[1]
Summer casts an infernal blaze, and harsh bursts of heat waft through the air. The sun sits high, nestled arrogantly in a sea of cloudless blue. Blistering rays seep through the surrounding extensive fields of lush green and sneak past the trunks of tall, steadfast beasts of trees, casting oblong depths of ink throughout the clearing. Chirping birds twitter busily, allowing their lyrical cadence to float as if alerting the vivacious grove of their presence. Small rodents rustle within the undergrowth, fleeing from the heat and into the solace provided by the shade. The light flap of butterfly wings contributes to a sense of peacefulness as small pops of color float along with light gusts of wind. The scene is tranquil in nature; a tableau of verdant flora and fauna subtly leaving their mark on their home.
It’s ironic, she thinks, that summer would be the season to greet her when she so clearly remembers dying in winter. The season of frost; of blizzards and sleet and blade-sharp, lustrous ice crystals. This scene isn’t that terrible of a thing to hallucinate--all things considered, if she’s finally lost it. Bizarre confusion settles over her--an odd sense of displacement, as she blinks slowly--deliberately, trying to put together what the fuck happened .
She remains sprawled in the dirt, chest rising and falling evenly--deceptively calm, uncaring as filth and grime and dirt smear their way onto exposed skin, tainting it. Sunlight blares into her muzzy vision, and her chest hitches as a dull sense of pain sears through her exposed skin, where the heat has begun to mutilate the expanse into one huge blister. She allows herself a moment to glower at the inferno like it’ll change her current circumstance.
It merely blinds her as an indirect, but well-received: fuck you. The urge to flip off the ball of bullshit is strong as her head throbs with a vengeance. Frankly, she’s quite proud of her maturity--or she thinks she would be if she could think properly. Or at all.
Unfortunately, her notion is well received anyway as the sun seems to shine brighter, further rousing the pounding ache threatening to evolve into a migraine. She lets out a miserable groan, louder than what is probably acceptable--and drapes her dry, blistered arm across her eyes in a poor attempt to ameliorate the sensation. Her sore muscles cry out in agitation from just the small movement, and she has to swallow a, frankly embarrassing, whimper.
Her body aches with a new kind of ferocity, stiff beyond all measure. She fists her hand into the mulch below her, sliding her fingers through innocuous blades of grass, reveling in the simplicity. The situation, by all means, is baffling. Bewildering, perhaps. Fucking-- mystifying , even. The furthest thing from simple. There’s not a single word that can even begin to explain the extent to which she’d love to close her eyes and slide back into that eternal slumber that she knows she fell into, god-damnit.
A lake sits guileless only a few meters from where she lays, providing a break from the foliage and opening into shades of crystalline turquoise that are near-iridescent. Various aquatic plants accompany a plethora of fish with shiny, disarming scales. The image is disfigured by clawing, messy, scars deeply marring the soil. The remnants of a desperate, frenzied struggle.
And wow , had that been a trip. Falling through the ice--recalling the earth-shattering boom that has resonated through that fragile upper layer, spelling her end--feeling the last breath slip from her lungs only to be replaced by frigid water. Abruptly--cruelly, she had been tugged back into awareness without the daunting barrier above her, clawing her way to safety.
A strangled chuckle slips from between her raw, bitten-at lips, sounding suitably hysterical. As if this even counts as safe. This is fine--everything is fucking fine and dandy . She lifts a hand to brush still-damp hair from her face--and pauses . A panicked, helpless giggle slips from her, she stares at the too-small , too-tan limb, still absolutely sopping wet. Well, that’s definitely new.
She pauses again--longer this time; considering. Is it new?
She strains to reach into her memory, to remember--what had she looked like? The grasp of familiarity seems so far out of reach--but she knows--well, thinks she knows that this is new but--
The familiar prickle of frustration stirs within her gut, and she grits her teeth hard enough to feel them grind.
