In the heart of the rain, a melancholic scene unfolds among the trees standing as silent guardians of nature. The water droplets, like tears from the sky, fall incessantly onto the vegetation, creating a constant murmur that blends with the whisper of the leaves moved by the wind. The fresh scent of damp earth permeates the air, creating an olfactory symphony that intoxicates the senses.
At the epicenter of this rainy forest, a wooden cross stands solemnly, emerging as a beacon of contemplation amidst the watery storm. The rain, caressing its surface, highlights the texture of the wood, revealing veins and grooves that narrate the story of time and weathering. Drops descend upon the cross, falling like tears that add to the sadness enveloping this place.
The human figure, standing silently in front of the cross, becomes a silent witness to the connection between the rain and the wood. Their clothes, soaked by the drops falling from the canopy, adhere to their figure, creating a tableau suggesting communion with nature and the present moment. The person, with head bowed and eyes fixed on the cross, seems immersed in a silent meditation witnessed only by the rain.
The sound of the rain, a rhythmic tapestry intertwined with the whisper of the leaves, creates a unique soundtrack accompanying the scene with a serene yet melancholic melody. Each drop that touches the ground contributes to the symphony, transforming the soil into a natural drum that responds to the rhythm of the sky.
The trees, with their dripping leaves, offer a natural refuge that gives the sensation of a comforting embrace in the midst of the rain. Their branches intertwine forming a canopy that filters the light from the sky, creating a play of shadows and glimmers that dance upon the ground in response to the whims of the wind.
The silence between the raindrops is profound, only broken by the sigh of the storm and the gentle rustle of branches laden with water. The stillness of the place merges with the intensity of the rain, generating an atmosphere of contemplation and reflection that seems to stop time.
Alone in that atmosphere was Uzumaki Naruto, the jinchuriki of the Kyūbi no Yōko from Konohagakure no Sato, on his first mission outside the village after becoming a Genin alongside his teammates. Assigned as bodyguards to the bridge builder Tazuna on the way to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), the journey had been a challenge for his team, facing higher-ranking ninja than their mission originally intended due to the contractor's deception.
Despite having made the most intelligent decision to return to the village and let more experienced ninja handle the mission instead of them, they continued with the mission thanks to his inspiring words at the time. Along the way to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), they faced a deserter ninja of rank A, Momochi Zabuza, a former member of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shū (Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist), who had attempted a coup against their Mizukage. However, the attack failed, turning him into a renegade ninja from his village, leading to his confrontation with his sensei Kakashi Hatake a few weeks earlier.
However, that was only the beginning of the problems that would lead him to the place where he now stood, as in front of him was the grave of one of the people who had quickly become one of the most important persons in his life. Rika Orimoto was the name of the person now buried three meters underground in front of him.
During his time in Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), while his sensei recovered from the injuries sustained in the battle against Zabuza, he dedicated himself to exploring the village to see its state. Due to guilt, the village was in decline, with people sitting on the ground asking for money from those passing by, but due to the situation they were in, no one stopped to give them anything to survive. This only made him grimace to see such a familiar situation in which he found himself years ago when he was barely five years old. If it hadn't been for the help of the old Sandaime, he would have continued wandering the streets.
Now, it wasn't as if the situation in the village had changed much from that, as he still received those hateful glances behind his back, which he ignored. But they were still there, silently observing him, and if looks could kill, he would have been dead long ago. But there wasn't much he could do about it; if he responded to the looks, he would only attract more hatred towards himself, so he simply ignored them and moved forward. He wasn't a clueless idiot like his team thought or other people in his village believed. He just did all that to ignore their looks because if he didn't, he was sure that he would have gone crazy a long time ago from enduring all that hatred since he was a child.
But those were just things of a normal day in the village. Continuing with his exploration, he found not far away a hospital where the most wounded people by Gato's thugs went to heal. But from what he could see in the distance, it seemed like a place that very few people transited unless they urgently needed to. This aroused his curiosity, so he decided to enter the hospital to see it better, finding that upon entering, it was not so different from the one in Konoha, only that this one was very little transited by the villagers of the town.
So, exploring each room, he found that his previous thoughts were not far from reality, with the exception that in the last room he entered, there was someone. It was entering a girl, perhaps a year younger, with long black hair that extended to her waist; she always used to wear it loose, and some strands fell in front of her face. She had somewhat thick eyebrows, large black eyes, and a mole below the left corner of her mouth.
Instead of seeing him as a stranger or even an intruder, she only gave him a curious look for a few seconds until she smiled at him calmly, causing his cheeks to blush slightly from embarrassment and the calm with which she looked at him. This was something new for him compared to what he received in his village or even from his teammates. Experiences with women weren't very good for him because if he didn't receive cold or hateful looks from the village women, they were looks of annoyance or reproach from his team because he did something that annoyed them.
