The boy came to a decision.
He didn't like the old man who smelled of monkey, smoke, and death. Nor did he like the men and women who smelled of tempered steel and blood, with their white masks.
He didn't like them one bit, they didn't smell nice like the woman with red hair had. Nor did they play with him like the man with the golden yellow hair had.
His memories wasn't the best, but he remembered those two. He remembered the love that surrounded them, the smiles and laughter.
More, he wanted them back.
Even so, he knew that this wouldn't be. He knew with an absolute certainty that they were gone.
And all he had left were those who smelled of metal, oil, and blood. They had once kept their distance when those two had been near.
And now, they drew near like hyenas that scented blood and weakness.
He was weak. He knew this. Once he was so much more.
Before that night where everything changed and he lost them.
His thoughts were scattered like leaves in the wind...
There were none to whom he could speak... all he could do was cry and slowly master his body.
- - -
The woman who cared for him, didn't really like him. She smelled of smoke and tears, worse... she smelled ill.
It was no malaise of the body, but that of the soul. He could taste it on every breath she took, the illness wafted off her body and spoke of the poison that had been inflicted upon her not long ago.
A malicious thing that coiled around the core of her existence and gnawed away at any joy she could have experienced. Where she would have been calm, she was quicker to anger.
Still, despite that ball of malevolence that sat in her heart, despite the fact that she didn't like him... she didn't hate him or the other children. Nor did she not perform her duty as a nanny alongside the other grown ups.
And so, the days passed slowly.
The sun rose up and set, and in counterpoint, so did the moon as the seasons drifted by.
He grew up with the other children, orphans one and all in an orphanarium. The others called it the old home, but he reserved the right to call it what he wanted and so he had.
The older children told him that would be adults interested in adopting them. He... wanted to believe them but couldn't believe them in truth... and, so he hadn't.
Instead, he accepted life as it was. Drifting from day to day, living in the eternal now. He ate, he played, he ran, he slept. And thus, did his life pass by.
Until, one day... things changed. He was told that he had a choice. Or rather, he and the other children in the orphanarium were to be taught at school. To be given the chance to be a shinobi of Konohagakure.
The next day, he and the other children of age were given lunches and brought to the Hokage tower. To gather at its base with other children, sniffling and not quite whining about the coldness.
The Hokage stepped out of his tower, with his big hat. He is an aged man, yet to Naruto's sense, the latent strength within the old man burned strong. dangerously so.
The old man speaks a fair bit, of things such as the will of fire, of protecting and cherishing the future, and so on.
Eventually, the speech ended and Naruto found his hand stamped with a symbol. The words in the circle glitters and glowed for a moment. A disappointing end to what should be a monumental event.
And yet, there was a sense of familiarity to the boy. The entrance to joining a [society], a group of pugilist. To learn.
- - -
Crimson Gold Fishcake : Growth
Naruto / Xiao Ao Jiang Hu / ?!?!?
- - -
Writer's Notes : It lives!