Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
"Talking"
Thoughts-Flashback-
-----------Change of scene
Chapter Nine: Beloved Tenchi-San...The sky had an icy look to it that day augmented by the moon and clouds, it was just that kind of night. The lights were still on in dorm room number eleven even at twelve o'clock.
Sasuke couldn't help but look at Naruto as the boy hunched himself over scrolls he had to study. He wore a thin cotton shirt that was nearly worn to transparency, gray pants worn thin at the knees and looked ready to rip and the bottom backs were frayed from use. Naruto's shoulder blades poked painfully from the shirt, the thinness outlining his body. Sasuke knew malnutrition when he saw it.
Naruto was more then aware of Sasuke's searching stare. He gritted his teeth together and ignored Sasuke. He knew the way it was when people saw him in his poor mans clothes, it was as if they knew that he wasn't quite like them. It was as if they knew about his past, his damn past! He wished that he could erase it, but thinking about it better what kind of person would he have then become?
After a moment Naruto immersed himself in the scrolls but even then after a while he wasn't seeing them anymore....
-Flashback-
It had been days since he had eaten, he had been lucky to find a running stream to drink from. But things had gone from bad to worse since he had eaten a poisoned plant. He had lost all of his breakfast and an attempted lunch. Then he had simply quit eating, he was not one to enjoy vomiting.
So when he saw the tiny little village in Nami No Kuni (Land of the Waves) he was overjoyed. However as soon as he entered the village he frowned as he saw the people here weren't better off then him. Buying something was out of the question, he had no money to speak off. The only logical course would be to steal. He hated the very idea of it, but when you have to survive you suddenly find that were things use to be black and white are now a varying degrees of gray.
He was no better dressed then the rest of the people he noticed, so blending in would be no problem. He hid supplies expertly, years of theft, mostly on the parts of others, had taught him the perfect places for 'storage.'
He went into town again, just another homeless eleven-year-old kid. He wondered the streets never turning his head to glance at anything, his head always straight ahead. His peripheral vision however caught every detail that he needed.
As he started his plan he felt the adrenalin pump through his body. A guilty stole over him that it did, he didn't want to feel like a thief, but he was grateful for the strength it leant him. As always a steely calm stole over him, better alive and guilty then dead with a clean a clean conscience.
A girl was selling a meager amount of food and already half of it looked spoiled. His eyes scanned it all with a passing glance, he knew what to take. The girl looked about his age, long black hair and amazing big brown eyes the color of honey. She looked up to him, he almost lost his composure as he saw those half dead eyes. His plan went out the window then.
"Hi," he said sounding shy. The girl said nothing as she once again cast down her eyes. "Oh. O.k. then." Even then the girl said nothing.
"How much do they cost?" he tried again. She only waved her hand to the side in an obvious direction. She had waved to the sign that clearly said the price. That had been a foolish mistake on his part, that he understood. He dug in his pockets and took something out. At the motion he felt her tense and her eyes narrowed down on his hands.
So she wasn't naïve after all, she was still half alive.
"How much can I get for this?" It was no more then a trinket, worthless. A worthless chunk of wood in fact.
The circle it made was nearly perfect, it was a good inch and a half across and half a centimeter thick. The edges and center were worn smooth thought some parts of it remained rough, it had a circle carved into it almost touching the edges, and at the top there was neatly placed hole on it, but what drew the girls attention was what was carved lovingly in the center, it was the kanji for dream.
Her eyes came alive suddenly, she reached her hand out and then immediately pulled it back. But her eyes held a longing for it that made her heart ache.
"It is too precious in such a land as this," she said once again letting her eyes drop. "It has been for a long time, since Gato came."
"Never mind. Just take it," he said and let the wooden medallion drop on the table. He turned around and suddenly feeling feint and without energy, he staggered a bit. The adrenalin was gone and all he had to go on how was his will.
"Wait!" the girl said. He turned around slowly his eyes half closed in suspicion. She held up a bag, nearly bursting with the choosiest of food. He smiled and took it, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. When he pulled back he saw a light pretty pink blush on he cheeks. "Go before my father notices that some of his merchandise are gone."
Her honey brown eyes met his own sapphire blue ones.
Unfortunately the warning had come too late for the boy.
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They had ignored the girl's screams to leave the boy alone and her explanations that he had not stolen the food, but they ignore her pointedly. The crowd was bloodthirsty, and it wished to put all its misery on the homeless boy, something tangible, something they could hurt. This was a mobs mentality. The girl had become listless as crowds swept past her and her eyes were once more half dead.
They would see to it that the thief was whipped.
The first blow did not pierce the skin but the second one would. Some people watched with crazed amusement but few with disgust on their faces, fear made them stay put and watch on in horror unable to anything. His blood stained his white shirt red. He knew as surely as the sun shone that if this did not stop soon that he would die. He cried bitter tears, it wasn't because of the pain, he had long ago blocked that out. It was because of the humiliation, being flogged in public, clutching a dammed bag! After all he had been through, to die at the hand of a mob was a humiliation that he couldn't stand! Not even being able to defend himself!
He felt the anger rising, eating his insides away.
Something spoke to him, quite literally, then and the anger disappeared in his surprise. The whispers died away suddenly.
In his surprise over the whispering he hadn't noticed the man that had been flogging him fall down besides him, dead with a shuriken neatly in his throat. He jumped up letting the bag go. The crowd immediately dispersed with screams and shouts.
"Shinobi! A Shinobi!" they screamed and shouted incoherently. The boy looked around everywhere in a panic among the chaos, he spotted the girl and was gone just as suddenly as he had spotted her. Probably grabbed by someone to safety. What the boy saw now however made him shudder slightly. In the very exact same spot that she had been there was now a man.
He had raven black hair some of it falling on his forehead, he had dark black blue clothes and a cloak that partly hid his face, and on his forehead he wore the hitai-ate leaf headband of Konohagakure with a deep gash running horizontally across it. But the boy only saw his eyes, eyes that burned like hellfire, eyes red as blood eyes decorated with signs.
The man extended his hand toward the boy. The boy took one step at a time ignoring the splitting pain on his back and somehow miraculously avoiding the running crowd. By the time he got to him the place was deserted. This man has saved him, this man....
"Tenchi..." was the first word that passed the boys lips. The man smiled at that. He liked that. Angel....
-End Flashback-
Naruto rolled up the scrolls carefully. What was the use of studying if he couldn't focus? A waste of time that's what. That night he dreamt of those hellfire filled eyes.
End Chapter NineNext Chapter: Another outsider?!!!!!!!!!! (this one is my own characters (OO)
Chapter Nine is done. Now there is now doubt now who Tenchi is. This is the year that Gato took over the Land of Waves for a while, a year before the whole Zabuza and Haku thing just in case you are wondering, if you are indeed reading. So please review!!!