"Normal Speech"

'Normal thoughts'

~locations and transitions~

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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto


Chapter 1: Red

Running. That's all he could do. He looked back to see that he was still being chased and they were gaining fast. "HELP! Someone help me!" turned the corner as he continued to call for help but for some reason, no one came. He looked around to see that he was in the more secluded area of the village.

Generally during the day, people would be walking around buying goods from the simple stands, kids playing around, and it would be an all-around busy street. But at the moment it was bare of anyone since there were little to no residents that lived here

'why did I run here!' as he ran, he grabbed a trashcan and threw it on the ground behind him but saw that it didn't do anything. He grabbed a couple of boxes and did the same thing only to be met with the same result. He kept running grabbing anything he could and before turning and tossing it to slow them down. Flower pots, buckets, he even threw a purse that was left out. Since he wasn't looking where he was going, he tripped on a glass bottle and fell face-first on the ground. As he groaned in pain he felt his ankle being grabbed and in panic, he kicked off the one that grabbed him. He felt his ankle get free and thanked kami for his escape. He got to his feet, grabbed the very bottle that he tripped over, and threw it as hard as he could behind him before he turned and ran. He smiled in joy as he heard a cry of pain. He pushed himself to run as fast as he could away from his attacker. After a few minutes of running, he looked behind him to see that he was in the clear. He turned the corner into an alleyway before he leaned against the wall, gasping for air. "I *gasp* got *pant* away." he slid down the wall into a sitting position as he slowly caught his breath. "why….*gulp….is this happening to me?" he wondered what he had done to cause this to happen but nothing came to mind. He finally caught his breath and got to his feet. He pressed himself against the wall of the alley and shimmied to the entrance before peeking around the corner to see if he was still in the clear. "Oh thank kami." he didn't see anyone. With a sigh of relief, he exited the alley and looked around to see if he could find his way home.

He didn't get far though as a wire wrapped around his neck and tightened hard enough to cut off air.

"Ga…..hhehhhhhh." he tried to scream but the wire around his neck only let him make squeaks. He grabbed the wire and tried to pull it off but as he did this, it tightened even harder causing his fingers to get stuck under it. Not only did this cause him to wheeze, but the wire also began to draw blood. He felt both his hands and throat being cut by the wire and blood began to flow down his neck, soaking his hands and shirt.

A tug on the wire caused him to fall over and he was then slowly dragged back into the alley

He pulled hard on his hand to get it free and was able to pull his right hand loose. But in doing so a good chunk of flesh was removed from his fingers. Adrenaline and fear caused him to ignore the immense pain his hand was in as his throat was still being sliced. He dug the fingers of his free hand into the ground to stop his slow momentum into the alley but the pull was too strong and all he was doing now was leaving a long trail of blood from the street to the alley. He looked to the alley only to see he was getting closer. 'No! Leave me alone! Go away!' he grabbed the wall in order to stop for a moment but the wire tugged him in and he lost the struggle.

He was thrown against the wall and he felt relief as the tightness of the wire was loosened. Now able to breathe he gasped as if he came out of the water but as he did this he felt a pair of hands grab the top and bottom of his mouth and began to pull them in opposite directions. He gagged and flailed his arms around and grabbed the wrists of his attacker as he tried to pry them off "gugh gah ggrrrgh!" He shut his eyes in pain as the pull grew stronger and he felt his jaw dislocate and he now had tears running down his face as he tried to scream. However, the fingers in his mouth kept causing him to gag.

CRACK*

"NNNNNNNN! NNNNNNNRRRNNNNNN! NUUURGH NNNNN!" his jaw cracked and he began to kick and punch the air as his mind was no longer thinking clearly to attack the one doing this. 'AAAAHHHH! STOP STOP PLEASE STOP!' he soon felt his cheeks begin to tear and he was begging kami 'SOMEONE! ANYONE! PLEASE! HELP! I DON'T WANNA DIE!' he finally opened his eyes again and looked at the eyes of his attacker. Solid red eyes look unemotional at him and he had one thought running through his head 'Sharingan!?'

CRACK, RIP, SQUELCH*

His jaw was removed and tossed to the ground, causing a waterfall of blood to create an ever-growing pool of blood and a tongue dangling there

Red eyes stared at the fresh corpse for a second before disappearing from the alley


~next day, Hokage office~

Hiruzen sat at his desk with a grim look on his face. In front of him was Inoichi about to give him the report on the attack that happened last night. "Please proceed, Inoichi."

Inoichi nodded as he opened up a vanilla folder and read over some of the papers "from the injuries alone. It was clear that whoever did it was trying to make it hurt before finishing the job in such a sadistic manner…." he then went over what the autopsy discovered along with the incident from last night.

Hiruzen sighed as he pulled out his pipe, lit it, and began to smoke to calm his nerves. "And the other details?"

