Naruto felt that strange tingling feeling again. Just like when the golden eyed boy had clapped his hands and did that weird Jutsu, he had felt a strange, inexplicable sensation that washed over his entire body. When he reached the top of the staircase, the boy turned around and clapped his hands once more and pressed them to the make-shift staircase, causing that red light to flash through the air once more.
And once more, accompanying the red flash, was the stupid, tingling sensation. He couldn't explain quite exactly how it felt. All he could come up with from his limited vocabulary was that it was "tingling". Not that it was his fault, considering he didn't own many things, and of the few things he did own, books were not of them.
As soon as the stairs had completely disappeared from view, the boy turned around brusquely, and walked away in a fast pace. Naruto blinked. "H-hey!" He ran after the boy, who proceeded to walk at an even faster pace, his forehead creasing with irritation.
"What do you want?" The child asked grumpily.
Naruto stared at him incredulously. First, this kid is defending him from the villagers. Then, he demands for him to give him a bag of things that he stole. After which he does some kind of strange Jutsu, which Naruto still couldn't figure out. And now he's just acting all grumpy and pissed off at Naruto. What did he do? Or rather, if this boy really doesn't hate him like the other villagers, then why did he even defend him?
"Well?" The boy demanded again, and it crossed Naruto's mind that he must have been staring.
"Where are you going?" Naruto decided to ask, picking up his pace in order to keep up with the golden-eyed child.
The child glanced at Naruto but didn't answer. This was really beginning to get irritating. He continued walking before sighing and stopping in his tracks. "Look. I don't have time for this. Just go home to your pare-"
"I don't have any." Naruto interjected before the boy could finish his sentence, staring at the ground. "They died before I was born. So, I never knew them. I've pretty much lived alone so...there isn't anyone I can return home TO."
The child's mouth parted slightly for a moment before it shut and he tossed Naruto a sympathetic look. This caught Naruto off guard for a moment, as the normal looks he would receive were ones of pity or contempt. Perhaps he understood how Naruto was feeling...? Naruto thought about it a little more, and though the connection was slow, he figured that if the child had no parents, that would certainly explain why he had been stealing from the man's shop.
It was only at this point when Naruto began to wonder what exactly the child has stolen. "Hey...what did you take from that man's shop, anyway? I know you said it wasn't important, and that he had a lot, so..."
The boy hesitated, clutching the handle of his bag a little tighter, before answering. "Apples," He answered smoothly. "I happen to like them. And yeah, he did have a lot. Whole crate-fulls, in fact."
Naruto's eyes widened slightly. "Huh. Guess that old man has some serious issues."
"Tell me about it."
The two stood awkwardly for a moment before Naruto realized that the child was swaying in his spot, and that his eyes were oddly out of focus. He frowned and reached out his hand to grasp the boy's shoulder in an attempt to steady him. "H-hey-"
It would be quite appropriate to say that Naruto was unreservedly flummoxed, especially when the boy's eyes rolled towards the back of his head and he fell sideways onto the ground with a soft and barely audible, thump.
Naruto just stood there, stupefied, as the bag slipped from the boy's hands and fell to the ground next to him. He knew that he was stupid, but it was only at this moment when he began to realize just how stupid he was. The boy had gotten hit in the head earlier, and the splotch of red on his head must have been blood. Which meant that he had lost lots of it, and to add on all the walking and that strange Jutsu of his from earlier...
When Naruto finally pieced these things together he yelped and pushed the boy, who was lying on his stomach, over and examined his face, which was scrunched up tightly with pain. Sweat streaked his brow, and his face looked flushed. How had Naruto not noticed any of this before? He was an elite ninja, dammit! One that was going to be Hokage! He couldn't let even the most insignificant details slip past him!
The blood on the side of his head was larger than before, and it dyed a few strands of the boy's golden locks a brownish-red color. Crap. The boy had no doubt lost tons of blood by this point.
Without even stopping to consider his options and what it would look like if he, the most hated in the village, carried an unconscious and battered child to his apartment, he picked the boy up and threw him over his shoulder, staggering at the weight.
