The Ghost Amongst the Leaves
Prologue
A gaze like hoarfrost scoured the darkened streets of Konoha. It raked across the cobbled road with its chilled sight, boring into the shadows that were cast from the crescent moon that hovered high above.
The eyes snapped from side to side, scouring the surroundings for any sign of movement.
A few moments passed, and yet they saw nothing.
A muffled sound of irritation pierced the silent air, and a boy of perhaps five or six ran a small hand through snowy, ashen hair.
Traipsing over the road and into the nearby park, the boy slumped himself into one of the park benches. He waited for a long while, feet swinging idly and eyes gazing up at the sparkling stars overhead.
I can't believe each one of those might be suns… they seem so small. The thought had him squinting, as if it would possibly help in making them appear any bigger.
He was perhaps halfway through identifying a constellation before a slow, sombre chill began to creep its way through the desolate park. It was barely noticeable at first, a steady decline in temperature that gradually grew more and more severe until his breath came out like a cloud of steam from his nostrils.
Pouting, the boy tore his gaze away from the stars to glare at the spot on the bench next to him. "You took your time."
He blinked.
…and as if his eyes had been bleached, the cold blue in his irises faded away. They shifted instead into a ghostly shade of white as the pupils shattered into a fragmented mess.
The pigments in the world around him drained away as if a portrait had been soaked, and the paint left to run.
What was once an empty space beside him was now occupied by a figure, a man, formed from some sort of energy that almost looked ethereal in nature. Faceless, featureless, the spectral entity turned to 'look' at him.
"Sorry." Came the hollow, bizarre voice. It was soft, and gentle, but somehow pitched… warped, even. "Not all have the rambunctiousness of youth to fuel them, little Naruto. We must appreciate the nice things in life before 'tis too late," the spectre rambled on genially.
Naruto rolled his eyes, "What do you mean 'in life?' You're already dead."
The figure started slightly, before rubbing his jaw with incorporeal fingers. "Am I? Oh, I didn't notice."
"You have all the time in the world, at least until the Shinigami comes for your head," the snowy-haired boy mused.
"Bah, I'll just sicc him on you instead."
The child shot the apparition a mild glare. "Just you wait until I find your grave and pee on it."
"Touch it, and I'll start playing with the light switches in your apartment just after you watch a scary movie."
A muffled snort escaped Naruto, despite himself. "You're so stupid."
"No you."
"-Anyway, I need your help with that stupid technique you forced on me," he muttered, only to face-palm as he found the spectre spaced out and tracing out shapes in the stars with a transparent finger. "On Kami's name I'm about to exorcise you, Ghost."
'Ghost' shrugged. "I get plenty of exercise, thank you very much."
The boy's eye twitched ever so slightly, before he stood and dusted off his pants. "Well, funnily enough, I haven't had mine." He began to stretch and roll his tiny shoulders, before turning to the still seated apparition expectantly.
The spectre snorted softly, before it vanished in a streak of blue energy to reappear beside Naruto, gazing up at the firmament lazily. "This breeze is nice, perhaps you could go for a run?" he supplied innocently. Naruto's brows narrowed dangerously, and the faceless entity raised a hand in mock surrender. "Mah… all this pent-up anger, you should really find yourself a girlie to work that out."
The five-year old frowned in confusion. What help would a girl be in this instance? Ignoring the inane suggestion, he jabbed a finger at the lazy spectre. "Can you just shut up and help me figure this jutsu out?" he asked, irritated as he held up a hand and began to focus. "It doesn't work properly!"
It took a while.
…
Maybe more than a while.
Nevertheless, eventually a ripple of white electricity shocked down his arm, streaming to his fingertips in waves of pure lightning based chakra. It was decidedly… unrefined.
White-hot sparks began to fly from his skin as if metal was being burnished against a grindstone. The streaks of electricity held form over his arm for perhaps a second, encasing the appendage completely in an almost divine, white glow, before it began to splutter and weaken like a dying light bulb.
The child struggled, his face scrunched up in a mixture of pain and concentration before a sigh escaped his lips as the electricity finally snuffed out with a loud sizzle. He was left with a smoking arm and the quaint smell of burnt ozone wafting through the air.
The pain was immense, but he was familiar with the unpleasant sensation by now. It was like an old stain that never went away.
Naruto suppressed the urge to grimace as he held up his slightly charred arm towards the ghost and shook it as if to say, 'look at this'.
Only to curl a lip back in confusion at the sight that met him.
The entity was looking at him, making various, exaggerated gestures with his hands and arms not unlike one of the mimes he had heard performed to crowds in the capital city. Naruto swore he saw a middle finger stuck up in between the motions somewhere.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The gestures stopped, before the spectre cocked its head. "You asked me to help, but told me to shut up… how else am I gonna communicate to you?" he asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"…"
"…"
"Why are you like this?"
"Superior breeding, I presume."
"Didn't stop you from dying."
"…Wow."
The office was dim, lit by a single candle that sat oozing wax upon a small dish resting on the large oaken desk. Behind it, by the large window that granted a beautiful view of Konoha, stood a figure garbed in the traditional dress of the Hokage.
