~or~

Why Akaryu Is Not Worried

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==A Year Earlier==

Hiruzen jumped as a bomb went off nearby. He looked around startled as he tried to pinpoint where it had come from. It was the middle of the park. There were not supposed to be bombs going off in the park. Then, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Hiruzen looked up just in time to catch small pink haired form falling from the air. The small pink haired form had a singed black mask and was wearing all black. The child blinked and then smiled, "Oh, hi there! Sorry about that, I think I overdid it."

"Overdid what?" Hiruzen asked with concern, were the child's parents trying to get him killed by letting him play with explosives?

"My rocket shoes," the child replied as he lifted a foot to show him. Hiruzen blinked as he registered the intricate but crude little seal matrix carved into the smooth rubber sole of the shoe. It clearly hadn't started flat, Hiruzen mused, it looked as though the boy had personally taken a candle and melted the rubber to get a flat surface to work with.

Hiruzen smiled after a moment, "That's quite clever, I guess you're trying to give yourself a boost in taijutsu?"

"Yep!" the child replied, "And maybe I'll even be able to get them to where I can fly with them! If I can get the seal down pat then I can make gloves with them too! Then I'll be able to jump around and change directions midair and throw punches that explode! It'll be so cool!"

Hiruzen smiled, "Indeed it will. May I ask where you learned fuinjutsu like this?"

"I made it up."

Hiruzen almost choked on his smoke in surprise, "You mean you've had absolutely no schooling in fuinjutsu but you're still experimenting with it?!" And making this much progress?! He thought.

The pink haired head tilted and the green eyes softened in confusion, "Yes? I'm only four you know. I can't get in at the Academy yet and the library won't let me in the jutsu section. I saw Daddy do a seal once on his kunai and thought it looked cool, so I taught myself how."

Hiruzen stared at the child. This kid figured out this innovative a seal from scratch?! He smiled, "Well child, why don't we go see about getting you a book on fuinjutsu so that you won't blow yourself up eh? I'll even help you finish tweaking your rocket boots to make them work." This kind of raw talent should be nurtured, grown and honed.

Hiruzen was delighted and surprised to learn that the child, who he learned was named Akaryu, was a remarkably quick study. Hiruzen hardly had to do anything at all once Akaryu had the book on fuinjutsu in hand. Akaryu had blazed through the book with such speed that Hiruzen wasn't sure he was actually reading it, but then Akaryu had started flipping back through, marking pages, and then begun to read at a more sedate but still very impressive pace. In less than fifteen minutes, he pulled a small kitchen knife from his pocket and took his shoe off.

He twirled the knife between his fingers expertly and then held it by the blade like a pen and began easily etching new symbols into the sole of the shoe. He set it aside after carving a few symbols and then repeated the symbols in the sole of his other shoe. He picked them up and examined them closely before nodding with satisfaction. Then he handed one to Hiruzen, "That should do it don't you think?"

Hiruzen accepted the shoe and began to study the seal, his eyebrows going up as he saw that where before there had been a simple seal for a focused burst of force, now there was a vastly more complex sealing matrix. The initial seal would've only converted his chakra to a much greater force and used it to propel him, Hiruzen thought as he took in the array before him, This will absorb his chakra as he feeds it to into the seal and release it in a steady stream rather than a single burst. He even built in an auxiliary launch feature to get him into the air and use as a booster for his jumps and running if he should need it, and a taper off function to let him get back down safely once he cuts the chakra off.

He handed the shoe back with a smile, "Very impressive Akaryu-kun. I see no glaring errors in your work, would you like to demonstrate their effectiveness and make sure they work? I must confess I'm very curious to see them in action!"

Akaryu grinned and pulled his modified shoes back on, "Awesome! And heck yeah I'm gonna try em out! Watch this!" He crouched and then, FWOOM! He was twenty feet in the air and then he just, hung there for a moment before drifting back down to the ground almost as light as a feather. When he reached the ground he bounced on his toes excitedly clapping his hands, "It-works-it-works-it-works!"

Hiruzen smiled, This one's going to be a force to be reckoned with when he grows up. I'll definitely keep an eye on him.

==One Week After The Harunos Moved Away==

Hiruzen looked around the empty house in consternation. Well, THAT was a little extreme. Akaryu had been left with nothing but the clothes on his back and the things that couldn't be carried out. He jumped slightly as Akaryu came in dragging a garbage bag that was larger than he(she?) was.