She flops onto her side in her own personal act of rebellion against her body and immediately whimpers as tired muscles scream from the strain. Yeah, no--fuck rebellion, she’ll be happy laying here until her body decides it’s ready to function again.
Her eyes find the cursed lake, staring blankly at the clear, undisturbed liquid; identical in shape to the one she had taken her last breaths in. Except that lake was murky, whatever elegance that could’ve been present was blemished by man’s hand through excessive pollution. That lake had been completely frozen over, trees considerably smaller--less grand--all bland, dull colors and empty, spindly branches. In hindsight, even going near it had been a stupid idea in the first place; with the subsequent death trap of water that had been disguised under a deceptively thick ice covering.
She doesn't think she’s ever had particularly bad luck, but this is really making her have second thoughts. She’s confused--and hurting --and, well--not exactly herself?
A fit of mildly terrified nervous giggles rips from her chest against her will, and she curls into herself. Fuck. What the fuck . In all honesty, she doesn’t swear often. She’s never found it necessary, but she thinks she is at least a little justified considering this body is undoubtedly not hers . It’s new , she decides--mostly from the overwhelming sense of wrongness that bubbles through her like sticky tar when she looks at her exposed limbs. Too small--too tan-- too wrong .
She’s really hoping that’s the haze speaking, but unless she’s magically gained the ability to tan like a supermodel’s wet dream, that theory is quite lacking. God.
She raises a hand, flexing tiny, pudgy, olive-toned fingers. Yup. Definitely a hand she controls. Her hand? Questionable. The grass at her sides is becoming quite patchy where she’s been picking at it. She pats it apologetically, a smile pulling unnaturally wide on her lips. She thinks she must look insane, lying spread-eagle on the ground smiling because of the grass . Small shreds stick to her wet skin, mud drying uncomfortably in mucky, brown patches. She reaches down to clean it off but only succeeds in smearing it.
She opens her eyes eventually, which is strange because she doesn't actually remember when she closed them, but she figures it’s the least of her worries at the moment. The sun is growing dangerously low in the sky, stretching into dawn with an unfittingly gorgeous blend of red-orange-yellow. The air is beginning to transition into the coolness of the night, light gales beginning to circle gently against rustling leaves as the forest prepares to accommodate the nocturnal.
Well, she supposes, she’d better get a move on. Go to--somewhere. Somewhere sounds great right about now.
She needs to find civilization--and to get dressed in something that's not literal rags before she freezes to death without even getting the chance to process the situation. And maybe figure out who she was-- is ? But first, shelter. Shelter is important, she thinks, and identity crises can wait . Go with the flow and all that, but also if she keeps dwelling on it she’s fairly sure she’ll lose it--her mind that is. She’s still not entirely confident that she’s not dreaming or something along those lines, but the way the night air bites at her skin with stinging icy wisps is a convincing argument.
Casting a weary look at the sky, she mentally prepares herself for the painful strain of moving and --sits up with considerable ease compared to her previous efforts.
Huh. Maybe skipping out on a few hours of consciousness isn’t the worst if she can finally figure out what the fuck happened without her muscles trying to kill themselves every time she so much as twitches.
Y’know now seems like an ideal time for a nice long cry so she can move onto the whole--y’know--extisential crisis part of this fiasco--but she’s set to freeze to death or get eaten by wolves or--fucking-- something . And she’s been stalling. Stalling is bad, probably.
She’s been here for several hours at the very least. She can feel it in the way her stomach clenches around nothing, squeezing with the sharp stab of hunger as it complains restlessly, and in how her throat remains parched, raw, and painful, with her lips chapped and cracking despite her earlier dip into the lake. Chill is beginning to seep through her shitty, useless --bare definition of an outfit, wracking her body with unsubtle trembles, slowly numbing her fingers and toes. Distantly, she wonders if it'll get cold enough for frostbite to begin setting in. In conclusion, she feels all kinds of miserable.
