Okay my loves- not sure if any of you has noticed but one of our own authors has been MIA for the past four months. I know this for a fact because Cha's Aegis usually helps me with my stories by helping me plan out my chapters and correcting my spelling.
I'm not sure if any of you really realize this but she's the reason a majority of the stories I have written in the past seven years have improved so greatly that I rarely need to check my spelling anymore.
Anyways, she's gone missing and hasn't checked in with me like she normally does.
I don't know if there's anyone on this site who knows her personally outside of Fanfic. but if there is anyone out there who knows what's happened to her- could you please contact me and let me know.
I can only send weird PM's to someone who isn't there for so long before things begin to look...well, creepy.
I just need to know if she's okay.
Thanks.
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"Well that was..." Asuma looked in the direction of the man and frowned a bit as Kurenai supplied the word that he had been looking for.
"Odd."
The jounin nodded his head slowly as he first cast a glance in Kurenai's direction and then looked over at Naru who was happily sipping her tea seeing as she had somehow just managed to finish off her food while he and the woman next to him had both been distracted.
Blinking at the little girl's suddenly empty and neatly piled off to the side, dishes, Asume frowned at the girl before asking, "Just what has my dad been teaching you huh kid?" The only person he knew of that ate that fast in public was Kakashi. And since the Copy nin wasn't anywhere nearby at present, he could only hazard a guess as to what Naru's table manners were like.
Though from the looks of her dishes, her manners were far from stellar.
Naru set her tea aside as the guy that had brought them all their food came running out of the back with a medium sized platter of sweet red bean paste filled buns with a side of cookies and a glass of milk that he set down in front of Naru before he hurriedly turned and rushed back to where he had been.
Earning another look from Naru as she considered her reply to Asuma's question when the man finally said. "That guys behavior is peculiar. Almost as if he's scared of you or something." He gave her a somewhat calculating look. As if he was attempting to see what was so damn scary about her.
Naru said nothing. To be perfectly honest she'd be impressed with her 'uncle' Asuma if he somehow managed to connect the dots this early in the game.
Which is why she merely munched her food and waited until he finally said, "You come here pretty regularly, don't you?" At which point Naru set her sweet bun down and looked at him and nodded her head to confirm his suspicions. "I see. And the reason he's acting like he is- would be because..." Asuma didn't bother to finish his sentence. He wanted to hear the reason for himself.
Naru sighed and pushed her plate away a little bit, just enough so that she could rest her arms on the table as she spoke. "I think for you to understand the reason for his behavior then I should start by explaining a few things that grampa wished to keep hidden from others for a little bit longer. For starters, I don't remember anything beyond what's happened since being brought to the village by grandpa. But unlike what he had told you before, the time frame is all wrong. He knew where I was from the very beginning was trying to hide me for my own safety. I'm sure that you've noticed by now that I have some peculiar habits."
It wasn't a question. So both jounin merely nodded their heads silently and waited for her to continue.
"I grew up alone from infancy. I lived for a majority of my life by feeding off of the huge reserves of chakra I have stored within me. It didn't keep me from being hungry all the time, but it kept my body from dying and wasting away to nothing. It also maintained me during growth spurts and so on. Once I was old enough to begin crawling I started to hunt the local wild life. Small game such as birds and rabbits, snakes and fish were all fair game to me. Gradually things got to the point where I no longer had to rely on my chakra to maintain my life. However there were a few drawbacks to this as well as not having any contact from others for so long."
"When grandpa finally showed up to bring me back to the village I was a little bit...feral. I had lived alone for so long that I had become suspicious of anything I didn't know of. People in general, of course was one of those things. So naturally the first time I met grampa- I sort of tried to take his head off."
Asuma and Kurenai were both gaping at the child a bit by now. Not just for her admittance that she had attacked their Hokage, but for the other details too. Being alone, the starvation, the chakra reserves- good god- those alone must be staggering for them to be used in such a manner as to maintain one's health and wellbeing in a physical sense.
"Anyways, I kind of injured him pretty badly but once I settled down enough to think logically I realized that we had similarities that simply couldn't be ignored. So I used some of my chakra to heal what I could and we both came here. However I was not meant to be a part of the village until I gained better control over the instincts that I have lived with for my entire life."
At this point neither shinobi really knew what to say. So they stayed quiet so that they could allow the girl to finish.
"Granpa was sort of happy that I hadn't kicked up a fuss when he brought me back to the village so after a few weeks of adapting, he felt it would be alright to take me out someplace to celebrate. Looking back on it now though, that was kinda a mistake that he never should have made. No matter how civil I may come across as, I am still for the most part, feral. I've merely learned to tone some of that wildness down so that I do not bring unwelcome attention to myself."
"Which brings me to another of the things that grampa wished to hide from everyone," Reaching up she hooked a finger in one of her cheeks and drew it back a bit. Just enough to show off her little pearly white fangs. Holy shit- Asuma and Kurenai thought together as they noted the length and sharpness of her little fangs. Normal children didn't have teeth like that! "To begin with, I have fangs. Sharp ones that I've used often to attack and defend myself from large predators while growing up. The same goes for my finger nails. No matter how short I trim them, they are sharp enough to shred tissue all the way to the bone with the slightest of pressure. So naturally I have to be wary of what I use them on. But some habits are simply much more difficult to break than others."
"Anyways, grampa brought me here to eat after spending several weeks letting me adapt to the village. However the only person that I had ever interacted with was the old man. So naturally things didn't go well. The guy that's been bending over backwards to serve us- he's the owner of this place and for some reason I don't really get, he hated me the second that grampa and I stepped foot in here. And as such he was rude. Outright cruel even."
"Going so far as to tell the Hokage that he would not serve me and we should leave. So naturally I became upset and decided to get even. The next day when he came in to work, he found the pipes busted, the floors flooded and rats all over the place. I'd spent hours catching the little buggers just to place them inside of the pipes... So after we had a little chat about how he would lose his livelihood if he was ever so rude again, I collected my fuzzy friends and left. And as you can see my warning to him still stands. That's why the service now is much more polite." Naru said with a smile as she picked up her sweet bun again and began to eat once more as Asuma said with a little bit of uncertainty.
"So...you basically bullied him until he caved to your wishes."
Naru had her mouth stuffed full at the moment and could only nod her head 'yes' as the man groaned and then face palmed. Oh god, what had he set himself up for? He wondered as Kurenai began to wonder if she shouldn't just leave and let the two have some time to themselves.
