From behind him, the fox responded, "I can." Naruto turned to the fox, his eyes distrusting. "I'm a killer, too, after all. Why would I hold that against you?"

Naruto thought about that a moment, then nodded. "That's true, I suppose," he said. "Still, even then, I'll spend the rest of my life alone now. I'm not worthy of being loved."

Grinning widely, the fox told him, "If they won't love you, why should you care about them? Screw them all!"

Naruto shook his head. "No, I won't hurt them. I'll just live alone." His voice was depressed, making it obvious the boy was on the verge of utter despair.

The fox growled. "Why would you forgive them? They hate you and look down on you, why not take your revenge?!" it asked.

Naruto was about to respond when he suddenly felt himself being pushed from his mindscape. Within moments, he was awake, leaving behind the fox, who was satisfied in the knowledge that it had given the blond some food for thought, if nothing else.

xxxxxx

Naruto opened his eyes and found, to his surprise, he was no longer on the ground outside. Instead, he was apparently back in the bed of the wagon. Looking around, he found Hinata sitting nearby, going through a pile of something; from where he was, he couldn't tell exactly what she was doing.

Hinata heard Naruto shifting around and turned to him with a smile. "Oh, Naruto!" she greeted, coming over by him. "I'm glad you're awake. Are you all right?"

Naruto pulled away from Hinata a little and sat up. "I'm fine," he said slowly.

Hinata breathed a sigh of relief. "When I saw you covered in all that blood," she said, "I was so scared."

Naruto looked at her, his eyes hurt. "Of course you were scared," he answered, his voice emotionless, "I'm a killer, you had every reason to be afraid of me." That said, he turned away from her, not wanting her to see the pain she had caused him with her words.

Hinata gasped, realizing what he thought she meant. Coming to him, she put her arms around him from behind and said softly, "No, Naruto, I'm not afraid of you, I was scared for you! I thought you were hurt...or worse. I was terrified of losing you!"

Naruto looked at Hinata over his shoulder. "But how could that be?" he asked. "I'm a killer! I slaughtered those four men. I tore them apart and killed them. I did that, Hinata. How can you care for me after that?"

Hinata smiled softly at the blond, realizing at that moment how deeply worried he was that he would lose her. "Naruto," she began slowly, choosing her words carefully, "why did you kill them?"

Naruto thought about that a moment, then answered, "I killed them to protect you. They were going to sell you, and I wasn't going to let that happen to you."

Hinata smiled. "Yet again, you've saved me," she said. She leaned in and kissed him softly on his cheek. "My hero."

Naruto finally smiled. Turning around, he slowly embraced Hinata, who wrapped her arms around Naruto and rubbed his back gently. Naruto finally let out his pain, crying quietly on Hinata's shoulder. Hinata held him close, making soothing sounds in his ear. Soon, the blond had cried himself out, and the two simply sat together, wrapped in one another's arms as they reaffirmed their affection for one another.

After a while, the two separated. Naruto looked around the wagon again and saw what Hinata had discovered a while ago: the wagon was filled with provisions both for the people who had been driving the wagon and for the team of oxen who were pulling it. Hinata said, "I've been going through all this stuff, and there's enough here for us to live on for quite some time. There's even plenty of kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, and all kinds of tags. I was separating the tags into different kinds when you woke up."

Naruto saw the piles of tags that she indicated. There was a nice pile of sealing tags, a smaller pile of chakra-sealing tags, and a small mountain of explosive tags. There were also some tags that hadn't been marked yet and even a small handful of decoy tags. Beyond those were huge piles of kunai and shuriken, as Hinata had stated.

The two made their way over to where Hinata had been working. Naruto grabbed a stack of unsorted tags of his own, and they continued to separate them. A companionable silence fell over them for a short while. As Naruto placed a chakra-sealing tag on its designated pile, he began to think about what he had seen when he was unconscious. He kept sorting tags, but only half of his attention was focused on what he was doing. The rest of it was mulling over what he should do about what he had learned. Apparently he had the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in him. Of course, knowing this explained a lot about how people had treated him back in the village. It also gave him an entirely new problem, though: he had to tell Hinata, and he knew it. It wouldn't be right to keep a secret like this from her, not if she was going to be alone with him in the middle of nowhere for a long time, which she likely was. Sighing, he told himself, "The longer I wait, the harder it will be to tell her. I might as well just get it over with and tell her tonight." That decided, he returned his focus to the tags. Hinata noticed he had seemed distracted for a while, but she decided not to bring it up, knowing Naruto would tell her when he was ready.