In his hands, he clutched two things. One was his pipe, which had seemingly been put out judging by the dying embers. The other was an orb, made from crystal.
The orb was frozen over.
A thin sheet of sleet and frost coated the outside of it as if it had been retrieved from the heart of a glacier. The old man merely stood, glaring into the obscured, frozen depths with eyes narrowed and hardened. It was a stark contrast from his normally grandfatherly expression.
The air in the room seemed to shift minutely and the Kage turned his head, acknowledging the ANBU operative that had appeared in the room in a kneeling position, head bowed. With a click of his tongue he indicated for the man to rise, and the shinobi obeyed.
The man stood, revealing a toned figure clad in grey armour and high-grade shinobi gear, face obscured by a white mask painted in the likeness of a dog.
"Report," the old Kage commanded quietly.
"The subject wandered District '7' for several hours with no seeming priority that could be discerned." The ANBU waited, expecting a question, but the elderly Kage merely made a gesture to continue. "Weasel and I followed from a moderate distance, he didn't notice our presence."
"I would have been worried if one of my top ANBU had been discovered by a mere child twice in a row," the old man commented. A smirk crept across his lips as the elite shinobi before him had the grace to look away, abashed. "Continue."
Returning his gaze, the ANBU nodded. "He entered the Senju national park, managing to bypass the Jōnin guard that patrolled its walls."
The Hokage frowned. "How?"
"He knew their routines, Hokage-sama."
There was a pause, before the leader of the leaf turned to face his operative fully. "Repeat your last," he said, his bushy brows furrowing darkly.
The dog mask was unwavering. "He knew when to move, what the jōnin guard did, and when they did it." The ANBU pursed his lips behind his mask, and somehow the Hokage noticed it, urging him on. "I… he seemed almost to be conversing with someone, or something. But we searched the area several times."
"And?"
"Nothing, sir. He was alone."
The Hokage pursed his lips, before reaching down and placing the frosted orb on the table, shaking his frigid fingers subconsciously. His gaze rose back to his agent, and his eyes flicked meaningfully at the blank patch of ceramic where the other eye slot should have been on the ANBU's mask.
The ANBU shook his head, understanding the unspoken question. "There was no one there."
The old man hummed thoughtfully, before pulling out his chair and taking a seat, lacing his fingers as he stared at the wood grain of his table in thought. "Very well, inform Weasel that she is to take over from here. Dismissed."
There was a pause, and the shinobi before him shifted uneasily. "Forgive me, Hokage-sama, however he is making progress."
A bushy grey brow rose in curiosity. "How long did he hold it for this time?"
"A handful of seconds…"
The Hokage nodded, before grunting. "This may be troubling for you, however I will ask that you keep noting his progression with the white lightning, Kakashi."
The ANBU saluted stoically, before vanishing in a near-perfect body flicker.
The Hokage sat for a few moments, his thoughts stewing in his mind before something before him caught his attention. Turning his gaze to the crystal ball that sat lifeless on his table, he saw the frost begin to thaw.
The elderly shinobi watched as the milkiness in the orb faded, and glass crystallised to reveal the target that had once eluded its ancient sight. An image appeared in the orb, showing a young boy with ashen hair and cold blue eyes. His clothes were tattered and ruined, his form battered and bruised.
However, the expression on the child's face was one of satisfaction as he raised his left arm and tensed rigidly.
A cascading shockwave of rippling, pure white lightning based chakra flooded through the appendage. It lit up the entire limb in an incredible glow for perhaps three or four seconds, sending sparks and embers flying that singed the boy's clothes and skin before it sputtered out pitifully.
Naruto's arm was smoking, hideously charred.
Once upon a time the elderly Kage would have been up on his feet in a heartbeat, mind whirring with the implications of the imperfect recreation of one of the most notorious techniques in the known world.
However, he had seen this many times.
Naruto had been at this for the past few months now, and somehow, managed to avoid every single eye in the village whilst at it.
It took a very, very powerful presence to exert its will over the ancient artefact on the table before him. Someone like himself… an S-ranked monster of the shinobi world.
Someone was training the boy, teaching him techniques that had been lost with the deaths of their progenitors.
Who? He did not know.
Where? He did not know.
How? He did not know.
The old shinobi raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and within an instant, one of the ANBU that had been hidden in the shadows was kneeling before him. "Summon Grandmaster Jaguar 2-1. Inform him that his retirement has been revoked, Konoha has need of his services once again."
The messenger stiffened in what seemed to be shock, before saluting crisply and vanishing with a body flicker.
The old Kage grunted as he stood, pushing away from his desk to stare out the window once more, glaring out over his village, seemingly searching for something.
It didn't take long to find what he was looking for, and his eyes narrowed as he watched a small figure suddenly climb their way up to one of the nearby roofs. Hiruzen watched as the individual sat, legs dangling over the edge of the building as his head tilted up to gaze at the sky, content to wait out the night.
Just like every night for the past year.
Someone had dug his or her claws into Konoha's Jinchuuriki, and for all of Sarutobi Hiruzen's efforts towards finding out whom, he might as well have been chasing a ghost.
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of a world between worlds… a spectral figure sneezed.