Mokuton Child

This is a challenge by acepro evolution, read his profile for more details. I don't own the idea, or Naruto.

It should be noted that the majority of this fic was written before certain revelations appeared in the manga. Whilst I have modified part of the fic to run with that, the majority of it should be considered to be AU in those parts.

Minato's hand shook as the ink dripped onto his son's skin, the heated air drying the markings within seconds. Under his heavy white coat was a thin sheen of sweat that seemed to cling relentlessly to him as he moved, barely pausing to wipe his brow as the sweltering heat increased almost beyond endurance. Even from here, the rage of the Kyuubi could be felt, a tangible snarl of hatred that slashed and bit whatever it could find. The red glow of the bijuu's chakra seeped through the window blinds, striping his desk in thin fingers of red-black, and its flickering light was barely enough to see the design spiralling out over the infant's stomach. But it was done now, a trap of flesh and ink that would hold the most powerful being the world had ever known.

Gently, he lifted the baby into his arms, ink splattering against wood as he let the brush tumble onto his desk. Before beginning his work, he had applied a genjutsu to the child to ensure he would sleep through the procedure, but Naruto had been awake long enough for his father to glimpse his startling blue eyes. Kushina had hoped that he would have those eyes - in fact, she'd loudly voiced her desire for their child to have all of his looks, if only so that he could inherit her sense of humour. Minato had wished otherwise - he felt any child of theirs would be far better off with at least some appearance inherited from their mother - but now he could only be glad of the resemblance. Perhaps it would make it easier for the village to treat Naruto as the hero he was if they could be reminded of who had made him into such. He would not fool himself into thinking that it would be an easy path - he had fought the jinchuuriki of Suna and Iwa in the war, he knew how most villages treated them - and yet, he knew he had to make this sacrifice for Konoha.

Being a Hokage overruled all other responsibilities - even fatherhood.

The Kyuubi's roar ripped through the air, and the reddish glow filtering through the window intensified into the white-hot radiance of a furnace as the beast's chakra surged. Minato shook himself, angered at his hesitation, and started for the door. Every second of delay was more lives lost, more damage to the village he had sworn to protect. His fear - and he was afraid, he would not deny that now - was nothing compared to the suffering his ninja and civilians both were undergoing as they fought or fled the monster. He had prayed, he had prepared, and he was as ready as he would ever be. It was time for him to go and face the Kyuubi.

"So...still going through with this?"

Minato didn't bother to turn around. "Hello, Jiraiya-sensei."

The Sannin hopped down from the window, the white spikes of his hair drooping in the heat, his face uncharacteristically serious.

"You know what this will mean for him, don't you?"

Minato straightened his shoulders, jostling Naruto as he did so. The baby slept on, one fat fist curled in Minato's jacket. "I believe in Konoha, sensei. And I believe in Naruto as well. Out of all the children, he is the most suited to bearing the burden of being a jinchuuriki."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow as the sound of the Kyuubi's tails cracked through the air, loud enough to rupture the eardrums of those standing close to it.

"You don't think that he'll unlock the kekkei genkai, do you? It's been dead for decades, Minato, and the Kyuubi-"

"He doesn't need the full bloodline, sensei. Every Senju has shown some aptitude at, if not fully restraining, at least avoiding the attacks of the bijuu. Remember Tsunade-hime?"

Jiraiya winced. Although in later years he had easily boasted of the Sannin's wartime encounter with the Ichibi of Suna, the memory was still one that made him shudder - especially now, when his village faced Shukaku's far stronger counterpart. The host had been bad enough, all sunken eyes and waxy skin, with a drooling mouth and rasping voice that sounded barely human, but the beast itself had been something out of a nightmare. Yet while he had struggled with the scythe-like claws, the howling wind attacks and the ever-present choking sand, Tsunade had avoided most of the Ichibi's strikes as if they were a genin's shurikan - even battering through the rippling shield of sand that had been almost as fast as Minato's own Hirashin.

