Outside of Konoha's Walls

By: Akgrym

Chapter 1: Lost

December 27, Year 3 after the start of Konoha-Kumo war

Hiashi Hyuga observed the proceeding at the town square with an impassive calm that could fool anyone except his twin brother.

Several high ranking Kumo shinobis, led by the head ninja of Kumo shinobi corp as the ambassador, were seated at a long table for the ceremonial signing of Konoha-Kumo peace treaty. Sitting next to them was a diplomat from Cloud Daimyo's court to officiate this meeting. At the opposite end of the table sat a representative from Fire Daimyo's court. The Third Hokage was beside the representative, his two senior advisors flanking his sides.

All the major clan heads and their heirs, as well as most of the council members were gathered at the town square to witness this monumental event. On the streets leading to the town square, people were lining up to watch the signing.

It was very subtle, but Hiashi caught the one-eyed head Kumo nin staring at his daughter Hinata.

If not for a lifetime's training to master his emotions, Hiashi would have launched a Juken strike in the Kumo ambassador's face and liquify his rotten brain the moment the bastard glanced at his three-year-old daughter's direction. Peace treaty be damned!

It took every ounce of self control he had to keep from accidentally activating his White Eye out of sheer indignation. He would bet his left eye the Third knew the Kumo scumbag was lying through his teeth about 'wanting peace', and he would then bet his right eye the aging Kage still wanted to sign the treaty with those fork-tongued belly crawlers!

Taking in a deep breath, the Hyuga clan head shifted his weight by the tiniest fraction to his right. This small movement allowed his long sleeves to catch the chilly winter breeze and therefore conveniently formed a screen to shield most of Hinata's face from the Kumo ambassador and his entourage.

He knew a filthy thief when he saw one. The greedy look in that Kumo ninja's one good eye really set his teeth on edge.

Discreetly, Hiashi signaled his clansman Ko with a sideway glance. The young man followed his silent order and moved closer to completely block Hinata from view.

The proceeding dragged on for another hour or so. By the end of the peace conference, the Third signed the treaty and shook the Kumo ambassador's hand. This action officially marked the end of Konoha-Kumo war.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took off his Hokage hat and sat down behind his desk with a heavy sigh. It's been a long day and he knew he was getting too old for this.

In the short span of ten years, Konoha was forced to fight war after war after war. First it was the Third Shinobi World War which reduced Konoha's rank to less than half its previous strength, and then there was that tragic Kyuubi incident which cost Konoha its young Hokage along with dozens of its finest shinobis. Right after that Kumo took advantage of their weakened state and declared war which lasted three more years!

Of course he knew the peace treaty with Kumo was as flimsy as the paper they signed the treaty on. The sad truth was, Konoha simply could not afford to lose any more of its force less losing its place as the five great nations! They needed peace! Even the warhawk Danzo understood that and supported the peace treaty.

Thinking about Danzo, the Third took a deep drag of his pipe and let out another exasperated sigh. How many time was it? Eleven? Twelve? How many more times would Danzo petition to raise Konoha's own demon container to be an emotionless killing machine? Did Suna's example not enough of a horror story to ward him off this dangerous path? If you treat a boy like a monster, how could you be surprised if that boy grows up to be a real monster?

Shaking his head, Hiruzen reached for his viewing orb and swiped the hidden seal matrix with a spike of chakra. He wanted to check on Minato's boy one last time before he headed home for the night.

Nothing.

Hiruzen frowned and carefully formed the necessary hand seals to activate the viewing orb again.

Still nothing.

Alarmed, the Third abruptly stood up from his seat and barked out a set of orders. "Tiger, seal the gates. I want no one in and no one out. Cat, check Danzo and report back ASAP. Bear, greet our guests from Kumo and keep them in the hotel. Scatter!"

Three masked ANBU dropped down from the ceiling and kneeled before the Hokage to acknowledge his order before leaping out of the window.

Pacing the length of his office, Hiruzen snapped another order with a sharp tone. "Dog! Bird! Bring me Naruto Uzumaki right now!"

Two more masked ANBU kneeled before the Hokage and flashed out of his office.

The God of Shinobi did not know he was already too late. Minato's Legacy was lost. It would be years before the boy returned to Konoha again.

Her name was Rin, or so she thought. She wasn't sure what her last name was, or if she even had one.

She did not even know what she look like. She was blind.

She knew she was a ninja because she knew she could mold and use her chakra. She could remember the names and the associated hand seals to form jutsus. She knew what various herbs and medicine look like and smell like, and she was fairly confident she knew how to use them correctly.

She could not, for the life of her, remember where she came from, or where her affiliation was.

For a ninja, not knowing one's affiliation was equal to eventual capture and torture. For a blind kunoichi during war time, it was a receipt for certain death, or worse.

For a blind civilian girl who lost her memory due to severe head trauma, the odd was significantly better.

