Naruto Fanfic

Chapter 3

Fear of the Dark

A/N: As stated before, Naruto is not mine, but the story concept and Narshe is, and so is all the characters that mind decides to make up in this story. P

Also, Nijiru is not my original character either. He is Nigelus'. He just wanted me to use his character in my fanfic. 3 m/

Mmmm, darkness. This chapter is probably going to be the darkest of the first three for now.

Yummy yummy revise, since my first submission seemed to have went bold literally during the middle of the story. .

On with t3h show!

Narshe wakes up to find himself in his room that he used to always be in. Nothing out of place. The dresser sat right beside the door and his bed all the way to the back right. Various toys were lying on the ground in scattered disarray; like that of a normal six year old. He was already hearing sounds from inside the kitchen that his mother was cooking breakfast for him and his dad. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he jumped right out of bed and ran to the door. His ragged brown clothing was almost too big for him to wear, so he nearly tripped on the legs, but caught himself and opened up the door.

Walking down the small hallway, he saw his mom, a very beautiful woman that had a presence about her that seemed like everything would always be fine, as long as she was there. Running up to hug her, Narshe squeezed her tightly. "Morning Mom!"

Just a little startled, she looked down at her son and smiled ever so softly with her large dark blue eyes. "Good morning, Narshe! Did you sleep well last night?"

As always, he beamed up to her. "Mmhmm! What are we having this morning for breakfast?"

"Shhhh…careful not to wake up your dad just yet. Just some hot cereal with bacon and toast." Her voice was so soothing, it could cause a person to lapse back to sleep.

Narshe nodded, covering up his mouth, getting a wondrous giggle from his mom, grinning under his hands.

A few minutes later, Narshe's dad exited his room, sniffing the air right outside the door. "Mmmm….smells like another one of Sophia's perfect breakfasts." He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her gently, kissing her neck, getting a giggle out of her.

"Quit that, Orion…Narshe is in here. Plus you will make me drop what I am doing here." Her voice betrayed what she was saying, though, and Orion noticed it all too well.

"Heh. smooch" He kissed his wife and sat right beside Narshe at the small table that they had. The older man was already in his work clothes. Being a monster slayer, he had on many layers of armor with his sword strapped to his back. It was quite a big one, over six feet in length.

At one time, he said it was a two-hand sword that only the best of swordsmen can use whenever Narshe asked about it. The kid loved to see his dad looking like that before he would leave. It always gave him courage that one day he could be doing the same thing, killing monsters that got out of hand around the village.

Sophia got the food finished while Orion and Narshe set up the table for the three of them. When the food was put on the table, they all sat down and started to eat.

"Did you have any dreams last night, my son?"

"Mmhmm! I dreamt I was a slayer just like you and fought off a dragon with a large sword just like yours, except it was solid white with a royal blue metal piece going down the middle. And there were magical runes written all along the side of it, too!" Narshe then went into greater detail about his dream while his parents listened silently to them, acknowledging what he was saying with the nodding of their heads and facial expressions.

After he stopped talking and started eating, Orion looked at Sophia and mouthed something to her. 'It seems that he knows about the sword of Oblivion.'

She nodded her head in acknowledgement. 'So it seems. We will have to keep a good eye on him now.'

"I always knew my son was going to be someone great! Maybe your dreams will come true! Until then, you have to stay healthy, train, and always give your parents love!"

Narshe's eyes gleamed at his proud father, someone he always looked up to. "Yay!" Then he starts to eat his food again, until he could eat no more. Once everyone was finished eating, him and his mom started to put the dishes in the sink for the two of them to wash.

"Well, it seems that I should be getting off to work myself now." Orion walks up to Sophia and kisses her, quite passionately, with Narshe barely catching a hand grasp at her bottom from his father before they broke apart and he left.

"Be good to your mom, Narshe!"

"Oh I will!" Narshe waves to his dad as he leaves the house and walks down the shaded forest trail to the small village that they lived by.

As soon as the door shut, though, everything went dark for Narshe.

"Huh? Where did the lights go?"

"...help…me…"

"Ore?"

