Prologue - Fortitude

He was running again. He didn't know where to. Where could he go? He had no one to run to, no where to hide. It hurt, and his courage to face the world was fading fast. Fortitude - that was what he needed. Indeed, as the short, wild-haired blond bolted swiftly down the streets of Konoha, he saw no one willing to help him – and, as he wove through alleyways in an attempt to get away from the two broad-shouldered men chasing him, he realized that no one would care if he died.

He remembered when they first found out he wouldn't retaliate - the attacks had been subtle and cautious at first. He only remembered the ones around his second birthday getting more intense - when he was learning to walk. It was an insane man who had been plotting revenge against the "monster child" - Naruto never knew quite what was going on, but the man brought a club to his head and he simply curled up to attempt to avoid being battered to a pulp.

His caretaker had been supposed to protect him, supposed to keep him alive, but he didn't know this. A child of three such as the tiny boy in ratty clothing only knew what the world elected to show them, and thus far, the blond had seen only cruelty, except perhaps from a few. The world had shown him its deaf ear and blind eye as shadows cut and scratched him, never caught by those supposed to catch them; the world had shown him its uncaring hand, brushing him off, hurting him to get him away, anything against the boy who had done no true wrong against them. He dared not enter the streets when the daylight ought to guard him, fearful of the bustling crowds of people, shoving and pushing and very nearly trampling him; by night he tended to himself, scrounging for food to compensate for the hole left in his stomach despite the little food the orphanage could afford to give him.

The little blond halted in a darkish alley, lit only by the half-moon and the streetlight somewhere beyond its mouth. He hid himself as carefully as he could beside a large green dumpster, though he figured they would find him anyway. They always did. Even now, one year later, the young boy was unable to escape - no matter how fast or how strong he became, the silent shadows that struck out at him were always faster or stronger. Indeed, they found him, hauling him up by the scruff of his shirt. One, the bigger one, jeered as the smaller one shook him violently and dropped him. "Are you scared, rat?" the small shadow-man hissed, pulling out a sharp object and holding it to the boy's cheek, tracing the already-present whisker marks. Naruto whimpered and tried to pull away, but the man reached back and grabbed his hair, twisting it, and the tiny boy let out a sob of pain as the kunai pressed into his skin enough to bleed rapidly. The shadow-man grinned a cruel grin that twisted into a sneer as tears swelled in the boy's eyes and ran down his cheeks, mingling with blood. "Don't worry, we won't kill you...yet..." This was no comfort to the boy, who hardly comprehended the words, so little was his education in the terms of men. "You'll hurt, first," he finished, and brought down his kunai clear through the boy's right hand until the tip dug into the ground.

Naruto screamed.

The pain overtook his mind, blocking out all else. A boot to his stomach, a cut across his arm, his shin, his thigh; a hand across his throat, one lifting him and the other using him as a glorified punching bag; dropping him to the ground, a terrible, sharp pain in his side and a disgusting, fleshy crunch. Slow steam drifted from every cut, the wounds closing just enough for the boy to remain alive; his veins and marrow seemed to burn as he felt his system in overdrive, producing blood to replenish.

He knew nothing but the pain.

Then there was a brief silence, and he cracked open an eye to observe the shadow-men hazily rocking left and right. It made him feel dizzy. He closed his eye as one whispered, "Someone's coming..." A moment of silence passed, and then there was an angry yell, and the sound of quiet footfalls retreating.

His stomach lurched as a gentle hand began to lift him; he felt bile rise in his throat and emerge, and he choked for a moment on the vomit before hazy blackness became his only reality.

Not once had the name "Uzumaki Naruto" crossed his mind within the past year and a half - he had all but forgotten the young blond, burying the name down with the rest of painful reminders and memories. It had taken a lot of emotional endurance, to be able to see his sensei's son almost daily for the first year. Six months, it took, for him to get out of the habit of checking up on the blue-eyed child.

