As always, I am sorry for the delay. For those who've read other stories of mine, you know that a two month break nothing is compared to six. True story, sadly.

No empty promises here. I'll see when I have time to write, and you'll see when the website sends you an email saying 'yo new chaps up boi' and you'll be like 'damn hell yeah boi'

(Disclaimer: My friend thinks he's gangster and I think we shouldn't be friends but we are. His name is Tim)

Enjoy! ;)

Chapter 35: Our Glory Days – Part 2

Ten years ago

Kuchiha Rikugou

12 years old

It was the first day of school, after what seemed like the most normal summer of my life. In the small village I lived in, all that ever happened was the normal gossiping and summer festivals, nothing out of the ordinary.

Until just a few weeks after the season, on a particular sunny morning, a house had appeared which hadn't been there before.

I noticed when I crossed the town square together with my mother, who brought me to school.

In the middle of the square stood a fountain, which I always sat at during break of school. I liked that spot, because I could see everything surrounding the town. I wasn't very tall myself.

There was this one particular hill which peeked above the houses. The green mass looked like a pimple, when in reality it was a couple miles away. I saw that hill every single day, so I would see the slightest change immediately.

So on the first day of school, I saw that there was a house on top of the pimple. It looked more like a small shed, but I couldn't really tell because of the distance. I thought that I maybe hadn't noticed before because I hadn't been paying attention all that much to the hill itself, because there was no school during summer and I wasn't around the town square all the time. Yet I still knew it had appeared out of nowhere.

All the 'strange' things that occurred in and around town were always common knowledge within an hour. Everyone gossiped and whispered when the local baker turned out to have mice in his workshop, for example.

Yet no one had talked about the new house on top of the hill yet. It was normal for the children to learn the news just a little later than the adults.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Who lives there?"

My mother looked up to where I was pointing, and I saw her face make strange expressions. She tightened the grip around my hand, and dragged me with her.

"You're too curious, Kuchiha."

I could tell my mother was pissed, because I had seen something strange before she'd even had the chance to talk it over with another adult.

It was a shame I had to go to school. I wanted to go explore that new house on top of the hill.

During class I couldn't concentrate and mostly kept my eyes on my notebook, in which I drew my own version of the strange shed, and made a list of things that could be inside of it. The list ranged from dragon eggs to mysterious treasures.

The only time I looked up was when there was a knock on the door of the classroom. It mostly meant the principal was about to announce something, so all of us already got out of our chairs to pay our respects.

The teacher bowed his head and walked over to the door to open. It was indeed the principal, and we all bowed forward.

"Everyone" he said, which meant we were allowed to stand up straight again. We could sit down again after he'd left. "I'd like you all to welcome your newest class member. I introduce you to Ravin Crow."

The principal hadn't entered the classroom, but stood still on the doorstep. Now, he stepped aside to reveal someone standing behind him. It was a boy around my age, although he could be older. He had black hair which covered half his face, a sharp nose, and a skinny posture. He kept his head bowed, not out of respect though.

After I'd taken a good look at the boy, I started wondering why the principal brought him. I mean, I understood that this boy was new in town, but when someone new is brought to this school it's mostly a teacher who shows him around. Not the principal.

He didn't look like a rich kid to me. His uniform was also very unorganized. He didn't have his shirt in his pants and his tie hung loosely around his neck. So that couldn't be it.

"Mister Crow" the principal said, and then bowed. He bowed. The principal.

It was all very strange to me. I glanced around the room in the hopes of locking eyes with someone who thought the same as me, but to my surprise, no one seemed bothered. Everyone just stood beside their tables, watching as if it was a normal scene which played in front of us.

But I knew it wasn't.

"Dismissed" the principal than said, which was the sign we could all sit down. Our teacher pointed at an empty table, and Ravin sat down. There was one row of tables between the two of us, but that didn't stop me from looking at him. I had to basically lay my head on the table to see, and still had trouble because of his hairstyle.

I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish by just looking. Perhaps I hoped to find out what was so special about him. And if there was a connection with the sudden appearance of a new house on top of the green pimple.

During lunch break I decided to keep an eye on Ravin from a distance. My classmates didn't really seem to care that he was around. They pretty much ignored him, so he stood alone at the town square, which was in front of our school. Normally, I would sit on the ledge of the fountain, but if I did that now I'd get too close to him, which also wasn't good. So I watched from a distance.