Whilst others might have put that down to Tsunade's skill as a kunoichi, Jiraiya could still recall how Shukaku had seemed to recoil instinctively from his team-mate, how the whipping sands had seemed to grow sluggish as Tsunade darted through them, the shield shattering under her blows like spun glass - none of which could be explained by anything Tsunade had done deliberately.

There had been only one explanation Jiraiya could come up with, and that was in the bloodline of his team-mate. No Senju since the Shodai had been able to wield the Mokuton, but kekkei genkai could never fully die out as long as the genes were still present. Dormant, perhaps, lying inactive in the genes for years until someday they were reawakened in a member of the bloodline without explanation - but never fully gone. It seemed possible that Tsunade, carrying the Mokuton in her genes if not able to use it herself, had been able to perform a shadow of what the Shodai's mere presence had been able to do - although that was far from being able to use the actual abilities of her grandfather herself, as so many Senju had longed for.

It couldn't be a question of skill, Jiraiya knew that. After all Tsunade was one of the finest members of the Senju clan, surely qualifying to inherit the bloodline if strength was what was needed. And Minato...

As if he knew what his sensei was thinking, the Yondaime smiled bitterly. "I know that, legally he's not, and never will be, part of that clan - but he's of their blood, and he's the best person available to be honest."

Jiraiya didn't know what to say. As a ninja, he knew that no person was perfect, that no village could be the paragon of light and goodness they might parade themselves to be, that no clan was beyond reproach - but still, he found himself surprised at the lengths some people would go to maintain those illusions.

After all, the patriarchs of respected clans were not supposed to go seeking affections elsewhere when their wives grew too old for them to desire any more. Young, impressionable kunoichi were not supposed to be wooed by said patriarchs and then be tossed aside once the men had had their fun. Those kunoichi weren't meant to end up pregnant and die in childbirth. Their children weren't meant to be tossed into orphanages and forgotten about.

And they certainly weren't meant to climb up from unwanted brats to Hokages possibly even more powerful than the Shodai himself.

Another roar sounded, rumbling through the air like distant thunder, and Minato smiled sadly. "I have to go, sensei. But...promise me you'll look after him, won't you?"

Jiraiya took a deep breath. No, he wanted to say. No, I'm not cut out for raising a kid, I want to find out who's responsible for this, I have to see to the village first, I can't take a kid on the run with me, I won't settle down in the village again, not after this. But Minato was staring at him pleadingly, needing the reassurance.

"Yes," Jiraiya lied. "I promise."

The Sandaime had not been happy to come out of retirement to serve again as Konoha's leader. Even if the village had not been half-destroyed, with the survivors stricken with grief and the other villages prowling around like wolves, ready to feast on the remains, he was an old man and the burden of ruling was not one he was eager to rest on his aged shoulders. Still, he knew his duty and was quick to set about restoring order and dealing with the numerous problems that had been left to him by the Yondaime - with one problem in particular becoming a noticeable thorn in his side.

Minato's instructions before he went to his death had been clear; the defeat of the Kyuubi could not have happened without the use of a sacrifice to forever restrain the bijuu, and the baby he had used for this purpose was to be honoured by the village as much as the man who had given his soul to the Shinigami to ensure the end of the attack. But the village was grieving, still seething with impotent rage against the being that had nearly wiped them out completely, and with no other target for their anger, the hate for the creature seemed to have been transferred to the child that held it.

In Suna or Kiri, this hate might have been dealt out in physical attacks, even attempted assassinations - although, with their jinchuuriki power steadily eclipsing even their kage's, it would seem that Kirigakure was beginning to regret the attacks that had honed the Sanbi's host into the vicious creature that some said could take control of their village. Konoha did not go such a route, although the Sandaime had guards posted around Naruto for several months after his birth, just in case. Instead, there was a cold, disdainful loathing of him that seemed to have permeated most of the village, with most apparently preferring to pretend he did not exist at all. Keen to avoid things deteriorating further, the Sandaime had Naruto relocating to an orphanage, one of the many that had sprung up or expanded in the wake of the Kyuubi's attack.

