Chapter 7: Hiro's Run Away!

By DemonClowSorceress and Red

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto. I also do now own the characters that appear in this story.

The sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy of trees, dappling on the ground in pretty patterns of light and shadow. The forest began to wake up with the sun, with birds chirping senseless melodies that only they know, fluttering from branch to branch in happiness and cheer -

One bird cheeped sharply, the general bird-call for WTF is this?! It had landed on a quivering furball nestled in the crook between a large branch and the tree trunk. Other birds began to gather, chirping inquisitively, their little bird-brains failing to comprehend this new addition to the forest that was their home.

Then a slightly smarter owl, tired from a night's hunting, glided into his hole, which was coincidentally right above the furball. Settling in, the great winged hunter only said one thing to the furball. "Whoooo?"

The little ball of fur gave a sob. "Hiro...........Uzuha Hiro........." Another sob, and he shuddered. "Or.......Hiro-chan.........used to be......"

********

Back in Konoha......

Kakashi returned to the house in the early hours to find Naruto and Sasuke sitting on their couch, just as he'd left them ten hours before. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "Please tell me you two got some sleep since I left."

"How can we sleep when Hiro-chan's disappeared off the face of the earth!?" yelled Naruto, bursting into tears.

Sasuke wrapped his arms around the blond, letting Naruto bury his face in fabric and bawl his eyes out. "Is there any news at all?" he asked Kakashi, voice barely level. "A trail, a sighting, anything."

"The Inuzuka pack's on the scent trail, but it went cold in the forest by midnight. Someone thinks he saw an overlarge squirrel in the trees around two in the morning, but he couldn't be sure. Hiro's left no trail to speak of, deliberate or accidental." Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck again. "I hate to say this, but your little squirrel has gone groundhog. We've got nothing."

"Then go back out and find something!"

With one motion Naruto shoved Sasuke away and lunged at Kakashi. Grabbing his sensei's shirt in balled fists, the blond fox got right in his face and yelled, "Find him! Do you hear me?! Go out and DO NOT COME BACK UNLESS YOU FOUND HIRO-CHAN!" Shoving him backwards, Naruto raced off to the back bedroom crying, which abruptly cut off when he slammed the door.

Sasuke and Kakashi were quiet for a while, listening to the muffled sobs coming through the walls. Kakashi could tell that Sasuke likewise wanted to cry, but years of repressing his true emotions gave the Uchiha survivor a mask of indifference and a bottomless pit in which to drown his sorrow. Which made it very difficult for him to deal with other people's emotional outbursts.

Unfortunately, this made up the majority of issues that came with dating Naruto.

Kakashi gave the Uchiha boy his full attention. "We're widening the search radius, scouring the nearby forests. It doesn't help that he's never been out of Konoha since coming here; it means he could be lost. But don't worry," he added hurriedly, "we'll look in every tree, hole, and cave. We'll find Hiro, I promise." Kakashi had never met the small child, but he felt a paternal responsibility to find the adopted son of his former team. "Don't worry," he repeated lamely. "We'll find him."

Sasuke nodded, his black eyes blank. Without another word the two walked away from each other, Kakashi out the door, Sasuke towards the back bedroom to comfort his lover.

********

Hiro stumbled through the forest, not paying attention to where he stepped. The birds chirped above his head like feathery orbs, trying to get this strange being's attention and warn him of the upcoming dangers. But Hiro was deaf to the world.

His fathers had never yelled at him before. Not that he'd never seen them angry; oh no, he still clearly remembered when Ita-nii-chan and Shark-baka came to Konohagakure, how Papa and Tou-chan had gotten so mad that they had changed shapes. Papa had become a real, shimmery red fox, while Tou-chan looked like a demonic hawk-man. And they'd had such angry faces on, almost snarls, as they attacked the Shark-baka.....

But they'd never, never raised their voices at Hiro. They'd never been angry directly at Hiro before. And his flight response, suppressed by his human-like curiosity, had bounced and pounced on him so quickly he never questioned why his feet moved so fast.

He'd ran and ran and ran some more, until the moon began to set and the sky became a lighter blue-black on the horizon behind him. He'd kept on running until he couldn't run no more, then raced up a tree and fell asleep faster than a pin dropping. And now Hiro was undeniably, unmistakably, unbelievably lost.