Now that the adrenaline is fading from her system and the rush of her nearly drowning a second time is fading, an overwhelming sense of dread is left over. The first thing that truly registers in her dazed mind is that something is terribly wrong--and, well, she knows this--knew that she was small--but, well-- She balances on her hands and knees, hands clenching into the soft grass to ground herself--before stumbling up with surprising difficulty. She wasn’t the most stable before--but she definitely wasn’t that level of clumsy. The odd realization gives her pause. She valiantly holds back an incredulous full-body twitch as she finally takes in her form.
She’s tiny. Tiny-- and not in the below-average-height-teenager way she’d been before.
Before? What had she been before?
Her heart stutters, fluttering rapidly as she tries to push the rising panic down. She lifts up a shaky, small-- fuck -- small hand. She takes in the visible features. Her fingers are stubby--pudgy-- childlike . How had she not noticed earlier? A breath catches in her throat, threatening to devolve into nervous giggles for the nth time in the past couple hours--because if she doesn’t laugh she’ll cry and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to stop if she starts now.
She needs-- needs --to see herself. Nearly tripping over little, unsteady feet--she ambles over to the lake, where the water has been darkened enough by the ensuing night to be reflective; the perfect mirror.
She’s stalling again. Her eyes flicker from the foreign hands attached to her body to the gargantuan trees casting long, daunting obsidian-black masses of horror into the undergrowth. The newfound silence seems all the more evident as the forest inhales, seeming to wait with bated breath for the result even though she knows already-- she knows what to expect . But--no. Does she--?
Racking her brain, she tries to remember--what is she supposed to look like? Better question yet, who is she supposed to be? Her eyes flick to the near-black water--that she vividly remembers a life ending in--and then to her tanned palm, darker now as the sun is slowly pulled lower in the sky. The color is foreign--but is it? It had seemed so clear earlier when she had first noticed it. Felt so wrong .
She’d been somewhere-- someone before. She’d died--that much is clear.
Her legs give out under her, and she startles out of her thoughts, barely managing to catch herself. Of course--if she’s a child, and isn’t that a terrible thought --then it’s no wonder that her dip in the lake had taken so much out of her. The sound of songbirds warbling is long since gone, replaced by the rhythmic chirping of cicadas in the tall grass, the rapid pace beating in sync with her fluttering heart.
She reaches up with foreign hands to cradle her foreign face and sweeps her hands through foreign hair--before coming to a stop. She tugs the strands forward, staring incredulously at the shade of dark auburn falling pin-straight in a jagged line around her soldiers. Bird-like wrists--near unhealthily thin tremble, fisting painfully near the roots as she tugs again.
A single hoarse, strangled-sounding frenzied giggle rips its way from foreign lips, and she scoots away from the lake.
She’s a coward .
Why can’t she remember before ? This isn’t her--it’s not-- it’s not --
Why can't she remember--
Why can’t she--
It distantly registers in her tired mind that she’s hyperventilating--quickly devolving into full-chested, soul-deep wails. Panic seeps through her, fraying her nerves further as she pulls her knees to her chest, planting her pointy chin between them firmly--curling tightly in on herself. She rocks herself-- like a child --uncaring of the noisy cries spilling out from between her lips. They echo throughout the forest, disturbing the tranquility--contrasting with the sounds of wildlife like a shining beacon of distress.
Long, blunt, unkempt fingernails tear into the skin of her forearms, pricking with droplets of blood as she screams and screams and--
Hands are grabbing her arms.
Hands are grabbing her arms.
It takes her a moment to process as she’s jolted from her panic momentarily--and then she screams, terrified--immediately uncurling in a sudden, jerky movement. The top of her head flies directly into a hard surface--pain lancing through her even and she goes limp, feeling her head spin like she’d just launched herself face first at a wall. The hands release her, accompanied by the distinct intonation of cursing, and she curls into a pathetic ball on the ground, covering the back of her neck with useless fucking hands, instinctively trying to protect herself as her sobs catch in her throat, slowly petering out to make way for panicked puffs.
She had hit them-- who --?