The staff were loyal, with most fond of the children in their care, but there was a limit to how much they were prepared to show the vessel of the creature that would have destroyed them all if the Yondaime hadn't given his own life to stop it. Aside from feeding and changing the boy, they interacted with him as little as possible, rarely speaking of him even to each other.

Which was possibly why none of them were able to acknowledge the strange things that kept happening around him.

At first, it was little things, irritating but easy to ignore. Papers rattled on clipboards when people walked past his cot, edges curling towards him as flowers to the sun until they were batted down by annoyed hands. The cot he was placed in was replaced after a few short weeks, its wood seeming to have bent and warped over time, until the formerly solid structure had curved inwards, splintering and cracking into arms that cradled the baby. This was blamed on the damp and a new plastic crib duly arrived, while an unlucky staff member scrubbed the floors and walls for hours in search of wet-rot. The flowers scattered in the grass outside began to move up the walls, blooms of white and green and purple sprouting through the threaded cracks in the sun-baked wood. Again, the staff came, and plucked them out, and none of them mentioned how the plants had seemed to strain towards the window where the child none spoke of slept.

By the time Naruto was six, his presence was becoming increasingly harder to ignore, namely because he went out of his way to make sure this was so. No longer content to stay quietly in his room, he pestered the staff constantly, tried to butt into the games of the other children until he was firmly shooed away, pulled pranks that caught far of the adults than they were willing to admit, made a mess of his room when shut up in it and overall behaved like an unholy terror. The only time he was quiet was when let out to play in the grass behind the orphanage. Overgrown and sloping downwards into a tangled thicket of trees, it was forbidden to the other children, but everyone seemed willing to let Naruto head outside if only it would keep him quiet.

There were dangers, of course, forgotten traps and slumbering snakes, poisonous berries and sharp stones. Yet somehow none of these seemed to touch Naruto, who would always tumble back into bed at late hours, filthy and tired but always happy. This was enough for the staff, who never bothered to watch him play, and so never saw exactly what he did whilst playing - nor any of the other dangers that might be lurking.

Uchiha Senzai was going to die tonight.

He didn't mind the thought. It had been months since the medic-nins delivered the grim news, months since the cancerous growths had unfurled in his lungs like poisonous flowers, months since his strength had began to sap as the aches and fatigue sank their teeth into his bones. He was fading, slowly but surely, and had long thought about making a more painless end himself.

It was then that he had received some quiet messages, passed along through a chain of trusted individuals that led…Well. Senzai had never spoken to them face to face, but such actions could only be sanctioned by the highest command within the Uchiha clan. It was they that had suggested this idea to him, this final use of a life that was guttering out in an ignoble end unworthy of a high-ranking chunin.

The Uchiha had been downtrodden for too long, denied the glory that should have been theirs from the very founding of Konohagakure. Soon, they would follow the path that Madara-sama had laid down for them, and strike at the heart of Konoha, cleansing and restoring it to what it should have been, what their clan had laid their lives down for in those early days when war raged and there had been no villages at all.

But first, changes would have to be made, with the Uchiha chipping away at the remnants of the old times, piece by piece. If they were going to ensure their success, they would have to make sure that there were no surprises in store when they made their move; every action would have to be carried out with full knowledge of what lay ahead. And what could be more uncertain, more chaotic, more wild in its fortunes than the Kyuubi that crouched in their village in the form of a child?

The Uchiha had lost kin to the Kyuubi, as had all other clans, and their hate for the creature had burned in their breasts long after the tempers of the other Konoha nins had began to cool. But they had not acted rashly. They had listened to their clan elders, and those elders had looked to the Sandaime. When he said no to their vengeance, they had sheathed their hate, even as their fingers twitched towards their kunai whenever the beast ran by.

