Kakashi made his way through the pouring rain in his Anbu armor, not caring if his clothes got wet, not caring if he was going to catch a cold and possibly get so sick that he died form it. He didn't care. There was nothing left to live for anyways. That was part of the reason that he had rejoined Anbu after almost ten years of absence from the suicidal ranks. His heart ached in his chest with every step he took closer to his destination.
The grave yard just outside of the village, he was going there to see Naruto, having switched his daily habits of visiting the memorial stone for just visiting Naruto. He figured that since he had'nt spoken to him much in life he should at least see to it that the boy was'nt lonely in death, so like everyone else that had cared about the boy, he visited everyday. Leaving flowers, candels and such as tributes to their lost light.
It had been almost three months since Naruto had died and in that time much had changed. Sakura had murdered Sauske, to avenge Naruto before turning the knife on herself. She had'nt died, but she had come so frighteningly close that Lee had taken her in and given her a reason to live if only for the moment. The two had married and were currently expecting their first child. Sakura was hoping for a boy to name after Naruto, wanting to honor the one person she had'nt been able to save.
Sai had become more withdrawn, and slightly unstable. Tenzou had also become withdrawn, he smiled very little, and spoke even less than Sai.
Kiba, and Hinata were dating now, trying to give comfort to one another, but it was a hard thing. They both missed the blond almost as much as Iruka and Konahamaru, who often times slipped up and accidentally called someone else by Naruto's name before they broke down and started to cry. It was just so hard for them to believe that he was gone.
Neji, Shino, Shikamaru and Choji had joined Anbu, so far only one of them had fallen. Choji had been very badly wounded during a mission almost a month ago and had yet to be released from the hospital.
And Ino...had defected from the village along with Tsunade, driving an even greater pain into their hearts. Their hokage had first killed the council before walking out of the village and turning her back on them for the last time, she had lost so much of her former warmth that she was now little more than a wild animal, always lashing out and drawing blood. She had killed almost every shinobi that had gone to retrieve her so far, leaving the title of Hokage to fall to his shoulders.
Damn her hide. The title of Hokage would forever belong to one, and only one person in Kakashi's heart, and that person was dead.
He stopped walking and cocked his head as he caught a whiff of something matalic and sweet smelling and felt his heart stutter in his chest, his breathing hitching a bit in fear as he took off jogging. His mind going numb. Oh god, no,no, no, please dont let him find someone with their throat or wrists slit and dead next to Naruto's grave. Please, please, please. He silently begged as the smell of fresh blood mixed with earth lingered in his nose, making him shake his head and feel ill as he neared the grave and stopped.
There was something wrong with this picture. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it was odd. Scary even. The hair on the nape of his neck stood on end as he looked around for a second. There was no body laying on the ground, no signs to indicate that someone had been there-well not from this distance anyways. Though he could see that some of the dirt on the grave looked disturbed.
Had someone been messing with his Naruto's resting place? Perhaps one of the people who had thought the boy was the demon fox? He gritted his teeth and quickly closed the distance between himself and the grave and stopped cold as an icy sliver of fear worked its way down his spine as he saw the grave up close. It looked like something had dug it's way out of the earth, leaving a human sized hole of loose dirt in the mud, there were what looked like clawing marks on the ground next to the hole, and footprints.
Small shallow, footprints. He frowned and followed the footprints a little ways and dropped down to his knees in the mud next to one puddle and reached inside and fished out a strand of blond hair and a piece of a muddy white yakuta.
The kind that Naruto had been wearing when he was buried. His heart hammered in his chest as rage bubbled up, over powering his sense of grief. Someone had done something to Naruto's body! A low feral growl escaped his throat as he got to his feet and followed the footprints back towards the village, praying that he could reach Naruto's body before someone did something truely terrible to it.
She stood in front of the memorial stone, staring blankly ahead, her body shaking from weakness and the cold, her stomach cramping from hunger. Where was she? She didn't know where she was? How she had gotten there. Or why she was there? She didn't even know who she was? The area looked familiar to her, like something that she had seen in a far away dream, but she could'nt quite grasp what that dream had been about.
Was that why she had been buried alive? Was that why she had been thrown in a coffin and buried alive? Or had she done something bad and it had been a sort of punishment? She didn't know. But she wanted to find out, even if it hurt her. Even if it killed her for real this time. "Why am I here?" She asked as she reached out and started to brush her fingers acorss one of the names etched into the cold stone and stopped when she saw her hand and frowned.
When had her hand gotten so small, pale and skelital looking? Just how long had she been buried alive anyways? She looked down at herself curiously, unsure of what to think of her current condition. It all seemed so surreal to her.
She was about to study herself a bit more when a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her up into the air, she opened her mouth to scream in alarm but the arms tightened around her body painfully, pushing the air from her lungs as she was slammed into something on her back and lay there trying to gasp for air when a large hand wrapped around her throat and she heard someone snap something at her.
Kakashi had attacked without thinking when he had found the one who had done something to Naruto's body, he had been only mildly shocked to find out that the culprit was a woman, but that didn't matter. He had never seen her in the village before and had identified her as an enemy. He didn't like enemies, so he had seized the chance to grab her and started strangling her before she could do anything else that he deemed suspicous and snapped at her. "What did you do? What did you do to Naruto?"
She gasped for air and everything just seemed to freeze. The way she had just gasped...it sounded just like him. The red haze that had settled in his mind slowly faded as he looked at her. She had his face, he realised as he lossened his grip a bit and stared at the strange female. She had the same facial fetures as Naruto, her face was more feminine, her skin paler, but it was still his face. And then there was the fact that something human sized had clawed it's way out of Naruto's grave, he used his free hand to grab one of her small delicate hands and studied the torn, ripped, and bloody fingertips.
It could'nt be, could it? It just was'nt possible. The dead didn't rise.
His heart thudded in his chest as he stared at the girl, she looked too much like him to be his daughter, too much like him to be his sister, especially since he logically knew that Naruto had no sister. The girl looked more like Naruto when he had used his sexy jutsu. The long soft hair, the lush curves and slender build. "Naruto? Are you Naruto?" He asked in a broken voice as he quickly shifted his hands from her skin to the front of her white cotton yakata and yanked the lapels apart so that he could see her chest.
There was a faint white mark over the pale skin covering her heart and he laid a shaky hand against it and closed his eyes and sighed as he counted the heart beats under his palm. She lay there like a doll staring up at him, unsure of what was going on, or what was going to happen next. He asked her something, but she could'nt speak to answer him. Her voice had given out long ago when she had woken up in the coffin and had started screaming for help, never really knowing that help would never come.
He reached out, framed her face in his hands and nearly cried, he could feel the faint warmth of her skin under his hands, he could almost hear the ebb and flow of the blood pulsing through her veins. "Are you Naruto? Please answer me if you are..."
"...on't know..." She said the words in a weak, scratchy voice that he had to strain to hear even as he leaned down and almost had his ear to her lips. She didn't speak after that, it seemed to be all she was capable of saying at the moment before she slipped into unconsoucness.
Moving off of her he lifted the girl up in his arms and again almost cried, she even felt like Naruto in his arms. Please don't let this be a dream or some cruel joke. Please, please, please. Kakashi thought as he took off running through the dark wet village streets towards the hospital.
Sakura could check for the Kyubbi's chakra and do a blood test to determine who the girl was, and wheather or not some one was playing a sick joke on them.