Disclaimer: Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto not me. However, Kosu and Hiro are mine. Warning, possible themes of a dark, violent or suggestive nature and use of mature language as the story progresses… They're ninja after all.

Chapter 1

Stray Dogs

A long, satisfying sigh passed from between the thin lips of the jonin lounging on the grass. Long limbs stretched before relaxing under the heat of the afternoon sun. The black haired shinobi heard the sound of someone approaching, footfalls too quiet to be his wife. No, she wouldn't be conscientious about disturbing him. Quite the opposite actually, he considered with a quirk of amusement. She'd disturb my nap and insist that since it was over I should help her do the chores.

"Shikaku-san," Shigeharu Nara stopped a few feet from the leader of his clan. He was well practised in approaching his sleeping clansman and waiting until Shikaku had opened his eyes before continuing. "Something has distressed the deer. I believe there is an intruder in the forest." The information caught Shikaku's attention even if his body only moved sluggishly to his feet, his dark eyes were alert, obvious that his mind was working away. There were very few who dared to tread within the Nara forest. The deer, who guarded the deepest of Nara secrets, greeted no one other than the Nara's and whomever had been extended an invitation by the clan.

"Has the Shrine been breached?" Shikaku asked as he reattached his kunai pouch to the thigh.

"No Sir. The deer have kept them away." Shigeharu replied. Shikaku nodded.

"Come with me." Shikaku ordered and the two quickly disappeared within the depths of the Nara forest.

On the outskirts of the Nara forest a young child repressed the urge to yelp as she narrowly avoided the snapping jaws of a particularly vicious deer. From the crouch she swung up with the rusty kunai in her hand and the deer leapt out of the way. What kind of deer are they! She growled internally. Never before had she preyed upon deer that fought like this. Stranger still, when she turned to run the deer hunted her! That was how she ended up in the horrible limbo of slashing at the deer whilst trying desperately not to get caught by snapping teeth or hooves.

As seconds ticked by, turning to minutes her thoughts desperately turned to the most precious thing to her, hidden away in a tree not far from her location. She couldn't be away from them for much longer, but returning would be impossible with these bloody deer on her tail. She growled in frustration and swiped out at the closest beast. The kunai made contact and embedded into the shoulder of the deer. The deer's bray of pain only worked to anger it's two friends more and she was suddenly faced with a new onslaught of hooves and antlers. Now without a weapon in her hand, it was all she could do to avoid the deer, scaling and swinging around a tree trunk to aid her evasion. With some distance between her and the deer she reached back to pull a couple of mismatched, poorly kept shuriken from the oversized pouch slung across her chest.

Suddenly she couldn't move at all. All her muscles locked in one place no matter how hard she strained she couldn't even twitch her finger. Panic rose quickly and she braced, ready to be trampled by the deer.

When no attack came, a cold dread spread from the centre of her chest as she realised someone or something else must be there. Against her will her muscles moved until she was stood upright. The deer were still surrounding her, heads lowered slightly so as to angle their antlers towards her. It seemed to arrival of the shinobi opposite her had stopped their attack – for now.

Shikaku released the hand seal after successfully capturing the intruder. Dark eyes observed the child as they moved to match his own stance. It was a pretty pathetic sight. The young child was adorned in ragged black trousers and a beige top that had likely once been white. Now covered in dirt, grime and dried blood it was never going to be white again. Both items of clothing were too large for the child, although based on the prominence of the child's collar bones it seemed more likely that the child was too small. That theory was further supported by the kunai pouch slung across the kid's chest, over one shoulder and under the armpit of the opposite side – a pouch designed for a fully grown man to wear around his thigh.

Shikaku met the eyes of the child in front of him. The way they looked at him from behind poorly cut cigarette ash coloured hair, eyes of light grey and lacking the innocence of the children their age in the village. If there was ever a stray dog personified. He thought grimly.

The Nara clan leader turned to the deer closest to him and frowned at the kunai protruding from its shoulder. He stepped closer to the animal, the deer meeting him half way and ignored the gasp of revelation from the child as they were forced to copy his movements. He ran his hand sympathetically over the deer's coat, the other stroking the snout of the deer comfortingly. The kunai wasn't deep and Shikaku felt confident in pulling the blade from the animal.

