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Chapter 7: Night-time Rendezvous
It started with a dream. Not one of his usual kinds with huge bowls of steaming ramen that he could jump into like a bath-tub and pink-haired goddesses, him standing atop the Hokage mountain with the entire village raining praise upon him as he adorned the Hokage's special robes and pointy hat, no. This dream was a complete deviation from the norm.
Naruto found himself sitting on a pure black ground whose matte seemed to absorb everything beneath it. The faint drip, dripping of a leak somewhere sent ripples across the ground, showed that the surface he was on should at least be damp. However, bringing his hand down he found it to be cool and glassy, neither moist nor soaking into his orange trousers.
'Where am I?' he asked himself as stood up. Looking around at the vast space he stood in, he sighed. There was nothing around to orientate himself with, no landmark, object, or even light to orientate himself with, yet somehow he could see. There was nothing but an empty black void that stretched for miles in all directions.
'There's nothing around… but that sound…'
It was very faint, almost imperceptible. His hearing internalised to the point where he could hear the steady thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat. He wouldn't have noticed, were it not for his hand clutching his heart and matching the sounds to the regular thump, but every fourth beat of his heart… there was an irregular.
Every fourth heartbeat was much deeper, much slower, and the sound of it entered his ears from outside rather than within. The sound of that fourth heartbeat was something else entirely, and as Naruto focused on it, the audibly low, raspy breaths of something large and slumbering materialized out of nowhere.
Naruto took a step forward, closing his eyes since it wouldn't do him any good if they were open anyways. He took another step, stretching his arms out blindly and taking step after step. He didn't know what was really pushing him to do this, but the heartbeat grew louder, as did the breathing.
The noises were so loud now that Naruto felt he was probably standing right in front of whatever this thing was. Opening his eyes, he met the sight of dull, iron cage-bars that spanned across a distance ten times and up three times his height. The cage was huge, yet at the very top centre of the bars he could see a little piece of parchment with an illegible scribble in black ink on it.
'That looks like a seal…' Naruto's eyes widened in realisation of where he must be. 'The kyuubi no kitsune…'
A huge pair of menacing, red eyes appeared behind the bars of the cage. He felt the chill start from the base of his spine and travel right up to the back of his neck. This… beast… it emitted an aura upon waking, one so potent that Naruto felt himself being forced to his knees, struggling to breathe under the weight of such heavy killing-intent.
Neither spoke a word, but in Naruto's case it wasn't a matter of choice as he brought his hands up to clutch his throat. He shuddered as the heavy atmosphere lifted slightly, giving him just enough air to reach his lungs and breathe again.
To think that the nine-tailed fox could kill him without even moving frightened Naruto to his very core. The kyuubi moving within his cage was as loud and disruptive as an earthquake, causing the ground beneath to tremble under its enormous weight. It kept its voice low and let forth a low growl that emitted exactly how threatening he could be.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
Naruto couldn't speak, frozen in fear of the monster who'd destroyed half of his village with a simple flick of one of its tails. He tried to open his mouth, but the only sign of speech was a small yelp that made the kyuubi grin. The sight of its front fangs, each one the length and twice the width of his forearms, brought fearful tears to his eyes.
'I can't speak… or move… what do I…'
"Don't be afraid Naruto-kun."
Kyuubi stopped grinning and curled his lip in disgust. He snarled as he looked around for the source of that voice, but was met with the usual blackness that had been his cage for the last 200 years of his life, excluding the brief period when he'd been freed by the masked man from his previous container.
"WHAT IS THIS?"
'That voice… it's so familiar… and comforting…'
Naruto looked around in wonder, hoping to catch sight of the ethereal creature that such a soft and girlish tone should belong to. There was nothing within sight, but the voice continued.
"He can't escape that cage without your permission Naruto-kun, so don't be afraid."
"I… I'm not afraid. Thank you…"
The voice hummed and it sounded like the most delightful music he'd ever heard. Naruto tried his best to focus on the cage before him, taking a deep breath before speaking with the exhale. "So, y-you're the Kyuubi no kitsune eh?" The menacing snarl from behind those cage-bars told him the fox-demon didn't like what he was hearing. "You dare speak to me with such a familiar tone…"
"Y-yeah, I DO!" The bars were bent as the demon forced his way forward barrelling into the cage.
