It was a beautiful spring afternoon and all seemed well in the forest surrounding the Hidden Village of Leaf. Birds were chirping, squirrels were running amok, and a certain boy with hair as yellow as the sun was enjoying a nice nap in a tree. A clear sky and a nice breeze were enough to keep him happy. Who would have thought such a young boy, no more than eight years of age, was growing up in the middle of a war?
The boy opened his eyes, finally waking from his sweet dream to reenter his cold reality. Life was indeed hard for him, but the war his village was involved in was the least of his worries. When he was no more than a few months old, he had been left at the entrance of Konoha. Abandoned by parents he would never know, nor would he ever wish to know, he was passed from family to family in the hopes of finding a suitable home, but no family would keep him for more than a few weeks. Most were suspicious of his mysterious arrival while others were frightened by his quick growth, both in body and mind. Even the noble Uchiha and Hyuuga clans refused to take him in permanently for fear he would discover certain secrets as he grew older.
Sadly, not wanting to put the child through any more rejection, the Third Hokage granted him a stipend to live off of and had him moved into his own apartment. This did nothing for the loneliness he felt inside. It pained him to see parents walking with their children around the village or siblings playing in the park. Other children his age avoided him in the same manner their parents did and he was rarely asked to play games. The poor blond was not very good at holding back and after winning at every game the children could come up with, they decided to just not invite him anymore.
Then there was the matter of joining the ninja academy. He could have entered at five and passed with flying colors. However, he saw no reason to serve the village in that capacity and refused to enter. Why should he become a ninja and fight for a village that took him in only to make him feel unwelcome? He never remembered doing anything to deliberately ridicule the villagers, though his very existence seemed to accomplish this.
The boy clapped his hands to his cheeks in an attempt to free himself from his own thoughts. The day was too good to waste overwhelming himself with life's injustice. He looked down at the rapid river and decided to go for a swim. Sure the current was dangerous and anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know better than to test its waters, but the boy was feeling particularly foolish. Just as he finished taking off his tan sweater, he noticed a head rise above the water and then quickly sink below the surface.
'Is that what I think it is?'
Not giving himself time to think further, he rushed to the rivers edge and dove in. The current was indeed strong, and any normal eight year old would be dead. But this particular boy had grown up knowing he was not normal. Paddling with all his might and using the current to aid him, he quickly caught up to the body. Wrapping an arm around the person's waist, he allowed the current to carry them away, making sure their heads stayed above the water. He knew this river very well and knew that it would be ending soon in favor of gentler waters. Unfortunately, the rapids and the calm pool were separated by a large waterfall.
'I guess it's time to put that knew skill to work,' he thought to himself.
Seeing the waterfall approaching, he gathered chakra to both his feet, but he did not attempt to swim away. Instead, as they were thrown over the fall, the young boy began moving his legs as if he were attempting to run up the water and that is exactly what happened. The boy was using the chakra in his feet to cling to the water and run vertically upwards. His level of control was not nearly enough to beat the waterfall, but it was enough to keep the two from falling to their deaths. As they approached the bottom of the fall, the young boy pushed himself away from the vertical flow of water and landed on the surface of the calm stream.
The body he carried, which he discovered to be a girl about his age, was unconscious and not breathing so he rushed to dry land, laid her down with her back on the ground, and tried to remember what he needed to do in this kind of situation. He lowered his ear to her mouth.
'She has a heartbeat, but she's not breathing. Think, Sei! You spent a week, with that medic-nin couple for crying out loud, you must have learned something,' the boy shouted to himself.
Then he remembered what it he needed to do and his face turned beet red. The embarrassment might kill him later but this girl might only have a few moments to live. He looked into her mouth to make sure there was nothing stuck in her throat and found nothing. He then tilted her head back, pinched her nose, and placed his mouth over hers. He blew two quick breaths and watched the girl's chest rise. He checked to see if she was breathing but there was still no such luck.
He repeated this several times, and just when he was about to give up hope, the girl began coughing up water. He let out a sigh of relief and fell back, exhausted from using chakra during the fall. That was the first time he had done something like that in practice, and although he had not been very efficient this first time, he had already corrected his mistakes in his mind.
Now that their immediate problems were over, Sei took a good look at the girl for the first time. She had a very thin frame and looked almost fragile. She wore a plain blue yukata and regular sandals, but what caught his eye was the fur pelt she held in her hand. Apparently, she had refused to let go of it throughout the entire ordeal, even after she fell unconscious. It was a tan color, similar to the sweater he had left at the river's edge before he dove in and it resembled a fox.
Her hair was a reddish brown-color and she had a very cute face, not the Sei was the kind of boy who thought about such things. He was after all only eight. The girl began to open her eyes, revealing a crimson color that rivaled the Uchiha's sharingan in intensity, yet still complemented her features.
The girl was quite until she realized someone was beside her. She panicked and tried to move away but was too weak to do so. Sei did his best calm her down, and after a few soothing words and Sei keeping his distance, the young girl finally began to relax, although that didn't mean she let her guard down. She kept her eyes that seemed almost animal-like fixated on him.
Sei expected as much. After all, there was no way anyone would willingly swim in such a violent river unless they knew they could handle its waters. He figured she had been chased by bandits and fell into the river as she tried to escape. He tried to lessen the tension even further.
"Hi, my name's Sei. What's your name?" he said with a smile.
The girl seemed puzzled. "My….name?" she replied. She understood the question, but could not, for the life of her, remember the answer. After a few minutes of thinking, she burst into tears, frustrated by not being able to remember something as important as her own name.
Not really knowing what to do, Sei thought of ways he would want to be consoled. He moved closer to her and gave her a friendly hug. He whispered, "There, there. It's alright if you can't remember. You probably hit your head on a rock while you were caught up in the current. Just give it some time and your memory should come back to you."
The girl was startled by his movement but soon relaxed in the embrace. Who could resist such a considerate act of kindness? She might have lost most of her memory, but she knew such things were rare in this world. The two stayed like that for a while until she was calm enough to think straight.
"Thank you for saving me from the river," she said as she bowed her head, "and I'm sorry that I can't remember anything helpful about myself."
"That's okay. Besides, there's someone at my village who can probably help you get your memory back faster. I'm sure that the village would let you stay, at least until you can remember where you came from. The sun is shining and it's a decent walk, so our clothes should be dry by the time we get there."
The girl hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing with him. She did have nowhere else to go. Tired of sitting on the ground she stood up. Sei seemed very concerned about her rising to her feet so quickly and seemed shocked when she was standing.
Aside from her case of amnesia, she seemed perfectly fine. This girl had been chased, nearly drowned in dangerous rapids, hit her head somewhere along the way, and had fallen over a waterfall. How was it possible for her not to have a single broken bone, let alone a scratch? It was Sei's turn to be on guard.