"Go to the house to get healed." He spoke lowly. So lowly that the child couldn't hear him. The deer bowed its head to him before turning and limping into the forest. Shikaku inspected the kunai in his hand, blunted and rusted. No wonder it struggled to penetrate the strong muscle of the deer. More strikingly though, it wasn't of Konoha design – it was from Iwa. Narrowed eyes turned to the child in front of him. "Who are you?" Shikaku asked. A scream answered before they could.

"Kosu!"

The cry was one of pure terror and obviously from a small child. The will to move strengthened so much that Shikaku found himself having to refocus on keeping the intruder captive under his shadow possession.

Moments later Shigeharu landed next to Shikaku, an even smaller child the miniature of the one on front of them subdued in his arms. This one was unarmed however.

"Hiro!" The armed child cried.

"I found this one in a tree a few hundred feet that way." Shigeharu supplied ignoring the two children, likely siblings due to their similarities, calling to each other. "I think he's blind." Shikaku raised an eyebrow and looked down at the child. And there it was, behind a messy fringe of grubby blonde hair, the milky white, absent eyes of blindness. Shikaku sighed. This is not how I imagined my day to go.

"What do you want with us?" The older one demanded. Both Nara eyes turned back to them.

"We want?" Shigeharu asked, slightly perplexed by the intruder's questions.

"You have no idea where you are, do you?" Shikaku asked. Shigeharu glanced at his leader. He'd heard Shikaku speak to his enemies before - cold and calculated. But the Nara clan leader wasn't like that to these children. His tone was softer. Shigeharu looked back at the intruder and pieced together the clues Shikaku had seen the second he saw the child. Suddenly, it was all too clear. They're refugees.

"Kosu?" The younger whimpered. Shigeharu could feel the young child shaking beneath his hand like a frightened bird. He could even feel the child's heart thumping away behind his ribs in panic.

"Everything's okay Hiro. We're still in the forest." Kosu reassured, her voice soft and not at all matching the flighty, panicked look in her eyes. Shikaku sighed before releasing his shadow possession. Kosu faltered slightly as the hold was released and she had nothing to tense against. Hiro's head tilted at the slight sound.

"Let him go to his brother." Shikaku motioned with his head for Shigeharu to let Hiro go. Relief washed over Kosu and she took most of the steps towards her brother and pulled him into her arms, pressing her cheek to his matted hair. As she held her brother Kosu raised her eyes to the two shinobi. They both thought her to be male and she wasn't going to correct them. I won't be abused. Her inner voice reminded her all too quickly.

Whilst Kosu was reuniting with her brother Shikaku turned to Shigeharu and asked him to alert the Hokage of the situation and that he'd follow shortly.

"Where's your friend gone?" Kosu found the courage to ask. Although she was growing more confident that the shinobi wasn't going to kill her and her brother, she still shuffled Hiro so that he was stood behind her.

"You've trespassed on sacred ground." He said rather than answering the question. "But I suspect you had no idea?"

"We're sorry." Hiro said softly. "Have you got any food?" he asked, Kosu gently placed a hand on his head. An unspoken sign between the two of them and Hiro knew not to ask again. This ninja sounded nice enough to him, but there was obviously something that Kosu didn't like.

"You're leaf ninja." Kosu asked wearily, a small lump forming in her throat. He nodded.

"You have no one else with you?" He asked. Shikaku knew full well that they were the only two to trespass on his land but he was interested in their response. Kosu shook her head. "Parents?" Shikaku asked gently. Both Kosu and Hiro turned their heads to the ground simultaneously. That in itself answered Shikaku's question. The leaf jonin sighed and bent down into a crouch. Kosu's head rose, her eyes steeled.

"They're gone." Kosu said, fists clenched at her sides. "They're all gone."

"How long ago?" Shikaku asked.

"Before last winter." She replied. "Bandits came to our mining town, they found everyone."

"We hid." Hiro added. She looked from Hiro to the ninja and could see the suspicion in his eyes.

"You must have found a very good hiding place." Shikaku said. He watched as Kosu glanced subtly to her brother before closing her eyes, brow furrowed in pain. With a sigh Shikaku rose to his feet. "We're sorry." He heard Kosu say quietly, head still lowered. When Shikaku didn't respond she dared to look up and meet his gaze. "For trespassing. And I'm sorry about your deer." Shikaku sighed again. This is turning into such a troublesome day. He looked down at the stray dog like children.

"Where are you two headed anyway?" he asked and was met with silence.

"Away from your land." Kosu answered eventually.

"Konoha can help you." Shikaku suggested gently. "The orphanage can offer you a room and a village is safer than the wilderness." Kosu shook her head slightly.