A weary sigh sounds from above her, and a large hand enters her field of vision--or she’s pretty sure it does. Her eyes flutter open--and it’s kind of just there , filling her line of sight. She startles, trying to curl impossibly further into herself, but the hand moves slowly. Slowly--like how one would approach a wild, fleety animal. She’s not entirely sure why the person--she stares at the hand--why the man would bother. It’s not like she’s going anywhere, and because his hand is the size of her face --it wouldn’t take him much effort to stop her if she tried to run.
She squeezes her eyes shut, tightly, trying to block out all sensation. She feels so pathetic . She’s so useless --and oh god she’d hit the man and--
A gruff, deep, rumbling voice sounds above her, and her eyes flick open tentatively, flicking up to the massive body in her vision. The hand drops down onto her head, and the man murmurs something--rough but gentle, pausing for a moment as a panicked whimper stutters out of her--her heart skipping a beat as fear seizes it. Her body is tense--incredibly so--she feels too scared to even cry properly, sniffles coming out in odd, erratic chokes.
And fuck if it isn’t frustrating--why is she so scared ? She should be overjoyed at the sight of another person--fucking jolly . Yet that doesn’t change the fact that her heart is jackrabbiting in her chest, threatening to burst out at the slightest hint of a threat.
Another deep, exhausted sigh sounds above her--and the hand--the huge hand --strokes through her hair once, with trepidation, feather-light. After another moment of hesitation, it continues, and she finds herself leaning into it. The comfort is god-send after the emotional turmoil she’s gone through--and if this body-- her body? --is as young as she thinks it is--it’s needed.
She thinks she remembers being older--no. She was older, before . But before is practically gone --and she’s just a little kid with memories of being big.
She feels like--this is dangerous. She feels like before she would’ve run screaming for the hills. But before is so hazy --she’s so so scared--and--and the hand’s just so warm and--
A full-body sob wrenches out of her, and she slowly uncurls from her little rolley-polley pose, reaching up desperately with little limbs and clinging to the hand like a lifeline as little sniffles spill from her pitifully.
The hand freezes, but she presses into it with a little whine--pushing the boundary to see where she’ll find the limit to this small allowance of kindness. The hand twitches, before reaching out to cup her face--slowly--deliberately--and the man sucks in a breath, suddenly dropping to the ground to stare at her. He mutters something under his breath, and brings her face closer, kneeling down in front of her with an incredulous look on his face.
She unclasps one hand--holding on all the tighter with the other--and reaches up to meticulously plant a fist in his shirt. He doesn’t even react to her ministrations--and she’s not sure whether to be offended or not that her movements are more or less ignored as she lets him inspect her.
The man is tall--intimidatingly so, though she’s not sure if that's just because she's fairly sure that she’d barely be above his knee in height standing up.
He tilts her chin up, holding it lightly between his thumb and pointer finger, and the sounds of swearing echo through the night for the second time. She tugs at his shirt questioningly--unsure whether she should be scared, only for his head to snap down, narrowing dangerously on the hand nestled deep in a warm cloth.
In the dark like this--she can’t quite see his face, no matter how she cranes her neck--can’t quite gauge his reaction. She stills--and tries to ignore the survival instinct screaming at her to runrunrun but--
She so badly wants to trust the man. She’s so tired --and so confused --
The man says something--sounding urgent. She stares uncomprehendingly at him. Well damn--that sounds important. She can’t--she can’t understand him. The man continues to speak, repeating himself a few times--frustration ebbing into his tone more and more as a minute passes--two minutes.
A scared whimper spills out of her throat despite herself as the man’s voice crescendos--edging into a yell, and she hesitantly releases her grip on the man, stumbling backward with wide eyes as she feels her chest squeeze tight in horrified silence.
By now, dawn has come and gone and been replaced by the moon. A soft tint of light claims the clearing, perfectly framing the mix of frustrated confusion and incredulity on the man’s face.