"h…elp…m…e…"

"Is someone there?"

"HELP ME!" Suddenly everything got extremely bright and hot. Opening up his eyes, Narshe saw everything in flames. Panicking, he ran over to the brook that ran right by their house and used the small bucket there to try to douse the flames. But to no avail…

"NARSHE!" Now he was starting to panic. He was scared. He didn't know what to do. Shaking, he started to cry. Then he remembered what his dad said and stood up.

"I'm coming, mom!"

Narshe jumped into the flames. Then everything became very bright, and then went black, going into a freefall.

Suddenly Narshe violently jumped up from the futon that he was sleeping on, sweating profusiously and feeling nauseated. Looking out of the sliding door that led outside, he saw the bright moon illuminating everything around him. It was such a beautiful moon, just like the first part of his dream.

Putting his right hand to his face, he covered up the scar on it, using his fingers to cover his mouth and eye, laying into the hand.

"What…was that dream again…? That was me when I was young…but who were them people? Were they my parents..? Why can't I recollect who they are..? And why do I keep having it..?"

A knock on his door was sounded, and someone came in.

"Are…are you okay..?"

A small voice was heard, barely audible, even in the still silence of everything, other than the softly blowing wind outside. Narshe looked over and saw the same girl he saw standing by Hiashi-san.

"…Yeah…I'm fine. Just a nightmare is all…" He surely didn't sound alright from how he spoke, though. And Hinata noticed that too.

"A nightmare, ka?"

"Yeah. A nightmare."

"M…mmm." She was about to leave before Narshe called her back again.

"Mate…why are you awake at such an hour of the night?"

"Eh…ah…eto…sono…just a little bit of…practice."

Raising an eyebrow, Narshe queried her remark. "Hm? Practice? Then again…I've done that before on such a beautiful night as this. As a matter of fact…" An idea started to brew up in his mind.

"How about a small spar between each other in the courtyard? It will give me time to clear my mind, and it will give you real practice against what you were watching while Negi-san and I were fighting."

Hinata flushed slightly, looking off to the side, obviously thinking about it. "Ah…ehh…if it isn't too much trouble…"

Nodding, Narshe got up and put away his futon, just like how he saw other people do whenever he looked from house to house on his morning walks to go practice in the village that he used to live in after his master died.

"Alright then. Let me just grab my left armlet, and I'll meet you outside."

"H…hai…" Her voice was so meek.

Thinking to himself, Narshe grabbed the armlet and clasped it to his left arm, looking down on the Cloud headband on it. Gently running his right hand across it, he thought about his master and the spars that the two of them had, almost in this exact fashion. Whenever he would have that exact dream and wake up in that fashion, him and Sorotobi-sensei would go outside and fight off the fear with a spar. He was grateful to Hinata-chan that she came when she did.

Leaving the room, he soon left the building and walked into the courtyard, seeing Hinata with her black mail shirt on with her black pants, kunai in hand and ready to battle.

"Alright. Let's begin."

Stepping out onto the courtyard, Narshe didn't even think to bring a weapon, but he knew he wouldn't need it. Plus the armlet would protect him against any weapon that was used on him anyway. Giving Hinata the nod to go ahead, she started at him at a full run. Watching her movement carefully, he took careful notes about her. When it came for her to strike him down, he feinted a punch at her, which immediately got her to bring her hands to her face, using the kunai to help protect her. Smiling, that was the exact position he wanted to see and used his right knee to hit her in the jaw and sent her flying halfway across the yard, just about to where she first started.

"Careful not to leave yourself unguarded like that. Always expect the unexpected."

Hinata shifted on the ground, getting back up and wiping the blood that started to trickle down the side of her mouth. 'I didn't even see his knee come up. What is up with his speed?' Analyzing the situation, Hinata decided that her best bet was to get herself set up for the Shugohakke Rokujuyon Sho jutsu that she developed and honed after training for a long time.

