Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto series. So please, don't sue me.
Author's Note at the bottom of the chapter.
Ninko, Chapter 2: Of Bewitching Red Eyes
"We are here today, to remember. To remember the sacrifices made in the name of Konohagakure no sato that brought this village to where it is today. Konoha has a legacy of strong warriors, that much is certain. From it's birth, the Shodaime Hokage, Senju Hashirama ensured that Konoha would have the foundation necessary to ensure it's growth. Yet this village does not live on merely through it's talent."
'Why...?'
"Through vicious war, Konoha has persisted. Even with enemies trodding upon the land of Hi no Kuni, we endure. Against insurmountable odds, the Shinobi of Konohagkure fight on, and we all pay the price. Mothers and fathers outlive their sons and daughters. Friends, neighbors, and lovers, we have all lost someone dear to us. And yet, still, we endure."
'Why is that, even now, when we stand together..united....'
"We all know what gives Konohagakure no sato it's strength. It is not measured in bloodlines or jutsu. It does not come from strength of arms or the enfeebling of our foes. No, it comes from within each of us. Like a flame, Konohagakure no sato dances amongst the forest. Like a flame, it is beset by unyielding forces that work towards it's destruction. Yet Konoha will not submit. Each of us is willing to do what must be done. Not for national fealty, or even respect for those who sacrificed themselves in the past. We are all willing to do what must be done, for we are all connected. We all have those who are precious to us, those we would give our all to protect. And it is this that binds Konohagakure no sato together. The will to fight when we must, and the will to die when we must. The Will of Fire."
'Why is it that even now, these words sound like lies to my ears?'
"We are here today, to remember those who served Konohagakure no sato to their final breath. We are hear today to mourn their passing, and to celebrate what their sacrifice has given us. We are here to remember, so that we shall never forget."
'Hashirama-sensei, Tobirama-sensei, what happened to the Konoha I remember?'
Sarutobi Hiruzen opened the door silently, moving with a grace none would expect from someone his age. The night was young, yet the children living at the Konoha Orphanage had been sent to bed a while ago. They, along with all the other children of the village enjoyed partaking in the excitement of the festival, but as night descended upon the village, the gaiety of the occasion departed along with the children. The village gained a somber mood, and such things were not for children so young to experience.
However, Sarutobi came here to speak with the one child he knew would not be sleeping at this hour.
Uzumaki Naruto found it difficult to sleep today, October 10th, and Sarutobi made it his goal to leave the child with something to take his mind off the day's events. He knew the child heard what Konoha's villagers whispered to each other. Whispers that were particularly loud on the day of the Kyuubi no Yoko's defeat, and the Yondaime's sacrifice.
Sarutobi walked over to Naruto's room, knocked briefly, before opening the door. The warm smile on hid face dissapeared as his blood ran cold.
The boy was gone.
Closing his eyes, Sarutobi focused his chakra before extending it out. Uzumaki Naruto's signature was like a beacon to anyone capable of sensing chakra. Though it was anomalous for one his age, Naruto's reserves were at the level of a shinobi's and as such, he stood out like a beacon amongst his civilian peers.
Sarutobi realized that the boy was still within orphanage, with eased his worries considerably, but he saw fit to track the boy down nevertheless.
He strode over to the orphanage's kitchen, and noticed light peeking out from beneath the double-doors that led to the room.
The aged Hokage didn't even pause his stride as he opened the doors with a wrinkled hand, his eyes quickly locking upon movement.
He noticed a blond-haired figure dissapear behind a billowing, ankle-height skirt while a delicately aged hand guided him further. The arm was restraining, yet protective, a surprising fact considering it belonged to Senzaku Kiyone. "Oh, you scared my there, Hokage-sama!" the matron exclaimed.
Peeking out behind the aged woman's leg, Naruto grinned widely before shouting "Heya, jiji!"
"Naruto, quiet now. The other orphans are still sleeping."
Sarutobi smiled back at the boy before setting his stern gaze on Kiyone. "Senzaku-san, what is Naruto doing out of his room at this time of night."
Knowing little tact, Naruto spoke up before Kiyone could possible effect a response. "I was really hungry, so I came to the kitchen to try to find something to eat. Kiyone-obachan found me, and was about to help me make something before you showed up!" he said energetically, clearly happy to see the aged man.
"Hn, the last time you took it upon yourself to cook, it took three hours for me to clean out the stains." Kiyone responded coolly. Despite her tone, though, the Hokage could see little aggravation in her eyes. Curious...
