Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
The Summary: "The Kyuubi's attack was not simple, random chance. Now, six years later, the Beast Realm is splintering and demons walk the earth. Enter Naruto, a devious kid with something to prove. He'll need it—he's the catalyst."
And just to give everyone a better idea of where this fiction is headed: The Beast Realm and summoning will feature prominently. Demons and Jinchuuriki have motivations and purpose, and they will be central to the larger story arc. Naruto will heavily borrow, alter, and create his own techniques. There will be lots of traveling, lots of gritty battles, and (hopefully) lots of ninja/spy-esque action. There will be a great romance, but I ain't giving away the players (...okay, one of them will be Naruto :P). There will be ups and downs and Naruto will grow to be a great and influential person. Most of all, there will be unbiased character relationships (at least to the best of my ability--no bashing here), and lots of them. Dudsies, it's going to be a good ride, so I hope you stick around to see where it goes! So, without further ado...
NARUTO: PILLARS OF CHAOS
Chapter 1
The little blond midget and the stooped old man stood next to each other in the dusty street. They were quite alone—it was supper-time for most, after all—and the rosy light of evening seemed forlorn rather than warm. There were escorts just of out sight, as usual, but for all intents and purposes, the place was deserted.
Sarutobi, former—and unfortunately also present—Hokage, glanced down at the sunny mop of hair, and a grin twitched beneath well-earned wrinkles. "Eh?" he prodded the boy with his gnarled walking stick.
The kid sighed at the unasked question, staring up at the dilapidated—or heavily 'loved'—building they stood in front of. Sarutobi could see the dubious expression on the boy's face—a cat yowled somewhere in a nearby alley, followed by the sound of clattering trash cans, and more distantly, a shrill argument carried easily to their ears—and found he could hardly blame him.
The boy was only six, after all.
Sarutobi sighed, and knelt down next to his little companion, ignoring the cracking in his joints. "It's not so bad, is it Naruto?"
The boy finally looked up with those sky-blue eyes, and the disgruntlement was plain on his face. "I miss my friends, ojiisan. Nobody's here!"
"I know, squirt, I know. But you'll make some new friends. And don't you want everyone to see how grown up you can be?" It was a thin ploy, and the old man grimaced inwardly. Of course Naruto would miss all of his friends at the orphanage, and they would all miss him. He was their ringleader after all. And therein lies the problem. The headmistress—not to mention the surrounding neighborhood—had finally had enough of the boy's mischief.
Making the kid responsible for himself was, undoubtedly, a plan doomed to disaster, but what other choice did he have? He patted a small shoulder with his gnarled old hand, and cursed at the world in general.
But his suggestion had the desired affect, and Naruto's faced lit up like the rising sun. "A grownup?" the boy echoed gleefully.
"Yep, with your own apartment, and your own money, and—"
"I can go outside whenever I want?" Naruto demanded, throwing fists into the air in his excitement.
"Well, yes—"
"And no veg'tables?"
"Ah, now you prob—"
"And no more BATHS!"
Sarutobi scrubbed forcefully at his bushy eyebrows and tried to ignore the pit of dread in his stomach. This was a mistake, he just knew it.
ooo
"Are you sure about this, Hokage-sama?"
Night had settled like a cool blanket over the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and Sarutobi crouched quietly on the old shingles across the street from Naruto's little apartment. He might be old, but he found nighttime excursions helped keep him sharp, if not necessarily well-slept.
He didn't even have to look up to identify who he was talking to—only a precious few people would be out here at this time of night, in this neighborhood, if they didn't have to be. "Kakashi." He sighed, slightly annoyed at the rasp that fifty years of smoking had made of his voice, and answered the question. "No."
The ANBU captain easily settled down next to the old man, lifting his dog-faced porcelain mask to look down at the sleeping boy with one clear eye. "Poor kid," he murmured.
Sarutobi thought there might have been real sympathy in that comment, and nodded. "He's going to have… a really tough life, I think. I'm afraid…" and there were so many things he was afraid of at that moment that he couldn't settle on anything, and fell silent.
After a moment, the silver haired captain said quietly, "He's a tough one. He's made of some stern stuff. I see him get picked on all the time, by some of the most unlikely people, and somehow he keeps bouncing back. If I'd taken that kind of abuse when I was his age…"
Sarutobi scowled at his subordinate. "I hope you're not trying to cheer me up right now, gaki."
