He heard footsteps behind him, but ignored them in favour of staring at the blood running down his wrist. It was more than one pair of footsteps and they all stopped a little way away from him.
"What have you done?" An ANBU with an eagle mask yelled from the small crowd. Naruto looked up and shook his head. This wasn't his fault. He hadn't done anything, but it was beautiful to him. "I didn't do this. I heard the scream and came to see." He said softly, his eyes being drawn back to the woman once again. It seemed to trigger something in the crowd. Angry yells filled the alley, startling Naruto out of his daze.
There were more Shinobi besides the ANBU in the small crowd and soon the glint of cold steel was seen in between the people. A kunai was thrown, landing only inches away from his bare feet, making him stumble back. He slipped as the blood coated his feet and he landed in the pool of blood. The blood soaked into his clothing, making the clothing cling to his body. In this instance, Naruto was not enjoying the feel of it. He was too focussed on the intense stares filled with detest and hatred from the crowd. The crowd was slowly moving in on him, driving him into a corner. "I didn't do this!" He voiced again, this time a little louder and more forceful, but his comment fell on deaf ears. The ANBU took the lead, commanding the few Shinobi to get closer and arrest Naruto. The command to get Naruto seem to take hold, the part about arresting not so much. Instead, they all made a grab for their weapons intending to take him out for good. They stepped closer and closer to Naruto and he scrambled away, pushing himself back through the gore and blood, dirtying his clothing more and more with blood.
Another kunai was thrown, this time aimed to harm him and if he hadn't dogded it, it would have done more than just graze his cheek. The paper thin cut on his cheek started bleeding and stinging. Panic filled him and he ran, from the blood, the crowd and the memories the angry crowd brought back.
He fled, using fences and metal grates to work his way up to the roofs where he would have more movement freedom and less people chasing him. It took a few attempts to get on top of the buildings, his feet slipping over the surfaces from the blood that coated them, but he managed to get on the roof without anyone grabbing him. The Shinobi were close behind him. He heard them growl and and their footsteps thundering after him.
He weaved through the buildings, in and out of alleyways he knew like the back of hand making his way home. The darkness of the night seemed to work in his favour. A lot of kunai that were thrown at him missed. The ones that did hit, didn't hit spots that would slow him down. They stung and hurt and one that embedded itself into his shoulder felt like it was digging into him further with every more he made, but it didn't stop him from moving as fast as possible.
The Shinobi chasing him were clearly more adapt to running, because Naruto was starting to feel out of breath while they were still able to yell at him at the top of their lungs. When he rounded a corner and entered his street, he ran with renewed hope. Hope for safety in his own home. Having a place to run to made everything feel so different. He was scared, yes, but at least he had somewhere to go, a safe place.
He made it home, entering through his bedroom window and storming downstairs. Cat and Dog jumped at at the sudden commotion and Naruto went straight to Dog, hugging her and crying into her lap. "I didn't do it! Please don't let them get me. I really didn't do anything!" He was begging. He needed someone, anyone to believe him, because he already knew most people weren't going to.
"Naruto, what happened? Why are you covered in blood? Did you get hurt?" Dog put her arms around him and kneeled down, looking him over. Naruto shook his head, still sobbing. "Oh, my Kami, did someone throw kunai at you? Why?" She carefully pulled the kunai out of his shoulder, releasing a new wave of warm blood mixing with the cold, wet blood that was already soaking him.
Naruto was crying too much to answer and just leaned into Dog trying to find comfort. Cat kneeled next to him as well, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking up at Dog. Naruto didn't see the look they exchanged. A look of worry and of judgement. Cat opened his mouth to ask more questions, but they didn't get a chance to ask anything else. The Shinobi that were following him barged into the house after having followed Naruto through the window. Eagle led the group, standing in an offensive stance in the middle of the relatively small living room, hateful eyes focussed on Naruto. He felt the eyes burn into his back, making him cower even more into Dog's embrace.
Dog stood up and pushed Naruto behind her. Cat stepped up too, effectively shielding Naruto from view. He felt relief in the thought they would protect him, that they were there to protect him. "Cat, Dog, I caught the boy in the act. I saw him kill a woman. We need to hand him over to the authorities, right now."