"Aheh, gomen, Kiyone-obachan."
Sarutobi noted the extremely familiar method in which Naruto addressed the orphanage matron. Whenever the boy would speak about her, it was either Senzaku-san on Matron-san, the change was rather sudden, and Sarutobi couldn't help but smile. 'It seems you form yet more bonds, Naruto. In you, I see the Konoha's Will of Fire once more...'
"Come over here for a moment, Naruto." Sarutobi said evenly, a slight smile on his face.
The boy dutifully walked over to the aged Hokage, and was taken aback when a green...thing dropped into his hands. On closer inspection, it was a coinpurse, styled to look like a frog, or a toad. It was slightly worn, though Naruto would consider it well-loved.
"A growing boy needs a place to keep his money, neh?" the Hokage asked, rhetorically. "It used to belong to...a very special person," your father, though that final part went unsaid, "I feel it should be used again, he'd prefer it that way. Happy Birthday, Naruto-kun."
"Gama-chan..." the boy remarked softly.
"Gama-chan," another blond boy remarked, his features narrower, and cheeks unblemished.
"Ah, clearly Jiraya-kun has found a potential toad summoner, eh?" a young Sarutobi chuckled softly.
"A-arigatou, Jiji!" Naruto replied, his blue eyes overflowing with emotion as he embraced the reminiscing Hokage.
Sarutobi didn't respond, instead he gently patted the boy on the back.
After a while, Naruto backed away from the Hokage, staring at 'Gama-chan' as though it was liable to run away.
"Go and get something to eat, Naruto-kun. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay, Jiji."
A smile on his face, Sarutobi exited the orphanage, making his way back towards the Hokage's Tower.
Warily, he ignored the dark and somber atmosphere that had settled over the village like a malaise.
"Ah, that was really good Kiyone-obachan! Arigatou!" Naruto shouted enthusiastically.
"You're welcome, Naruto-kun. Now get to sleep, okay?"
"Hai!"
Naruto missed the warm smile on Kiyone's face as he rushed to his room, but he was sporting a matching grin on his. As he collapsed on to his bed, he yawned deeply, before dropping Gama-chan on the bed in front of him. 'I wonder who this used to belong to?' the boy pondered as he inspected the exterior.
For a used coinpurse, it was in enterprisingly good condition. Naruto snapped it open, and was startled by the rather thick roll of bills within the toad's mouth.
"Wow, Jiji must've fed Gama-chan before he gave it to me! I could buy a bunch of ramen with this!"
Frowning, Naruto wondered why that thought gave him pause. "Kuso! I still have to pay back Teuchi-ojiisan!"
Naruto knew that the Ramen shop tended to stay open late on October 10th, with all the shinobi and civlians wandering around on the streets (going from bar to bar, frequently) sources of food were scarce. People also tended to forget to eat before they went out to celebrate, and Ichiraku's was sure to provide them with food, for a price, of course.
'I should probably wait until tomorrow...' Naruto thought to himself, frowning, '...but I might forget again. Besides, if I want to be a ninja, I can't just put stuff like this off! It's ir-rep-ponsi...ah...irresponsible!'
Naturally, Naruto ignored the large part of him that just wanted to eat some of the terribly unhealthy dish, since Kiyone-obachan wouldn't let him out of sight since the 'ramen incident' around a week ago.
'Ichiraku's, here I come!'
"Are ya lost there, gaki" an unfamiliar vocie drawled.
To be honest, Naruto was rather lost. The blue-eyed boy hadn't ventured far from the orphanage after 'lights out', and to make matters worse, the festivities of October 10th left the streets packed with strange stalls and stands. It was almost impossible for the boy to find his was around, and his usual bluster had left him well and truly lost before he knew how hopeless his venture was.
Nevertheless, Naruto's plight paled in comparison to the terror that flowed in his veins at the sudden voice. The words were tainted with malice, as palpable as the odor of alcohol that surrounded the strange shinobi. And he was definitely a ninja, he wore the distinctive vestments of Konoha chuunin: a navy blue body suit, with red-swirl markings under a gray-green flak jacket. A Konoha hi-ate kept his unkempt brown hair from covering his leering eyes.
Naruto now knew the feeling of wrongness that had danced across his senses as he wandered the streets of Konoha. Compared with the usual response from the villagers: apathy, distance and fear, the pure hatred and loathing that had followed him sense he left the orphanage left him uneasy. As took a step away from the wild-eyed man, Naruto forced down the fear that choked his throat and sent his heartbeat pulsing in his ears.