Akaryu blinked and then smiled, "Hi Lord Third! You should've told me you were coming, I would've…eh…" He(she?) looked around as he(likes to be referred to as a male) remembered that he (should probably be a he) lived in a completely empty house with nothing in it and had nothing but the clothes on his back, plus whatever he had in the sack. He was quiet for a moment and then, "Well I would've done something. Don't know what, but something would've been done!"

Hiruzen was quiet for a moment and then, "Akaryu-kun, why didn't you say anything about having been abandoned?"

Akaryu tilted his head, "Eh? I haven't been abandoned. I'm still a Leaf nin ain't I? I've got a whole village lookin' out for me!"

Hiruzen blinked, that was…very optimistic of him, "Akaryu-kun, you do realize that you have no income right now right?" Akaryu waved that off with a grin, "Pffft, who needs money? Check out what I got from the surplus store! They weren't selling so…" He opened the bag and grinned so widely that Hiruzen could see it even through his mask, "Tada!"

Hiruzen blinked, "Food pills?"

"About a gazillion of them!" Akaryu replied delightedly, "And they don't go bad for a couple of months!" He pulled down his mask and popped one into his mouth with a grin that quickly turned into a grimace. "They taste like cardboard, but that's nothing a little ketchup won't fix," he declared around a mouthful of mush.

He chewed for a minute more and then swallowed, "Anyway, I got an arrangement worked out with the Surplus Store. I take these off his hands whenever he gets a batch that isn't selling, and in exchange I help out at the store in the afternoons. Also his daughter Tenten's a major cutie even though I'm not bringing that up until we're older and I've made myself indispensable so as to keep my food supply steady."

"What about furniture?"

"I have a floor," Akaryu declared.

"A floor is not furniture," Hiruzen replied.

Akaryu pulled out a seal before unsealing its contents. A serviceable mattress, a beat up old throw pillow and a military blanket popped out. Akaryu held up the last thing, "And here's my desk," he declared with a worn-out cookie sheet in hand.

Hiruzen opened his mouth because he felt certain he should be protesting, but he found he didn't know quite what to say. He closed his mouth back and thought for a moment, then he decided he had better things to waste his brainpower on, "If you need anything, feel free to come to me or your sensei's about it."

"A sex change would be nice if it could be arranged," Akaryu said bluntly, "Save a lot of confusion down the road."

"You'll have to find Tsunade for that," Hiruzen declared after he recovered from the shock of Akaryu actually admitting she needed one, "She's the only one I would trust with such an operation."

"You're right," Akaryu mused, "Much better to just use a seal induced transformation."

"You should probably talk to Orochimaru and Jiraiya about that," Hiruzen replied, "They're the resident experts on seals. I'm good but they're better."

"Mask and concealing clothes with an aura of menace directed at anyone who brings it up for the foreseeable future it is," Akaryu declared offhandedly.

Hiruzen wondered if there was any point to even trying to understand this child. Quickly deciding there wasn't and it was better to just play nice, Hiruzen smiled, reminded him that he had friends and teachers he could go to if he needed anything, and went on about his way.

==Three Months Later==

Hinata and Naruto watched in terror as the pink haired boy with the bangs that curled straight up like demon horns calmly broke the three bullies. There was no other word for what he was doing than breaking them. Their bones popped like thin glass under the calm pressure he exerted upon them. Their flesh burned and roiled beneath his fingertips as he etched symbols across their ruined hands while they were pinned under his heel. The three bullies could not scream for the pink haired boy had somehow bound their mouths shut. Their eyes would've been wide in fear, but he had already burned them out.

The pink haired boy lifted one by the throat from where he had been bound to the tree, "Now then…" he asked in a very calm voice that sent shivers of fear down the spines of all who heard it, "Are you ever going to pick on someone smaller than you again? Or mock them for something they can't help?"

The boys shook their heads frantically in terror and the pink haired boy continued, "Gooood… now then I would imagine those wounds I gave you hurt quite a bit don't they? Do you want the pain to go away?"

The boys trembled in abject terror and the pink haired demon with the merciless green eyes seemed to smile, "Well, I suppose I can arrange that."

Then reality seemed to flex and pop, and suddenly the three boys were alright again, they were huddled beneath the tree with the pink haired monster looming over them. Hinata and Naruto stared and for a moment everything was silent. Then the pink haired boy grinned and jerked his head to the side, "Run along home now, and don't forget your lesson. Because if you do, I'll hear about it, and I will hunt you down for a refresher course." The three bullies stared at him in abject terror and one peed himself.

