Spider and Fox

The following day, as it turned out, was as bad as the night before. The cotton came up to their hips, and sight was limited. Even still, they knew they couldn’t stay in the bolthole for another night. The brothers shared a can of fruit from their bag, then left the tree behind once they ensured the coast was clear. 

It wasn’t hard for them to find their way. Gumo had a ‘weird’ ability, as the other kids at the orphanage called it, to find almost any building he’d seen at least once. With Naruto’s penchant for being quiet enough to startle an ANBU, they could make it to the old house before long. 

Upon seeing the building, now covered in white, the cold boys sped up through the trees, racing thirty or so feet to a hole in the wall. Gumo snuck through first, and Naruto pushed the bag through to him before following him in. Together, they turned to the interior, and Gumo exhaled, his eyes crossing at the bright white cloud that formed in front of his face. 

“It’s still cold in here. What are we going to do?”

As Naruto looked around, he grimaced. The place hadn’t seen a good cleaning in forever, and while he loathed the idea after how often the caretakers had made them do it at the orphanage if they wanted to make this place liveable, they would have to. 

“First, we’ll have to find a stove or something to light a fire. Do you still have those tags Joho gave us?”

Gumo turned around, searching his pockets before he snapped his fingers. The miniature gourd flask they’d picked off a drunk villager popped open, and sand poured onto the floor. Once the flask was empty, he pulled out a single sheet of paper. The redhead grinned, “knew they were somewhere. Here,” he handed it to Naruto before going back to forcing the handful of sand into the container.

It wasn’t much, but after they’d learned that his ability to handle the sand could stop throwing bottles and other things, he’d carried some on his person. The other kids, at least, chose to ignore him completely after that point. 

While Gumo did that, Naruto wandered to the other side of the cabin. Through a doorway on the opposite wall, he found a set of steps descending into a room only sparsely lit by dirty windows. As his eyes adjusted, Naruto’s gaze fell on a sandy pit buried in the center of the floor. The remnants of an old fire sat in the sand, and above that was a long metal hook hanging from the ceiling. 

An irori. 

This kind of fireplace he was familiar with. The orphanage used three to keep the bunks warm and serve tea in the mornings. Looking around, Naruto found bits and pieces of old furniture and destroyed tatami mats. After he set up the beginnings of a measly fire, much like he’d seen the caretakers do, he pulled out the tag Gumo had given him. 

The tags weren’t like the ones he heard stories about Shinobi using. These were simpler, giving enough spark to light kindling and start a fire. Now, he just needed to figure out how to do that.

Before he could, he heard Gumo calling his name. It was faint as if having to travel through the walls. Naruto left the tag in the pit and wandered off to search for his brother. 

Said brother was indeed further into the house, standing in a short hall beside one of three doorways. When he saw Naruto, he held a finger to his mouth and waved him closer. Curious, the blond walked forward until he could see over Gumo’s shoulder. 

It was much darker than the Irori room or the front room. Even still, he could make out a pile of leaves, branches, and tattered blankets that formed a nest in the center of the floor. In that nest lay three white puppies. 

His eyes opened wide in surprise; Naruto brushed past Gumo and approached, kneeling beside it to reach out a hand. When he set a hand on one of them, it wriggled, letting a loud cry that reminded him of a baby calling for its mother. Naruto looked around and thought the mother might be loitering, but he saw no sign. 

The other thing that worried him, perhaps more than the missing mother, was how cold the puppy was. It wriggled slowly, curling toward him, and his lips tugged into a frown.

“Ruto, what’s wrong?” 

Naruto picked up the puppy, set it in his arms to share his body heat, and turned to his brother. “The puppies are cold; if they get much colder, they could get hurt.” He picked up a second while Gumo copied him, taking the third, and Naruto’s mind turned. Sure, he and Gumo were cold, but they’d at least warmed up from exploring the house. These puppies didn’t have that. They weren’t old enough to move much at all. 

How did the caretakers warm the babies at the orphanage? The five-year-old struggled to think. Blankets the babies were constantly drowning in blankets. “Fire,” he breathed, glancing up at his brother. “Gumo, can you start that fire? I got the sticks piled, but I couldn’t start it.” The caretakers always kept the irori lit in the nursery building. If they could get the fire going, it would help warm up the house. 

Gumo frowned, glancing from the bundle in his arms to the two Naruto held before asking, “What about you? You can’t hold all three.”

Maybe if he had three arms, sure, but his eyes went back to the nest. It looked like it might be big enough, and perhaps if he… “Here,” he set his two down before crawling into the pile of branches and laying sideways. As thoughtful as he was, his brother immediately picked up on his idea and set the puppies down next to him. They curled up against his stomach one by one, and when the last one settled, Gumo ran off. 

Naruto trailed a hand over each, feeling their tiny heartbeats through the soft, white fur. So young, so small. Had they been abandoned like Gumo and he were? The caretakers told them, time and again, that their parents didn’t want them and that they were demons who would never love anything. 