Rin thanked her lucky star that she was found by civilians in the first place. Without her headband, they wouldn't know she was a ninja. According to the good people who rescued her, they found her floating down the Frost River with a death grip to a thick tree branch that also happened to impaled her right shoulder. There was also a gaping wound on her forehead and burn marks all over her body on top of that.

Apparently she did not know when to quit and die. That was a plus in her book.

For a while, she bid her time and focused on recovering her strength. The penetrating wound on her right shoulder was pretty bad, but it should not impede her mobilities if she needed to escape in a pinch.

Her loss of vision was not so easy to cope though.

She ruthlessly shoved down the sense of hopelessness that was starting to well up in her chest and focused on her breathing. Her Jonin teacher had told her the importance of keeping a cool head in any situation...

Who was her teacher again?

So Rin kept her calm and played up the 'helpless civilian girl' role to a T for the next month until she was strong enough to slip out of the hospital in the middle of the night. The task was not as difficult as she originally thought since she had full use of her other senses. Knowing how to use chakra helped a great deal. It was by accident that she discovered she could get a rough bearing by sending out small pulses of chakra in precise interval. The way her chakra passed through surrounding objects reminded her of ripples on a lake's surface.

She may be blind, at least she was not helpless.

As more time passed by, Rin had come to peace with her current situation. With her ability to sense her surrounding, she had no problem navigating the wilderness that was Frost Country on her own. She could gather herbs, trap small animals, and basically live off the land with her ninja skills. Her priority was to survive, so that means she took great pain to avoid civilization as much as possible. Civilization meant ninja, ninja meant death. Her will to survive outshone her desire for creature comforts.

She only ventured into town when she needed to trade for supplies or to gather information. The importance of collecting enough information had been drilled into her head since she was an Academy student...

Yes, she remembered she went to a ninja academy in a hidden village, but she still couldn't remember WHICH hidden village. This was so frustrating!

Rin would have been happy just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness for the rest of her life if not for that one particular incident.

It was in the dead of winter, in the depth of Frost Country's dense forest, two years since she woke up in the hospital, that she felt the explosion of this monstrous yet familiar chakra. The sheer pressure of that malevolent chakra had knocked her off her feet and extracted all the air out of her lungs. For a moment she was sure she was having a heart attack.

After an eternity, the evil chakra that was suffocating her abruptly dispersed into nothingness. Gasping loudly, Rin sucked in a large gulp of air only to gag at the burst of stench that reeked of blood and gore. She whimpered weakly and pulled her winter cloak over her mouth with a shaky hand. It took her a couple tries but she managed to pull out a kunai from her waist pack and stabbed her left arm with it. The sudden pain jolted her back to her senses, and the next second she was able to get back on her feet. Every fiber of her being was screaming for her to run away if only her legs would co-operate and move!

Maybe it was Fate, but Rin's inability to move at that moment changed the rest of her life.

Since she lost her vision, Rin had to depend on her other senses to navigate the world. Over time, her other senses naturally improved to compensate for her blindness. Rin would not have noticed the faint gurgling sounds coming from the direction of evil chakra otherwise.

Rin forced herself to calm down and extended her senses toward the sounds. Much to her surprise, all her senses confirmed that the sounds came from a small human child. Her curiosity warred with her instinct for flight and curiosity won out at the end. With great trepidation, Rin headed toward the sounds and finally found herself face to face with a young boy in the midst of dead bodies.

Naruto.

The boy was in shock, and was much too young to answer more of her questions. At the end, all Rin could get out of him was his name.

That, and he liked ramen.

Rin cleaned up the boy (he was covered in gore), wrapped him in her spare cloth (his own cloth reeked strongly of blood), fed him (not ramen, but he wasn't complaining), and then she found herself making cooing sounds to lull the kid to sleep.

The boy clung to her like a lifeline since then, and she didn't have the heart to deny him. It was almost like no one had ever been nice to the kid so he naturally latched onto the first person who would show him some kindness. It was nuts!

And then, when he started calling her Mom, she knew she could never get rid of this kid. Not that she wanted to either. Life was much more meaningful now that she was not alone.

Naruto was a good kid.

The boy was happy, intelligent, empathic, eager to please, and full of energy. It was impossible not to like him.

There was a small complication though. Rin was trained to be a ninja, therefore, it was difficult for her to ignore all the danger signs.

First of all, the amount of raw chakra Naruto had was abnormally large for his age. The most logical explanation was that the boy was from a clan of ninjas with some kind of bloodline limit. Involving herself with anything ninja was bad news.

Secondly, after combing through the dead bodies and disposing them, Rin was certain some of them were Kumo ninjas while some of them were civilians. All of them were torn apart by some kind of vicious animal. Those claw marks did not seem to fit anything she knew, and more curiously, there was no bite marks. What kind of animal would kill only with its claws but not its teeth?

Finally, that positively malicious chakra really scared the living daylight out of her. Rin could only hypothesize that the evil chakra was connected to the claw marks, but there was no further proof. The part that disturbed her the most was how they all seemed to connect to Naruto. How did a little boy survive a monster attack that killed a group of ninjas?