Getting into position, Hinata started to focus her chakra in the exact fashion that she had developed it into. 'This will be the first time that I'm going to use this jutsu against another person. Byakugan!' Narshe was quite surprised to see that she was actually making a defense for herself, putting him on the offence now. Thinking a minute, he knew there had to be a trick to this. He then started to run at the girl, cracking his knuckles, and suddenly came into her range where she started to throw solid forms of chakra from her body. Surprised by this, he suddenly jumped back and guarded against the ones that were aimed at his body, i.e. all of them.

"Holy..! What the hell was that..?"

Taking a closer look at the girl, he saw that her eyes had changed, just like that of Neji-san whenever he fought him. He didn't think eyes could look like that; it almost creped him out. A small shiver ran down his spine. But at the same time, he thought it was the coolest thing he ever saw!

"Let's try that again."

Again, he started towards Hinata, only to encounter the barrage of attacks. Jumping back, he suddenly gauged the distance at which he was stopped and had to retreat again.

"30 feet, ka? Well now…let's see how well her speed can match to mine."

Hinata was keeping a close eye on him the whole time she was in her Shugohakke Rokujuyon Sho jutsu. Then, suddenly, he disappeared from her field of vision completely. Then she saw his body move behind her and made an attempt to attack him before he got to her. She was only able to get off a few attacks before having to turn around and grab his fist before he nailed her right across the back of the head. Feeling the force of the punch, she actually flew to the side about five feet from the force of the punch. Wide-eyed, she didn't think that kind of strength was possible for a human body.

"Hmmm…just like I thought. You have a very good defense against a massive amount of creatures or attacks, but your speed needs to be worked on a little."

Suddenly he threw a kunai right beside her face, landing not far from where she was on the ground. A wound suddenly showed up and blood trickled down her pale face.

'When did he…how did he…kunai…nani..?' "How did you get…that kunai?"

Narshe smiled to her softly. "I grabbed it from your pouch of kunai and shuriken."

Wide-eyed, she checked her equipment and, sure enough, she was missing one from it.

"I took it right when we got close, between you catching my feint punch and flying off to the side. The kunai was what I was really going for. Sensei always told me to never focus on the main attack fully, lest there be a feint and a secondary attack will commence."

Narshe looked down on Hinata hard. "I don't know anything about you, but there was hesitation in all of your movements. Why do you hesitate so? Even though we are sparring, you will always, as a shinobi, have to be prepared for a real battle, and thus, always fight with your all."

Hinata could not believe that her "absolute defense" was easily broken into and was attacked and brought down soon afterwards. Fear started to well up in her as she kept looking at the older kid standing in front of her. With her Byakugan, she was able to see all of the chakra flowing within him. A vast amount. More than she could handle.

Walking up to her, Narshe held out his hand to the fearful child. He saw that he was really started to shake her up and decided then and there to end the spar. He gave her a smile, closing his eyes.

"Don't worry. I'm not a brutal person. My attacks just seem to be. Sorry for going at it like that."

Hinata hesitated grasping the outstretched hand, but thought that he would take offence for trying to help her up and decided to take it. Pulling up, it literally took him no effort to get her to her feet, and she felt that through the little bit of muscle tension that she felt from the hand. She didn't weight much anyway, but she knew that he was truly something else.

"It…it is alright. I have just…never seen anything like that before. Such speed and power…"

"Oh yeah…that."

Unlatching the armlet from his left arm, Narshe, held it in his right hand.

"Try to pick it up with both of your hands from mine. Then you will understand."

Nodding her head, Hinata looked down at the armlet. It looked like a normal armlet of elaborate design with a forehead protector of a village she didn't know of. Grabbing it with both of her hands, she tried to pick it up. Eyes widening, she grounded herself more and tried again. With all of her might, she tried to pick it up. Barely getting it three inches from Narshe's hand, she dropped it in his hand, panting heavily.

"N…nani? You mean to tell…me…that all of the stuff you carry…is this heavy..?"

Giving her a nod of his head, she just could not believe that a person was able to carry around stuff like that.

"Other than my weapons, all of my pieces of armor, including my cloak, weigh the same. It was special taijutsu training that my sensei taught only to me."

Putting the armlet back on his arm, Narshe clasped it together and smiled at Hinata.