But he wasn't helpless. He still had his school satchel, hanging from his shoulder in all the commotion, filled with mostly his weapons - he had unpacked his books before entering the kitchen, meaning to ask Tou-chan to train with him after dinner. Hiro had six kunai, a full two thigh pouches of shuriken, and a couple exploding tags just in case Tou-chan let him train with them. There was also an apple, leftover from his lunch. Hiro took it out now and started munching, trying to come up with a plan as his feet guided him out of the forest and into a clearing.

He'd barely taken six steps before hearing a loud "Help!" that echoed over and over, as if it came from the bottom of a well. "Help......help.....help....."

Hiro looked around, trying to find out the origin of the shout. "Hello?"

"Over here!........here.......here....." came the voice. "In the log!......the log.........the log......Help!......help......help......"

The log was about five feet away from Hiro, a thick-looking thing that was actually hollow from rot. From one end came the echoing voice. The other end held its owner, whose chubby little legs were flailing like an upside-down crab's. "Lemme out!......out......out!" begged the stuck person, who, Hiro realized, was very small. "I'm stuck!......stuck.....stuck......"

And even though Hiro was miserable, he knew being stuck head-first in a rotten old log was even worse than getting yelled at. In the forest, you could get eaten for being stuck in that kind of comprimising position. So he applied his upper body strength, grabbed the person's ankles, and pulled until the trapped individual came flying out with a loud POP! Hiro fell flat on his back while the other person bounced another foot before landing on his stomach.

"Yes! You saved me! Oh, thank you so much!" cried the person, jumping to his feet. "Let me reward you for your kind efforts!"

But Hiro only stared in shock. The person he had just rescued was a child, looking no older than him, and about three inches shorter, but slightly chubbier. Like Hiro, this boy also wore an outfit comprised primarily of fur; in this case, however, the other child was wearing the apparel of a tanuki. He had curly black hair under his light brown cowl, and golden irises that glittered mischeviously as he rummaged through a small pouch in the fur of his stomach.

"Here, good friend," said the tanuki-boy, stuffing a handful of crinkly leaves in Hiro's hand. "Payment for your troubles."

Now Hiro knew he was somewhat new to the ways of humans, but this wasn't beyond his scope of understanding. "They are leaves."

"No they aren't," replied the tanuki nervously, glancing around for a way out. His ringed tail wagged. "That's real money, little boy. Take it from me, I know - "

"And I know you're no older than me," replied Hiro. "You're a fur-child. Like me. You look older than you really are. Year and a half old, right?"

The tanuki-boy's golden eyes widened. "How did you know?" he asked, tone changing to that of a real child's. "How did you.....Wait." Leaning forward slightly, he sniffed the air between them. "You smell more like a squirrel than a human. And that fur......isn't from a dead one."

"I was found in a squirrel's fur that fit my body like a glove," Hiro said.

"And when you say a word, you summon something from nowhere?" the other boy cut in quickly.

Hiro nodded. "Yes! When I say 'Chi' - " And his hand reached up to catch the acorn that popped into existance. "See?"

"I can do that too!" said the tanuki-boy. "Stand behind me." Hiro moved quickly as the boy waved a hand. "Behold, the power of the - shiny!"

At the word shiny, a three-foot-tall stone prayer statue dropped from ten feet in the air to hit the ground, making everything jump a couple inches from the shockwave. Hiro's mouth dropped open as the tanuki laughed, jumping the four feet seperating him from the top and sitting cross-legged on the statue's head. Swaying back and forth with perfect balance, he crossed his arms and grinned hugely at the shell-shocked Hiro. "I'm Tomoya," he said. "I'm the 'forest spirit' of these parts." He used air quotes around forest spirit. "I'm from the Tanuki clan, as you can obviously tell. So, what's a Squirrel clan member doing around these parts."

"I'm Hiro. Uzuha Hiro." Hiro came over and stood on his tiptoes, extending his hand up to Tomoya. "I was wondering if you knew the way back to Konohagakure from here. I've been running all night and I'm kinda lost."

Tomoya snapped his fingers, making the stone statue disappear in a puff of smoke. "Don't worry Hiro! I know this country like the back of my hand!" he said, draping an arm around Hiro's shoulders. "Stick with me. I'll have you back before nightfall. And that's a promise!"