"Keep your will strong Naruto-kun!" The dull metal of the bars glowed a pure white as if they'd been reinforced with a new steel. Howling, the kyuubi jumped back against the bars as if they'd burned him. "What is this chakra you use… WHEN I ESCAPE THIS PRISON I'LL TEAR YOUR LIMBS APART AND CRUSH YOUR BONES TO DUST!"
Those glowing red eyes grew larger and Naruto found himself frozen again, lost in the bloody irises. "I will ask you again boy. WHY. ARE. YOU. HERE?!"
"I don't know, I didn't… ask… for this…" HE kneeled to the ground before Kyuubi, clutching his head with his hands. "Release me, RELEASE ME NOW!"
Trembling with anger, the nine-tailed demon made the entirety of the space they were held in shake. After 200 long years, he was still furious about his unjust imprisonment within the jinchuriki-line, those Uzushiogakure brats deserved what they'd gotten when their village was brought to ruin by other, stronger villages.
While lesser demons could be sealed in something as simple as a vase, with the death of this boy, the last living Uzumaki, it would mean the death of the only remaining mortal with a direct lineage to a bloodline that could seal him, the most powerful demon in the universe. He'd readily admit that the Uzumaki clan had gained his respect, for their knowledge of the sealing-arts reached beyond what the gods would ever allow a shinobi to know at the peak of the small clan's existence.
Which was they'd needed to be destroyed, their documents burned alongside their corpses. The other mortals of some unknown village had seen to the Uzumaki clan's demise the day after his previous container was sent to the hidden-leaf.
"Stop it demon!" Naruto shouted, clenching his fists in anger and raising them towards the beast. "Even if I wanted to release you, I wouldn't know how!" Through the throbbing headache and stiff limbs he pulled through, standing up again with a triumphant glare at the tailed beasts. A warm glow was travelling through his body, soothing the pain that the kyuubi's gaze gave him
Inside the cage the nine-tailed fox stilled, seeing that the effect he had earlier on the boy was now dissipating. "Why... why did you attack the village?" Naruto asked, gasping a great big lungful of air while his passageway had once again been narrowly released. "Demons don't attack shinobi for no reason!"
"Is that so?" the fox drawlied, snarling again. "I won't answer that question."
"Because you don't know why right?"
The fox howled again and rammed the bars even harder than before, bending them to the point where his fangs just scratched at Naruto's neck and he threw himself back onto the ground with a thud.
"He's getting out of control, time to wake up Naruto-kun!"
The snapping of the kyuubi's jaws and an echoing roar was the last think he heard before he'd been sucked back into the inky black surface that fell down like an endless abyss. "HELP ME!" He yelled, flailing his arms and legs in an effort to slow down but with no luck.
"Don't worry Naruto-kun, just wake up."
"Huh? This is a dream?"
"Wake up! Naruto wake up!"
He hit the water in his dream with a splash and at the same time bolted upright from his bed, drenched in cold sweat. "It… was… a dream…" Gasping, eyes wide, heart beating erratically, Naruto jumped out of his small box-post bed and ran into the bathroom to splash his face with cold water.
He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, breathing heavily. Water dripped down reddened skin, past the birthmarks that looked like whiskers. He traced them out with his fingers, hissing at the heat that seemed to emanate from them and the way they'd seemed to lengthen and thicken. His canine teeth were just a little more prominent than they were before, and worst of all his usually blue eyes were ringed with a thin line of red. This wasn't 'he first time he'd caught himself looking like this, but it was definitely the strongest resemblance to the fox-demon he'd seen.
'Is this… me? Am I a… a… demon?' He wondered, stumbling back to his bed and resting his head on his hands with a heavy sigh. 'What a terrible dream, maybe I should tell Kakashi-sensei about this… but what if he tells the old-man Hokage? I don't wanna be exiled from the village, it's my home!'
He shook his head to rid it of the morose thoughts and stood up again, walking five feet across the room to turn on the kettle. Maybe some late-night instant ramen would make things better, too bad old-man Teuchi needed to sleep sometime and the stand wasn't open 24-hours.