Kakashi waved a hand apologetically. "Mah, I'm just saying he can deal with a lot. There's a reason he had such a… devout following at that orphanage."
Here Sarutobi stifled a chuckle. "I will miss that gang of midgets running around. There is nothing more amusing than knee-high children pulling off diabolical plans." He sighed, watching Naruto turn over in his sleep and disappear over the edge of the bed. The two shinobi didn't even twitch at the loud and high-pitched shout that followed. "Do an old man a favor and keep an eye out for him, when you can."
"Of course," Kakashi said automatically. "And don't worry, Hokage-sama. I'm sure that kid will have a new gang of midgets in no time at all."
Sarutobi huffed a tired laugh. "That's a bit what I'm afraid of."
ooo
Naruto liked strangers. If he had to be honest, which didn't happen often, he probably would have said he liked strangers even better than he did the people that knew him. Well, except for Ojiisan, but he didn't really see him that often. Or his friends, but they were still at the orphanage.
He tried really hard to be nice to everyone he met, because he'd noticed that for that small window of time, while the stranger still didn't know exactly who he was, he could start to win them over. And until some person who did know who he was came up and filled the stranger in, Naruto knew what it felt like to have someone like him.
Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone in Konoha recognized him. Maybe it was 'cause he looked weird--he didn't know anyone else with yellow hair, blue eyes, and weird whisker marks on their cheeks. The Yamanakas, who had a flower shop nearby, were blond haired and blue eyed, but even they at least had the same skin-color as everybody else.
Strangers from outside the village were the very best of all, because often they didn't have places to go right away, and if some villager happened to come up and tell them about Naruto—and what exactly people always said, Naruto had never found out—the foreigners weren't as likely to believe or care.
It was by this mix of circumstances that the little yellow haired boy could often be found sitting at the Ramen stand nearest the big town gates. It was an unassuming little place, squeezed in between a hot sake bar and a greasy wonton stand, situated along an equally crowded and busy thoroughfare. He liked ramen, of course, and the people who served there—an old man and his daughter—were very nice to him. But he really went to talk the ear off of any travelers or visitors to the village who would stop to eat.
More often than not, the travelers were covered in road dust and tired from their trip, but the little boy was too boisterous and cute to be denied. He told them all about Konoha, and they would tell him all about the big wide world and wherever their travels had taken them.
Most of the time they were just normal people—on a journey to visit relatives, or to secure trade agreements, or one of the countless other reasons a person might journey from their home to another village. But sometimes the person ducking under the faded squares of cloth that hung down in front of the shop would be different. They would take a seat on one of the creaky old stools in front of the steaming pots of broth, and even though every angle of their body would speak of weariness, they would exude an aura of confidence and danger that drew Naruto like a moth to a flame.
He didn't know who they were, but the one thing they all had in common was a smallish rectangle of pounded steel, usually tied around a forearm or forehead, and engraved with some kind of symbol. Naruto recognized Konoha's symbol—there were lots of these people out and about with that spiral leaf etching—and it became a game he played with himself to try and see if he recognized any of the strange ones.
Tonight he'd had little luck; having spent most of the day tramping through the woods outside of town, he hadn't gotten around to dropping in on Ichiraku Ramen until it was past dark. The street was alive with activity, seeing as there was a festival coming up, and paper lanterns added to the lights from shops and bright signs.
Naruto managed to maneuver through the crowds, and wedged himself in next to a pair of travelers to shout, "Yo, old man!"
Teuchi, the old man in question, looked up from filling another order and his shiny face cracked into a smile. "Hey kid! You having the usual?"
"Uhn!" the little boy nodded an affirmative, and the old man set to it with a chuckle.
"Hello, Naruto-kun!" the old man's daughter called from the back. Ayame was a pretty girl—the prettiest girl Naruto thought he had ever met—and very nice. He could only smile and blush, pleased that she had bothered to great him.
While his dinner was cooking, he listened with half an ear to the conversations around him, tapping out a beat on the counter with his chopsticks as he waited. The travelers next to him were talking about the recent increase of 'missing' missing-nin—a complaint that went right over Naruto's head in more ways than one. First of all, what was a missing-nin? And second, if they were already missing, how could you tell that they were doubly missing?
The perplexing problem was summarily forgotten as a massive presence made itself known, sitting down next to him in a rush of cool air and the scent of sake mixed with tobacco.