Inochi looked up from the files and nodded as he knew what the Hokage meant. He shuffled the papers until he got to the one he was looking for "Man's name was Kagu Getsa. He runs a shop in the merchant's district. No wife or children. He had an on-again-off-again girlfriend; Saki Kiya. She is at the moment out of the village going to one of the smaller neighboring villages to visit her sister. She is expected to return in a week."

Hiruzen nodded as he thought about what he was told. He took a deep puff of his pipe before he spoke "anything significant from his memories?"

Inoichi nodded "from what I was able to pull, it is clear it is a shinobi that did this and the last memory gave us something to narrow it down."

Hiruzen leaned forward and steepled his fingers. He was eager to know anything he needed to catch the culprit "well?" it may have come out more forceful than he intended but he needed to know

"The memory was fuzzy as the man was dying but it was clear that he saw solid red eyes with his last thought being 'Sharingan'."

Hiruzen's face grew grim as he leaned back in his chair and glared.

Inoichi knew that the glare was not really aimed at him, but the added killing intent he felt come from the old man wasn't helping. However, he maintained his professional demeanor.

Hiruzen turned in his chair to look out on the village. "An Uchiha? This is most troubling."

Inoichi cleared his throat "Sir, the evidence this latest piece of evidence does point to an Uchiha but the TI department is still having trouble connecting this with the other incidents. We just can't find any connection with them."

Hiruzen stood up from his chair and stood, still looking out the window. He thought about what was said to him.

This was not the first incident where someone was killed in such a gruesome manner. In fact, it had been happening for the past year. Bodies were found in different locations with many different fatal injuries. Removal of limbs, multiple puncture wounds, lacerations, hung bodies, bisection 'whoever is doing this does not concern themselves in being subtle. How can this person do this in a village of shinobi….unless…...there is more than one.'

"Um, sir?"

Hiruzen turned to look at Inoichi

"We did find a connection but the possibility is extremely unlikely.

Hiruzen nodded for Inoichi to continue. He had a feeling he knew what it was and he had to agree but if it was the same theory he had then they might have a lead.

Inoichi pulled out a single sheet of paper and looked it over "there was a single connection between all of the ones that were killed but the theory we have goes against what we know." he placed the paper on Hiruzen's desk for them to look at

Hiruzen looked at the paper and sighed in defeat as it was what he expected. "Naruto Uzumaki."

Inoichi nodded "yes, sir. All the men and women that were killed had one thing in common. They all harassed Naruto only one to two days before their death. With all we were able to gather, some have come up with the theory that someone is doing this in a sort of demented way of protecting the boy."

Hiruzen nodded as he picked it up and looked at the image. He smiled as he saw the picture that came with the file. There he was, giving a peace sign with the brightest smile the world has ever seen. It was the same smile Naruto always had on his face no matter when he went to visit. His face fell though as he thought about how the villagers and even a large portion of the shinobi despised the boy. "And you say that it is unlikely that theory has any merit….." it wasn't a question, as he knew the reason it was hard to believe someone was protecting the boy

Inoichi sighed not only from fatigue but from talking about this. He knew the boy had no choice but to bear the burden of the Kyuubi and he held no malice on the young blonde but almost all of his colleagues did not see it that way. "With how the village treats the boy, I don't see anyone going so far to do that, much less an Uchiha."

Hiruzen nodded as he agreed with Inoichi's doubts. "Still, we must not brush this aside. Although I already have a team observing the boy for anything out of the ordinary, we must investigate anyone that interacts with him. No matter how trivial. We will also be investigating the Uchiha clan more. There has been suspicious activity going on within their compound. They despise the boy but they might be thinking of using him for something."

Inoichi nodded. It was the only lead they had. "Where is the boy now?'

Hiruzen leaned back in his chair as he let out a puff of smoke "it's his first day at the academy. He should be in class right now."


~Academy classroom~

Iruka looked to the young boy standing on his left and sighed. He had agreed with the Hokage to be his teacher but he still had his reservation on this. "Go ahead….introduce yourself."

Naruto nodded as he smiled brightly and raised his hand in a wave "hi, I'm Naruto Uzumaki. 7 years old and I hope we can be friends."

The class looked at him for a second before a bunch of them started whispering to each other.

"That's the boy mommy said not to talk to."

"Daddy said we should make fun of him."

"My brother said he is a monster."

"Dad told me he is dumb."

"He's funny looking."

"We should stay away from him."

Despite the attempted whispering, it was clearly audible to everyone.

Iruka was taken aback by the immediate isolation the other kids were willing to put the boy in but as he looked at Naruto, he saw that despite how he could hear the whispers, Naruto just kept smiling. He looked back at the class and the only ones that weren't doing this were the clan heirs and heiresses.

