Chapter One

Let's Go East!

XXX

This is a story about a group of boys and girls who did not get the chance to grow into men and women, rather they became them, far too quickly, thus their light, that same light that burns in the eyes of those who are yet to witness strife, war, and hardship was snuffed out in its youth.

"Oi… Gaara," a thirteen-year-old blonde shinobi, dressed in nothing but the tattered remains of his lively orange jumpsuit, began, as the embers of battle began to die around him. "Let's go," he said out of the blue. As he lay there waiting for an answer, the taste of blood began to fill his mouth, its metallic scent blocking his nose. He was forced to violently sit up and cough out the blood that'd trickled down from the wound on his forehead.

Another thirteen-year-old, a redhead, pale in complexion with black bags lining his pale green eyes and a bright red tattoo on his forehead, slowly reared his head upon hearing the blonde's comments. As he rose, the sand fell to the earth around him, "I'm not going to any Hidden Leaf jail with you, Uzumaki," he began, wincing with every inch of movement. His vision was blurred and his speech a little slurred, in all honesty, he was functioning on mostly muscle memory at that point. "As we speak, shinobi from the Hidden Sand are searching for me-,"

"No, not like that," Naruto interrupted him. Pain coursed through his body as he rolled over onto his stomach to try and push himself up. His first attempt failed. It felt like the weight of the world was holding him down. Nevertheless, he continued, "I mean… let's go… let's get out of here… of this place, of this village, let's keep going until we find a place where the village system doesn't define us."

Gaara's eyes widened. The statement snapped him out of his incoherent state and returned him to reality. He paused for a moment to think it over before making eye contact with the Leaf shinobi and enquiring, "What are you talking about? A minute ago, you were willing to die for your comrades and now, here you are, trying to walk away from them. Is this some cheap trick, Uzumaki?"

Having failed to get up for the third time, Naruto rolled over to a nearby tree to prop himself up. He was only able to get up to one knee but that was leverage enough, "No… what you said earlier about being a relic of the past to your village, someone who they want to see disappear… someone who didn't know why he kept on living… the way you feel. I don't know why, but I completely understand that it hurts," he said, the tears began to flow from his eyes. First as a trickle, then as a stream. His hand tightened into a fist as he continued, "The pain of… being all alone… really is unbearable, isn't it?"

He could see it. The memories played like a recording in his head. One moment, he was standing behind a row of Konoha citizens and shinobi, their backs turned to face him, their kids barred from even playing with him. He had no one to talk to, no one to listen to, no one to breathe the same air as, Naruto was lonely. Then, those leaf green flak jackets turned to sandy beige, and his spiky blonde hair was dyed a scarlet red. For some reason, the idea that someone had experienced the same pain as him, filled him with a wave of happiness. Happiness he hadn't felt in a long while. It made him feel… human.

They didn't have much time though. The Konoha Crush was drawing to a close. Massive plumes of charcoal-coloured smoke rose from the Village Hidden in the Leaves as Oto and Suna shinobi alike rained one last round of hellfire on the Chunin Exam's host village. Numerous battles, that had brought with them countless casualties, were being snuffed out in and around the village by Leaf shinobi such as the border guards, who after defeating Orochimaru's massive snake summonings, defeated the reinforcements that had come with them. The ANBU Black Ops along with a few high-level Konoha Jonin began to pick off invaders one-by-one, taking their anger out on stragglers who hadn't heard the call to retreat. The biggest battle of them all came to a heart-breaking conclusion as Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, lay dead, defeated by his greatest student, Orochimaru, in a battle that'd left the Snake Sannin without his precious arms. Unable to perform the hand signs needed to utilise any future jutsu he had no choice but to retreat too.

As Gaara said, it was only a matter of time before Suna shinobi appeared to return the jinchuuriki to its village. With that in mind, Naruto picked himself up off the ground to give Gaara an ultimatum, "So, what will it be? Do you want to be alone together?" he asked extending his hand.

"Your plan won't work. There's no way the two of us alone could escape the village system. Our villages' civilians might want us gone, but my Kazekage and your Hokage know how much of a deterrent we are against potential invaders, thus hunting us down will be a priority. The two of us are nothing when compared to Konoha and Suna's military might," Gaara explained.

Naruto shrugged, a little too casual in response to what Gaara had just said, "Then we'll find other people just like us. We'll go from village to village recruiting people who share our same pain until we're strong enough to stand up against the villages."

"So, instead of just making an enemy of Konoha and Suna, you want to make an enemy of all five great shinobi nations?" Gaara groaned. Naruto flashed his signature foxy grin whilst scratching the back of his head. Gaara let off a long sigh before asking, "Are you sure you want to do this? Once you become a missing-nin, there's no turning back."

"I've never been more sure of something in my life."

Gaara let out one last sigh before forcing himself to his feet to stand eye-to-eye with Naruto. He removed his forehead protector from the strap that wrapped around his body before pulling out a kunai knife from one of his pouches, "Then, from this moment on… we are enemies of the Leaf and Sand," he said running the blade across the sand symbol on his headband. "You better know what you're doing, Uzumaki," he said handing the blonde his kunai.

Naruto's headband had fallen off during the battle, so he took a moment to scan the area until he found it lying peacefully under a pile of leaves that'd been displaced by the massive battle that'd just taken place. He fished it out of the pile before grasping it in his left hand and leaning against one of the many trees surrounding him. He couldn't help but get stuck on the symbolic implications of running a line through the Konoha headband. Only a criminal would do such a nefarious thing and he wasn't a criminal. Then why did the village treat him like one for so long?

Gaara pulled a scroll out from his pocket. He unravelled it to reveal a map.