"He said he didn't do it." Cat growled back. Naruto didn't lie to them. He never had. Why would he start now? Then again, Naruto had evidently been out past curfew and had done something to trigger anger amongst a multitude of Shinobi, one of which was Eagle, a man they had trained with since they joined themselves. Knowing what Cat and Dog did about Naruto, it wouldn't be too unimaginable that Naruto did something horrible again.
"Just look at him. He's covered in her blood!" Naruto watched wide eyed as Dog glanced back at him. She had a look in her eyes he had never seen. Doubt. Fear. She didn't believe him. "O-Onee-san? You believe me, right? I didn't do anything wrong!" Naruto barely realised how he looked. He was covered in blood, even on his face. His hands red stained and his clothing was soaked. Someone didn't get this covered in blood by doing nothing. Dog knew this better than anyone. Shinobi knew what someone needs to do to get covered in blood and it was never pretty.
She stepped away from him. She turned around to face him and stepped back to add herself to the crowd. "O-onee-san, please..." Naruto reached after her, but got startled back when a kunai was once again thrown at him, sticking up straight in the floorboards where his foot would have been if he hadn't stepped back. He felt his hands shake as he looked into Dog's eyes. She averted her gaze and it broke his heart. Just like that she betrayed and abandoned him.
Cat shifted in his position next to him and Naruto watched in horror as even Cat seemed to move away from him. "Baka-Neko, onegai... d-don't... d-don't leave...me..." Thick tears were rolling down his face, stinging the cut in his cheek, but he ignored the little pain over the pain in his heart. Was it really this easy for them to abandon him? Was it really this easy to throw away the time they spent as a family? Where was that ever present urge from Cat to prove himself to Naruto? What had happened to the mother-like care Dog had shown him over and over again?
"Why did you do this, Naruto?" Dog asked from amidst the crowd. Her voice seemed to mix with the crowd, losing meaning for Naruto, while at the same time cutting straight through him. "I didn't." He said again, a little more force in his voice. The tremor in his hands turned into an all body shake, anger and hurt running through him.
He just stared at the floor after that, letting it all happen. People walked up to him, grabbed him and tied him, but he didn't fight back. He was kicked, deliberately and precise, but it was only meant to get him down. Someone stopped the crowd from hurting him more, but he didn't pick up on who was stopping them. They hauled him away, taking him to the prison inside the mountain, into the deep darkness, the windowless cells with solid doors. He was dropped on the cold stone floor and then they left. They hadn't even untied him. The door closed, robbing the last light of the flickering torches away from the cell, leaving him in darkness.
It was dark, cold and empty. The silence he enjoyed so much during the night sitting atop the Yondaime's head was now suffocating and painful. The darkness was opressing and slowly crushed his already unstable mind.
He only saw the negative things now. Over and over the look in Dog's eyes forced itself to the forefront of his mind, tormenting him with what he lost so easily. Dog showing that she feared him. Cat moving away from him. Yet another crowd of unknown faces out for his blood. He had cried for what felt like hours, but he was done with that now. He had screamed until no more than a hoarse sound left his throat, but it had not made a difference. Now he sat in silence, only the sound of his breath to keep him company. Slow and controlled, in and out. A steady pace and the only thing to indicate time slipping by.
Still bound he had managed to sit up. His hands were tied behind his back, and leaning back against the wall was uncomfortable but better than remaining on his side on the hard floor. He thought about the last years. The lie he lived, blinded by false hopes and fake smiles. His life before the incident in the woods had been harsh and horrible for most of the time, but at least there were no lies in it. Now he lost his heart because he had let himself get tricked. It wasn't fair. He wanted his life back. He hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't him who killed the lady.
He wanted to scream again, to let everybody know, but there was no one to hear him. No one to believe him, to listen to him. It was unfair. They had given him rules and he had followed them. They had given him limits and he worked within them. In all this time he had never truly transgressed the rules and limitations. Of course he had pressed against them, trying to find the true line he couldn't cross, but he had always made sure to stay within those lines. They had given him guardians, to take care of him and watch out for him... No, that wasn't right. Guards, not guardians. Prison keepers, even though the prison had no walls and even though they lived in the same house like a family. Cat and Dog were not his makeshift family, not his guardians, but just his guards.
A coldness settled in his eyes. Decisiveness and determination along with it. If they did not want him, then he had no reason to stay. He never felt loyalty for Konoha anyway and now that the ties he thought he had were so cruelly separated, he would leave. There would be a time he'd come back, but only time would tell whether the intention of his return would be good or bad voor Konoha.