The pink haired monster sighed, "Okay, maybe I didn't make myself clear." He reached up and yanked down his mask. Whatever was behind the mask, Naruto and Hinata weren't sure, but the little bit of it they could see flailing out past the edge of his skull as strange green bile flew all over them while he roared, "SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!" was definitely not human, and neither was that voice. It was like a cross between the roar of a tiger and the screech of a bird.

The three bullies required no more encouragement, they all scrambled away and ran for their lives. The pink haired boy straightened up and turned as he shot them a completely human grin, "Well! That was a pack of wimps wasn't it!" He pulled his mask back up as his horns fell back into being merely bangs, "Didn't catch your names. I'm Akaryu."

Hinata quailed despite the friendly light in the pink haired boy's eye and Naruto raised his finger to point accusingly, "I don't care how scary you are, I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm gonna be Hokage!"

The pink haired boy's eyes widened a little at the declaration and then the friendly light went out, replaced by something hard and unfriendly. It was a look both Hinata and Naruto knew far too well: Absolute scorn. "Yes, I know." Akaryu replied in a voice that cut like a knife, "Through no merit of your own, you will be Hokage. I would guess number seven if everything goes according to their plans."

Naruto blinked, completely blindsided by the pink haired boy's blunt agreement, "What?"

Akaryu scoffed, "Like you wouldn't be. It's kind of hard to not ascend to a position of power when you're fucking groomed for it your whole life. You don't even know it's going on, and if I weren't telling you right now, you'd probably never realize what a fast track to the top you've got. There's even a law in place to keep anyone from realizing. Oh, and the little brunette behind you? Pay attention to her, she's probably already been arranged to be your future bride."

"W-what?" Hinata squeaked, "N-no…I…I'm not…"

"Neither of you would be informed of it," Akaryu declared coldly, "After all, if you were aware that you were being played like fiddles, you'd never play along. Ask yourself though Hinata, why would your father try so hard to make you back out of the heiress seat and cede it to Hanabi who's not even two years old yet?"

Hinata went as pale as her eyes, "H-how do you know about that?"

Akaryu smiled thinly, if that faint upturning at the corner of his mouth could even be called a smile, "I pay attention. Would you like to know?" Hinata timidly nodded and Akaryu's face twisted into something ugly behind his mask, "It's so that he can still have a good heiress after he marries you off to the seventh Hokage. If he were to let you be the heiress, then he wouldn't be able to marry you off the Hokage. He'd have to let Hanabi do it, which would be much more difficult than say, being so hard on you that you run away and run into three bullies, while your guardian of the day stands two blocks over watching with his Byakugan as the boy who will be Hokage rushes to your aid. Even if Naruto got his ass whipped, he'd still be your knight in shining armor for the rest of your life, and with you being the only person in Konoha being nice to him aside from the current Hokage, he'd notice and become very attached to you, making it seem totally natural and not at all planned as you two grew up and fell in love. It'll be almost sickeningly sweet and romantic and everyone'll swoon over how perfect it is."

Naruto and Hinata both froze as they realized that what he was saying made sense. A LOT of sense. One thing stuck out though. "Why me?" Naruto demanded, "You're talking like everyone's out to make me Hokage, but they're not! Everyone hates me!"

Akaryu's ugly grin grew, "Oh yes. The common folk hate you alright. They play their roles without even knowing it as they unwittingly turn you into the underdog, because everyone loves an underdog. 'Oh he used to be such a hated outcast, look at him now, he's a great big hero! Trained by the…' so and so, so on and so forth legendary tutors that you'll probably get, seemingly through your own luck and charisma, but in reality, it's just them playing along to turn you into the next Hokage. Let me tell you something…"

Akaryu strode over and leaned in very close to Naruto with a cold vicious look in his eye and his voice seemed to ooze with venom, "When you learn why they hate you, Mr. Chosen One, you're going to understand why. When you find out, why you, then you're going to realize…" He turned and walked away.

"What?!" Naruto asked frantically after a stunned moment, "I'm going to realize what?!"

Akaryu turned and shot a smug grin over his shoulder at the two, "That I was right all along." Then snow whirled around him and he was gone, leaving a very confused and rattled Naruto and Hinata behind him.