But times had changed, and the elders would no longer let themselves be leashed by those who yet stood in their rightful place. The Kyuubi was a wild card, and the mask of an innocent it wore did not fool for a second those who were born to see through deception. It had power still, and who knew if the Sandaime would unleash that if sufficiently threatened? No, the jinchuuriki had to go - and, if he could offer nothing else, Senzai was sure that even his failing body would be able to overpower the Kyuubi's present, weakened form.

It would be a suicide mission, obviously. Even if the Kyuubi did not wound him in its bid to protect itself, ANBU would quickly track down the man responsible for the death of their weapon, and they would be sure to find out where he got the idea from. Senzai did not fool himself about his ability to withstand the attentions of Morino Ibiki. He had concealed a poison capsule on his person; one way or the other, this was the end, and a far better one than what his illness would offer.

Naruto laughed as he plonked himself down on the soft, loamy earth, his back to one of the massive trees that seemed to be everywhere around here. Ami, one of the girls at the orphanage, wouldn't even go near the back of the building 'cause she was afraid the trees were going to gobble her up. Naruto thought that that was the most stupid thing ever - trees didn't have mouths, so they couldn't eat people, and even if they did, the trees were too awesome to want someone as yucky as her - and had told her so, but all that got him was a telling off while Ami laughed at him and asked why he didn't just go and live in the dirt, like the trees did.

He'd gotten Ami back though; there was a tin of paint above her door right now, and she'd be splattered bright green as she opened it. Only that would get another grown-up yelling at him, so Naruto had gone out here to hide. It was getting dark, but he didn't mind - he'd been out here loads of times by himself, and he didn't need anyone to look after him like the other kids did, it didn't even matter that none of them would care anyway-

Naruto scowled to himself, kicking his feet against the grass, pine needles bristling against his bare feet. In the distance, he could hear the chirp of bugs, and he squinted his eyes to see if he could spot any by him. No luck - but there were plants, lots of them, brights flowers and spiky weeds and gnarly trees all pushing through the thick carpet of grass. Naruto flicked a short yellow flower, breathing in the sticky-sweet smell that was always hanging around the Yamanaka shop. "The flowers here are better," he told the clearing, and it seemed as though all the leaves around him were rustling in agreement.

He nodded to himself, using one of the bulging roots of the tree to push himself to his feet. Yeah, he didn't even want anyone out here with him, really. He had loads of fun on his own, even if the plants could get sort of weird out here. One time, he fell into a bush, and got so tangled up in it he couldn't get out for an hour - it was almost like it was clinging to him. Another time, he fell asleep in a bunch of flowers, and when he woke up, he was almost completely buried in them, his nose tickled until he nearly sneezed his head off. He felt sort of mean about crushing them, but that meant he'd had to carefully pick them off one by one and it took hours.

"At least you're not silly like that," he told the pine behind him, patting its mottled white bark encouragingly. He never got problems like that with big trees like this, maybe because they were grown-up trees - this one was over sixty years old! Some of the other trees were even older, but none of the other kids believed him when he said that, just because he couldn't prove it. He just knew these things about the trees, in the same way he knew he had a tongue and ten toes.

Even worse, when someone asked Mrs Akachi, the head of the orphanage, she said it was true, and some of the trees had been there since before the Shodai founded Konoha. Even then, everyone said that he had gotten it out of a book, and didn't believe him when he said he didn't need a stupid book to know about that.

So preoccupied was Naruto in thinking about the unfairness of it all that he didn't even notice the ninja slinking through the trees, spinning red eyes fixed solely upon him.

