Chapter 4: Coins, Stories, and the Truth.

"Ugh." I groaned as I woke up.

I managed to stow away on a large ship that was heading for the Land of Waves. I practiced the entire way, preparing myself for any threat. I was scared but I couldn't just leave Konohamaru like that.

But worry wasn't my only problem, I was starving, I didn't want to risk running out of this crate to get food but I didn't have any choice.

And I didn't make it any easier on myself by wearing orange all the time.

I waited until the sun came down before leaving the crate and landing on the front deck of the ship.

I was careful to avoid any guards and their lanterns. I slowly made my way into the main dining room. The passengers on this ship were undoubtedly the richest in society. Bright clothing, weird hairdo's and chandeliers bigger then I was. It'd be impossible for me to fit in here.

I very sneakily made my way over to the buffet table, where all the food was just set out. Thankfully for me none of the food was to hot. With my hands, I took handul of shrimp and some fish I couldn't recognize, I hid under the tablecloth and kept munching away.

I ate until I felt a hand grab my hand and forcefully pulled me from under the table.

It was an overweight man in a security guard outfit with a short beard. "So your the runt whose been stealing food.

"What gave me away?" I asked with a nervous laugh.

Before anything else could be said I gave him a short kick to his chin causing him to stumble backwards. I jumped over the other side of the table and began to run out of the dining room.

"It's a peasant!" I heard one of the ladies say, and suddenly everyone's attention was on me.

The overweight man stood back up, and began to give chase along with three men. I dash through the evening air and ran around the ship. Running into many more guards on the way. Their had to be at least 30 on this ship, which was way to many for a ship this size.

Eventually I went around the entire ship.

"Now we've got him!" I heard the guards behind me say. They were closing in from in front of me as well.

I went back into the dining room, much to the uproar of the passengers. Managed to find a small vent in the side of the dining room, which I managed to break through with ease, just in time to avoid the overweight guard.

"God damn it! You freaking brat, get your ass back here!"

Not likely.

I broke through the other side and landed into a kitchen of some sort.

"Quick! In here!' A boy said to me.

Before I was quick sure what was happening I was inside of a large pot and the lid closed in on top of me.

"Roc, we heard a noise, did you see any intruders?" I heard someone ask.

"No, sorry sir nothing over here." I heard the boy respond.

I heard the footsteps of someone leave the room, and the lid was lifted off of the pot I was in. I lifted my eyes until I met red ones. It was a young boy about my age, he had purple hair that went down to his shoulders and he wore a white apron and cap, he obviously worked for whoever owned the ship.

He turned his head away from mine and went back to washing dishes.

"You really should leave."

"Yeah, I was planning to escape back to my crate before any of the guards found me anyway."

"That's not what I meant, you should leave this ship."

"Wait? What? Why?"

"In less then two days, this ship will be... at the bottom of the sea."

"How the heck do you know?"

"My eyes."

"I don't think I need to say what again do I?"

"Ever since I was born I've had the ability to see an indecisive amount of time into the future with my eyes. I saw you coming here today and..."

"...And?"

"And I can also tell, you might not know it now but you will go far."

"Go far in what?" I asked.

"In whatever your trying to do."

"I sincerely doubt that." I told him.

"I've never been wrong before."

"Believe me when I say you have absolutely no idea who your talking to."

"I think I do."

"Yeah, well I'd better get out of here, wouldn't want to get you in trouble, so thanks for everything." I told him as I left the kitchen.

With a small grin forming on my face.

I got caught, I had a good run if I did say so myself, but they tricked me by placing an awesome bowl of ramen in the middle of the net, but I don't care, it was worth it. No ramen should go uneaten.

I was tied up and thrown in front of an obese man who wore a really expensive looking robe and was sitting on a chair that looked just as much expensive. He was surrounded by 4 guys who looked way stronger then the guards before.

"Who are you boy?" He asked me.

"Who are you?" I retaliated.

"I am the owner of this ship, and as you can imagine my patrons are quite scared of you, now then who are you?"

"I'm just a nobody, an orphan who doesn't know where he belongs." I answered.

"Well since your just a nobody how about I give you a job." He asked me.

"Oh thank you but I need to decline."

"It's that or be thrown off my ship."

"Well if that's the only option."

They turned me into a hosed me down with some cold water, threw out my clothes and gave me some crap uniform. I was forced to do dishes with the boy I met did it in silence until I decided to change that.

"So you can tell the future." I asked him.

He nodded.

"Do you control it or..."

"Visions come to me, it's mostly when I'm asleep but it sometimes happens during the day to."

