Kawaki had little recollection of the events that occurred between his losing consciousness in the middle of the crowd in Ryutan and his waking up in a hospital room in Konohagakure.
"Lord Seventh!" Sai called, and the crowd of civilians and policemen briefly parted to allow him through. "He fainted?"
"Yeah." Naruto replied, picking the boy up in his arms and carrying him as they hopped from roof to roof back to the research lab. "It's no wonder. He tried to act tough but he's been going for almost two days straight. His body just couldn't keep up."
"We'll have to secure him at the research lab and conduct his interview there." Sai answered. "We still need to confirm if he is working with Kara or not."
"No, I've made my decision already. This child will be coming with us back to the village and Dr. Katasuke will be joining us." Naruto replied firmly, his mind already made up, as they arrived at the lab gates.
They were greeted by employees with a rolling stretcher already ready for the boy. He was quickly placed on it, put in an assortment of cuffs, straps, and locks attached to it so he couldn't escape again, and wheeled away for a medical evaluation.
"Lord Seventh, letting a boy we have no information on into the village is like handling kindling." Sai replied, concerned, as they went inside to wait in the basement lobby. "We talked about this."
"Think about it this way, Sai." Naruto answered. "What if this boy really is being chased by Kara? All we would accomplish by isolating him, confining him, and treating him like an enemy is turning him into one. He is a child and he deserves a chance. The same chance Sasuke got."
"Naruto, he tried to kill your son and his entire team, including Dr. Katasuke, and he would have if Boruto didn't have the karma seal as well. How are you going to ensure that he doesn't kill anyone?" Sai replied, his tone serious. As a father himself, he was a bit biased. He wouldn't want to do anything that would put his wife and son in danger.
"I'll monitor him myself. I'll shadow his every move the entire time." Naruto said. "Hopefully he'll be able to give us information on Kara, but I don't intend to push him. We've given him no reasons to trust us, and from what Konohamaru said he's not convinced we aren't from Kara, too."
"As you wish, Lord Seventh." Sai answered smoothly. Naruto could tell Sai was angry and still didn't agree with his decision, he just chose not to pursue the matter further.
Dr. Katasuke had the boy dressed down to his boxers before he was wheeled back to a room in the medical wing to be evaluated and stabilized for transport. However, just as the medic was prepping the needle for the transfusion, the boy began to stir and wake up.
"Hmm…ugh…huh?" He blinked up at the ceiling in confusion, then gasped and shot up in bed.
"Don't touch me!" he yelled, reaching out and breaking the wrist holding the needle. It went clattering to the floor. "One of Amado's, are you?!"
The boy leapt out of bed and went straight for the door but Dr. Katasuke had already blocked it with his own body as one of the staff pushed the emergency button.
"You're safe! We're not going to hurt you." He exclaimed, both scared of the boy and scared for him. "I just want to treat your injuries! I'm a doctor!"
The boy was barely keeping himself upright and his breathing was labored both from panic and strain. He looked down at his arm in frustration, apparently unable to activate the tattoo from earlier that killed the Kara agent.
"Relax. I'm just a doctor. Please, relax and let me help you." He continued.
The boy growled, whirling around and making a break for the window. All of a sudden, Sai materialized from his spot disillusioned in an out of the way corner of the room and set one of his ink tigers on the boy. It pinned him to the ground with its huge paws and grabbed his arm in its mouth when he tried to punch it, biting down hard and tearing up the arm that had only just healed.
Footsteps came running down the hall and another member of the medical staff raced into the room, syringe in hand. "Dr. Katasuke!"
The boy's eyes widened in horror. "No! Stop!" He started struggling frantically against the ink tiger holding him down until the syringe was jammed into his arm and he lost consciousness.
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when the boy finally fell back asleep.
"Thank you so much." Dr. Katasuke said, "Now we can begin the evaluation."
An hour later, Dr. Katasuke came out to see them and give his report. "The evaluation is finished, Lord Seventh. His body is truly amazing, a scientific work of art! His healing abilities rival even yours, Lord Seventh. Did you know? He endured several serious injuries fighting the Outer from Kara and it's barely been a day but they're all healed! And just today, his arm was torn to shreds by Nue escaping, but by the time he got to my operating table the worst of the puncture wounds had already healed themselves! And his body didn't have much chakra left to convert to heal him, either, I simply can't explain it. All he's eaten in the past two days is two river fish and a sausage. I wish I knew who this scientist was and how they did it. He's truly a remarkable genius!"