Now all he needed was a chance to break free from this cell and the ropes that bound him. He knew that with patience his answer would come. So he sat, in the dark, focussed on the place he knew where the door should be, waiting for them to come collect him.
He also wanted, nay, needed to talk to Jiji, to see his eyes and to give him the final answer to his question. Was there anyone left in this village to actually care about him?
Time dragged on, slowly. It took longer than it should for someone to come for him. It was long past dawn. It had to be. There was no way for him to check, no natural light to reach this place, but he had been here long enough for several hours to have passed. But everything remained quiet, slowly time dragged on and on.
The coldness settled in his bones. It froze his very core, leaving nothing but fearsome hatred. Naruto felt closer to his other side then ever before. The red chakra coiling within him took more hold of him, pressing the blue down without smothering it. The red chakra coiled around the blue, caressing it and making it settle down, like a child layed to rest. He let it happen.
His balance shifted. The carefully cultivated dominant personality stepped aside for another. Darker, stronger, more dangerous. The chakra danced in his mind, finding a way out like it had done before. Like dust lingering in the light, a familiar purple hue slowly filled the room, red and blue running through it with sparks. It lit the room, illuminating the damp walls and dirty floor. The room was empty, the walls smooth. The only indication there was a door opposite him was a faint line. The room was made to contain Shinobi, giving them nothing to make a weapon out of and no possibility to find a weak point when left in darkness.
A little to his right he saw shackles, engraved with symbols. They were attached to the wall with a heavy pin and Naruto recognised the symbols as chakra suppressors. He wondered why they hadn't put him in those shackles. Did they think the ropes binding him were enough? That was a mistake. He made the dust of chakra move, using the energy to cut through the ropes, giving him much needed freedom.
It hurt to move his arms. After having them tied to his back for so long, his muscles strained to regain their natural position. Slowly he moved them to their normal position, biting through the pain of his bruised muscles. His wrists were sore, but already healing. The sting in his side from where he was kicked had subsided too. The cuts from the kunai were also quickly disappearing, though the deep gash in his shoulder needed more time and he felt it bleeding once more because he ripped it open when he moved his arms.
His eyes studied the chakra, bending and shaping to his will. A distant memory was stirred awake. Red hair, fierce eyes filled with determination to keep him in place with the use of her chakra. The way the eyes mellowed out as they shifted from his giant chakra form to his infant form. From Kurama, crazed by Madara and his sickening Sharingan, to Naruto, only hours old and quietly watching the turmoil around him. Chakra chains, controlled by Uzumaki Kushina, his former keeper and his mother. It felt right, using the chains now, backed up by the enormous amount of chakra combined from both of him, all of him.
He pulled the chakra back into himself, casting himself back into darkness, but it felt different. He felt different. With renewed patience he waited, biding his time.
Another day passed, unbeknownst to him. Tediously slow. But the new day brought something new. Footsteps echoed through the stone hallway, barely penetrating through the heavy stone door, but still loud in the otherwise silent room. Loud enough to alert the sole resident to open his eyes.
The door creaked open, the torch light that had seemed dim upon arrived now burned his eyes. A silhouette stood in the door opening, trying to get used to the darkness as he was getting used to the light.
The man stepped into the door opening. He stepped into the darkness of the cell, staring at Naruto who sat against the opposite wall. The man seemingly studied Naruto. Only Naruto's silhouette was visible to him. His head hung forward a little, his eyes looking upward directly at the man. His red eye gleamed in the darkness, seemingly penetrating right through the man. Even his blue eye was shaded by a haze of red. It was enough for a nervous energy to settle itself in the man, but he didn't show it.
"Uzumaki Naruto." The man stated in a low voice, void of any emotion. If it had been anyone else it would have been a question, waiting for confirmation he had addressed the right person, but this man didn't ask questions. He extracted truths.
Lips split into a grin, showing elongated teeth in the shimmer of the torchlight. Together with the red eyes it almost made the man's blood run cold. "No." The voice answering didn't sound like a child. It was laced with demonic energy, rasping and raw.
The man swallowed. This wasn't the child described to him. For a second he doubted he was even talking to a human, but the small frame he saw sitting against the wall was really that of a child. "The Hokage is waiting for you. Follow me."