Naruto found himself leaning back as he looked up, and tried to make sense of the great mass of spiky white hair that gave every sign that it should be a human. Then he leaned forward slightly, catching sight of a lean face with strange red lines tattooed like abstract tear streaks. They ran from the dark brown eyes to a stubbly jaw, and Naruto noticed that the man's eyelashes were white too. His gaze darted to the steel plate tied to the man's forehead, and his stomach flipped in excitement. It was a weird one, with two tiny horns poking up at either corner, and a strange kanji instead of the usual symbol.
"Who are you?" Naruto blurted, unable to contain himself any longer.
The big man looked down at him with something like surprise, and retorted, "Who are you?"
Naruto scowled. "I asked you first."
"I asked you second!" the man said, and mimicked the boy's expression to humorous effect.
This made Naruto belly-laugh despite his best efforts—he had an important question to ask. Pointing at the steel plate with a small but accusatory finger, he declared, "Your symbol doesn't look like anybody else's. It's weird!"
"Aah," the man began theatrically. "That's because I am not like anybody else! I am the renowned Toad Hermit, of the legendary Sannin—"
"What's a 'sannin'?"
The man sputtered to a stop, letting his mouth fall open. Before he had time to respond, a big steaming bowl of miso ramen was set down in front of Naruto. The boy shot both fists into the air, shouting delightedly, "Itadakimasu!" before digging in with ferocious single-mindedness.
The big man watched him bemusedly for a moment, before turning to a patiently waiting Teuchi. "I'll have what he's having."
While they ate, Naruto told the big smoky smelling man about where he lived, and where the best spots to climb were, and how his 'ojiisan' would visit him sometimes. The big man nodded along, sometimes teasing the boy or asking about where his ojiisan lived, to which Naruto vaguely waved toward the Hokage's tower—if the old man lived anywhere else, Naruto didn't know about it.
After a short time, when Naruto was reasonably satisfied with his noodles, he repeated his first question. "So what's a sannin?"
"A Sannin," the big man said, picking out the fishcakes in his ramen with his chopsticks and, having noticed he favored them, depositing them in the little boy's bowl, "Is one of three legendary ninjas from Konoha, including my—"
"What's a missing-nin?" Naruto interrupted, remembering the conversation he'd overheard earlier.
The white-haired man scowled comically again. "That's a ninja who abandons his village and goes on the run. Then loyal ninjas have to go out and hunt down that person, and they're called 'hunter-nins'." He looked mildly surprised that he'd managed to finish more than one sentence.
Naruto nodded, and frowned hard at the broth leftover from his ramen. "So…" he began, feeling as if this might be the clincher to the whole thing. "What's a ninja?"
The white-haired man stared at the little boy for a long moment, and then abruptly threw back his shaggy head and laughed. He reached over and mussed up Naruto's hair and said, "You are just disgustingly cute, kid." Then he puffed up and stuck a thumb at his big chest. "I'm a ninja!"
Naruto stared at him, nonplussed, and the big man held up a finger. "Watch this." Picking up a chopstick, he pressed it vertically against his nose, and Naruto swore he saw a flicker of blue light. When he took his hand away, the chopstick stayed in place.
Naruto's bright eyes widened, and he stared from the utensil to the man's laughing eyes and back again. "How…?"
"I'll tell you what, kid," the man said, tapping the side his nose conspiratorially. "You meet me here same time tomorrow, and if you haven't figured out how to do it, you get to buy me dinner."
Naruto scowled, not to be so easily fooled. "Why would I wanna do that?"
The man's smile grew wider. "If you can do it, I'll buy you dinner. Deal?" He held out a calloused hand.
Naruto's face split into a devious grin. Free food? "Deal!"
All he had to do was figure out what that blue light was, and he'd have this trick down easy!
ooo
A/N: Yo people! If you can't tell, this is pretty much my first fanfiction EVar, so go easy on meh. I've pretty much just started it, though I do have a lot of the concept really well worked out. So I hope to update at least weekly, you know, but if that doesn't happen, it don't mean I've lost interest or anything like that. It probably just means that I've gotten either behind or ahead of myself, but it will all work out in the end. SO. Yeah, Naruto is a little midgetty midget at this point, but don't worry, it's not going to be for a super extended amount of time. AND, I'm gonna try my damndest to make this piece of fiction a balance of drama and action, so if ya feel it's leaning too far in one direction or the other, don't hesitate to share. And lastly, I hadn't realized that this chapter would turn out to be so short, so you can count on longer installments in the future. And just you wait--it's gonna be a super cool, break-neckker of a ride, so stay tuned! :D