By the time they had finished sorting the tags into their separate piles, it was nearing dusk. Naruto had spent that entire time mulling over what he was going to tell Hinata, and it had left his nerves frayed and him in a somewhat touchy mood. Rooting around in the wagon, they found enough tinder and wood to build a small fire, which they did. Then, they dug around in the pile of food in the wagon. Unfortunately, there wasn't much there that was actually usable. A majority of the food was entirely spoiled in one way or another. Once they'd disposed of that, they found they had, at most, a week's provisions. Naruto growled in frustration; he wasn't sure what he was frustrated about, exactly, but this situation wasn't doing his already frazzled nerves any good at all.

Sighing, Naruto rooted around until he found the box he had brought with him from his apartment and left. An hour later, he returned, seeming much calmer. Hinata looked at him curiously, and he explained, "I was setting some traps. I found some tracks out there that look like they were left by relatively small animals, and I think I'll be able to catch some for us. It might not be much, but every little bit helps, right?"

Hinata smiled. "Yes, that's very true," she said. After a moment, she mused, "I wonder what kind of animals live out here."

"Lizards, I think," Naruto told her. "At least, that's what the tracks looked like."

Hinata giggled. "I've never had lizard before," she said with a small smile.

Naruto chuckled. "I haven't, either," he told her. "Well, I'm always open to new things, and I'm sure you'll find some way to make it tasty."

Hinata blushed a bit and shook her head. "I appreciate the vote of confidence," she said, "but I don't know how much I'll be able to do with what we have here. These guys apparently didn't think spices and such for cooking were worth packing, so I don't have much of anything."

Naruto sighed. "And I doubt we have much water, either, do we?" he asked.

Hinata shook her head again. "There's enough for us and the oxen for maybe two weeks at the most," she said. "And what we have isn't exactly the freshest, either."

Naruto shook his head and grumbled, "Everything was going so well, now look at us, stuck in the desert with just a wagon, some oxen, and enough food and water to live for maybe two weeks at the most!"

Hinata reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, at least we're still together," she said.

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, that's true...Hinata, there's something I have to tell you," he said, gently pulling her around in front of him so he could look into her eyes. Hinata gave him a comforting smile and nodded. "When I was unconscious...I'm not sure how, but I went into my own mind. It was like I was in a boiler room or something. My...mindscape, I guess you could call it." Hinata nodded again, her eyes curious. "The thing is...I wasn't alone. There was a huge cage in there. And in that cage...I saw the Nine-Tailed Fox. He told me the Fourth Hokage didn't kill him, saying it's impossible to kill a tailed beast, and that the Fourth sealed him into me. Apparently, me being born the day the Fox attacked was no coincidence."

Hinata thought about what she'd been told, then activated her Byakugan. She had to see something. With her Byakugan on, she saw that Naruto had two separate chakras within his body. The normal, bright blue chakra that everyone she knew had...and a deep red chakra that seemed to carry an evil presence with it. "That must be the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra," she thought to herself. To Naruto, she said, "I guess that's why everyone back in the village ignored you, huh?" Naruto nodded, waiting to see how she'd take this. Hinata smiled. "I saw you with my Byakugan. Your body has two chakras. The fox's chakra is within you, that's true, but it's not your own. Your own chakra is the same as mine. That tells me that you're not the fox, no matter what the villagers think." That said, she came close to Naruto and wrapped her arms around him. Naruto hugged her back, letting go of the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Thank you, Hinata," he said. Taking a deep breath, he told her, "I'm so glad you accepted me...I was really afraid you wouldn't."

Hinata pulled back a little and looked up at Naruto. "How could I ever reject my hero?" she asked with a playful smile.

Naruto couldn't help but smile back. "Thank you," he told her again.

By this time, it was getting dark. Hinata climbed into the wagon and gathered some meat for their supper. She proceeded to cook it over the fire they'd made earlier, and the two ate quietly. Naruto was too busy watching Hinata and thinking about everything that had happened that day to talk, and Hinata was just enjoying the comfortable silence between them. Smiling slightly, Hinata thought, "It's been a crazy few weeks, what with Naruto and me leaving the village and living out here and all, but I'm still glad he and I met."

Naruto noticed the smile on Hinata's face and asked quietly, "What are you thinking?" Hinata told him what she'd been thinking, and he answered, "Yeah, me, too."

The two finished eating, then they lay down beside one another on the sand, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky. Hinata moved to Naruto and rested her head on his shoulder. The two smiled, glad for the companionship, and watched the stars begin to come out. "It's nice out here," Hinata commented, her voice sleepy. "It's peaceful."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah...I'd always thought the desert would be...different from this, somehow. It's a little lonely, but it's mostly just peaceful out here. It really is...nice," he said with a chuckle.