"If you know this place will sink why are you still here? Why haven't you left yet?"

"This ship was originally my parents, they had so much money that they wanted to live on the seas, eventually they had a son, and soon after they died. I was born with this ship, this is where I will spend my finally days, and I will die with it."

"Why?"

"I'm an orphan, my caretaker, the man who now owns this ship cares little for me and doesn't care what I do as long as I stay out of his way. No one loves me, and I have no one to love. This is my purpose on this Earth."

"Do you like it?"

"No but what can I do?"

"You can change it! Survive the sinking ship and travel the world."

I've got no money, or experience, I wouldn't last a day out there alone."

"I was told by a brilliant man that everyone has friends."

"I am the only kid on this ship, the staff treats me like a slave, while the passengers treat me like a pet, where do you see friends."

"We all have friends, we just haven't found them yet. Some people take longer to find their friends then others, but we all have friends nobody dies alone.

"Well I'll be dead soon enough."

"You don't have to. You could come with me!"

"Even if I did chose to come with you, I have no desire to really do anything."

"You want friends don't you!?"

He didn't respond, meaning I must've had something.

"Even if you don't have any goals in life, you want friends right? Friends help other friends, so I'll become your friend in exchange for you helping me with my dream."

"What is your dream?" He asked me.

I looked up at the ceiling, blowing air at it.

"Another friend of mine is has been kidnapped, my short-term goal is to go rescue him."

"So what are you going to do after that?"

"Well originally I planned on being the kage of my village, but that was an idiotic, childish dream. For now it's to find friends who'll accept me for I am."

"What? What do you mean? Aren't you human?"

"Can't your eyes tell?"

"The visions are imprecise and uncontrollable, anyway answer the question."

"To be completely honest, I don't know myself. I've got human skin, and a human face, but all I've ever been called is an animal, a beast...a monster."

"Did you do anything in the past?"

Naruto giggled. "Things have been this way for as long as I could remember, I'm an eleven year old kid, what could a baby accomplish that would cause an entire village to fear him.

"Maybe your the reincarnation of a really bad guy, or maybe your parents were really bad people, and the your village is looking for someone to put the blame on. An easy target."

"Nah, the Third Hokage said that they were both strong ninja, and he'd never lie to me."

"How can you be so sure? Didn't everyone hate you?"

"Almost." I reminisced. "There were a few exceptions, the Third, the Ichiraku ramen guy, and this kid."

"What kid?"

"You'd better believe I hated him, he was always so good at everything he was Mr. Perfect, super talented and he had all the girls he wanted."

"But?" He urged me.

My eyes began to water for reasons I couldn't understand. "He was the closest thing, the closest thing... I ever had to a friend." I began. "I could never understand why, we were two totally different kinds of people, with different background and lives, he embarrassed me at the courtyard all the time, I could never understand why I felt the way I did or how to deal with it."

"Maybe, just maybe you didn't see the whole story." He said to me.

"What?!" I asked him. He seemed to be doing some remembering of his own.

"My dad told me this before he died, stories are a lot like coins. Stories have three sides, your side, which represents head on a coin, then theirs his side, which represents tails, then there is the third side, which represents the truth."

"What? But the third side is so narrow most people wouldn't consider it a side." I pointed out.

"Exactly, when you flip a coin, the chance of it landing sideways is so small many people wouldn't consider it, which is why it represents the whole truth. The whole truth is rarely found, and even less often stated. Many people assume it's always a 50-50 chance between heads or tails, your side and his side, but there is that 1%, the truth."

"What if my side is the whole truth."! I questioned

"Impossible, you can only see the world from your perspective and no on else's, never is one person completely right about everything. Think about it, a coin doesn't always land on heads or tails." He told me.

"So it's a 49.5-49.5-1 chance."

"Yeah, most of the time." He muttered.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"Sometimes, both sides are wrong and the truth can't be found." He said.

"Where the heck is that represented on a coin?!" I asked.

The kid dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. Then he flipped it into the air only to catch it, then put it back into his pocket.

"What was the purpose of that?"

"Sometimes the coin doesn't land at all." He said.

There was a brief pause and I thought about what he said.

"Your dad said all that?"

"Yeah."

"He was a smart man."

"Of course he was." He beamed.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"It was fun to talk to you." He told me.

"Still haven't."

"I'm pretty sure I said no."

"You didn't."

"Yeah well I am now."

"You haven't given me a proper answer."

"I just did!"

"You haven't given me an answer I can accept, like "Yes please take me" or "It'd be an honor to travel with you."