Just as the kettle was about to squeal a light knock at the window alerted him to the presence of some unknown. He yelped and fell off the bed, into the heaped pile of dirty laundry that would probably be done sometime soon… or later. "Who's there!" he yelled, rummaging around for his kunai and finding it under his pillow. Getting up again and sticking close to the wall next to his window, Naruto watched a hand enter his bedroom followed by a hooded head. The white kabuki mask glowed under the bright moonlight, a tiny yellow-painted sunflower on the cheek of the mask being the only symbol distinguishing her from the other elite shinobi known as the anbu. "Anbu-chan?" Naruto asked incredulously, dropping the kunai in shock.
***flashback***
…
It was a dark and stormy night when she first appeared. He was seven years old, a struggling orphan who'd just been kicked out of the orphanage to live on his own with a meagre allowance. The village had been on an economic downslide lately so the welfare payments weren't a lot, but with a bit of budgeting a single person could live comfortably on the allowance he was given.
Too bad Naruto didn't know the meaning of the word "budgeting" back then. He'd been scammed of and had his money taken from bigger and smarter kids and adults alike, and with no rent paid and no food to eat he'd been left on the street for the night. He was a stupid kid at the time, unaware that there were people he could go to for help, but in a world where he'd always been shunned, isolated and left unnoticed, who knows if knowing about those things would have done him some good anyways.
Shivering in the cold, wet alleyway hugging his knees, Naruto closed his eyes, ready to pass out.
"There you are Naruto-kun!"
A soft voice called to him from the other side of the alley-way and he heard footsteps splashing through the puddles, making their way closer and closer towards him.
"Hm? Someone…" His droopy eyes lifted and he caught the silhouette of a small figure, standing over him with a looming shadow. He couldn't make out a face, but the person looked female. It was all he managed to register before his eyes closed again and he leaned back against the wall.
"Warm… and soft…" a pair of arms had wrapped themselves around him and he smiled, leaning into the other body as he then felt himself being hauled onto someone's back. It was a shaky piggy-back ride to get to the building that she wanted, but the anbu didn't mind.
…
"Hey kid!"
Opening his eyes, Naruto found himself in the presence of a pretty older girl wearing an apron and headscarf that covered most of her long brown hair. He was in a comfortable cot-bed wearing a stripy blue shirt several sizes too big for him, but what man would ever lend their shirt to him?
"Mmh, who are you lady?"
"Is that a way to speak to the person whose bed you're sleeping in?!"
It wasn't the first time he'd felt the sharp bonk of a girl hitting him, but with a soup-ladle? Yeah, that was new. Pulling the covers off of himself Naruto stood up and Ayame threw a bright orange parcel of clothing at the spot he'd just vacated. "I saw these clothes at the markets and thought they might fit you. You've been asleep for a whole day you know."
"R-really?" Naruto sweat-dropped as he looked out the window and saw it was evening, he'd passed out at night time so she must've been telling the truth, he'd slept a whole 24 hours!
"Come out front and get dinner when you're dressed, it's getting cold!"
Ayame slid the door shut behind her and gave Naruto some time to sort his thoughts out. While he dressed in the bright orange jumpsuit he frowned, wondering how exactly he'd gotten here. Once dressed he opened the door again and took the short passageway leading to a small kitchen with huge pots of steaming noodles and meaty broth, the aromas sent his stomach into disarray instantly. A large man had his back turned to him, busily stirring the pots and adding various ingredients to each of them.
"Ahem" Naruto cleared his throat and the man turned toward him with a big warm smile. "You're awake!"
"Yup. I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Thanks a lot for letting me sleep in your bed."
"Call me Teuchi! And you were in my daughter's bed actually. Now go out front m'boy, your meal's waiting!" He smiled at the old man and shuffled around him, entering the eating area where customers sat.
"Welcome to Ichiraku's! What can I get you?"
"Miso-ramen please."
Ayame tended to the customers at the front with a big smile. Seeing that the blonde had finally woken she ushered him over and pushed him to sit on a front-booth seat. A bowl of ramen and wooden chopsticks was pushed towards him and he eyed the food with wide eyes.
"There you go, eat up now!" Teuchi told him kindly. He didn't need to be told twice, breaking the chopsticks apart and grinning goofily, Naruto took his first mouthful of ramen and broth and lost himself to the most delicious food in the world.
That day began the first of the many staples that Naruto Uzumaki held to. It was the beginning of his ramen-obsession, the beginning of his orange-jumpsuit wearing, and it was the day he'd met the kind strangers from the tiny ramen-stand that he'd be forever indebted to for giving him the start of an endless string of free meals and a bed to sleep for the night.