Naruto continued to stare at the hitai-ate in his hand. He rubbed his thumb along the Leaf symbol engraved onto the metal before finally placing the kunai's sharp edge on one end of the protector and slowly ruling a neat line across it. The tears ran down his whiskered cheeks in full force as he bid his home adieu. Hopefully, they'd meet again when he was a free man.

Gaara began, "There's no point in going west because then we'd just run into Suna and Iwa, so I suggest we just keep heading east until we hit the ocean," he rolled the scroll back up and shoved it into his pocket before stating, "A journey that would take us a few weeks if we were fully healthy, but considering we need some supplies, weapons and to free the other jinchuuriki along the way. This could take us a month or two."

"That's not a problem," Naruto said assuredly, "If you believe east is where we have to go, then east is where we'll… do… do you hear something?" Naruto wondered. Gaara shrugged. The redhead looked around but couldn't see or hear anything of interest.

Naruto began moving towards the source of the noise. He disappeared into the shrubbery nearby. Gaara took one look back at the Hidden Leaf Village's tall wooden fence before following his new partner into the dense shrubbery that made up 90% of the Land of Fire.

"Oi, Uzumaki… Uzumaki, where are you?" a weakened Gaara asked, blindly manoeuvring through the thick forest, "Uzumaki?" Gaara escaped the shrubbery to see an injured Naruto making a suicide charge into a group of Kumo ninja. The Uzumaki let out a horrifying roar as he put his head down and sprinted towards the shinobi, who, in a panic, abandoned whatever they were carrying, and vanished into another section of the dense forest.

The exhausted jinchuuriki collapsed before he could even get to where the Kumo shinobi once stood, but he'd accomplished whatever he was trying to do at least. Gaara stumbled over to the scene. It all started making sense.

"Those eyes. You're a Hyuuga," Gaara noted seeing the gagged, white-eyed woman, whose hands and feet were bound, rolling around in the dirt, tears in her eyes. He retrieved his knife from Naruto's hands and used it to cut the younger lady's hands and feet free before removing the cloth that covered her mouth. "The Hyuuga heiress." The last Gaara had seen of the girl was when she was destroyed by her cousin in the Chunin Exams a month ago, so the fact that she was in much better shape already surprised him.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata yelled upon noticing the blonde jinchuuriki lying right next to her. Naruto slowly rose to his feet, using Gaara as a balancing post.

"Glad to see you're all right," Naruto chuckled, "When I saw those creeps carrying you, you seemed a little stiff, so I thought they'd hurt you or something."

"You… saved me?" she asked, a pink hue forming across her cheeks.

"Not really. All I did was fall on my face. I must be more beat up than I thought."

"I… I know some medical ninjutsu, let's get back… back to the village so I can heal you," Hinata suggested.

"No can do," Naruto was quick to interrupt. He raised his arm to point a thumb at the line running through his forehead protector, "I'm a missing-nin now, so I'm leaving the village and I'm never coming back."

"Wait, what… why?"

"The village and its people treated me far too harshly over the years for no reason whatsoever. I've never had anyone to talk to or anyone willing to talk to me, so I've decided to go with Gaara… we're going somewhere we can be free to express ourselves and live without judgment." He placed his hand on Hinata's shoulder. "You've always been nice to me though, so just know that for that, I am forever grateful, dattebayo."

"It's time to get going," Gaara said.

"Oh yeah, my bad, I guess I got distracted," he chuckled, "Let's get going," he said before disappearing into another thick section of shrubbery.

XXX

The dense forest surrounding the village was meant to be Konoha's first line of defence against foreign invaders. A massive green wall that would swallow anyone who didn't know which direction was which. This explained why Gaara was so quick to get lost. What Naruto's excuse was? No one knows. What they did know though, was that they were lost and had been lost for the last twenty minutes.

Gaara's movements slowed to a halt. "It looks like you have a tail," the redhead informed his blonde partner. Naruto stopped to look over his shoulder at the dirt beneath him. The Uzumaki just shrugged, not sure what Gaara was referring to. Gaara lifted the Uzumaki's chin, directed his eyes to the line of trees behind them. Still no response. Gaara had managed to recover some chakra over the last twenty minutes, so he raised his hand and curled it into a fist. A wave of sand wrapped around Hinata's arm, yanking her away from the tree she was hiding behind. "How did I get stuck with the worst ninja in the Hidden Leaf?" Gaara wondered.

"Oi, leave me alone. My skills are a little rusty from all the blood loss," Naruto complained. He returned his attention to Hinata. "Why are you following us?"

"I want to come too," the Hyuuga heiress buried her head in her knees.

"She wants to come too," Naruto told Gaara.

"I have ears."

"Then what do we do?"

"Tell her to go back home."

"She can help us get out of the forest," Naruto explained.

"She's the heir to the most powerful clan in the Hidden Leaf. Removing someone as valuable as that is bad news."

"We're already missing-nin. What are they going to do, imprison us twice? Plus, she knows medical ninjutsu, which would help if we got into a fight."

Gaara massaged his temples before looking up to the skies in disbelief, "We're about to kidnap the Hyuuga heiress," he told himself. His eyes closed shut as his mouth opened to begrudgingly groan, "Fine." Hinata jumped to her feet. "If you know the Land of Fire better than this knucklehead then you can help us get to the Hidden Waterfall Village just north of here."

"North? Didn't we say we're going east?" Naruto wondered.

"We're trying to gather the jinchuuriki, aren't we? There's one in Taki, two in Iwa, two in Kumo, and two in Kiri, and the one in Taki will be easiest to acquire since it's not one of the five great ninja villages. Meaning, we'll have to go north then west in order to go east," Gaara explained.

"That sounds complicated," Naruto complained.

"No one said escaping the village system would be easy," Gaara replied, "Let's hurry up, if we get going now we can reach the Hidden Waterfall Village by nightfall."