But he wondered. Would a demon protect their brother from danger? Would a demon try to save a litter of puppies from the cold? If we’re demons, he thought, then so be it; a demon can protect what’s theirs even better than a stupid human can.

XxX

The subtle scent of smoke drifted through the air, torn asunder by the snowstorm. In a tree some yards from the hut, Inu relaxed, built-up tension bleeding away. They’d found shelter, actual shelter, and a fire thrived within. The boys would survive. 

It was dangerous to stay out here, even for him, but he’d needed to be sure. Now, the silver-haired ANBU was at an impasse. He needed to go back so that he could escape hypothermia, but he didn’t want to bring the boys back, which brought him back to his thoughts of the day before. 

The Hokage had kept the brothers’ parentage a secret for years already. How much would it hurt if Inu could convince the old man to let the boys stay a secret as well? They wouldn’t have to fear being found by villagers this far out, especially not when Inu knew the history of this land. 

With that thought in mind, Inu rose to his feet and turned away from the snow-covered hut. Between one tree and the next, chakra took form, and his eyesight blurred briefly. Then, he wasn’t landing on a tree branch but a windowsill. After a moment to regain his balance, Inu swept into the inner office. 

Almost immediately, the scent of tobacco, ink, and something that reminded him of death greeted his sensitive nose. A quick survey of the room found his superior in a meeting with a man that Inu always associated with mold and decay—something that needed to be cut out and burned away. 

Danzo.

But this black-haired man with his cane and black robes that made Inu want to wrinkle his nose against the pure rot was not someone he could simply burn away. Instead, routine and protocol took control. Pure habit had been ingrained into the ANBU since he graduated from the academy. He knelt on one knee beside the Hokage’s desk, head bowed, while he waited. 

The Sandaime cleared his throat, “Ah, Inu, I trust you bring news?”

“Yes, Hokage-sama,” he intoned. Inu had long learned to keep any emotion out of his voice when Danzo lingered. The man was a snake in hiding, even worse than Orochimaru in terms of his planning and manipulation. One assassination attempt on the Hokage was one too many in Inu’s book.

“Very well. Danzo, we shall pick this conversation up another time.”

“Hiruzen,” Inu could practically hear how the man ground his teeth at the dismissal. 

“Another time,” the Sandaime repeated forcefully. With that, Inu didn’t so much hear as sense Danzo leave the room. After a moment, he finally sighed. “Rise, Inu-kun.”

Doing as told, his arms fell to his sides, and he watched the old man pack his ever-present pipe before lighting it. It was like watching the rain on a roof, the way the tension poured off his superior. Inu tilted his head, “Mah, too many roots, not enough sunshine.”

Thankfully, the Sandaime chuckled, nodding in agreement. “Yes, too many roots, always threatening to trip the unobservant. Did you find the fruit?”

“Yes, Hokage-sama, the fruit is well away from the threat of the storm.” In more ways than one. It looked like those boys had enough food to last them two weeks if they rationed it out correctly, but what was to say they knew how? Did they even know how to ration? They were so young, too young to be alone.

His superior appeared contemplative, looking out the window at the wall of white coming down. It had gone from an uncommon snowstorm to a rare blizzard overnight, and Inu wondered how long it would last. He, himself, had never seen one before, not been in the north long enough to face nature’s wrath, but now that it was coming down around them, he was curious. 

A soft sigh drew Inu back from his thoughts.

“Inu, what is the chance of bringing that fruit to Konoha without damage?”

Was it worth the risk of bringing the brothers back into the village? He didn’t even have to think about it. The backlash would be too severe. Those boys were his responsibility; he would’ve been an older brother to them—their aniki had things gone differently. 

“With all due respect,” he said before hesitating. Was it his place to say anything? He was a soldier under contract to hide behind a mask for a specific time. During that span, he wasn’t supposed to go near the boys as himself, as Hatake Kakashi. But as Inu, the Hokage had granted him much more leniency. 

“Go on.” The approval surprised him. He glanced up, finding age-old eyes watching him intently. 

That, more than anything, gave him the courage to air his thoughts. “With all due respect, Sir,” he started again, “the fruit would be better off in storage than risking the journey into town.”

The Sandaime sat, quietly puffing on his pipe. What was going through the man’s mind, Inu couldn’t tell. Not until he pulled out a scroll and a quill. Only then did he speak. “I have a mission for you.”

Inu frowned behind his mask, “Sir?” He waited patiently as his superior wrote, the feather of the quill moving briskly. Finally, Sandaime tapped the scroll with finality and grabbed the stamp on his desk, pushing it firmly down in the corner before rolling up the parchment and handing it to Inu. 

He didn’t say what was on the scroll, not when there were possibly unfriendly ears listening, but he didn’t need to. Inu saw the glimmer in his eyes. A flash of mischief and determination he’d long come to recognize as pure hell for their enemies. 

With the scroll in hand, Inu turned and left the way he came. He could read it once he was away from prying eyes.