"We should get back inside now. A cold wind has started to pick up. I don't want you to catch a chill out here."

Giving her a million ryu smile, Narshe started for the building, turning back to face her one more time.

"To tell you the truth, I had to focus more to fight you than I did with Negi-san. You have a lot more potential. You just need to unlock it like, and maybe one day we will be on even grounds. Until then, become strong in both body and mind. Then you will be able to achieve anything that is thrown at you."

Turning to leave, Hinata wanted to say something, holding out her hand, but she just could not get the words to come out of her throat.

'Me…potential? Strong as you? You really think so?'

But nothing came out. All she could do was stand there with her arm outstretched like a baka, unable to get the attention of a person that actually acknowledged her strengths and told her to keep going. And he said that she was stronger than Negi. That along made her feel much better. She clasped her hands together to her chest and looked up at the pale full moon in the sky riddled with stars.

'I want to fight you again. On even terms next time. I will get stronger, to get acknowledgement. From everyone…and from you.' Her face flushed just a little as she stood in the courtyard like a statue.

Narshe smiled to himself, entering his room and closing it right behind him, not moving an inch.

'It seems that I made a very strong impact on her. From what it had looked like, she needed a strong push to get herself going. Potential lies within her. She just needs to stay on her path so that she WILL become stronger. Genins within this village will become very strong. No wonder Sorotobi-sensei loved this ninja village so much. I'm starting to love it now.'

Getting himself situated, he fell right back asleep in the futon.

Hiashi smiled, walking back into his room.

"I think Narshe will be the key to helping this village get back on its feet again. I see great hope in him becoming Hokage also. He is a great addition, Lady Tsunade. You made a great choice in keeping him here."

He closed the door behind him, not making one sound.

Narshe woke up early the next morning. He knew he had only slept about 3 or 4 more hours that night, but it was more than enough for him to go on in the day. Again, he folded up his futon and covers and, this time, put on all of his equipment. After putting his scythe and assassin blade on his back, he opened up his door only to find Hinata there, ready to open the door, but hesitating. Looking down at her, he gave her a questioning look.

Hinata didn't know if she should open up the door or not, deciding if she was going to wake him up or not. Suddenly, right when she was going to grasp the door handle to slide it, it moved all on its own, revealing Narshe in his entire splendor. Flushing furiously, Hinata ran off, not saying a word. He looked on after her, wondering why she ran off in that manner, scratching his head.

Walking to the main room, he saw that no one was there and went to the courtyard to find Hiashi, Negi, and Hinata all there, with an ANBU member in front of them.

"The Hokage is waiting, Narshe-san."

Raising an eyebrow, he didn't think that an ANBU member would be escorting him like that. Nodding his head once, he followed the person that started to jump from building to building. Looking back at the Hyuga family members, he nodded to them all.

Getting to the Hokage's place, the person that escorted him disappeared soon afterwards, leaving Narshe all alone in front of the building. Shrugging to himself, he entered and encountered no one there. Walking up the stairs, he still saw no one. He thought this was a little bit strange. When he got to the main room, he pushed the doors open, seeing the chair that the Hokage sat it turned away from him.

"Ahh, so you have arrived. Quite early, I say. But no matter. I like punctual people."

The chair turned around and Lady Tsunade smiled at him.

"Today, I will be giving you a mission to determine where your loyalty will be. You cannot refuse the request, no matter how trivial it might seem to you."

Behind Narshe, the door opened up again, and Naruto, Negi, and Ten Ten came in.

"I got your message, Hokage."

"What do you want, Old Lady Tsunade? You are interrupting my training!" (A/N: I think you can guess who said what. If not, then I shall smite thee with a nine inch nail baseball bat. )

Negi and Ten Ten chimed while Naruto complained.

Raising an eyebrow, the Hokage looked over at Naruto. "Oh? Then you don't want to participate in this A-rank mission that I will be assigning you?"

All of the new people that entered said "EH?" while Narshe cocked his head to the side.

"Only an A-rank mission?"