Hatake Kakashi had just been released from the hospital. He'd returned from a dangerous A-rank mission with Asuma and a young Hyuuga named Taizen. Kakashi had been severely injured on his left shoulder, and stabbed/slashed with a sword multiple times in the abdomen. He still had a slight limp from spraining his ankle, then pulling a muscle while trying to keep up on his own with the two Jounin.

As the silver-haired man began to walk out the door, an ANBU approached it. Politely, Kakashi held it open, recognizing the ANBU as Raccoon...or was it Badger? (Kakashi had never been very good at deciphering the two.) He saw, surprisingly, that the man was holding a child. Blond hair poofed up, spiky regardless of gravity, with three thin whisker marks on either cheek, four of them slowly coagulating from recent cuts traced over what he knew were pre-existing marks that identified him as one Uzumaki Naruto. What caught Kakashi's eye, though, was when the child opened his eyes briefly, stirring slightly but not waking, and locked eyes with him. The eyes were deeper and more vivid their color than ten seas atop of each other. The eyes that Kakashi would never, ever forget, so similar to the boy's father's with a touch of childish innocence. The eyes of Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto blinked softly, lifting his eyes to the shockingly white light over him. He didn't know where he was, but everything smelled like sanitizer. To him, with his keen sense of smell, it was magnified times a thousand - or, so it seemed to him, as he groaned and lifted his hand to cover his nose.

He didn't consciously take in his surroundings. He glanced over it with a dull, uncritical eye, only noting the large, somewhat blurry dark shape at his bedside. His vision cleared slightly, and he recognized his "Baachan". Naruto had stayed in the hospital multiple times, due to things like plants "accidentally" falling on his head and knocking him out for two days. She was always the one to heal him, and he didn't know why, but as soon as he learned the term, she became his "Baachan".

As if on cue, his Baachan, a blond-haired woman with golden-brown eyes, looked up from the green glow emitting from her hands. "Baachan!" Naruto exclaimed happily, smiling along with the greeting. He knew no other word to greet her with, but the single term was enough for her to recognize the happiness at seeing her.

The older blond laughed in response. "Hello, Naruto," she answered, good-naturedly. At that moment, the door slid open, revealing an elderly man with a serious face and a spiky head of white hair, two red lines running from the edges of his eyes to his chin.

"Tsunade, you almost done healing him? Sensei wants to see us. Something about the kid's caretaker."

"I'll be there, Jiraiya." Tsunade threw him a glance before returning to said kid. Jiraiya simply nodded, and left.

All the way home, Kakashi felt terrible. He felt sick - he may as well have stabbed the boy himself for all the watching he did over him. Overwhelming guilt swelled and churned his stomach, weighed on his chest, a burden far heavier than the weight of the world. Old memories were stirring up, most of which might have left him almost in tears had old habits not died hard, or at least deep in thought, exploring the darkest caverns of his mind where shadows and phantoms of memories lurked.

What would you do? he wondered, tentatively lifting his hand to run his fingertips over the name that had for so long been graven into the memorial marker, the closest thing to a gravestone that many ninja received. He flattened his hand against the cool stone, allowing himself to draw a little comfort from his nearest and dearest friend. He listlessly turned his head to the sky, where dark stormclouds hovered low, ominously the color of dark ash. A soft, slow breeze breathed over the grass, and he closed his visible eye, feeling more than a little weary. The life of a shinobi had calloused his hands and turned his heart from a jagged stone to a steel blade, but it had also worn out his mind. It had aged him in ways that he dared not confess to even himself, for the mind of a man was not made to see so much as he had.

And now...this.

He lifted his hand from the stone and wandered with listless, mindless steps. His thoughts strayed back to the image that had stubbornly latched itself onto him - blood, still steadily flowing from an open wound, dripping down pale skin; a once-white shirt colored red with blood; bruises on the throat; innocent, blue eyes, begging for help...