Then he began laughing hysterically. "Your ridiculous!"

"God, I haven't laughed like this in a long time."

"So?"

"Alright, I'll come with you, Naruto Uzumaki."

"And I'd be honored for you to come along...um."

"Call me Roc, it's what everyone else does anyway."

"Oh alright cool."

Then there was a short pause."

"Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"Quick word of advice, if you want to live to make all those friends we should probably get going to the emergency life rafts."

"What? I thought we had two day-". Before I could finish my response the boat shook erratically, throwing us both to the side, then on the floor.

"I thought we had two days!" I yelled out at him.

"Correction! I said this ship would be at the bottom of the sea in two days, I never said when it would start sinking."

"You couldn't have told me this earlier?!"

"Well, I mean we were having such a nice conversation."

"Hey I'd much prefer to learn when the ship I'm on is going to sink then to talk about coins!"

"Your acting like my coin metaphor didn't just change everything you believed, your entire outlook on life."

"Oh shut up! All it did was make me regret something I couldn't do in the past!"

"Yeah well I'm sure it did!"

"Shut up! If I heard it earlier, maybe, just maybe I wouldn't be here right now, I might've never left, meaning you'd be drowning!"

"I didn't ask for you to save me! You just wouldn't leave me alone!"

"Shut up and follow me Mr. No Friends."

"Right back at ya friendless."

We both rushed out of the kitchen, it seemed we beat all of the passengers to the realization that the ship was beginning to sink. We flew past the guards.

"Let me lead the way! I actually know where everything is." Roc told me.

"Sure! You do that, I told him, as I went to the food bar."

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting food for the ride!" I yelled.

"Fine after your done with that head to the south of the ship! That's where all the rafts are! Get the biggest one! I'll be with you in just a second." He yelled back.

There was a slight commotion among the passengers, I'm guessing they just assumed we were hitting rough waters, like security was saying, thankfully they didn't notice me stuff my pants with all sorts of food before rushing out. It took me awhil to get to the south of the ship mostly because my clothes were filled with food. When I got there Roc was nowhere is sight.

I sat on the largest raft, hiding while peeking out. No one was here just yet. Another shake hit the boat, this time more serious then the last, with the raft dangling from the boat as one of its four strings snapped. Those four strings were the only things keeping this life raft with the boat.

I could hear the commotion on the inside, people were asking questions, and I doubted security could hold them for any longer.

"Excuse me passengers." I heard a voice I assumed to be the captain say. "We have run into quite the predicament, guards, escort the passengers in a mild and relaxed fashion to the life boats south of the ship. This is all."

There was a brief moment of silence, then all-out chaos. Security was over run by rich people punching and kicking over each other, all of them simply believing their life was more important then the next. Whee the hell is Roc?!

The boat began to tilt, the north part of the ship was sinking, raising the raft even higher, and causing another string to snap. Eventually, I saw it, a bunch of rich people mostly men, I guess those insanely high heels and stupidly designed dresses destroyed the women's chances. They were all rushing this way, cutting life boats and jumping to safety.

They were all intentionally avoiding this one, I questioned it but I was thankful, till I found out why. The big boss of this ship, the rich guy I met before was on a chair carried by four men. "If anyone takes the largest raft, which belongs to me they shall be shot down immediately!" He announced,

I cursed silently.

"Naruto!" I heard a voice say. I turned around to see Roc, hands full running this way from the opposite direction.

"Cut the ropes Naruto! We gotta leave now!"

I nodded making my appearance known, I used my teeth to tear the ropes apart.

"No! You foolish peasant I will kill you!" The man threatened shooting at me with a gold diamond incrusted pistol.

His last shot hit the last string causing the raft to hit the cold ocean below. Roc jumped in soon afterward. The man and all his men began to shoot at us.

"You blasted bra-". Thankfully the ship shook again, stroking his men off balance, and they dropped the chair, sending the man falling into other passengers.

Once we were far enough away that I assumed we'd be safe I looked at the sinking ship. Then I turned to Roc.

"What fucking took you so long?"

"Relax dude, I was getting my stuff and your backpack."

"Oh thanks." I said taking it.

"And one last thing." He said to me taking something out of his pack. It was my orange jumpsuit, no only clean but it looked brand new.

"Wow! Thanks." I said to him.

"Meh it was dirty, no big deal."

We were at sea for days, eating what food I brought with me. Once we were out of food, we saw an island and drifted toward it.

"If the map is right then this should be it, the Land Of Waves". Roc told me.

Im coming Konohamaru, coming to rescue you.