"Ah!" Naruto yelped as he tried to regain his balance. It was a struggle, for sure. But how heavy could this small boy be? It was pretty impossible, but Naruto could have sworn he heard his back crack. "Now I feel like Iruka-Sensei..." He grunted with the weight of the boy for a few more minutes, floundering like and idiot before he finally let out a huff of victory. "Alright! Now, let's get go...ing..." He trailed off when he stared stupidly at the brown bag lying haphazardly on the floor.
He had forgotten the bag.
Naruto got extremely lucky. There were pretty much nobody in the streets, which made it all the more easier to carry the boy to his apartment undetected.
After flailing like a dying fish with the boy on his back for a solid ten minutes earlier, he had finally figured out a way to bend down and grab the bag without having to worry about the hassle of dropping the boy and trying to pick him up again. There was no trick to it. He had simply just bent down and done it of his sheer willpower.
Naruto hoped that counted as training, because then that would have meant he had gotten at least a little stronger during that incredibly difficult excersize.
Dragging the boy up the stairs to his apartment proved more difficult, however. He had always complained about the steps being to steep to the Third Hokage before, and that he should probably get them turned into easier steps, but the old man wouldn't listen. He thought Naruto was just complaining too much.
Grunting and heaving, sweating and panting, and another solid ten minutes later, and Naruto was at the front of his apartment door. How the hell could this small child be so damn heavy? And, now that Naruto had properly thought about it, his weight seemed to be incredibly uneven.
'What, did he just carry weights around...?' Naruto grumbled and fumbled for his keys. This also proved to be difficult as he didn't have enough sense to put the boy down. Eventually grasping them, he unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside to reveal a mess.
Naruto blinked at all the empty ramen cups left scattered around the room and sheepishly grinned to himself. "Guess I should have cleaned up a bit..."
He set the boy down on the couch, leaving the bag on the ground next to him. Naruto felt a huge weight lift of his shoulders-quite literally, when he put down the boy. He straightened himself out and examined his apartment, feeling stupid as he just stood there.
It was only now when he realized that he had no idea how to take care of blood loss or the wound on the boy's head.
Naruto stared down on the boy miserably. "Great. Now what?" He pondered this thought back and forth for a while. It wasn't like he could go to the hospital. Could he? But...the hospital people might not even accept the child as a patient just because he was with Naruto...Naruto shook his head. 'No, no, no...' He knew that the villagers did hate him, enough to lead him into a ditch and leave him there, but that was pretty much the worst they did. Luckily, they didn't hit him or anything...Naruto tried to ignore the bitter thought in his mind that though they hadn't actually hit him, they have certainly tried to.
As for this child...Naruto inhaled sharply. The shop-keep from earlier actually hit him with a wooden pole. Why he hadn't done the same for Naruto, even though he clearly hated him enough to fake him being a thief...Naruto had no clue. All he knew was that he had gotten lucky. Really lucky.
After internally debating for a while, he finally made his final decision when he saw the size of the splotch of blood on the boy's head, and the boy's incredibly pale face. There was no way he was going to be able to carry him all the way to Konoha Hospital without the boy dying of blood loss halfway there. He was going to have to try to tend to it on his own.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Naruto quickly got to work, though he had no clue what he was doing. Most of it was just impulses, assumptions, and guesses. He didn't know much, but he was pretty sure that this was NOT how to take care of someone with an almost fatal injury like this.
He rushed through his apartment grabbing items as he slammed open every cabinet to grab things he thought he might need. 'Towels? Yup. Bandages? Yup. Pillows? Yes.' Naruto ran back and forth rapidly, eyeing the pale and clammy boy on his couch in the corner of his eye, making sure he was still breathing.
By some incredible, logic-defying miracle, the boy was still alive.
Naruto didn't have time to think much on it. It didn't matter anyway. As long as he was somehow able to stop the bleeding, then...
Then...