Senzai had been careful to present an ordinary front as he walked through the village, the golden streets warm and welcoming in the late evening glow. He smiled at passersby, nodded politely at the familiar faces he saw, even chatted with a few, although most of his acquaintances wrinkled their nose when they caught the stench of alcohol on him. He had spent most of the day sitting in bars, looking morose as he ordered drink after drink, drumming his fingers in an endless beat against the polished tables. His wife Sayuri - and it was strange, how even now he felt an ache at the thought of her - had perished in the Kyuubi attack; everyone would think that this had been a drunken attempt at revenge, not a planned assassination. Even if some suspected, why would they bother to investigate the death of the monster that had killed so many?

And perhaps it would be cathartic, part of him had admitted to himself as he stared down into the amber liquid he'd nursed for hours, to be the one to banish Sayuri's killer into the next world, for however brief a time. Would the beast scream as he sliced its throat, let itself slip back into the monstrous form that was its true face as it died? Senzai didn't know, but oh, how his pulse quickened at the thought he would soon find out.

Eventually, he had peeled away from the hustle of the main street and slipped into the shadows provided by crooked roofs and the waning sunlight. Whoever had set this private mission within the clan had done their homework; he knew both which orphanage the demon had been placed in and where exactly it was located. He ducked down a side street, crossed over the Nakano river upon a bridge that echoed even the lightest of footsteps, listening to the dank black water lapping at the railings with a sense of resigned finality. In the distance, he could see the short, box-like structure that had been the Kyuubi's home for the last five years. Closing his eyes, he fanned out his senses, trying to detect the overpowering chakra that even a human form could not hide. To his annoyance, he could find no sign of it within the building itself, but a wider search caught the faintest flicker of a trail, leading away into the small forest that lurked at the back. While puzzled at how faded it seemed to be - the Kyuubi's chakra ought to blaze as bright as the sun, not be as soft and light as the chakra of…well, a tree - he followed it in, teeth bared in a grin as he drew closer to his target.

The demon was lurking in the very heart of the forest, where the sharp-smelling pines drew close together and scant light filtered through the dense canopy of needle-like leaves. Its bright gold hair was a painted target against the dark, its body crouched against the ground as it peered at the coiled roots of a tree. His breath shuddering in his glutted lungs, Sanzai plucked a shuriken from his pouch and, with a practiced flick of his wrist, sent it whistling through the air towards its mark.

Just as the child looked up, a thick branch drooped in front of it, splinters of pale bark flying as the steel tips cracked home. The vessel let out a gasp, eyes darting around as they sought the attacker. When it finally saw him, rising out of the grass, it let out a shout of outrage, putting its hands on its hips. "Hey, you jerk! Watch where you're throwing that!"

Senzai didn't deign to reply, instead pulling a kunai from his belt. His hand was shaking slightly, but no matter - this would all be over soon. He saw the child's eyes widen as it took in the blade, heard it stammer out a new demand for answers with quavering bravado, but it all seemed strangely distant beneath the thrill of this snatch of glory for the Uchiha. He took a step forward, relishing the way the child flinched against the trunk of the tree as he raised the kunai-

-felt the sudden rush of chakra through the air-

-heard a snap and a wet creak as the shadows moved and the moon was blotted out against a rush of rustling black-

And then there was only the screams.

Kiyumi shifted her weight on the branch, wincing as she peered over the edge of it to see the shattering drop below. It was old, this forest, and the trees were enormous, tall and thick enough to blot out her house twenty times over. Chakra hummed over the soles of her feet, anchoring her into place, but from way up here, that wasn't very comforting. Her small, skinny frame that was still awaiting the growth spurt enjoyed by everyone else her age seemed especially fragile against the thick boughs, like an ant clinging to a twig. If she fell, it would be a long way down.

Cautiously, she leant forward, trying to see if the blasted animal was anywhere below her. No such luck – the taller, thicker trees around them blotted out most of the light, letting only a greenish hue filter through. The ghastly light made Kiyumi feel as if she was underwater, and it wasn't enough to make out her teammate below her, never mind a speeding hell-beast.

