The Fox In The Shadow
A small blonde in his ever-present orange get up races down a back alley as a festival in full swing can be heard. Glass and shouts ring out behind him as fear floods his young mind sending his thoughts into overdrive as he shoots down the maze of streets. 'Boxes to hide behind...no they are to close, planks of wood for a weapon...there are three adults on me...rope...that I will take.' As he picks up the rope and makes two sharp turns, he notices broken sake bottles and strings up the rope while he is out of sight. As he finishes with the rope, he hears the people getting close and takes off again only to hear screams of pain behind him, all three drunks falling into the glass before he feels his feet leave the ground.
Our young blonde starts to struggle as he is picked up into arms and held close only to freeze at his second favorite person's voice. "It is ok Naruto I have you." Naruto looks up in surprise, the fear draining from his eyes as he sees the dog mask in front of him.
Dog sighs as he gets to the roof of the nearby building holding Naruto close. "You are getting fast, I barely caught you." Dog says with a light tone and ruffling the young blonde's hair, trying to add some levity and humor to the night's events. Sadly, the three now injured drunks can still be heard down in the alley making the mood hard to change.
Silently three people in different animal masks appear behind Naruto, Dog raises his hand making signs for his team. 'Capture...T ...Scatter' watching the exchange Naruto tried to copy Dog giving him a chuckle but the young boy can't find the humor in. "Tell you what, if you tell me how you did that" he points to the rope "I will teach you more signs like that since you seem to like them." Dog says in a soft tone as he stands to his full height.
Naruto nods shyly up at Dog as he goes into explaining "w-well for some reason since I started planning pranks, I have picked up how to do things on the fly. Whenever I get freaked or I am rushing things slow down and start to click into place. they were too close to hide in the boxes and too big to use the wood to fight back." he gets out in a rush looking for approval or anything in Dog's mask.
"Really every time?" at Naruto's dog lets his thoughts consume him 'he might just be a stealth trap master in the making how to proceed?' "Ok Naruto let's get you home for the night." As Dog says this, he crouches down showing Naruto his back allowing the young boy to climb aboard before taking off into the darkening sky a storm of festival lights behind them.
After tucking Naruto in and making sure he had food in his fridge, Dog leaps out of the young blonde's window and to the center of his village to talk with his leader.
As he flies in through an open window he bows on knee and removes his mask revealing a forehead protector with a leaf of it covering one of his eyes. "Lord Hokage Naruto was nearly attacked tonight by three drunks, they were slowed by a trap made by Naruto using some quick thinking, allowing me to get him away and for my team to drag them to T ." Says dog in a no-nonsense tone.
The Hokage, a man in his later years looks up pipe in hand at the news but nowhere near shocked to hear it. "Nine years and their anger is still this strong, thank you for protecting him, Kakashi. What is this about a trap?"
Kakashi rises to attention and continues "As we followed our target trying to enjoy the festival ignoring the scorn he was shown, three drunk villagers decided to start telling him to leave when Naruto refused, they started to chase after him saying things about a 'fox hunt'. Down an alley I followed from the roofs watching everything waiting for a moment to swoop in when the civilians wouldn't see so you would get paperwork on your desk about your elite force helping him. he ignored two ideas of hiding in boxes or using a piece of wood to defend himself, grabbing a rope and getting lucky making two quick turns and finding broken sake bottles. Stringing up the rope so they would fall into the sharp ceramic that is when I grabbed him." he finishes looking into his leader's eyes
"That is quite troubling and interesting, and by the look in your eye you have a request to make?" the old man said
Kakashi bowed at his waist "please let me train him and make sure he can defend himself, we both know the academy is not training him or doing it wrong. I don't want anyone else to die on me I care about." more emotion flooded into his voice than he has felt in years as he made his request, but he didn't care this was his little brother in all, but blood and he will not lose him like his first two siblings.
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked deep in thought at this request. "You may train him on one condition, do not train him in too much too quickly. He is a smart boy but a boy nonetheless he might hurt a civilian as a first response instead of being cornered and his reputation doesn't need that."
with a quick nod Kakashi's mask was back on and he was out the window.
As light starts to filter through a tattered window blind Naruto wakes up to the sound of his alarm. with laziness that would make the Nara proud he slinks out of bed to the bathroom to start his morning routine. Forty-five minutes later and the blonde is eating some eggs and toast dressed in black pants and a black short sleeve and a mesh long sleeve underneath. After last night's events he is more subdued and anxious as he finishes eating and heads outside. keeping his head down and moving silently receiving a reduced number of glares because of leaving so early and not wearing his trademark orange jumpsuit, he shuffles his way to school.