"Interesting." Sai commented. "But, Dr. Katasuke, about the boy?"
"Yes, yes! I apologize. As I was saying, the worst of his injuries have already healed, he's just low on chakra and exhausted. Because his body has been inorganically altered, it's unable to handle the strain, even with the blood transfusion and nutritional supplement shots I gave him to stabilize him for transport. You may use tranquilizers to subdue him if its absolutely necessary, but I would strongly advise against it because it will only delay his healing with how low his chakra is. And that's that! He's free to go whenever you're ready, Lord Seventh."
"Thank you, Dr. Katasuke." Naruto replied. "I'm glad you're excited about him, because I would like you to come with us back to Konoha to supervise his medical treatment for the foreseeable future. Our medic-nin are great at what they do, but they've never treated someone like him before. I've suspended the job here for the time being, this boy is more important right now. I'll call the hospital in Konoha and let them know to be ready for us."
"Thank you, Lord Seventh! I would be honored." Dr. Katasuke exclaimed, bowing deeply.
Not long after, all three of them were gathered at the station with the unconscious boy still confined to the rolling stretcher between them. He had stirred briefly when the stretcher was picked up and loaded onto the train. He didn't wake up, though, and slept on even as the train departed from the station. However, the boy didn't appear to be sleeping soundly. He kept stirring, his face scrunched up in fear, muttering something about not following someone.
"No…don't go with him…turn around…run…!"
Inside his head, Kawaki was reliving more memories. Specifically, the trip from his impoverished village in the far north of the Land of Grass all the way to Amegakure by foot.
"I want a goldfish." He said, speaking up a bit clearer this time, in answer to Jigen's earlier question about a present.
"Thank you for answering my question, Kawaki." Jigen replied. "In return, I will answer one of yours. I am your father and you are now one of my precious children. I am taking you to a safe place full of other children from backgrounds similar to yours. When we get there, I will give you a very special present."
"Yes, sir." He had replied, pushing down the betrayal and sadness and everything else by picturing his very own goldfish swimming around in a tank.
It's okay. He had told himself. He's going to take care of me. He already protected me once, so he really must mean it. He's even going to give me a present! I've never got a present before.
He hated how naïve he had been. He had been afraid of Jigen at first, of course, but the man also just defended him from the backstabbing goldfish salesman who probably would've otherwise sold him to a pervert.
More importantly, on the way to Amegakure Jigen also did two things his father never did. He fed him without asking for anything in return and he treated his injuries. They stopped several times a day to catch fish to eat with the rice that Jigen had brought with him. Several times a day he applied some kind of healing cream on the bruises on his neck and he bandaged the gash on his head. He hadn't had anyone take care of him before, and that's what made him stop being afraid of Jigen and start to trust him.
It helped to fantasize about what Jigen's house would be like on their quiet journey across the country. I'll get to eat as much as I want and sleep in a real bed and play and have friends and it'll be so much fun!
That thought kept him going throughout the whole journey, even when it seemed like they'd never get there, even when it was late at night and he couldn't sleep because he was scared of the dark forest all around them. Thoughts of home and his dad plagued him the worst at night as he laid awake beside Jigen, trying his best to go to sleep.
Why don't you want me, dad? I tried so hard for you. I promised I'd be a good kid from now on and not mess up and work even harder and buy you lots and lots of liquor! I promised. Would you have wanted to keep me if I had been good and earned more money? I love you dad! I love you, so why don't you love me?
He cried himself to sleep most of the trip to Amegakure.
When the train arrived in Konohagakure, Naruto, Sai, Dr. Katasuke, and the boy were let out first to a group of ninja and medic-nin waiting for them so they could be quickly relocated to a secure room at the hospital.
Sai left to go continue his job overseeing the decoding of the scroll containing all the information taken from the airship and both Konohamaru and Shikamaru joined them at the hospital. For everyone else's safety, the boy was outfitted with a regular patient band as well as two others – a red one and a pink one. The pink one meant that he was a flight risk, and the red one indicated that he may be violent upon waking. Normally a specially-trained medic-nin was sufficient to handle such cases, but Naruto had left Shikamaru in there instead just to be on the safe side. The boy had escaped not only the airship transporting him but he'd also escaped the research lab and killed a Kara Outer.
"How did it go?" Konohamaru asked, as Dr. Katasuke followed the medical team into the boy's new room. Shikamaru was already in there, ready to restrain the boy if he woke up and tried to attack them or escape.