Releasing the chakra under her feet, she dropped from the branch, knees bracing to take the impact as she landed in the springy grass in front of her teammate. "I can't see it anywhere."

Yuki nodded, looking entirely disinterested as she turned to regard the trees around them. It was utterly silent, eerily so, with not a birdsong or breeze to disturb the area around them, and Yuki herself made no sound as she ghosted over the slimed pine needles beneath their feet. Kiyumi could only watch her in envy – the noise she'd made blundering through the forest had probably been what startled the wretched cat away in the first place. True, she'd been practically silent by civilian standards, but there was a wide range between civilian and shinobi standards, and Tora was practically a B-rank ninja in his own right, judging by the amount of times he escaped the daimyo's wife.

"We'll have to search the entire forest if we hope to find him. The daimyo's wife must return to her estates by tomorrow, and she wants Tora back by then."

Kiyumi, who had been busy dusting off her scraped hands, looked up in disbelief. "Y'know, we'd find him a lot quicker if you'd use your bloody Byakugan-"

Yuki sniffed in disdain, leaving not a leaf disturbed as she swept over the forest floor. "Quicker, perhaps, but I have no desire to experience another headache. I have been using it all day-"

"It was less than five hours! I know you're not that good at it, but can't you-"

Yuki paused, her dark hair silvered in the moonlight as she turned her blank white eyes on her teammate. When her voice came, it was colder than the snow she was named for. "I've used it enough today. Awaken your own bloodline first before you start telling me how to use mine."

A poisonous retort flew to Kiyumi's lips, and it was only with the greatest effort that she tampered it down. Jin-sensei had already lectured her enough about her inability to get on with Kegawa; she didn't need problems with Yuki too. She forced out a laugh instead, even as her hands darted to her eyes, the eyes she knew would be utterly black in the dim light, without so much as a flicker of a sharingan to brighten them. "Don't worry, my aunt's already on my case about it. You're right - I can't even work my own bloodline, I shouldn't judge."

She'd meant for it to sound light-hearted, but even she could hear the bitterness seeping into the words. Yuki obviously heard it too, judging by the awkward look she gave Kiyumi, and her own nervous gesture towards the headband that covered the poisonous green design on her pale skin. There were few that knew better about the downsides of being in a clan than the branch Hyuuga, and Yuki's own weak Byakugan range had to needle her as sorely as Kiyumi's lack of the sharingan.

The return to normal conversation was the closest they'd ever get to apologising. Yuki's voice was soft as she replied "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. We couldn't catch him with all three of us here in the daylight. I suppose we'll just have to wait until he gets tired."

Kiyumi nodded, wincing as she ran a hand through her mane of wild black hair. It had looked half-way decent in the morning, but an hour of tracking Tora through the trees had left it tangled and sticky with sap from where she'd blundered into a particularly nasty thicket. Yuki's hair, of course, was still in its elaborately coiled plait, the faint starlight glinting off her jeweled hair-pins and the mirror-bright shine of her headband, her kimono as pristinely white as when she'd put it on this morning. Kiyumi would never admit it, but she'd kill to have just half of Yuki's grace and delicacy, even if her teammate was an arrogant cow most of the time.

Yuki glanced up at the sky as they walked, which was rapidly lightening to the red-pink of salmon-flesh. "If we want to get it back by daybreak, we need to hurry."

Kiyumi raised an eyebrow, carefully skirting a suspicious-looking burrow. "If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears."

Yuki considered. "We could try laying bait?"

"We tried that before. It didn't work."

"Well...in retrospect, perhaps it wasn't a good idea to let Kegawa handle the fish."

"Not a good idea? His dog ate them! And then vomited everywhere!"

Yuki let out a sigh of irritation, carefully ducking under an overhanging branch. The trees seemed to thicker here, pressing closer and closer to the narrow path they'd been sticking to. "Well, put it this way. At least we know another weakness of the Inuzuka now, weaknesses that we can use against him when we spar next."