Naruto and Ten Ten looked at Narshe like he was freaking insane or something. But Negi knew the power of that kid and expected something along those lines from him. Just fighting Narshe would be considered an S-rank mission in itself. And you would need a whole team just to fight him. Or that was his outlook at the power of that abomination.

"Yes. I don't want my genin to get killed while doing this. Plus this is good practice for them on reconnaissance missions that require stealth, speed, and skill more than just technique and power."

Tsunade was glaring right at Naruto, who wasn't even paying attention in the beginning.

"What is it that we will have to do?" Ten Ten commented, asking before Narshe was able to.

"This will interest you much, Narshe, since you need help getting to Bartou."

Tsunade turned around and looked out the window.

"We have found out that there is a small fortress that is being built at the very edge of the Country of Fire and the Country of Plains, where the Sound ninja are."

There was a deadly silence that followed after that. Narshe knew why, though.

"We have come to believe that Orochimaru is planning this in some way, shape, or form and want you four to infiltrate and gather as much information as you can about who is building the fortress and why.

"Negi, though it might be surprising, you will be the team leader here. Narshe isn't a ninja, so he can't be team leader. Plus this will be more good practice for you."

Negi could not believe his ears. He knew for sure that Narshe was going to be the team leader when he figured out that this was a mission assignment. But, sure enough, he was the leader.

The oldest kid looked at him and smiled softly, unseen from the hood from his cloak covering up most of his face, closing his eyes.

"It seems that you are the leader. I know we will be in good hands then."

Raising an eyebrow, Tsunade figured that something happened between the two of them, just as she expected would happen. She knew that the Hyuga kids needed a slight boot to the ass to get them up and going again to train harder.

"The dangers about this mission, though, are unknown, even now. We do know there are many Chuunin level ninja, and most likely a few Jounins there to keep everything in check. That is the main reason we chose this mission for you Narshe as your acceptance to becoming a ninja in the village here."

This was where Naruto intervened.

"Nani? He is going to be a ninja here? But doesn't he have to go through the academy?"

"Well, technically he already is, since I gave him the forehead protector myself last night."

Narshe pulled down the cloth to reveal to everyone that the protector was around his neck.

"We just need to see where loyalties stand. That and the fact that we need someone as strong as him for this mission if you are to get caught or encounter resistance."

"Feh…why the hell do I have to participate in this, Old Lady Tsunade?"

"Well, I thought you needed a little bit of real life experience when it came to actually being silent."

Everyone except Naruto let out a small giggle at that comment. Tsunade continued.

"Plus I trust that you a can actually get the job done efficiently. You might even figure out where Sasuke is with the information that you will be gathering."

As soon as Sasuke's name was brought up, Naruto snapped to attention and then accepted the mission then and there.

"Alright then! Let's get going now!" He was excited to go, now that he had an actual reason to go.

"But, before you go, you will need to check all of your equipment," Negi said. "We will meet up at the front gate at Noon. Don't be late."

Ten Ten, Naruto, and Narshe nodded their heads and all left, except for Narshe.

"What is it, Narshe?" Tsunade said, glancing over with a query eye.

"I just want to know one thing: How do you and Jiraiya know about Sorotobi-sensei?" He really wanted to know how they knew about them when he knew him basically all of his life, from the time he can remember.

"Oh, that…It was a very long time ago. For a time, he was actually a wandering merchant, selling weapons goods to people that he could trust. He obtained weapons from a friend of his that was an expert blacksmith, and that was how they earned their money back then. Back when we were still young, younger than you are now, he was about the same age as the 3rd Hokage, coming into the village to set up shop for a few days.

"Jiraiya always seemed to talk to the man whenever he found him. It was quite interesting to see such a joker talk to such a serious person and both would seem to have a good time. Then one day he had to display his fighting skills whenever a missing-nin came back. He wasn't the target, but he intervened anyway, decimating the ninja easily. After that, he was the talk of the town for a while. Then his name slowly started to disappear when he didn't come back.

"I guess you could say that he had his fifteen minutes of fame here, and then kind of faded away with the time."