"No." She clenched her fist at her side. "We'll be fi-" She stopped as a smaller hand wrapped over her fist. Kosu looked down at her brother, his innocent face hidden behind layers of dirt and dried blood.

"Please Kosu." He begged. "It's cold again." Kosu looked down as she recalled just surviving last winter. She ran her hand gently over his forehead, brushing his hair from his eyes. Large milky eyes stared up at her with untainted innocence. She caught her weary reflection in his eyes and exhaled in defeat.

"Okay Hiro." She whispered. Kosu gently picked Hiro up and in one fluid motion he was on her back, thin arms wrapping around her neck and legs around her middle. "You really want to help us shinobi?" Shikaku nodded once. Kami only knew what had happened to these kids to make them so mistrustful of obvious, genuine help.

In an attempt to gain some small modicum of trust from Kosu he offered her the rusted kunai in his hand. Surprised, Kosu looked at his hand as if it was a trap waiting to be sprung. Slowly, she raised her hand and wrapped her tiny scratched fist around the handle of the kunai. Shikaku felt an uncomfortable twist in is stomach as such a small hand took the kunai with such comfort and familiarity. Kosu quickly spun the kunai around and slotted it back into the small weapons bag on her back. "Thank you." She murmured.

"It's this way." Shikaku motioned with his head and started walking back towards the village. He sighed. It was going to be a long walk back to the village. He briefly considered picking both children up – they looked like they weighed less than a set of kunai – and transporting them himself. But that would lose the small amount of trust the children had in him.

Kosu frowned at the ninja before quickly falling into step next to him. She felt Hiro shift on her back and rest his head on her right shoulder.

"He sounds nice." Hiro murmured with a smile. Kosu looked up to Shikaku to see him glancing down at them.

"You think everyone sounds nice," Kosu replied, her eyes not leaving Shikaku. Hiro giggled, a small, quiet infectious sound.

"And you think no one does Kosu." Hiro smiled. Kosu huffed and looked down to the ground, missing the small tug of amusement at the corner of Shikaku's mouth.

"So is Kosu short for something?" Shikaku asked after a moment of silence.

"Kosuke." She gave the male name with practised ease.

Even Hiro knew her as his older brother, he was too young to remember a time when she wasn't. To him she had always been Kosu his older brother, his protector.

It's safer this way, Kosu repeated in her mind. For a brief moment she could hear the screams of the women echoing around her head but she quickly shut the memory away and squashed it far down to the pit of her stomach.

"Have you got a name Shadow ninja?" She asked. Shikaku looked down at her with a raised brow. So he worked out the jutsu.

"Shikaku Nara." Shikaku replied.

"What's a shadow?" Hiro questioned quietly. Shikaku blanked. How do you describe a shadow to a blind child?

"It's like an echo, but you see it rather than hear it." Kosu answered after a moment's thought. Hiro paused thoughtfully and smiled, letting his large eyes flutter closed he tucked his head into his sister's shoulder. The soft strands of blonde hair tickled the side of her neck and she found a melancholy smile pulling at her lips. The smile quickly slipped into a frown as her gaze rose from her brother and focused on the shinobi. A frown that stayed in place for the entire walk through the Nara forest.

X

Hiro heard it before she did and no doubt their shinobi escort heard it before Hiro. The hustle and bustle of the large village. Civilians busying around the market, mothers with their children in the park, construction workers joking with each other. It was the sound of life. A sound that Hiro had never known and Kosu could barely remember.

Hiro's head rose from his sister's shoulder as soon as the first sounds of chatter reached his ears. Immediately, Kosu tensed. Hiro's hearing was incredible. Too many times he'd heard danger that she would have walked them straight into. Her hand rose so that her fingers dipped beneath the flap of the weapons bag and grazed against the old kunai. Shikaku stopped and faced the children.

"No. Wait." Hiro grasped his sister hand encouraging her to let go of the kunai.

"What is it?" She asked.

"I-I'm not sure. But it's good." Hiro assured her. "They're talking and laughing and there's kids."

"The Village." Shikaku said.

Kosu turned to look at him before gazing back into the trees in the direction of Konoha. Hiro beamed and his little arms tightening around her. She couldn't help but smile at her younger brother and pick up her pace as she all but ran with him to the forest edge. Kosu faltered as she broke from the forest edge and onto the road, mouth dropping open.

Konohagakure.