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The mid-day summer sun rose above on Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, delivering its wrath of sweltering heat to a village. Most of the villagers, ninja and civilian alike, plodded through the market square slowly to avoid ruining their social image by sweating like a hog. Those that did not walk sat or lied in the shadow of trees and buildings, allaying the sun's wrath by avoiding its gaze. Those that did not fall into those two categories were the sensible ones staying indoors and utilizing electric or man-powered fans to beat the heat. There was also a final category which few people took in this muggy weather.

On this day, exactly two people could be seen running throughout town. One was clearly not sane as the man sported a horrible green leotard with long orange socks, screaming something about the power of youth as he ran the perimeter of Konoha's city walls. The other, in fashion sense, was not much better as he wore an orange jumpsuit and pants, but the blonde-haired blue-eyed child with markings on his face that could be played off as whiskers could play off his running in the hot humid weather as childish exuberance or "The Power of Youth" in the words of the green-claded man.

Bolting through the now-glaring passerbys, the blond youngster ran as if a lion, a twenty-foot terror native to Konoha, was after him. Though, in this case, it wasn't a lion, but something potentially more threatening. The source of the threat appear moments later in the form of two male teenagers, appearing from whisps of smoke onto the rooftops, looking for the child. Both sported a headband with the symbol of the village, a spiral slightly extrapolated with a tip drawn on the other side...the rough shape of a leaf.

But that was not the blatantly obvious trait between them.

Both of them had orange hair and skin obviously from paint. From the disgruntled looks that peered out from their orange visage, they did not place the paint on themselves. The object of their ire was noted when one pointed and motioned at the kid down on the street while the other gave a scowl and took out a kunai.

They needed no skills at tracking to determine where the kid was. After all, the kid ran around in an orange jumpsuit in an area of lethargic slow-moving people. He might as well have been an elephant among a field of mice. When the kid turned out of their line of sight, the two teenagers gave chase, only to be baffled when the kid seemingly vanished.

The pair walked towards the block to where the child disappeared to. The kid was likely still somewhere in the village market after all. The block had a couple of merchants peddling their wares. Baskets, tapestries, and clothes of all kinds could be found in the stalls, some plain as the beggar sleeping on the side to some extragavant with gold and silver threads.

Their search proving fruitless, the two angry men cursed their inability to find the youngster, knowing that the kid probably ran away by now. To alleviate their anger and their now-growing appetities from chasing the kid around, they walked to the only food stall on the block, a ramen stand with the banner "Ichiraku Ramen" on it.

One of them called out to an old man with grey hair lazily flapping a fan in front of his face, sitting on the stools in front of a wooden counter.

"Old man! Get us something to eat!"

"It's Ichiraku-san to you and we're closed! Too hot to be cooking today! You two whippersnappers, get out!" the old man yelled back, standing up and over the two teenagers. His fan laid forgotten as he slowly closed the distance between them.

The teenagers gave a final glare at the old man before walking out of the stand, toppling a chair over from their exit. The man muttered something nasty as he walked slowly towards the chain and placed it in its proper spot. A squeak from behind the counter caused him to slowly turn around and smile.

"Is it safe to come out yet?" Blonde hair and blue eyes peeked over the wooden counter, nervously scanning the streets and the passerbys who walked around.

"Yes Naruto-kun. I still don't get why you decided, of all days, to pick a fight with a pair of shinobi. Chunnin, no less." The old man sighed, watching Naruto guffaw heartedly before the small child adopted a more serious tone.

"They laughed when I said I was going to be Hokage so I pranked them." Naruto said with the innocence of a child. Ichiraku grinned, but internally sighed. Hokage, the leader of this ninja village, was a title held by the greatest of all shinobi. Though it was an admirable goal, Naruto had no chance of achieving it because of the demon sealed inside him.

Kyuubi.

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The crimson sky. The quaking earth. The mountains of corpses. Eight years ago.

A man with brown hair peppered with grey was being herded to the Hokage Monument, a mountain with the faces of the four Hokages in Konoha history, along with the rest of the village. However, that man was causing trouble.

"Where's Ayame-chan?" asked the man, moving against the flow of traffic despite his anxiety and growing fear. The omnipotent aura out in the distance. The burning radiance over the horizon.

"Ichiraku-san. Please come with the villagers. If she's in there, there's nothing you can do for her now," said a shinobi wearing a green flak vest and a headband. It was clear that he was anxious as well, sweat dripping off the visible portions of his face.

Obviously it was the wrong thing to say because moments later Ichiraku unexpectedly (or expectedly) collided with the distracted ninja, pushing him into the crowd. By the time the man collected his bearings, Ichiraku was gone, shrouded by the wave of panicking men, women, and children.

As Ichiraku started to reach to the end of the crowd, people became more and more panicked, all desiring to get out of the path of the predator behind them. Ichiraku himself, if he was not driven by his mission to find Ayame, would have rushed out long ago, the instinct to survive pounding against the will of his mind, to flee like a rabbit from a hungry predator. He ran further and further down the city, approaching the source of Konoha's distress.

