A/N: Hey-o! Hope you like this Naruto-filled chapter!
Chapter 27: Shien's Past
The next day, Naruto managed to catch Shien when she was on her way to her room.
"Hey, Shien!" He called. "Can I talk to you for a few minutes?"
She turned around, a patient smile on her face when she saw him. "Of course. Where at?"
"Your room is fine," he replied, shrugging loosely.
She nodded, opening her door and allowing him inside.
"Comfy," he commented with a grin as he flopped onto her bed.
She stifled a chuckle and sat next to him. "I guess. Way better than what I'm used to, that's for sure."
He sat up with a bit of a frown. "That's what I'm here to talk about," he said, suddenly remembering. "Do you mind sharing your past? I mean, I don't really know a whole lot about you, yet you seem to know so much about me."
"Do I?" She hummed, stalling a bit. "I suppose I do. Well, I was filled in by others on the way here."
"But what about you?" He persisted, scooting closer. "Brother? Sister? Friends?"
"No, no, and kind of," she sighed. Here we go. "I don't know my real parents. I was told that my mother died in childbirth, and that my father died in the subsequent war a couple of years later. I wandered around for a while until I was found by Chiasa... She graciously adopted me and brought me up in the Hayashi house."
"That sucks." Naruto frowned, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm an orphan too."
"It does suck, doesn't it?" She said wryly, staring at her skirts. "I don't know my real name, nor my birthday, nor even how old I really am. Mother claims that she found me when I was about five or so, but... I'm not even sure I was that old. I can't remember a time before living with her, but every so often, flashbacks of my former life pop back up.
"Homeless, starving, relying on strangers for money..." she continued, a faraway look in her eye. "I honestly don't know how I survived for so long."
"But you did," he responded softly, smiling when she looked up at him. "And you're here now."
"I did." She agreed. "It's not easy, though."
"It really isn't." Naruto shook his own head, a remininscing frown on his face. "When my parents died, I was lost for a long time. I was lucky I had Sasuke, and his parents, but it felt... wrong. For a while there, I felt like an outsider, like I was some foreign leech relying on them for a new life.
"It was hard getting out of that mentality," he confessed with a chuckle. "Hell, sometimes I regress back to that way of thinking. But Sasuke was quick to remind me about why I was here. That my life still had purpose. That, even if my parents were gone, it didn't mean that I was too.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, that us orphans, we have it bad." He continued. "But even though it feels like the world's stacked the deck against us, even when you wanna quit, you keep going. You find what motivates you, what gives you life again. And when you find it, you hold on tight, no matter how hard life tries to pull you off of it.
"Really, though, isn't living itself just a big middle finger to a world that wants to beat you down so hard you wanna give up the fight?" He pondered. "There's no greater victory in life than when you decide to continue, even when everything else wants you to end it. That itself is the greatest rebellion of all, and yet it's also the most courageous one."
She nodded slowly. "That... that makes sense."
"But then again, what do I know?" Naruto chuckled amusedly. "I'm just a big, dumb idiot. And don't try to tell me otherwise, 'cause we both know that's not true. It's my greatest weakness, and yet I can still manage to make it my greatest strength."
She let a tiny smile spread across her lips. "I must admit, it's a bit of a surprise hearing such wisdom come from you, Naruto."
"That's the glory of putting up a front," he winked at her. "Nobody would expect anything deep to come from someone who's always kidding around. And when they do give you something to think about, it shocks you so much that you have no choice but to listen and contemplate. Maybe I should call it my Talk no Jutsu!"
She nodded once more, giggling into her hand. "It's definitely working."
He laughed a little bit before getting to his feet. When he helped her up, she hugged him, allowing him to envelop her.
"Man you're warm," she muttered into his shoulder.
"That's what Karin always used to say," his voice grew softer, as if fondly remembering something. "She always used to tell me that my chakra felt like sunshine."
"You remember her?" She was mildly surprised for a moment. Then she felt foolish. "Wait, of course he would. It's only been a month or so, after all."
"She arrived here when I was about fourteen," he explained, letting go of her in order to look into her eyes. "I was still trying to comfort Sasuke about... well, about Sakura's death, and we clicked almost immediately. Turns out she's one of my distant cousins. Crazy, right?"
"I'll say," Shien agreed. "Talk about a small world."
"Very small." He smiled sadly. "She was like the big sister I never had. She always looked out for me, even when I was being childish."
Shien paused for a moment. Naruto held a solemn quietness in his eyes, one that she'd never seen in him in any other time - except when he spoke about her, Sakura. His eyes were expressive; looking into them was like having a small glimpse into his soul. It was just how he was. But this emotion... it unsettled something within her. It felt wrong.
"It must have crushed you when she... y'know," she said, gesturing loosely.
"It did." He agreed with a small sigh. "It still hurts. She was my family, Shien. And she just... threw it all away."
She nodded silently, placing a hand on his arm. When he looked up, her mouth formed a half-smile.
"It's hard now, but... it does lessen with time," she said. "Are you... angry?"
"With her? Kind of..." he admitted. "I mean, the ambush on the castle was one thing, but to hear that she's dead one minute, and then find out she's both alive and in the enemy ranks the next? I- I wanted to scream. And cry. And yell at her. I wanted to ask her why in the hell she ever became my friend if her end goal was to hurt us. If her goal was to hurt me.
"But then, Sasuke managed to calm me down. He smacked me upside the head and told me to stop being a baby about it. Told me that she would have done it anyway, even if we never met." He recalled. "And he was right. Karin wouldn't ever intentionally hurt me. She's my cousin, for goodness' sake. She was probably just following orders. Sucks that my own family would do that, but... but I can't blame her now. No matter how much it hurts now, she's my family, and I love her."
"Karin never mentioned anything about Naruto," she reflected with a frown. "Maybe she was trying to forget for a while. The burns on her back are still a grim reminder, but although those are fading, the memories won't..."
He startled her out of her thoughts with a pat on the back and a grin.
"C'mon, it's almost lunchtime," he said, steering her towards the door. "I've heard that we're having lotus salad, and believe me, you do not wanna miss the cook's lotus salad."
A/N: I hope you liked that bit of insight from Naruto. Please tell me what you thought! See you next week!