"He slept the whole way here. He's exhausted. He's low on chakra so all he really needs is some sleep and food right now." Naruto replied. "Dr. Katasuke's suspicions were correct. His entire body has been modified so extensively that even in his weakened state, his injuries from the battles and Nue have already healed."
"That's a relief. So he's really not working with Kara, then?" Konohamaru asked.
"We actually don't know yet. He hasn't woken up and even when he does I don't expect him to tell us anything. You said it yourself, he still thinks we're with Kara." Naruto answered.
Konohamaru's eyes widened in shock, but he restrained himself. "What do you plan to do, Lord Seventh?"
"I've decided I'm going to take care of him myself." Naruto replied, "All we've done so far is treat him like an enemy. He needs to learn to trust us, and then he'll probably start talking. But it needs to be on his own, or all we'll do is make an enemy out of him."
"Understood. Do you want me to stay here and help keep watch?" Konohamaru asked, looking back towards the boy's room.
"Yes I would. Thank you, Konohamaru."
The boy woke up early the next morning and, as expected, he didn't believe it when Naruto told him he was safe. He promptly tried to escape by jumping out the window and Shikamaru had to restrain him while Konohamaru pulled him back away from the window.
It took a bit before the boy was sitting back in bed, however reluctantly. Probably only because he now knew Shikamaru could restrain him with ease.
"So, Konoha, huh? Kara hired ninja to track me down now?" he asked, his voice raspy from dehydration.
"No, Kara's airship crashed in our airspace so I sent a Konohamaru's team to go investigate it." The blonde man replied, motioning to the brunette in the green vest. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm what's called the Hokage, the leader of this village."
The boy gave him a skeptical look.
"Heh. I don't look it, do I?" Naruto replied.
The boy didn't say anything, at first, and a long minute passed before he spoke up. "Prove it."
"That I'm the Hokage? Okay." Naruto replied, and he made the handsigns and called out "kage bunshin no jutsu!" and three more copies of himself appeared.
The boy's eyes widened in shock. "Shadow dopplegangers? That's the favorite jutsu of the Seventh Hokage. So you really are the Hokage of the Leaf."
The boy seemed to accept that he was telling him the truth, but he was still looking at them with eyes full of mistrust and hesitancy.
"We aren't working with Kara, I promise." Naruto continued, "But I know they're going to come looking for you, so you'll be staying with me when you get out of the hospital. I swear I'll do everything in my power to protect you."
The boy scoffed at him, but didn't say anything.
"Do you want something to eat?" Konohamaru asked. "The hospital staff can send breakfast up if you're hungry."
"As if I'd trust you!" the boy growled.
"We're not poisoning you." Shikamaru said. "If we wanted to do that, we would have done it while you were unconscious. Or Konohamaru would have done it on the way back here from the battlefield yesterday. You have to eat something and get your strength up before they'll let you out of here."
"You just want intel, right? That's why he said you had to bring me back." the boy demanded. "Well I don't know anything. I was never a member of Kara-"
"You're lying to us." Shikamaru interrupted. "You do know something, because you knew what that mark on your hand was called and you also knew it had something to do with Kara. What's the karma and what does Kara have to do with it? Why did they refer to you as a vessel?"
"Shikamaru!" Naruto yelled, cutting him off before he could demand more answers out of the boy. "We aren't going to push him for answers right now. He's not our enemy. Go get him something to eat so he can get his strength up."
"Yes, Lord Seventh." Shikamaru replied and, although visibly annoyed with him, he left the room to go procure a meal for the boy.
It turned out to be quite the hassle. Shikamaru brought the boy up a tray of hospital food and the boy adamantly refused to eat it.
"I'm not eating anything you guys give me!" he exclaimed over the sound of his growling stomach.
"I told you, we're not poisoning you." Shikamaru replied. "If we wanted to poison you, we've wasted plenty of opportunities so far."
The boy just sat there, looking at the food, at them, and around the room. It was understandable that he didn't trust them.
After a few minutes of silence passed, Konohamaru spoke up. "Would you rather have something from the vending machines? They got some down the hall."
The boy looked up, bewildered. "Huh?"
"I'll take the tray back and grab you something from the vending machine instead." Konohamaru replied.
A few minutes later, Konohamaru came back up with a can of juice and a package of onigiri for the boy.
Author's Note:
Edit: On 7/19/21 I proofread and added to the end of the chapter.
Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! I'm sorry, I felt like I wanted a prologue after all. I still consider it an omake because its not from Kawaki's POV. I'll probably move this above chapter 1 if that's possible when I finish and post chapter 6.