Shikamaru Nara, heir of the Nara clan

Choji Akimichi, heir of the Akimichi clan

Ino Yamanaka, heiress of the Yamaka clan

Shino Aburame, heir of the Aburame clan

Hinata Hyuga, heiress of the Hyuga clan

Kiba Inuzuka, heir of the Inuzuka clan, and his ninken partner akamaru

And Satsuki Uchiha, heiress of the Uchiha clan

Iruka chose that he should get along with his lesson and turned his head to look at his assistant, missing the scowl the silver-haired man had aimed at Naruto. He sighed as he spoke "ok Naruto, please take a seat in the back.

Naruto nodded as he made his way up the stairs to take his seat. Unfortunately, one of the civilian students stuck out his leg causing Naruto to trip and hit his nose hard on the stairs.

The kids all began to laugh at the fallen blonde with the clan children being the only ones that looked irritated with the action apart from Kiba as he thought it was a little funny.

Akamaru whimpered before slapping the top of Kiba's head to get him to stop

Naruto got up from the floor and held his nose as a bit of blood came out. Despite the grimace he had on his face, he shifted back to a smile and got back up before walking forward to his seat. Before he made it, someone brought up a handkerchief in front of him. Following the hand that held it, he saw it was a girl with black hair and onyx black eyes.

"Your nose is bleeding, use this to clean it."

Naruto smiled brighter as he took the handkerchief "thank you."

A bunch of girls smiled at the action as they spoke

"Satsuki is so kind."

"She is so cool."

"I wish I was like her."

Naruto used the handkerchief to wipe the blood from his nose

Satsuki nodded to Naruto before speaking again "you can give it back after you clean it."

Naruto pulled the handkerchief away and saw the blood "sorry."

"It's fine."

Naruto made it to his seat and despite all this, he still maintained his cheery attitude.


~after school~

Naruto was walking back to his apartment after school had ended. He had paid rapt attention to the lesson as best he could but his mind kept wandering to other things since Iruka was going over the history of Konoha. Sure he didn't make any friends yet but he kept his optimistic view that he would.

Unbeknownst to him, he was being followed by a group of ninja.

The group consisted of a group of Anbu, keeping track of the boy at the order of their Hokage. They kept a good distance so they would not gain anyone's attention.

Naruto stopped for a second at a shelf of flowers and decided to enjoy them. He thought that they smelled nice and he thought to himself about getting some himself. His enjoyment was cut short when he was hit in the side of the head by a broom

"Get out of here you monster!" the man who held the broom swung it again getting Naruto to run away

Naruto covered his head and quickly moved away from the man to avoid being hit again

The man sneered at the back of the boy before looking at the potted plants that Naruto was just enjoying. He moved to them, picked them up, and then tossed them into the trash that he had outside.

The Anbu looked at each other with one nodding and moving to the roof of the building and choosing to keep track of the man. The others then began to follow Naruto again

Naruto stopped his running and continued his way home oblivious to the glares aimed at him. He hummed to himself as kept walking yet again he was interrupted as a rock was thrown at him, hitting the back of his head and causing a bit of blood to leak. "Ow!" he looked behind him to see a kid just slightly older than him with a bunch of other kids picking up their own rocks. H chose to ignore them and continue walking but the adults around him began to pick up and began to throw them themselves

It started with only a few but soon it was becoming a consistent flow of it.

Naruto began to run away towards his apartment as the people around began to cheer as if they did something worth praise

The Anbu team looked at the large group of people and knew that they would need more to keep an eye on the area.


~Later~

Naruto was hand washing the handkerchief so he would be able to give it back to the girl he learned was named Satsuki. Once he saw it was free of his blood, he placed it on a small towel on the table so it could dry. "I can give it back to her tomorrow. Maybe she can be my friend." After he finished this he moved to his room and pulled out his homework so he could finish it before the day ends. Pulling it out and looking at the sheet of paper with questions he needed to answer, he began to look through the old book that was close to falling apart. He looked at the questions and he grew confused. None of this was in the day's lesson but he chose to ignore it and went through the book to find what he needed to know.

After a while of working on it, he could only answer about thirty percent of it. He just couldn't find what he needed in the book but he just did his best and got all he could.

Once night hit and he ate his ramen dinner, he got into his sleepwear and smiled as he put on his silly nightcap. He moved to his window and looked at the moon before yawning, heading to bed, and quickly fell asleep.

Naruto slept peacefully, scratching his belly dreaming of ramen, unaware of a pair of red eyes looking down at him. The eyes shifting left and right before narrowing on the boy and disappearing.


End of chapter

Made Sasuke a female. yeah

Naruto will be different in this fic

Keeping things vague as it will be explained in later chapters

Now to go work on some of my older fics and newer ones :P

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