"How'd you guys find me old man?" Naruto asked an hour later when his belly was completely full. Teuchi sweat-dropped at the huge stack of bowls that the boy had cleared. "An anbu brought you here and asked us to look after you."
"Anbu?" Naruto was puzzled. "They're the most elite shinobi of the village, you usually never see them, but if you do, they're the ones wearing all black clothing and white kabuki masks."
"Oh! I've seen them around the hokage. Those guys are shinobi?" Ayame nodded in reply. "She comes here to eat sometimes and we know her well, even though we haven't seen her face. Anbu-sama gave us this money to help looking after you, but I think you need it more ne?" She threw the frog wallet that he'd had in his old jacket-pocket and his arm dropped to the counter with the heavy weight of it. The frog-wallet was stuffed to the bulging seams with money. Naruto's eyes bulged. "That's a lot of money! Thanks Ayame-chan…"
"Actually, you're just a kid so give that to me and I'll handle your rent and food-shopping" She snatched the frog-wallet back and he sulked, earning another bop on the head with the ladle from the no-nonsense girl. "Damn hokage leaving a kid to fend for himself in this big, cruel world. I oughta give him a piece of my mind…" As Ayame went off on her rant the curtain entrance shifted and a shadow entered the room, looking around once before making her way towards Naruto and the stand-owners.
"Anbu-sama!" Ayame chirped grabbing the hooded figure by the shoulders and sitting her down next to Naruto. "HIYA! I'm Naruto Uzumaki!"
The anbu simply nodded, pulling out a notepad and pen. Writing in tiny, perfect, characters on a small corner of the page, she pushed the notepad over to him and he leaned over to read it.
'I know who you are Naruto-kun.'
"Oh, can you not speak?"
"Nope. Anbu-sama is actually an apprentice-anbu, she isn't allowed to reveal any part of her true identity in case enemies try to target her home." Ayame explained what the anbu-girl had already told her once, to which Naruto nodded with wide-eyed amazement.
…
"You're an anbu huh? So you must be a super powerful ninja!" Naruto remarked as they walked along the streets together. The anbu-girl wrote something on her notepad and Naruto leaned over to read it.
'Anbu apprentice. I'm not that powerful yet.'
"Still! Bet you could beat up all the big bullies around her any day!"
'Do they pick on you Naruto-kun?' she wrote, frowning beneath her mask.
"Not anymore, I'm tough enough to fight back! But there are some kids around here who get picked on for being quiet, I wish they'd learn to speak up for themselves…" his thoughts drifted briefly to a girl who was being picked on a week ago, one that he'd intervened in on the bullying of.
'What do you wanna be when you grow up Naruto-kun?'
He read that and scrunched his face up, crossing his arms deep in thought. "Well I wanna be someone… someone that everyone notices, that never gets left behind and is always looked at with smiles and praise!" He stretched his arms behind his head and grinned widely.
'You mean like the Hokage?'
"Hokage? Is that what he is?!" Naruto looked at the cloaked figure in shock.
'The hokage is the strongest person in the village and it's his job to protect and lead the people. He's the most important person in the village and everyone loves him.'
"ALRIGHT THEN, ONE DAY I'M GOING TO BE HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!" He grinned widely and did a happy dance, spinning around and punching the air. When he turned back towards the anbu girl he was surprised to find her chuckling, gloved hand held over her mask.
'When you become hokage, as an anbu it will be my job to protect you.' She wrote, grinning just as widely as him beneath the mask. "And when you're a full anbu and I'm hokage, you'll take your mask off and I'll see your face right?"
That threw her off a bit. Stunned, she faced him and shivered in nervousness. The thought of revealing her true face to him made her incredibly nervous. The mask made her feel less like the shy little girl she was to the outside world, and more like the person she was inside, confident and strong.
"… Right anbu-sama?" Naruto persisted, shaking her shoulder gently. The anbu-girl nodded, against her better judgement, and was swept up in a hug by the young boy.
So began the friendship of Naruto Uzumaki and the nameless anbu apprentice. It was only ever nightly visits, as anbu were never seen during the day. Most times they'd eat together and chat, but others they would train side-by-side, or she'd instruct him on the basics like throwing kunai and shuriken, and other useful skills such as tying rope-harnesses, camouflaging himself and the most useful skill to date transforming himself into other people so that he could get away from the guards during one of his many infamous pranks.