"Are you going to fight Setsuna and Kegawa with fish?"

Yuki frowned, and Kiyumi remembered belatedly how she hated being made fun of. "Well, if you have any-"

A scream split the air, low and agonized as it tore towards them. The two girls froze, and another cry came, the scream of a man in utter terror and pain – until, suddenly, it was cut off in an awful finality.

Her heart thudding in her chest, Kiyumi's hand darted to the sword at her side, but Yuki was faster. Her hands flying into seals, she faced the direction of the scream with a look of grim determination. "Byakugan!"

A spiderweb of veins bulged around her eyes, and Kiyumi tensed, already drawing her sword. "What is it? What's happened?"

But Yuki only stared ahead in horror, her mouth gaped open in an almost comical display of shock. Any other time, Kiyumi might have found her expression hilarious, but here, in the forest of screams, it chilled her to the bone. She grabbed Yuki's arm with her spare hand, shaking her when she received no reaction. "What is it?"

"It's..." Yuki's voice trembled, and she turned a look of horrified disbelief to Kiyumi. "It's a child."

"There's a hurt kid?"

She needed no further answers; letting go of Yuki, Kiyumi turned and raced for the source of the screams, realising with a sickening jolt that she could smell blood as she flung herself through the trees. If making her way through the forest had been difficult before, it was nearly impossible now; weaves of vines, thorny and tangled, lashed her even as she tried to duck underneath them, the path narrowed further and disappeared completely against the thicket of trees, and the sharp-scented leaves thickened and spread until she was using her ears and not her eyes to fight her way through the mesh of woods. She could hear something as she struggled – a faint, gasping sobbing, a whimper that was more like that of a wounded animal than a human child. Awful as it was to listen to, the sound gave Kiyumi hope – if they were still conscious, if they could make a noise, they might not be too badly injured to be moved. If she and Yuki could only be quick enough, they could find them, get them back to the village before the guards changed, and take them to the hospital...

Careful as she was, she almost missed the kid, only the faintest flash of gold catching her eye. She ducked again, wincing as a particularly spiky bough tugged at her hair, and then...there he was.

The kid – a boy, someone's little boy – sat curled in the hollow of an enormous pine tree, the largest that Kiyumi had ever seen. Its bark, a startling white, seemed to curve almost almost protectively around the kid, the large fissure that sheltered him a rippled red-black, oozing with a dark, thick sap apart from a small patch of white that was probably a bit of moss. Sending a silent prayer of thanks, Kiyumi dropped to her knees, reaching out towards him as he sobbed quietly into his knees.

"Hey, are you OK? Don't worry, everything's fine, we've come to-"

At the sound of her voice, his head snapped out, and Kiyumi found herself staring into a pair of wide, terrified blue eyes. With a muffled shriek, the boy scrambled further back into the tree, and as Kiyumi tried to reach out, her hand snagged on a spiked weed that suddenly twisted out of nowhere. She let out a pained yelp, wincing as she felt the scratch and the warm wetness of her blood. The boy poked his head out, and to Kiyumi's bewilderment, she saw that there were more vines draped around his limbs – and where had they come from, in this tangled thicket of trees? - only, they weren't sticking to him, they were moving, rearing up to face her like a Suna cobra.

"D-don't come near me!"

Kiyumi held up her hands, hoping he couldn't see the blood trickling over her palm. The kid was obviously scared – and hurt, if the stench of blood was any indication. She had to get him back to Konoha, and soon, but it was going to difficult if he was too petrified to come. Softening her voice as much as she could, she extended a hand, watching as the vines stiffened around him in their parody of an embrace - and what the hell was happening, that the ordinary plants she'd always known were acting like that?

"My name's Uchiha Kiyumi. I'm a genin from Konoha – you're from there as well, right?"

He stared at her for a long moment, while the leaves around her rustled in warning. She tried to keep the warm smile on a face, and he gave a barely perceptible nod. Kiyumi took that as a good sign. "What's your name?"