The Next Day........

"I thought you said you could get me home before nightfall," said Hiro, following his 'guide' through a marshy spot. He winced as he felt mud sucking at his ankles. "This doesn't look like what I came through last night..."

"Trust me, we're close to civilization," Tomoya assured him, throwing a smile over his shoulder. "Don't worry. Just a little farther, and then - " He looked back in front of him, nose quivering. "Yes! Tsukasa! C'mon Hiro!"

Hiro ran after Tomoya up the marshy hill, hoping that they would be out of the muggy, slimy, watery grounds and find a village where Hiro could take a bath and get cleaned up before seeing Papa and Tou -

But when they topped the hill, Hiro only saw more mists covering more marshes. Tomoya kept running towards two figures that came from that mist. Hiro stumbled down the hill after his friend, trying to make out the two newcomers. About his height, they didn't look very strange; at least, they weren't wearing fur like he and Tomoya. Both were young boys, one blond and one with messy dark hair. The blond looked like he was wearing something long and white, while the dark-haired one had black clothes. The mist obscured the details, so Hiro just pressed on until he caught up with Tomoya.

"Tomoya, what are you doing here?" asked the blond boy. Up close, he was a pale kid, almost sickly, to Hiro's mindset, and he had dark brown eyes like chocolate. His clothing was actually a long white cloak that covered his entire body from the neck down. Hiro was more interested in the white feathery things peeking out from under the boy's baby-duckfluff blond hair around where a human's ears were. Are those - wings?

"Don't tell me you got lost again," sighed the dark-haired boy, crossing his arms over his chest. He was obviously the more aggressive of the two newcomers. He was clothed in black; black sleeveless top, black knee shorts, black bands around his wrists, and a black leather cloak around his shoulders that fell to his elbows. His black hair, Hiro noted, had streaks of dark blood-red in it. Those ice-blue eyes didn't look very friendly either. "Geez Tomoya, stop coming around here every time you - "

Then Tsukasa saw Hiro coming up behind Tomoya. "And who's this?" he asked leaning forward. "A new friend, Tomoya?"

"I'm Uzuha Hiro from Konohagakure." Hiro held out his hand, which Tsukasa shook. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Tsukasa," said the duck-fluff-haired boy. "And this is my best friend, Kaname." He pointed to the red-streak-haired boy.*

"Konoha, did you say?" Kaname glanced sideways at Tomoya, who was trying very hard not to be noticed. "Oy, stupid tanuki. You got lost again, didn't you?"

Tomoya squirmed as Hiro fixed him with a glare. "Me? Lost? Oh no, of course not! I just.....took a little detour....."

"You got lost, Tanuki-chan?" asked Hiro, lasping to kiddie talk again. "So, where are we?"

"This isn't Konoha," said Tsukasa to Hiro apologetically as Kaname bopped the tanuki boy on the head and proceeded to beat him up. "Tomoya is.......directionally challenged, shall we say. You're in River Country now; to get back to Konohagakure will mean re-crossing the border and heading east, towards the rising sun." He started to point the direction, but stopped. "Oh dang, I forgot. Mist, especially the misty marshes in the morning, make gauging locations hard. Kaname, could you lose the attitude and get some altitude?"

Kaname kicked Tomoya one last time, leaving the latter a smoking lumpy corpse on the ground. "Say what now?" he drawled, ambling over to Tsukasa's side. "What am I, your little errand boy? Why should we help this kid?"

"Because Tomoya is our friend and got Hiro lost in the first place," reasoned the blond boy. "It's the least we can do."

"Geez Tsukasa, you're such a bleeding heart. Remind me why - " He was cut off by Tsukasa's slap to the back of his head. "OW! I was just saying - " This time the hand became a fist and clonked his head. "OUCH! Jeez!"

"You'd think you'd learn to shut up after the first whack," remarked Hiro.

The black-haired boy sighed sharply and rolled his shoulders and neck, backing up slightly. "Fine, fine, fine. I'll take a look-see." He inhaled, then dropped to a crouch, balancing on his tiptoes, knees bent like a frog's. His arms went straight out like boards at his sides. "Making me do this in front of a complete stranger, jeez Tsukasa....."