"Kakashi?"

The ANBU captain lifted his eyes from nothing in particular to focus on the dark-haired man who had just fallen into step beside him. Sarutobi Asuma stared back, looking curious, if a little cautious. Asuma was, admittedly, one of his closest comrades; the slightly older man had struck up a close comradeship with him on their first mission together. Asuma had been a particularly tolerable companion, and, after a little while and several missions, a friend and confidante over the years. Once upon a time ago, Kakashi might have turned him away, and even still wanted to - desperately wanted to. A shinobi should be able to handle his own problems, let alone a mission. The issue that plagued him now, however, called for the seeking of an outside opinion - one that might actually be able to advise him.

"It seems that Uzumaki Naruto is suffering severe wounds," Kakashi told him formally. Friendship or no, it was with great trepidation that Kakashi approached the subject, and therefore, great formality. It was his safety mechanism, his first and only line of defense when dealing with an issue such as this one. There was a sharp intake of breath from his left side.

"How severe?" was the cautious question that followed.

"Any other child would have died." There was a brief, though weighty, silence before Asuma spoke again.

"How did this...come to your attention?" The question seemed rather irrelevant at first, but Kakashi knew that there was sense in it - had he, himself, discovered the child...well, heads would roll.

"I saw him being taken to the hospital by an ANBU." At this, Asuma tilted back his head slightly to observe the clouds breaking to show a narrow slit of black sky on the horizon, broken apart by high-rising peaks to the north.

Kakashi wanted to ask what he was thinking, but more than that, what he should do. This guilt was suffocating, as thick in his lungs as the humid air that he breathed, thicker than water, as thick as blood. He couldn't - he couldn't live with it, couldn't bear the weight of shame and fear and guilt resting solidly on his shoulders, couldn't carry the binding chain around his heart, he couldn't take that.

But he said nothing.

"I will...monitor the boy's healing." He almost held his breath as the pause filled the space between them again. "Alright then. See you, Kakashi." There. His chance was gone. The chain felt heavier than before. Asuma, though hesitantly, disappeared in a plume of smoke.

Umino Iruka paced the floor of the Hokage's office rapidly. His heavy, thumping footfalls were the only notable sound in the room, and he was doubtless wearing out the carpet.

His admission to the office had been reluctant, but he'd persistently barked at the secretary that he had to see the Hokage, that no, he would not wait until a little later, and that he did not care if the Hokage was in an important meeting, this was more important, no matter just what the meeting was about. This lasted all of ten minutes until the huge oak door opened, and a weary-eyed Hokage smiled at the Genin, and told his secretary that it was fine; Iruka was welcome. With these words, the upset Umino had been allowed into the office, doing his best to be respectful to his audience of three as he explained in a furious tone what he had witnessed of the boy whose life he had, doubtless, saved.

And therein lie the issue at hand.

Jiraiya of the Sannin seemed equally up in arms, though a little less open about it; his face was uncharacteristically serious, a frown set firmly on it. Tsunade looked hardened as she stared at the wall. For his part, Sarutobi felt tired, far too tired to be doing this job. He stood slowly from his chair, his slower, lighter, less angry footsteps joining the Umino's as the only noise in the room. Aged eyes took in the shadowy clouds overhead, blocking the sun and bearing no visible silver lining. Somewhere there is one, he told himself, but the thought brought little peace, if any, to his troubled mind.

"He needs a caretaker," the Hokage finally rasped, even his tone sounding weary. "A more permanent one than those that he has had in the past - a guardian to protect him."

"A ninja?" Tsunade deduced. "Is there anyone trustworthy to take care of him?" Her tone sounded a little bitter in its undertones, though on the surface it seemed completely vacant of a particularly strong emotion. Sarutobi closed his eyes.

