He had no idea how long he was running. His legs were heavy, lugs aching with each breath, head spinning from exhaustion. He wanted to take a break. He wanted to stop and have a small rest.
But he couldn´t afford it.
He had to run. He had to, or else his chasers would catch up. Just a few minutes ago they were hot on his heels and now he couldn´t afford to lose the lead he had on them.
He still couldn´t understand why they kept hurting him. He was just a five-year-old child! He never harmed anybody! So why did they keep tormenting him? Why did they keep throwing trash at him? Why did the hurt him whenever they could? And why… did they throw him out of the orphanage? He had nobody after all. No foster family wanted him. Nobody was kind enough to take him in.
He wanted to ask why more than once. But whenever he approached them, they either ran away or tried to hurt him more. Even asking the other kids was hopeless. The kids knew nothing and teased and hurt him too.
The only kind person from the village was Hokage-Jiji, who tried his best to help the little boy. But both him and the child knew that he could only do so much without the others interfering. And since the little boy cared for Hokage-Jiji and didn´t want to get him in trouble, he chose to deal with most of his problems alone.
The little boy was suddenly brought back from his musing when he bumped into something hard. He fell on his butt and looked up in surprise. His blue eyes then went wide.
The thing he bumped into was a large stone statue. Despite being clotted with plants he could figure out that the statue represented an animal. The animal was sitting on a tall stone platform, its head proudly raised, looking before itself. The boy first thought it was a wolf, but then he noticed the long ears and a big fluffy tail warped around its front legs.
"It is a fox," the boy whispered in awe. He turned his head to the side and noticed another statue which looked exactly like the first one.
"What are they doing here?" the boy asked himself. Then he spotted the long stone stairs between the two statues, leading who knows where. How could he didn´t notice them before?
Hesitantly he took a few steps up the stairs before he heard some noises coming from the brushes. Thinking that the chasers caught up on him, panic took over and the little boy quickly ran all the way up the stairs. Once upside the boy paused to catch his breath and looked around, only to have his jaw drop.
He came to a shrine!
Behind the large stone gates, was beautiful, though a bit small, shrine. It looked really, really old especially since it was, just like the gates and the fox statues, clotted with plants that had grown freely, untamed for years.
But before he could take a closer look, he, again, heard some noises, coming from the bottom of the stairs. He quickly looked around, searching for some hiding place. He found none except the shrine, so he put his hands together in a quick prayer and shouted "Gomen'nasai, kami-sama!" before he ran to the shrine and went inside, quickly closing the doors behind himself.
Once safely inside he collapsed to the ground, relieved that he was safe. And it was only confirmed, when he no longer heard any noises coming from the outside. After a few minutes, which he used to calm himself down, he curiously looked around. He frowned at the dusty interior and spider webs all over it. However, he also noticed something in the centre of the shrine.
It was an old well.
An old stone well covered slightly in webs.
Why did someone build a shrine over a well?
Still frowning, the boy walked over to the well and took a look inside it. But he was too short to see anything. So carefully, he climbed on it and leaned a bit forward, while holding firmly into the stone wall.
Rumble.
The noise caught him off-guard and he wasn´t able to react in time when the stone suddenly gave in from under his feet. He cried out in panic, but there was nothing he could do. He was falling and he knew he was done.
When his body hit the water surface and started to sink, he instinctively tried to swim up. He had been in the same situation before, but at least this time he wasn´t tied up. With his hands and legs free, he could trash around and kick, until his head broke through the water surface and took several breaths of sweet, sweet air.
Panting hard he looked around while trying to think about what to do… only to find out that he was no longer in the well.
There was much more water, which seemed to flow in one direction. It was probably a river, a very slow flowing and spacious river. The boy looked up and gasped. He expected to see stone walls leading to a narrow opening of the well, but instead, he found sky. Clear sky, but instead of a warm blue colour it was that of a deep red. A red so intense, the river mirroring it looked like a river of blood. Curiously the boy looked at the sun and laughed at the sight of the bright orb which was a soft pinkish colour.
"What a weird sun!" laughed the little boy as he started to swim towards the shore, which was covered in many, many black stoned… only to yelp, when something broke through the water surface right in front of him.
"Kid, how did you get here?" asked a very deep growling voice.
The boy looked at its owner and his blue eyes went wide. Right before him, standing on the water surface like it was nothing, was probably the scariest and at the same time the coolest looking person he ever saw. The man, guessing by the lack of boobs, was at least seven feet tall. His skin was black, covered by a strange blood-red exoskeleton, including his face. His face was strange – the boy could clearly see the man´s razor-sharp teeth and three pairs of pupil-less yellow eyes. The man was dressed in clothes similar to those of a samurai made of black and red fabric and armour, and he carried two swords, attached to his waist-band.
The young child was so dazed from the stranger´s looks that for a moment he forgot to swim. He quickly snapped out of it when he began to sink.
Quickly he tried to reverse his mistake, only to yelp when the stranger yanked him upward, using the fabric on the back of his shirt.
"I asked, how did you get here? You heard me?" asked the unknown man, as if he didn´t just save him from drowning.
The boy quickly composed himself, despite literally hanging from the other´s outstretched arm. "I got lost in the forest and found this strange shrine! I thought it was a good hiding spot so I went inside. And then… then I fell into the well there and here I am!" The boy tilted his head to the side. "What were you doing under the water, sir? And how come you are not wet?"