She inhales briefly, eyes flicking down to stare at the grass crunching beneath her feet. Her feet. “I don’--” she pauses for a moment as her voice cracks painfully. The man reaches for his side with practiced ease, pulling out a small filter filled with water and passing it over to her. She gulps it down thirstily, feeling small droplets dribble down her chin--but it soothes the ache in her throat that had slowly developed into a burn. “I don’ un’ersan’ you.” She frowns, smoothing a small pink tongue over her teeth, finding the front two missing.
The man stares, his face displaying confusion--his emotions clear for the first time that night. Frankly--it’s terrifying to see his uncertainty--but if terrifying gives her a break from dealing with this alone, she’ll take it.
The man repeats his question again--slower this time.
“I don’--un’ersan’ you. He’p -- p’ease ?” A little whine follows her words as tears threaten to spill again and she's so tired of crying. She furiously wipes her tears and inches forward again, internally cursing the brain of a child-- she’s been succumbing to tears at the drop of her hat, letting her emotions reign over her. The man pauses--deep in thought--before gesturing for her to repeat herself. Or at least--that’s what it looks like.
“He’p. P’ease he’p me--I’m--’ost? I’m so-- so ‘ost and--” The man shakes his head solemnly, looking at her with an unreadable look on his face. She reaches for his hand again--to anchor herself, but he pulls back, huffing an amused snort when she whines needily. The man shakes his head at her again with an uncertain huff this time, standing from his position where he’d remained kneeling to inspect her.
She cranes her head up, taking a moment to truly look at him. Long, dark, shaggy hair falls to his shoulder, uneven--and oddly reminiscent of a bull. In fact, the man looks beastly--built like a mountain, buff and towering, with calloused hands and strong, lean muscles rippling with the same implied lethality of a deadly blade. His visible skin is tan--but a lighter shade than hers, scars and small imperfections hinting at the life of a soldier.
A black cloak settles across his shoulders, the bare hints of padded clothing--armor?-- visible underneath the sprawling mass of cloth. Her gaze slides over him, inspecting the many pouches. The sting of eyes on her being twinges in her awareness, and her eyes immediately snap to him. She freezes as he casts a hard look at her--just barely a glare, before--holding out his pinky?
She pauses, staring incredulously at the offered finger. Glancing at her hand, she shrugs. Honestly, she’s not sure anything she can do will make this situation any worse , and at this point, it’s either freeze to death in the cold, or go with the strange warm man with eyes of heated magma.
She reaches for the finger, finding it just out of reach. Despite herself, she feels a pout on her lips--and has to remind herself she’s not a kid. Not truly. Oblivious to her inner turmoil, the man snorts, reaching down and squishing her cheeks together before ruffling her hair and lifting her. Gaping like a fish, she freezes long enough for him to maneuver her into an efficient hold propped up on one of his hips. She squirms indignantly but settles in as he drapes his cloak over her because she’s finally warm .
He’s like a bear, she decides silently. Big and brutal-looking, but oddly parental. Tear stains dry on her cheeks--but she can’t remember why she’d been so upset about his presence in the first place.
She thinks--something inside her tells her it’s bad to get comfortable this quickly. Stranger danger? Or something along those lines. She thinks that before she would’ve never even imagined a situation like this, however--so she doesn’t care all that much. Freeloading might not be the worst idea right now.
It takes her a moment of indecision, and the man is moving now, trying not to jostle her as he seems to fly across the terrain. He’s so quick her vision spins when she tries to keep up with the visuals, and she feels bile rise in her throat. A groan rips from her--muffled against the fabric of the man--Beast, she decides. Beast obviously feels her groan, tightening his grip on her little body. She wonders if she even weighs anything for him, or if he’s just carrying his average groceries.
She reaches up with a tiny hand, settling against him just in case the movement spooks him--and pokes Beast in his square jaw. He glances down, and she blinks blearily at him, offering a small, hesitant smile. The events of the day have started to hit her as the urgency dissipates, leaving her with a sense of bone-deep exhaustion.