"There are a few," he told her, "that I would trust to care for him." Granted, they were few and far between. "He cannot be put into the prominent clans; that would be obvious. Obtrusive, even. ANBU are near constantly kept busy, so few, if any, would have the time to raise a small child. An off-duty Jounin..." He paused and ran over the short list in his mind, then shook his head. Any Jounin who was off-duty was basically retired, almost certainly permanently, due to injuries or mental instability, or getting out while they still could. A ninja's life was generally not a long life. Putting a Jounin out of duty, though... His mind wandered to Asuma, and he mentally rejected the thought; his son, though good-natured and kind, was in no way ready to be a father. His personal feelings may have been clouding his judgment, but Sarutobi scarcely cared at that moment. Asuma was a last resort.

There was a sudden rapping on the door. Sarutobi turned as he called, "Enter!" The oak door opened, revealing one Hatake Kakashi. The Sandaime turned from the window and returned to his desk. "What brings you here tonight, Kakashi?"

The Hatake, to his credit, seemed unfazed at being in the presence of three of the most powerful ninja Konoha had ever produced, along with a seemingly random Genin. "It came to my notice that a ward of the village was attacked and injured sometime within the past four hours," he informed them, his tone staunchly serious and his visible eye hardened, as if he were a soldier marching to war and not the boy that he truly was. No, he's not a boy, Sarutobi realized sadly; he's a shinobi. There was a long pause, and it was here that the Hokage recognized that the silence was an expectant one.

"You are correct. He was suffering of severe blood loss when he was brought in, though no wounds were near enough to vital areas to be deadly in that respect." He would've bled out, though, with or without his magic fixer-upper. The thought was unspoken, but Sarutobi had no doubt that it hung in the back of all their minds, a fact that they were each keenly aware of. "Two unidentified men were seen running from the alley in which Naruto was found. This impromptu meeting was convened to choose a guardian to care for the boy." The next pause was punctuated not by stomping feet, but by the low rumble of distant thunder. "Kakashi... Would you be willing to take the boy under your care?" The gap between the question and answer was shorter than expected.

"If I refuse?" questioned Kakashi, sounding for all the world like a robot, except for the guilt and doubt and pain and uncertainty that Sarutobi was willing to bet only he could hear. Iruka's jaw unhinged, doubtless to snap at the skilled nin, but the Hokage interrupted the would-be rant.

"He will almost certainly die."

A/N: Righto... First chapter. Done. Now for the rest...

Vote! What should Naruto call Kakashi

First: Kakashi-sama (I prefer this one, but I'm unsure because you'd think he'd think of Kakashi as family)
Second: Kakashi-oniisama ("o" at the beginning indicates formality or reverence, like "obaachan" or "ojiichan")
Third: Otousama (I don't think "tousan" can be used as a suffix, since it indicates "father" and who calls their father by his first name?)
Fourth: Other (yep, I'm open to suggestions).

That needs decided before I can write (or, at least, post) chapter 3. Maybe 4, if I get more ideas.

Might end up putting up the actual first chapter later. This was sort of to tell how Naruto ended up living with Kakashi, plus I like prologues better than first chapters. XD Before I keep writing for nothing, however, I need to know if my style is any good, if this was somewhat entertaining or if it made you nearly die of boredom. I don't like people urging reviews, but I need to know if it's worth writing or if it sucked. The next entry is much better, though I can't guarantee longer, than this. I also want to amuse myself with how many people will actually read this, so if you read it, then please inform me, because there's no way to tell if someone just opened the page, skimmed it, and then exited because they didn't like it. The hits measure doesn't help. That'll be just for this chapter, though, since I'll find something in later days to entertain myself. Lol. Also, since I like to know when chapters were posted (I think I'm going to calculate my average posting rate for when I get bored) I'm putting the date a chapter was added at the top, under the title, for my own personal amusement. Yes, I go to great lengths to prevent the impending boredom.

- Nitro

Revised on 9/1/2010 because Nitro was unhappy with the old thing. Same events, just written a little differently - hopefully better.