The stranger frowned. "A well you say? And one, that was inside an old shrine?"
"Yes! A really old one! With a lot of spider webs!" nodded the kid enthusiastically. "And you didn´t answer my questions!"
"Later runt. Now you are coming with me," said the stranger and walked on the water to the shore, much to the young boy´s fascination.
"How can you walk like this? I never saw somebody who could walk on water," asked/pondered the kid once the stranger put him down on the rocky ground.
"A simple old trick kid. Now follow me," ordered the stranger and started to walk away.
The boy hesitated before he asked: "Um… what´s your name?"
The man stopped and looked back at him. "Why do you want to know?" He asked, annoyance clear in his voice
The kid crossed his arms on his chest and openly scowling at the other, he said: "Well, you are a total stranger and I´m told not to walk away nor talk with strangers, despite looking as cool as you. So if you tell me your name, you won´t be a stranger anymore!" he finished with a nod.
The man looked at the kid before a strange grin appeared on his face. "I like your guts, kiddo. My name is Xandred. And yours?"
"Uzumaki Naruto, believe it!" announced the boy with a fox-like grin.
"Well Naruto, now that we have the introductions behind us, come with me," ordered Xandred and began to walk away, with the child walking right behind him. For a few minutes, they walked in silence, before the kid started: "Ne, Xandred-san?"
"What is it?"
"What are you? Are you a human or… demon?" the last word was said with a weird shaky voice, that caused Xandred to stop walking and look at him again. He was slightly taken aback by the tone and the downcast expression the child had now.
So while observing the kid, he answered: "While I do have demons serving me, I personally am not one. Some humans seek my aid even though I am not one like them too. I´m a god."
"W-What?" asked Naruto in disbelief.
"You heard me, kid. I am Master Xandred, the god ruling over wars and battlefields, whose aid is sought out by demons and humans alike to bring them victory in fights and battles. The god paused and made a gesture towards their surroundings. "And this is the world I reside in., the Netherworld."
He wasn´t really sure for what reasons he told all of this to the kid. Maybe to see how he would react – would he tremble and be afraid? Would he try to run away?
He certainly didn´t expect the kid to start jumping up and down while looking excitedly at him "That´s so cool! You must be super strong then! Even stronger than Hokage-Jiji and he is the strongest in the village! Do you know him? You said you aid people during wartime, so maybe you have met him! Did you train him? If so can you train me? I want to be strong so people stop being mean to me and to take over Konoha when Hokage-Jiji retires. So can you train me? Can you? Can you?!"
"Oi! Slow down, kid! First, I don´t know this "Hokage-Jiji" of yours. Second, I don´t "train" anybody, useless they did something to catch my attention. And third, what the hell did you mean "so people stop being mean to me"? Are you…" Xandred paused before his eyes narrowed, looking at the kid more closely. "Are you being abused by other people?"
The boy instantly stopped moving and looked down on the ground. For a moment Xandred wondered if it was a mistake to ask the last question. Then he barely heard as Naruto whispered: "They always hurt me… they threw me out and when they can get away with it, they call me demon… monster… I wanted to know why, but nobody tells me anything… They just cause me pain… adults and other kids in the village… They… they…" the boy trailed off and began to sob, the sound surprisingly silent from the upset child.
Xandred was once again taken aback and… unsure about how should he react. His first thought was how good it would feel to track down and kill the bastards that hurt the child. Some might be surprised, but while he might be the god of war, it didn´t automatically mean that he liked when the violence affected the children. And he openly despised people who went out of their way to hurt children… which looked like it was the chase of the current situation.
And he also couldn´t understand how somebody could call a kid like Naruto a demon. Because of the child´s blue eyes, tanned skin and blonde hair? No way, some people looked even more unnerving, like his servant Kisame. Because of the whisker marks on his cheeks? Xandred had to admit, they were actually rather cute, not scary.
Then why? Because of that strange aura that surrounded the boy… huh?
Xandred blinked with all of his six eyes. Why didn´t he notice it before? Then again, before now they were rather close to river Sanzu so maybe its water masked it.
Never mind, this certainly was something he couldn´t ignore. With the kid´s life, it would be just a matter of time, before somebody went too far and released it, killing many people in the process. While Xandred might not care about them, it might kill the kid, and that was something he didn´t like the idea of. Especially without knowing the type of danger he was in.
Oh well, there was only one thing to do about it.
Xandred knelt down before the sobbing kid and put a hand on his shoulder, instantly gaining the little one´s attention. The child looked at him with big teary blue eyes.
"Listen, child, there might be something I can do to give you an answer… but it won´t be nice. You want my help? Even if it might be unpleasant?" Xandred asked.
"But will it… help to make the villagers leave me alone?" the child wanted to know while wiping away his tears.
"It depends on what you will do with this knowledge. It might give you a way to help yourself… or possibly destroy you. It all depends on you. So…?"
The kid seemed to think about it before a determinate look found its way to his face. He looked at Xandred and nodded.
That was all the god needed so he reached out and put his hand on the boys head. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated.
Naruto seeing this followed his lead and too closed his eyes. A strange tingling sensation came from Xandred´s palm and slowly speared through his body… and suddenly he felt the water around his ankles.