'Then what?' Naruto pulled all the items he had collected into his arms and lugged them over to where the boy lay on the couch, before inhaling deeply and deciding. "Well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."
Taking one more deep breath to steady himself, he knelt down with the bandages in his hand, and with determination shining in his eyes, he began to get to work.
Naruto collapsed onto his bed with an exasperated sigh. After shuffling around stupidly with the bandages, he finally figured out a way to wrap the bandages around the boy's head. When the blood stopped spotting up the bandage, he couldn't help but sigh with relief. He then spent a few more minutes trying to get the child comfortable, and now here he was, finally ready to get sleep.
He groaned into his pillow. He had never been so exhausted in his entire life. Falling into the ditch, sleeping in an uncomfortable ditch, carrying some heavy-ass child all the way to his apartment, then trying to take care of said child...
He made a mental note to tell Iruka-Sensei the next day. He would know what to do.
Then, turning over, he shut his eye and fell soundly asleep...
Naruto awoke to sounds of muffled shouting. He blinked tiredly and stared at the ceiling in a daze. 'How many times are noises going to wake me up? And what time is it?' A quick glance at the clock told him that he had only gotten about roughly five hours of sleep and that the sun was rising by now.
He sighed and got out of bed, carefully creeping through the hallway. The noises were coming from...the couch...?
Naruto blinked and stared at the golden haired boy, who was thrashing around in his sleep, while shouting underneath his blankets. "N-no! Please, stop! Don't take him! D-don't-!"
Naruto felt alarm rise within him as he realized that it was probably a smart course of action to wake the boy up. So, he knelt down and slightly nudged the boy, sadly producing no results.
"Hey," Naruto demanded gruffly, shoving the boy harder. "Come on, come on, wake up."
When the boy didn't respond, Naruto raised an eyebrow and examined the boy's pale face. His face was flushed and sweat beaded his eyebrows, his eyes squinted, almost as if he were in pain.
Naruto creased his brow a little worriedly and snatched the blanket, pulling it roughly off the boy. "Seriously, wake u-"
He was cut off by a scream of "NO!" and golden eyes snapping open, growing to the side of saucers, before rapidly looking around and finally settling on Naruto's blue eyes.
Naruto's breath stopped, especially considering that the boy now held him to the ground with his hand on his throat. "O-Oi..." Naruto croaked weakly.
The boy's fiery golden eyes stayed wide with fury and what looked a little like terror for a few seconds, before widening and slightly relaxing. "I-It's you..." The boy stuttered. He released his grip on Naruto's throat and stumbled off Naruto, who sat up and rubbed his throat.
"You've got a strong grip..." Naruto mumbled.
The boy stared into the distance for a moment before turning to Naruto, confusion evident on his face. "What?"
Naruto grinned to alleviate the child's befuddled state. "Ya know, I never really caught your name back in that big hole."
The boy blinked rapidly at Naruto, almost as if he could not comprehend the question.
Naruto felt like almost giving himself a pat on the back. For once, someone else was confused! And he was the one who had to explain things! "Your name," Naruto began slowly, trying to fight a grin making its way onto his face. "I would like to know what your name is."
He tried saying that last part real politely and polish-like to show how smart he was.
"...oh." The boy slumped, looking slightly lost and holding a haunted look in his eyes. Naruto felt a pang of guilt, his previous excitement quickly dying down.
The two boys just sat there for a couple of minutes before the golden eyed child took a deep breath and mumbled something that Naruto couldn't quite make out.
"What did you say?" Naruto blinked.
Golden eyes flashed with irritation, and the boy sighed. "Ed." He said firmly, though his voice wavered slightly. "Call me Ed."
Naruto's eyes flickered before a huge grin split his face in half. "Well, Ed, nice to meet ya! I'm Naruto Uzumaki! Welcome to Konoha!"
He had said the "Welcome to Konoha" part, thinking that the boy was not from the village and that it was not a big deal. However, what Naruto didn't know, was that he was very much right on the mark with his line of thoughts; minus the fact that it was not a big deal.
Of course, he wouldn't figure this out quite yet.