So, being new to that, he didn't know what to do in that situation other than give a half-awkward smile because of the situation he found himself in. But because it wasn't uncomfortable at that moment, he didn't just leave it like that. He decided to establish a friendship with that girl named Rika to become friends, something that in a few weeks became very regular for him because having a connection with her after getting to know her well, he knew in a way that they were equals because she was the only one in that hospital because of the hatred of the villagers, thinking that Rika was some kind of demon or bad omen because before she ended up there, she had a family.
With them, she lived not far from the town, coming to it to recover or greet family friends, but one day, she was found alone in the forest somewhat far from the town covered in blood with no sign of her parents anywhere, making the town search for them for a few weeks, but not seeing any results, some began to speculate that she might have killed her own parents because it wasn't normal in the way she was found that day, gradually becoming isolated from everyone who her parents once called friends.
No one took care of her, ending up in the hospital because of how weak her body was, only being visited by the nurses every now and then, something that only made him grimace knowing what she was going through, almost being in a situation similar to his because when he got sick and ended up in the Konoha hospital, no one visited him, not even the nurses, except for the Hokage when he had time and those two masked guys with a dog and crow, only those were the ones who visited him in the hospital when he got sick.
Because of that, he knew how lonely one could feel always after a training session from his sensei. Already recovering, he went to visit her, telling her how he was progressing in his training, competing with that topic that always beat him in the academy, but now he was on par, making her smile, something that filled him with happiness for being able to make his new friend happy despite the situation she was in. However, wanting her to get out of that bed, he took her out of her bed in which he had always seen her, carrying her on his back so she could see the sea she missed so much before ending up in the hospital.
He spent the whole day with her, regardless of his teammates reproaching him for wasting time. He was just spending the day with her until the afternoon when they had to part because the next day was the confrontation against Zabuza again at the bridge, but before they parted ways, she had given him a ring similar to the one she had on her pinky finger, making him promise that after the fight, he had to come back to spend time with her again and that they would get married in the future.
That took him by surprise, making him blush, but not being able to retort anything when he saw her smile at him like the first day they met, captivating him completely at that moment, sealing the promise with both holding each other's pinkies, being bound by that promise through the ring.
However, all that right now were merely memories passing through his head at a ferocious speed until bringing him back to the present where the one who was supposed to be his future wife because of the promise he made to her was now dead, buried in front of him. The one who made him forget his silly infatuation for his teammate was now dead because he couldn't be faster when Gato's thugs arrived at the hospital, killing Rika, reaching the worst moment when he saw them leave the hospital with a katana stained with blood.
He lost all the sanity he had at that moment, filled with blind fury that not even Haku was able to unleash in him when he thought they had killed his teammate. There was no sanity that could stop him now, unleashing a hatred stored for years for the village that was supposed to protect him.
As proof of his hatred and testimony of what he could do when he lost all his sanity, the chakra of the nine-tailed fox came out in torrents from his body, covering him in an instant until the first tail unleashed hell in that moment for those who dared to touch his precious person. The memories of that moment were fresh in his mind because of the influence of the corrosive chakra that he let himself be carried away by in his moment of blind fury.
If something had made it clear to him to experience the death of his precious person and to kill for the first time, it was that he couldn't save all the people being weak. You couldn't protect the people you care about because of that, as a failure of his promise to protect Rika, he would become strong to never lose anyone who mattered to him again, keeping the promise ring he made with Rika so that she wouldn't leave him alone.
Turning around, he began to walk away from the grave, but not without looking one last time over his shoulder at the grave of the person he had failed to be strong enough to protect.
Naruto: Forgive me, Rika, for not being able to save you, but I swear from now on I will never be weak again, so if it's not too much to ask, please don't leave my side...
With those last words, he resumed his journey with a goal in his life, and without seeing behind him, jumping down from a tree, the figure of Kakashi Hatake appeared, looking at the back of his student who was slowly moving away from the area, directing his gaze toward the grave where his student had been previously, seeing the name of Rika Orimoto engraved on a rock next to the cross.
Kakashi: You have just gone through one of the hardest experiences that I didn't want any of you to go through yet, but I see that I have failed, Naruto. I hope you can continue as before despite your hard loss. If you can't do it, I'll be there for you just like my sensei was for me. I'll be there for you, Naruto.
Making a hand movement with some seals, he made some flowers appear in his palm that he left on the grave as a show of respect for the person his student had just lost, where the journey took the same path that Naruto had gone to check if he was alright.
And end of the chapter