Tsukasa nudged Hiro's ribs. "He's just faking it. He loves to show off. Watch, Hiro."

So Hiro watched. And nearly dislocated his jaw as it dropped. Kaname sprang from his crouch five feet straight up into the air, and his shoulder cape unfurlled to become two black, batlike wings that caught air and propelled him higher. So shocked was he that his mouth unconsciously spit out what his brain was thinking: "Akki-chan!"**

Kaname glided above them for a few minutes, which allowed Tomoya to recover and limp back to Tsukasa. "I'm sorry," he said to Hiro, sounding like he meant every word. "I really am. My sense of direction is......well, just be lucky we ran into these two and not those tall-humans."

The familiar term jolted Hiro's memory. "Tall-humans?"

"Normal humans," supplied Tsukasa. "Not like us." He looked at Hiro curiously. "You do know what you are, right?"

"I know I'm a squirrel-boy. And Tomoya is a tanuki-boy, right?" Tomoya nodded. "And you're a....."

The white feathers caught sunlight as Tsukasa revealed his dove-sized white wings, placed exactly where human ears would be. "Bird," he said. "And Kaname up there, he's a bat."

More children like me? Hiro had always believed himself to be unique, special. Alone in the world of normal humans who couldn't summon items by saying a word. But these three boys.....they were the same as him.

"What did you mean by 'just be lucky'?"

Tsukasa and Tomoya almost answered, but Kaname dropped down like a graceful dancer, his wings folding to resemble his shoulder-covering cape again. "Konoha's in that direction," he said, pointing left of the way Hiro and Tomoya had come. "But I saw smoke and fire up there. A village is under attack somewhere. You can't go that way again. We'll have to go around."

"We?" repeated Tsukasa, catching the group pronoun. "As in, you and I are going with them?"

"You keep moaning about leaving. We don't have a home here anyway." Already Kaname was taking point. "Besides, the stupid tanuki can't take him. The kid'll never find his way home." He looked back at the three boys who stared at him with varying levels of surprise. "What?! Come on already, I ain't got all day!"

Tsukasa laughed, smiling at Hiro. "I guess we're going with you, Hiro. Please take care of us all."

Hiro nodded, a big smile on his face. "Okay, Tenshi-chan!"*** When the other boy looked momentarily confused, he continued, "Well, he's Akki-chan, so you're Tenshi-chan!"

The blond blinked, and Hiro mentally hit himself. Of course he had spoken without thinking; he'd given such nicknames to his nii-chans and nee-chans, but Tsukasa and the others were strangers. He had no right to think they'd like the names he'd come up with for them. True, he had the mentality of a two-year-old, but it was no excuse; he'd always been mature for his age. Hiro bit his lip, unable to take it back.

But Tsukasa smiled again. "That's nice, to be called Tenshi-chan," he said. "It's different and cute."

Kaname's voice broke up the moment. "Hurry up Tsukasa, Hiro! We're gonna leave you behind!" Tomoya, shouting somewhat the same words, waved his arms wildly to get their attention. Laughing, Hiro and Tsukasa quickened their pace to catch up.

********

Back in Konoha......

Naruto sat huddled at the top of the Hokage monument, arms wrapped around his legs, knees right under his chin. Dried tears tracks made it hurt when he blinked, but he was past caring about anything right now.

He felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. "You've been up here the entire time?" asked Sasuke.

"No, I'm just admiring the view and trying to levitate," replied Naruto flatly. "Did they get any word back?"

The hand tightened a tad. "No. They're still combing the area, but Konoha's a big country. He could be anywhere." Sasuke plopped down next to Naruto, providing a comforting warmth along the side of the blond's body. "You know Hiro's resourceful. He had his school bag with him, with his weapons. He can fend for himself, you know that."

His eyes began to burn, but Naruto had long run out of tears. So he just blinked furiously. "Hiro-chan....."

Sasuke wrapped an arm around him, and together the two boys prayed to whatever gods could hear them to protect their adventurous, hyper little squirrel.

AWWWW! Poor Naruto!!

Red: :'(

Stick around for more!

A.N.

* - The characters are a direct reference to Juvenile Orion's Tsukasa and Kaname. Refer to disclaimer.

** - Akki means demon. Obvious name, given Kaname.

*** - Tenshi means angel.