“Wha’s your ‘ame?” The words spill from her before she can really realize the problem. He can’t understand her--but he seems to get the gist of it. Or maybe it’s just the way she’s twisting her finger into his cheek pointedly.
Beast stops--and they’re in a tree . He moves to set her down, and what the fuck, man . She just barely manages to not brain herself on a nearby branch in exhaustion, looking up at him with wide eyes. Immediately, the cold returns with a vengeance and her trembles return. Beast eyes her, and for the first time that evening, she notices something that must have slipped away from her in the excitement earlier.
A glint of metal sits on the man’s head, oddly reminiscent of a headband. An odd slash goes through a little symbol sitting in the center of it, and her eyes flick up at it curiously. Panic surges through her, and she frowns, rubbing at her chest. There’s no need to be scared, it’s just Beast, she tells herself. Beast has been nothing but nice--and he’s her only chance.
And Beast is grabbing her again, pressing her against the trunk of the tree, holding a hand against her mouth to muffle the sounds of her breathing. She feels more than sees three people fly by in the undergrowth, blending in with the shrubs with their odd green jackets. Her eyes flick up to Beast, and he gives her a reassuring smile--though it’s more of a grimace as it pulls at a scar on his lips.
The sight of the jackets and the matching metal plate headbands-- shinobi --the word comes to her easily. Flickers of remnants of blonde hair and a wide smile on a mass of gleaming light disappear as quickly as they come, leaving her disoriented and confused . The before is confusing . The more time passes, the more distant she feels from it. But then--who is she becoming? What is she left with?
When the shinobi were gone--and they looked like soldiers too. Why had Beast been hiding from them? Was Beast being hunted? Her eyes well with frustrated tears that she refuses to let fall as Beast lifts her again, letting her cling to him like a koala. At this point, she can feel his discomfort, but dammit--it’s finders keepers and he’s not getting rid of her that easily in this strange new place.
She'll take what she can get.
It’s when they eventually stop to rest hours later that she finds the presence of something else new.
The way her jaw physically drops when she tries to use the bathroom is conveniently highlighted by the--uhm. A new appendage hanging from her lower half. Relieving herself is made infinitely harder when she refuses to touch or look at her new anatomy.
The hysterical giggle feels natural in her voice at this point--this isn’t--devastating, exactly, but it’s not comfortable . Does it really matter if she--he? No . She’s a child now. It’s not like it matters all that much, hell--she doesn’t even have a name.
She supposes of all time to learn how to efficiently compartmentalize, it would be now.
The humor of the suspicious look Beast shoots her when she wanders out from behind her designated shrub strangely dazed is offset by the dread quickly setting in.
Maybe more than a new place. New world.
This sucks .
The boy Ataru has picked up is strange.
The lack of fear; or looking at him like he was the boogeyman was ideal. Children tend to take a single look at Ataru's large-than-average build and scarred face and screaming, especially civilian children. His escape had been carefully , meticulously planned. He’d taken a long-term mission, and painstakingly stashed away supplies in the wood over the course of weeks, far from where a stray Hyūga or a curious Inuzuka could find it. If he had his way, no one would even think of him for months yet--but of course everything had been thrown off. No amount of planning could account for all the factors, unless you were a Nara. Finding a random clan child mere kilometers away from the border of the Land of Fire hadn't even crossed his mind.
Deserting hadn’t been Ataru’s proudest moment--but he wanted to live , not just survive. He wants to be more than just cannon fodder to throw away in the next war, and he will be if he stays. For all the Konoha's reputation is that of the nice village, cannon fodder is cannon fodder. Civilian-born shinobi will never be prioritized over a bloodline.
And war is coming. He’s seen the signs--he’s not stupid.
More and more missions coming back unsuccessful, hostile interactions with enemy shinobi--finances at an all-time high, tensions rising along the border.
It’s been years since the end of the Second Great Shinobi War--and even then, it was never a question of why, or how--but when the next war would begin.