The buildings and structures were intact in this part of the city as though the horror of this day had never affected them, but the smell of urine and feces permeated the air. On the ground were the bodies of villagers and ninja lying on the floor, unmarked but clearly dead, with a look of fright and horror etched permanently on their pale faces. Those still living were breathing erratically and the color on their faces were returning from a pale ghostly white to a normal state. Ichiraku closed his eyes as he ran past them, putting his hands together and muttering a silent prayer...for those that died and for Ayame to be all right.

As he approached his place of business, his ramen stand, the corpses surrounding him increased as well as the amount of dead animals in the area. Birds, dogs, rats, and all other animals succumbed to the same fear that the corpses lying on the ground had experienced. He started to become afraid, fearing that whatever evil that had killed everyone and everything from, what it appears to be, simple fear might have killed Ayame too.

"Ayame-chan! Where are you!?" Ichiraku approached the dingy ramen shop, the outside partially crushed by a large fragment of building. He clawed at the pieces of rocks he was able to move, creating a hole large enough for him to pass through. He ran through the upturned chairs and tables, though the counter was miraculously intact, and made a beeline to the trapdoor he invested on such an occasion.

This was a shinobi village after all, and it was only a matter of time before they entered into another Great Shinobi War with the other villages. The only reason why he hadn't moved to somewhere safer as a civilian was the business and the fact that Konoha was relatively safe from strife because, to him, it was the strongest of all the shinobi villages with a kind and benevolent ruler who prefers peace to war.

A nervous voice came out when Ichiraku opened the trapdoor, asking, "Ojii-san...is that you? I'm scared." A girl with short brown hair, no older than five, peeked out the trapdoor and then lifted up by the man. Both hugged each other with Ichiraku thanking whatever deities had helped save her today. However, their meeting was short-lived as the entireity of the building started to shake again, the ceiling turning into chunks onto the floor. Picking up the girl and keeping her close to his chest, Ichiraku said, "We're going now! Don't be scared. We'll be fine."

Rushing for the hole he had made, he heard a large rumbling and a growl, followed the voice of a woman, "We have to hold off the Kyuubi before Yondaime-sama gets here! Don't let it near the Monument!"

The collective cheer resonated in the air before the sounds of battle arose again. Ichiraku heard explosions, quakes, and the hiss of a katon jutsu as he left the building to his now destroyed home and place of business, holding his daughter in his arms...and then he saw it.

A fox with nine tails, towering over the destroyed buildings around him, was easily overpowering the shinobi sent to fight it. Most were on the ground, pale as death yet unmarked, and, as all the corpses Ichiraku saw before, clearly dead. Others were smears on the buildings, unlucky to be knocked aside from the fox's multiple tails. Others were just devoured by demon.

Walking backwards slowly as if it would allay the fox's wrath, he told his daughter to not look behind her with as much calm as he could muster. And then...the demon Kyuubi turned its gaze upon him.

Ichiraku was brave for a civilian and had been through one of the Great Shinobi Wars, providing shelter and food for the convalescene of injured Konoha shinobis. However, when that beast turned its eyes, omniscient as they are cruel, his bravery turned to fear. He took a sharp intake of breath and was unable to exhale. Soon after, he felt a warm liquid trailing down his leg and into the dusty ground.

He didn't even notice when a large frog came up behind the fox with a small figure standing on top of it. The only thought that trailed through his mind was...

He was going to die here.

Die like the rest of the pale-faced corpses on the floor.

His lungs started to burn, yet he could not take a breath. He was going to die...he was going to die....

"Shiki Fujin!" A voice rung out through the sounds of battle and a crimson light flashed. The eyes which he stared at blew away into dust, the feeling of fear gone. Ichiraku fell to his knees into his own pool of urine with his daughter still in his arms, hyperventilating, and hugging his daughter even tighter than before.

Cheers rang out into the air. Ichiraku was in the clutches of death, only for whatever deity above to take pity on him and his daughter.



Later, Ichiraku would have found out that it was the Yondaime Hokage which saved him and his daughter from his fate and the fact that the Yondaime had sealed the demon into the child in front of him, Naruto. He had heard about the man's wish and, as he had saved Ichiraku's own life, decided to honor it. Sadly, he was one of the very few in the village...as Naruto personified the village's worst fears. And unlike demons, people can be broken.

Ichiraku's reverie was broken when Naruto yelled exhuberantly.

"Sooo ojii-san..can I have some ramen?" Naruto looked at Ichiraku expectantly with a smile, mustering up all the innocence he could muster.

"Sorry, Naruto-kun. Stove's not working right and it's too hot to make a fire. Ayame-chan is getting replacement parts. Maybe when the sun goes down." Ichiraku replied with an exasperated sigh. A look of thoughtfulness appeared on Ichiraku's face before he narrowed his eyes at Naruto, yelling though without any malice.

"And I'm still young! No need to call me that!"

Naruto, in response, stuck his tongue out and ran out of the ramen bar.

"Bye Ojii-san! I'll come back soon!" Naruto yelled as he ran out, smiling and running again through the district and making a beeline to his destination.

"Come back anytime." Ichiraku waved, returning Naruto's smile with one of his own.

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