The first thing I thought was that he had a weird lunchbox. He sat on the ground, legs crossed, back against the wall and the lunch box resting on one knee. It looked like a block of wood. His food was also strange. The things he ate looked like bread, but were just a little too fluid to be just that.

After school, when my mother came to get me, I wondered if I could ask her if she could tell me anything about the house. In exchange, I would tell her about the new boy which was brought by the principal. It seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

"There's a new boy at school" I said, knowing that would trigger the gossip queen inside of her. For the latest news, people would always go to my mother.

"Really? What's his name? Where is he from?"

"Something with Crow. He didn't say where he's from, but he was brought by the principal."

I expected that soon after this conversation, the whole town would be talking about the new house and the ones living there, but nothing happened. The day after, I asked my mother about it, and she answered vaguely. As if she had no idea what I was talking about. When I brought up the strange new house, she looked at me as if I was crazy.

This was a thing she used to do a lot; pretending something didn't happen, so it didn't happen. It angered me, especially because I had helped her with a gossip, a subject to talk about during her pathetic trips to the small shop and back.

But I didn't give up. If I couldn't get to know more about the strange things happening through my mother, I'd find out myself. I continued to watch Ravin every lunchbreak and during class. He never spoke, never answered. The teachers never asked him anything, and none of my classmates ever stroke up a conversation with him.

At twelve years old, I thought I was losing my mind. This boy existed, yet no one, besides myself, acknowledged that.

I didn't have many friends at school, or anywhere else, and I wasn't the kind of kid that socialized a lot. I loved to read books, draw and fantasize about anything. I was mostly on my own, which was just fine.

But it also meant I had no idea how to approach someone, or even greet them properly.

I tried to walk up to him many times, but each time I turned around half way. Something inside me said I shouldn't do it. I really wanted to know, yet some voice said I'd better not. It came to a point where I started to wonder if it maybe wasn't my fear speaking, but something else.

The same thing that kept everyone in town uninterested in something which should be whispered about.

I think the turning point in my investigation came when he looked straight at me. Ravin would always keep his head bowed, face hidden, but that one time was different.

It was one of my many attempts to approach him. This time I got closer than other times, and he lifted his head as if I'd just stepped on his fingers, although I was still a few feet away.

It was almost as if I'd broken through something.

His eyes were black. That was the first thing I noticed. Next was his mouth. It was a small stripe, one a pen can make. And, of course, his pointy nose, which almost looked like a bird's beak, which I thought was sad since his last name was Crow.

As soon as we'd locked eyes, I froze. For thirty seconds, all we did was look. And I swear that at that moment, the wind started attacking me. It blew my skirt upwards a little, pulled my hair and slapped me in the face.

It was obvious I'd taken a step in the right direction.

That same day I told my mother that I'd come to the conclusion that I was old enough to walk to school and back on my own. She sat at the kitchen table, reading a magazine, and looked up. Her eyes went from my white socks to my messy ponytail, which I'd desperately tried to fix after the breeze attack.

"Are you certain about this?" she asked. I don't think she was really asking, but more thinking to herself that I was growing up so fast.

I nodded, and hoped I didn't look too eager. "Yes."

And so I opened up an opportunity to stalk Ravin outside of school hours. The first day walking home alone, I made sure not to lose sight of him. I'd already made the conclusion to not get too close, because he'd notice. Not because a normal human being would notice when being followed, but because I would trigger something that would make him look, like that time before, at school.

I was convinced he would walk straight towards the house on the pimple. For that, he would have to go to the outskirts of town, take the path that goes through the thick forest and then walk up the hill.

But after a few minutes I knew I was wrong. He walked into the city centre, where the fruit market always takes place. It was Thursday, so there was no market and the city centre was kind of empty.

I started asking questions to myself. What if he was just a normal guy? And not the son of a legendary wizard that lives inside a tiny shed on top of a hill? Maybe he isn't a werewolf, or a vampire, or whatever else you can think of to fantasize about.

Ravin strolled across the pavement and didn't seem to be in a hurry, which made me impatient. I had this feeling that if I didn't find the answers to my questions today, my head would explode. And I also had to be home on time, otherwise my mother would go look for me and I would be in huge trouble.

Ravin suddenly went around a corner. I wasn't that familiar with this part of town, and it made me kind of nervous, not knowing what to expect.

I went around the corner, and froze. Ravin stood not far away from me, still out of range, but close enough. He looked at me with his dark eyes, enough to make shivers go down my spine.

"Why are you following me?"