…
***end flashback***
The two young kids sat side-by-side on the rooftop of his building, empty cups of ramen behind them. The anbu took her time sipping the broth beneath the tiny opening between her mask and cloak, before she hummed in content and put the empty ramen cup down. Naruto's endless chatting lulled her into a warm, comfortable state that she wished wouldn't end. But then she sighed, there were things that needed to be done. Even as he spoke of that terrifying dream that she'd helped him get through, without his knowledge of course, the anbu-girl knew it was almost time to leave.
'I have to go Naruto-kun.'
"So soon? You got here half an hour ago!"
'Sorry, goodbye.'
Before she could slip into the shadows he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into another hug that made her weak in the knees. "You know, the girl from my dream, even though I'd never heard her voice before, she had this really familiar laugh. If I were to take a guess-"
The girl pushed away in shock and body-flickered out of there, leaving a chuckling Naruto alone. "Some other time then eh anbu-chan?"
…
Gasping in shock as she leaned back against the tree she'd managed to transport behind, Hinata took off her mask and clutched her erratically beating heart in frustration. She hated how nervous he made her, when all she wanted was the confidence to reveal herself to her crush and best friend her body reacted instinctively and either sent her into a dead faint or turned her into a tomato.
'What if he doesn't like what he sees? He might've been expecting someone else, probably Sakura-san… yeah, this is for the best…'
Wiping her sweaty brow and slipping the mask back on, Hinata activated her byakugan and regained her composure. Her sensei was expecting her any second now, and Anko Mitarashi was a woman no-one should ever keep waiting.
…
So uuhhh… Hinata's an anbu-apprentice, sort of. I added some sentences that indicate her being anbu in chapter 2, like… 10 minutes after I finished writing this chapter... heh… Hinata's at her shiest around her family and Naruto-kun, she kinda don't give a shit about anyone else.
There will be a story on how she ended up with Anko (maybe a witch that she had to defeat for the snake-mistress? *ooooh*). Overpowering a character to like a trillion times what they really ought to be? Okay fine, you've caught me. I, Theo, am absolutely guilty of overpowering my characters to a ridiculous point. I'll just make up for it by going hella into the other character's skill-sets as well, in my defence I thought Naruto was at freaking god-level by the end of the canon-story, toad-summoner AND sage-mode AND Kyuubi AND rassengan AND ridiculously big chakra reserves? He's a hella powerful dude, and in my opinion needs a hella powerful lady. Soooo… I feel justified.
But yeah, so far Hinata's been trained by her clan (albeit reluctantly) to use her byakugan and jyuken, trained by Homura-chan to fight witches, trained by Kurenai-sensei to do base-shinobi missions and anbu-trained by Anko. And I know, I KNOW Anko isn't an anbu! But I'll explain everything with the power of my imagination *bull-shitting skills ACTIVATE*
Anko is part of the interrogation-force with Ibiki, but she is an anbu-level shinobi and so was given a special title by the hokage, the title of anbu special-ops, hidden branch. She isn't ordinary, let's put it that way, and I'm going to give a backstory in maybe the next chapter (maybe a later one) on how her and Hinata met, what prompted Anko to want her as a (secret) apprentice and what exactly they do as master/apprentice anbu.
This early chapter was a result of a review I got that inspired me to get my ass into gear (thanks nanashiwindcaller!). Your constructive criticism, and I repeat CONSTRUCTIVE, criticism, is appreciated. I love suggestions on ways you think I can improve, whether it be what could be added to the story in terms of the other characters or simple spelling mistakes, I'm only one person and I need grammar and spelling errors pointed out to me please! Even though I've constantly been going back to check and recheck and edit the story, and recheck and edit and check it again. I miss things, I'm human… That being said I'm not taking any of the stuff I've already put in, out. I'll add more, I'll adjust and rearrange, but I won't take away. For example, it's been written that Hinata's all of these things and I won't take it away. But if someone's opinion is that she's too overpowered, and you consider it inhuman, she will still remain with all this training, but at a very weak level. So if you think it's too much that she's an anbu, I'll make it so that she fails at some anbu missions and there will be some parts in the story showing her having to constantly train to get her skills because normal humans would have to train to get those skills. Yeah, stuff like that…
It's bedtime now, night guys, enjoy the early chapter ^_^