Narshe absorbed all of that. He didn't think that Sorotobi-sensei was a weapons dealer that helped a friend of his with selling the arms.

"Souka…Thanks for telling me." Narshe nodded to her once and left the room soon after.

"That kid will become something great from a great man such as him. Pure of heart and true to himself and everyone around. Such a rare find, and he literally stumbles right into our hands when we needed someone like him most. Such luck…to have such a person with us."

Tsunade looked down at all of the work on her desk and groaned, wondering if she could disappear for a while and get some sake.

Narshe was already prepared when he came to the Hokage's place, so he decided to go to the front gates immediately. He saw Ten Ten there and looked over to her questioningly.

"I do believe that we have not introduced ourselves yet. Narshe Delvar is my name. I would like to know the name of the person I will be working on a mission with, if you don't mind." He tried to be friendly with how he spoke while not scaring her too much, since he tended to do that with other girls younger or about the same age as him.

Ten Ten looked up and saw the new person asking for her introduction. Since he gave his, she thought that it was courteous to give hers.

"I'm Ten Ten. I'm on the same team as Negi, and my other team member is Rock Lee. We are under the eye of the strange, but strong Gai-sensei."

Narshe nodded, listening to what she had to say, then sad down on the ground and leaned back on the wall, looking in her direction.

"Quite an interesting line-up then. But this one is even more strange, especially with that Naruto kid being with us. Quite the strange one, I tell you. Absolutely nothing like how a real ninja is." (A/N: giggles Real Ninjas….xDD)

"You aren't kidding there."

Ten Ten and Narshe made small chat for a while to kill the time they had waiting for Negi and Naruto.

As soon as noon came, Negi came to the gate and saw that only Naruto was missing. 'Figures…'

A few minutes later, Naruto is running to the gates in all of his noisiness.

"Mate, mate! Wait for me!"

"You really need to work on your punctualness." Everyone else chimed that at the same time.

Naruto was about to say something, but everyone started leaving, so he bit his tongue on his comments and told them to wait up.

After traveling down the road for a while, Negi looked at the map that they had and decided that they needed to get off of the main road and travel in the forest from where they were, since it was fastest. They had time, but to get the mission done faster was always a good thing. Jumping through the trees, everyone was pretty relaxed about their surroundings, which Narshe felt was a folly on their part. Even though they were in common territory to them, they still needed to be aware of the traps that might be around. So he decided to keep an eye on that while they traveled.

Since they were making good time, they all decided to stop whenever they got to the edge of the forest. About an hour later, they had made it that far and stopped to catch their breath and get something in their system for the long trek.

"Ahhh…water is so good after a nice warm-up like that." Narshe smiled as he took a drink of the canteen that he carried under his cloak.

Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. Then Negi remembered last night and thought that that probably WAS just like a warm-up that he might just do.

Suddenly Narshe got the sense that someone was watching them. He could feel a burning sensation on his back and started to look around, more in a nonchalant sort of way to not give the person that was watching them any notice that him or her was being searched for. As soon as he pinpointed the source, he threw his assassin blade in that general direction, catching the attention of Negi, Naruto, and Ten Ten, startling them all.

"What the hell are you doing?" Naruto said before Negi said the same thing.

"We are being watched. He will show himself now. Either that or run off to inform whoever he is working with that he spotted people here." Narshe's voice was calm, like there was nothing to worry about.

Soon enough, a small being jumped out of the trees, holding the assassin blade that was thrown at him, eyes fairly wide that he was spotted easily and such a weapon was actually thrown at him, able to hold it, but found out that swinging with it was a different matter altogether.

The person's soft voice put chills into everyone that heard him. "It seems that I underestimated the skills of the people that I have been assigned to watch. What joy…I was itching to battle you anyway."

The person's body suddenly turned a silver-like color and jumped to the ground, becoming solid again.

"The name…is Nijiru. And I have been assigned to exterminate the four Konoha ninjas that were sent out to gather information and try to destroy the fortress that Bartou is trying to build."

The kid's grey hair and red eyes put fear even into Narshe. There was something that was not right with the Nijiru character, and he wanted to know what it was.