Hinata giggled sleepily, Naruto wrapped one arm around the girl, and, soon enough, both were asleep, laying under the starry sky.

xxxxxx

The following day, Naruto and Hinata finished taking stock of the contents of the wagon. Hinata found a map and compass somewhere, and Naruto managed to find some clothes that would fit them both. Their own clothes had apparently been abandoned by their captors, so they were both in need of those. Naruto set aside his orange jumpsuit and dressed in the somewhat drab clothes he'd found. They weren't exactly attractive, but they were fairly comfortable and clean. Hinata found her clothes a bit on the large side, but she didn't mind that. Her own clothes were baggy as well, so she was used to it. She found the outfit she was wearing a bit on the scratchy side, but she figured she could endure that.

Once they were dressed, the two found some ration bars for their breakfast and fed the oxen. Then, Hinata pulled out the map and compass she had found and tried to figure out where they were. Unfortunately, the desert all looked the same in every direction. She was able to figure out they had been heading north originally based on the tracks of the wagon. Beyond that, however, she found they were just as lost now as they had been before she found the map.

Thinking over their situation, she decided that heading east wouldn't do them much good, since that would just take them back toward the Land of Fire. Since south would only lead them to the ocean, and north would lead them to the Land of Earth, she quickly decided that their most logical course of action would be to go west. Hopefully, that would lead them to the Village Hidden in the Sand. There, at least they could be sure to find supplies. Maybe they could even safely live there for a while. The Land of Wind and the Land of Fire were allies, after all. She had heard rumors some time back that there was a monster living there, but she didn't put much stock in that; rumors were almost always exaggerated, she told herself.

"Well, even if we're not due east of the village, at least we should come close enough to it to be able to see it," she thought to herself. "I just hope we're not west of the village...that would be a disaster!" Turning to Naruto, she told him, "I think we should head west. There's a village in the desert, the Village Hidden in the Sand, and I'm pretty sure we're east of there. I'm sure we can get supplies there at the very least...and maybe we can even live there safely for a while. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not spend any more time out here in the wilderness than necessary."

Naruto nodded. "That's true enough. All right, Hinata, let's get going. Which way is west?" Hinata pointed, and the two climbed onto the driver's seat of the wagon. It took some doing, but they eventually managed to get the oxen moving and heading in the right direction.

Hiruzen

As Naruto and Hinata were heading off to the west in the desert, Hiruzen was reading over a report he'd gotten from one of his ANBU squads. They had just returned from a mission. On their way back to the village, they had felt a spike of chakra and gone to check it out. What they had found wasn't exactly comforting, to say the least. They found the remains of a campsite, where, they guessed, two people had been camping for some time. Before they'd gotten there, however, a group of at least three other people had run roughshod over the site, and now it was abandoned.

The spike of chakra they described sounded like a mid-level genjutsu, and, if he had to guess, the campsite had probably been Naruto and Hinata's. "I have to tell Jiraiya about this...as much as I hate to," he thought to himself with a sigh.

Pulling out a quill pen and a scroll, he wrote a brief message to Jiraiya and summoned a monkey to deliver it. Handing the monkey the scroll, he told him to deliver it to Jiraiya. The monkey saluted him and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Sighing, Hiruzen thought to himself, "Naruto, you better be safe out there. I could never face your father if you died."

Naruto

It had taken them several hours, but Naruto and Hinata had managed to find their way to the Hidden Sand Village by mid-afternoon. They managed to get through the main gate by telling the guards their parents were traveling merchants who had been attacked and killed in the desert, and they had managed to direct their team of oxen there. Hinata had pretended to be blind to avoid calling attention to her eyes. To her surprise, it worked.

As the two were making their way out of the stables where they'd been directed to leave their oxen, they heard voices screaming and saw children running away from something they couldn't see. Curious, the two made their way toward the source of the children's fear. Soon, they found what had so scared them. It was a boy. He looked to be their own age, and neither of them could see anything all that frightening about him at first. He had pale blue eyes, the reddest hair either of them had ever seen, and black rings around his eyes that made him look like he hadn't slept in days. On his forehead, the kanji for "love" was written in red. It took them both a moment to realize it wasn't writing, it was actually a scar. On his back, the boy carried what looked like a gourd of some kind. Then the two saw his eyes. There was madness in those eyes. This boy, they realized, wasn't like most other children they knew. He wasn't a child...he was...something else. Then they saw something else. Those pale eyes were filled with the pain of loneliness and betrayal. It was then that the two lonely children realized something. This boy was like them, for the pain they saw in his eyes was the exact same pain they knew was in their own eyes. Who was this boy, they wondered...and would their eyes one day look like his?