Scratching the back of his neck in a distinctive show a nervousness, Naruto chuckled with forced mirth. "Aheh, yea, I kinda am, Shinobi-san."
"Mmm, and what is a...child..." he sneered that word as though a vile lie "...like you doing out at this hour?"
"I...uh...was out at the festival, and got kinda lost going back to the orphanage." the blond-haired boy lied.
"Enjoying the festival, huh? Celebrating the Yondaime's sacrifice, I'm sure." the man nodded, as he stalked towards the six year-old boy, his steps swaying slightly. "I lost my wife, you know. She was two months pregnant with our first..."
"...and I've seen you, walking these streets," the shinobi continued, taking short, staggering steps forward. "A momument to my loss. To our loss. Like some sick joke, a parody. If you had never lived, wretch, if you had never come...I'd have a son, and a wife."
"I...I'm s-sorry, Shinobi-san." Naruto said, his ears barely registering what the man was saying, the words slipping past his lips in an uneasy stutter. He felt the wall at his back as he finished an uneasy step. 'A dead end?!'
"Not yet you're not..." the man uttered hatefully, staggering forward, his eyes flashing with madness. "...but you will be soon...demon..."
Eyes wide with terror, Naruto took off like a shot at the staggering man before ducking low and dodging, like he would whenever Jiji tried to pat his head like he always did. The man was clearly taken aback, and he didn't even move as Naruto weaved past him. 'I'm free-'
A vice-grip on the collar of his jacket jerked thoughts of freedom from his mind, and he felt himself flying backwards. His head impacted with the wall, and stars shot infront of his eyes. Distantly, he heard the man murmur, but his ears didn't catch the words over the pounding in his skull. He was roused from his daze, though, when a hand wrapped around his throat, dragging him up along the wall and raising him to the shinobi's eye level. His eyes grew wider still as he saw the crazed man pull out a kunai, waving the weapon in front of the scared child's face.
"P-p-please, Shinobi-san..." the boy gasps with what little air he had left in his lungs. "Don't..."
The man faltered for a second, before his eyes reflecting uncertainty. "I don't know what you are," the man muttered, his hot breath reeking of sake as the words echoed in the alleyway. "Whether those blue-eyes of yours are...the eyes of a masked demon, or a vessel..."
The man made a one-handed seal around the kunai, mumbling under his breath before lightning danced across the blade. Naruto whimpered, fear written upon his features as the alley was illuminated by the the flicker of the lightning-chakra imbued kunai. When Naruto gazed once more into the shinobi's eyes, he saw no more confusion, nor trace of empathy. He saw naught but pain, loss, and madness. And despite himself, he couldn't help but feel pity, amongst the fear. "But I don't care. For either way, you pain is it's pain." The man brought the blade down, near the boy's navel, before pull his arm back slightly. "Now scream." the man demanded.
The kunai thrusted forward, and as light exploded infront of Naruto's eyes, he obliged.
"Hokage-sama!"
The sudden entrance of the masked ANBU would have startled any lesser man. Sarutobi Hiruzen, however, had been sensing chakra signatures for nearly half a century. His ink-tipped quill was placed delicately into it's ink well long before the masked shinobi had entered the Hokage's Tower. The wooden pipe, still lazily sending wifts of cherry-scented smoke into the air, had long since left the Hokage's lips. No, he was well prepared for his visitor. What caused anxiety to settle in his stomach like a stone was the stressed look in the unflappable ANBU's single visible eye.
"What has happened, Kakashi-kun?" the wrinkled shinobi asked with a calm, even tone forced through experience.
"It's Naruto. There's been an attack."
The simple wooden pipe was splintered in two before the silver-haired ANBU had even finished his breath.
The only word to describe the scent was stagnation. It mocked his nostrils with it's nothingness, the utter wrongness of it set the blond-haired orphan on edge.
The endless pitter-patter of water drops dancing falling into quiet, motionless water railed at his ears with it's simplicity. He'd always had superb hearing, often the snores of his peers kept him awake during the night, despite many walls laying between them. Yet now, he could hear nothing but the droplets falling upon the water around him.