For a moment, it seemed as if he wouldn't answer. Then-

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Kiyumi stiffened. She had heard that name before, usually followed by a round of cursing. As best as she could tell, the adults all disliked him for something, but they would never explain what - only that she should stay away from him. Kiyumi had never been given a personal reason to dislike the kid - hell, she hadn't even seen him before - but she normally tried to be an obedient niece, and so had stayed away.

But this was different. He was obviously nothing more than a scared child, one that needed help, and she wasn't going to leave him here for a reason that no one would explain. "Naruto, huh? That's a nice name."

He stared at her, looking disbelieving. "Huh?"

"Yup. It's more interesting than mine." A bit weird, being named after a ramen topping, but maybe his parents had been big fans of the stuff. "Like I said, Naruto, I'm a genin" - she gave the band knotted around her arm a tap, and his gaze flickered quickly over it - "and I can bring you back to the village. I'm sure your..."

Parents? Did he have any? Kiyumi could not recall hearing about any other Uzumakis – and what sort of parent would have let their kid wander around in the forest in the dead of night? However, she could remember hearing her aunt complain about the Sandaime being a soft touch on "that awful, filthy child" - perhaps the two knew each other?

"The Hokage," she tried again, feeling hopeful at the look of the recognition in Naruto's eyes. "My friend and I will take you back to the Hokage. He'll make sure you're safe, OK?"

The child seemed to consider this. "Really?"

Kiyumi nodded, holding out her arms. "Really. But first, you're going to have to let me help you." She eyed the vines, and felt profoundly disturbed as they, with a palpable look of reluctance, withdrew from the kid, their thorns scraping against the bark of the tree. "Can you come out?"

Slowly, Naruto crawled forward, and she leaned forward, ready to lift him up. To her bewilderment, he collapsed against her instead, his eyes falling shut.

Kiyumi carefully lifted him up into an awkward carry, settling him against her hip like she had seen some Uchiha mothers carrying their own children. She didn't know how old he was – four? Five? - but he was lighter than she'd expected, and she was pretty sure she could carry him back to the gates at least.

"Kiyumi!"

The Uchiha looked up to see Yuki appear in the clearing, her chest heaving as she stared down at Kiyumi with wild white eyes. Kiyumi glared at her, trying to shift Naruto in a more comfortable position. It was hardly pleasant, finding a child lost alone in the woods, but she didn't see what Yuki had found so terrible about it. At least the kid was safe now. "'Bout time you showed up. We need to go, he just fell asleep...I don't know what's wrong with him..."

"Kiyumi." Yuki's voice volume had lowered considerably, but it was trembling still, and Kiyumi could detect the panic that was threatening to overwhelm the Hyuuga. "Put him down."

Kiyumi stared at her, hardly able to believe her ears. She knew that people disliked the kid, and perhaps she normally wouldn't be around him - but what cause had Yuki to look at him with such...well, fear? Had she even met him before?

"Excuse me? Look at him. He's exhausted, he's asleep, he's probably got hypothermia, we need to get him back – the kami know what's happened to him-"

"I think I know what's happened," said Yuki, and she stepped close enough for Kiyumi to see the fear in her pale eyes. "Kiyumi, turn around, and look at what he's done."

Startled, Kiyumi twisted around, staring at the tree behind her. It stood motionless, bark red and sticky with sap...apart from that one patch of white that Kiyumi had assumed was moss.

Slowly, she drew closer, scarcely able to believe her eyes as the object finally came into focus and she saw what the tree was hiding.

It was a hand. A human hand, jutting from the tree, and the blood dripped thick and black from its wrist.

Kiyumi staggered back in shock, and then it was Yuki's turn to move forward, Yuki to prise at the bark, until it came away red and dripping to reveal the crushed, distended face of what had once been a man, the red ruin of his mouth fixed open forever in a final, silent scream.

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