The boy Ataru has picked up looks at him like he’s hung the moon from the stars and told him it was a gift. The boy had been scared--all alone in the forest. He's not the best sensor, but even he could tell that there was nobody within kilometers of the clearing. Ataru had debated putting the flickering chakra signature out of its misery upon discovering it, small and civilian and so, so weak. He’d done worse for less of a reason, for the sake of the village . The ends justify the means, after all.
But he doesn't want to be that man anymore. Doesn't want to be a weapon. He wants to be able to express himself, find love--start a family, and there's a child fit for the role right here. Sure, it's not quite the order he was going for, but well, he definitely won't complain about it.
So, he pushes away his first instinct, and prepares to make his presence known. Civilians are so easy to spook, unaccustomed to shinobi prowling as they are. Ataru's footsteps sound painfully loud in his ears, ringing out sharp and clear in a way that makes his blood rush as his mind rebels at the how readily he's exposed his presence. Only his training keeps him from succumbing to the full body shiver that threatens to wrack his frame. Letting go like this feels like the distant memory of a time of innocence. Of settling into his mother's lap as she told tales of the Will of Fire, and the joy on her face when he'd proudly proclaimed his goal of being a shinobi at the tender age of five.
Then the boy had begun a shrill shrieking that rang through the night, compromising his position to any self-respecting shinobi above the rank of genin.
He’d viciously shoved down the subsequent urge to snap the boy’s neck and bid him good riddance into a deep, ugly place within himself, because sage give him strength it would have been easier, and instead made an effort to soothe the child. Or to at least quiet his damn banshee screams before they got both of them killed.
Ataru had allowed a feeling of victory settle over himself as he succeeded in calming the child. He'd never observed children within the village. Civilian children had always struck him as too weak--too fragile for him to interact with. It feels embarrassing to say, but he'd always been taller than most of his peers, more intimidating. While it gave him an advantage within Kenjutsu and Taijutsu, he'd been terrified of taking babysitting D-ranks during his stint as a genin. The children had been so small that he'd though a single poke without chakra would shatter them. The boy Ataru has picked up is even smaller than those children, and endearingly shy.
The language difference had been strange, but Ataru could teach his new child. If the boy was left alone like this, he was free game for adoption. Either way, Ataru is a officially a missing-nin now. He's slashed his hitai-ate and everything. He's not too torn up about it. His rank hadn't been high enough for him to be exposed to village secrets--the worst he could do is run off and tell Iwa about how he's fairly sure that the Konoha Police Force has missed a gambling ring behind the dango shop near their headquarters. Surely, they wouldn't waste resources on tracker to find him.
Ataru's quite proud of himself. He's sure that adopting a child is the mildest thing he could have possibly started his new life with.
His new child is also bound to be a pain in the ass. Ataru had been near ecstatic at his luck in finding a suitable child but of course, nothing had gone his way because Ataru had brushed thick strands of dark auburn away and looked straight into a dōjutsu. One look and his plans had gone to shit. Because he couldn’t drop a clan child--and he must be with the glowing kaleidoscope of orange-blue-cyan-red swirling in an odd pattern within the boy’s eyes.
Ataru was still keeping him though. Maybe if he named him, the kid would stick around? Or was that for pets. Close enough, he supposes.
Is this the infamous luck of a missing-nin? Ataru hadn’t expected to live quietly. He thought he would suffer a little, atone, or something along those lines, and now he’s been repurposed as a glorified pillow. It's amazing. The easy affection mends a gaping wound in his cold, broken heart that he hadn't even realized was there.
The boy is--young--he thinks. Ataru’s never been the best at defining age. Despite coming from a civilian background, his abilities range from ‘probably a genin’ to a firm ‘adult’. While usually enough, it isn’t the best for figuring out the little blessing who’s taken to using his cloak as a blanket.
It’s not a bad change--he thinks. The kid’s pretty cute--even being a walking death flag with those eyes of his.
And hey, how hard can taking care of a kid really be?
He’s a jōnin, he can handle it.
By the Sage--he has a child, now.