He opened his eyes, and at first, beheld darkness. Gradually, however, his eyes began to distinguish features. To his sides, as he lay on his back, were to walls. It seemed as though they were fashioned from metal, as he could see pits along their surface. Running parralel to the ground were queer pipes, faintly glowing blue and red respectively. These pipes ran off into the distance infront of him, their faint glow failing to penetrate the gloom. Allowing his head to fall back to the "ground", the boy indulged the lethargy that settled over his limbs like a malaise. Now, his eyes could see nothing. The "room" he lay in stretched upwards endlessly, naught but a featureless black meeting his gaze.
He had grown used to this nothingness, though, when all the pipes began to glow vibrant crimson.
With this new light beating back at the shadow, Naruto's eyes happened upon massive metal columns that stood from wall to wall, segmenting the room into two distinct section. While behind him, Naruto's eyes could now see a wall at the end of the chamber, the pipes now blazed a trail longer still into the darkness past the monolithic columns.
Naruto barely fought back a scream when, out of the shadows, something stirred.
"Yare, yare..." a lilting, delicate voice purred, "...what do we have here?"
From the shadows emerged a woman, her skin tanned and flawless, features narrow, yet still delicate. A crimson mane flowed down her shoulders, clothed in a red kimono that also held in a mature bust. Young as he was, though, Naruto's gaze was not drawn to her undeniably attractive features. Instead, they settled upon the woman's red irises, sparkling with an ageless cunning. Unbidden, a shiver traveled down the blond-haired boy's spine.
"Oh, so young, even amongst your kin. What is your name, child?" the woman queried, her tone soothing, yet compelling.
"U-uzumaki Naruto," the boy uttered, quietly, equal parts fear and pain in his eyes. "Who...who are you?"
"Oh Naruto-kun, you should be more concerned about your health than my identity, I think," the woman stated warningly.
Unconsciously, Naruto's hand drifted to his stomach, and it came back wet with fresh blood. He gazed at his hand, shock in his eyes as the life-giving fluid dripped from his fingers. Following the path of the crimson droplets, Naruto saw the water around him was stained red as a river of blood flowed from his stomach to the water below. So much blood...even he knew it was far too much. His knees shook beneath his body as his limbs grew weak.
"I can help you, if you let me Naruto-kun. Please let me help you," the strange woman pleaded, genuine concern prominent across her features.
"H...how?" the boy gasped, as numbness spread through ever inch of his body as his lifeblood seeped out. Distantly, he felt the ache of his wound, but such was lost to the concern radiating in the woman's deep red pools.
Quickly, yet with a strange grace that came so easily to her, the woman pointed him to a strange slip of paper that rested upon one of the metal columns. "Here, Naruto-kun. You must tear this seal. It keeps me from you. From helping you..." she said, softly.
'S-seal? Why seal her from me?' the boy queried, as the woman's eyes drifted away from his own. The question was drowned out, however, in the pain that exploded from his stomach. It danced through his ever sense, he could smell the blood now, a tangy metal-touched scent. And yet it all vanished once more, as the woman's eyes locked with his. "Quickly, Naruto-kun! You don't have much time!"
Nodding, Naruto took a step forward, before his legs surrendered from beneath him. Pain enveloped him, as did darkness and his face fell into the water that lay upon the floor It would be so easy to surrender, now, he realized distantly. To just close his eyes, and...
"Naruto-kun..."
He lifted his head, his eyes locked with hers, and pain flagged. Her eyes prodded him, guided him, spurred him. So powerful was their call that he stood up once more. When he could not stand, he crawled, hand over hand towards the column. Every movement felt like agony, but in this crimson eyes lay his world...all else was nothing, nothing...
And at last, he reached his goal. His hand, soaked with water and blood reached up, and he grabbed the seal before him. He saw, now the finer details of it. It was a spiral, wreathed in jagged lines. To his untrained eyes, it was nonsense, but he could see a fault in it plain as day. The spiral was pierced by mark, and it's twin lay upon his stomach.
"Tear it, Naruto-kun, and it can no longer stand between me and you..."
And so he did.
And as his veins erupted with fire, the woman's eyes shone with triumph.
Japanese Term List/Jutsu List
Yare, yare: Equivalent to "my, my", or other similar exclamations made at the presence of something anomalous or new.
A/N: Shorter chapter this time, but this seemed like a logical place to stop. I find it a bit...uncomfortable to both read and write about a young Naruto, partly because there's no reason to write a 'normal day' in his life, and seeing such things happen to a 6-year-old child are...troubling, and I had a bit of trouble with the alleyway scene. It seemed a bit too...sudden. I tried to rectify that by easing the transition a bit more. Please read and review, your critique is greatly appreciated.