She could think of a few more hypotheses, but it would be a pointless exercise.

Even if the boy were dangerous, even if keeping the kid meant constantly moving around to evade capture, it was too late - Rin already considered herself to be Naruto's mother. What kind of mother would willing abandon her child?

Rin decided to head for Wave Country.

They were currently somewhere in the extensive black forest within Frost Country, a small country that was too weak to sustain its own hidden village. Unfortunately, Frost Country was located right between the two clashing forces of Konoha and Kumo, and neither sides seemed to mind waging war on a third party's soil. Rin alone had managed to hide in the wilderness and avoid drawing attention to herself, but with an untrained kid in tow, it became more challenging to hide their presence.

Besides, people would be looking for those dead Kumo ninjas. It would be unwise to linger any longer.

Since heading east (Kumo) or west (Konoha) were equally bad ideas, this left them with two viable options; head north to Rice Country, or head South to Wave Country. Having paid enough attention to local gossips, Rin was aware of recent rumors of mysterious disappearances within Rice Country and thought better to tempt Fate.

Her decision to go to Wave Country turned out to be a great choice. As they moved closer to Wave, Rin started hearing news about an ongoing civil war that became increasingly bloody in Water Country. This civil war, more closely resembled a genocide, resulted in a steady stream of refugees fleeing the island nation to nearby coastal cities. Wave Country was one of the prime spot where refugees from Water Country congregated before scattering all over Elemental Countries to build a new life.

No one would spare a second glance at a blind single mother with her young child in Wave; there were too many devastated families around for anyone to care.

"Let me know if you are tired, alright? I'll find us a place to stay for the night. We are pretty close to a town, so we could probably sleep in a bed for a change." Rin squeezed Naruto's hand gently as she asked. For a child his age, Naruto's stamina was unreal. Though Rin knew better to assume the boy would not be exhausted after a few months of camping out and traveling on foot.

Flashing her a brilliant grin, Naruto replied eagerly. "I'm not tired. I can walk lots! I can skip, too! Look!" And then the three-year-old boy proceeded to skip for the rest of the way to town. His overly exuberant behavior was cut short when a frantic call for help rang out near the outskirt of the sleepy port town.

"Somebody help! Please! My daughter! We need a healer! Please help!"

Naturally, Naruto said the first thing that came to his young, innocent mind, "mom we should totally help. Someone is in trouble!"

Rin sighed.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was in a dilemma; one part of him wanted to jeer at those fools' gobsmacked faces for digging their own graves, and another part of him just wanted to savagely rip their throats out.

"More importantly, we cannot even demand retribution from Kumo for kidnapping Konoha's own demon container. If we do, then they will know for sure Konoha has lost its Tailed Beast while they have a combined power of both Eight Tails and Two Tails! War with Kumo will resume if they find out. On top of that, other nations will see this as a major sign of weakness. I wouldn't be surprised if they choose to ally with Kumo and start a joint attack to wipe Konoha off the map!" The Third finished with a snarl.

From the look on all the council members' aghast faces, Hiruzen was sure they got his message loud and clear. "I don't care how you people think of Naruto. The fact is, a loyal demon container is a hidden village's greatest guardian, a true hero who serves as the village's ultimate shield. They are not called Human Sacrifice for nothing! Their presence alone could ward off invasions from other countries."

The aging Hokage's voice suddenly rose in righteous anger. "For three generations the Uzumaki clan have served Konoha in this capacity since the First Hokage's time. Yet, from what I can see, this ungrateful village not only spat on their devotion but also trampled on the Fourth's dying request! Now we've lost Kyuubi's power, as well as the last Uzumaki, would someone else like to offer their newborn child for the next Tailed Beast we happen across? Eh? Anyone? No? I thought not."

Hiruzen gave all the council members a piercing look before he continued. "Our Hunter-nin division tracked the kidnappers all the way to Frost Country. Unfortunately, the trail went cold a month ago. However, we have reasons to believe those Kumo spies failed to deliver Naruto to Cloud Country. Evidently an unknown third party intercepted them and slaughtered the entire group. All we could find were ashes from cremated corpses. If Naruto were among the dead, then we should expect Kyuubi to reform within a decade and take its revenge on our village. If he were alive, then let's pray to Kami he remains loyal to this village that mistreated him. Now, any questions?"

The following outcry from every council member was actually quite comical, in the Professor's opinion.

The frantic cry for help came from a middle-aged man named Tazuna. He was a burly man who worked honest labor all his life and had the tanned skin and bulging muscles to show for it. His only daughter Tsunami recently lost her husband at sea and her grief took a heavy toll on her health. She finally collapsed in the kitchen that day and Tazuna was reduced to a nervous wreck. He then did the only thing he knew how - he picked up his daughter and went screaming into the night for help like a headless chicken.

After calming the half-crazed father down, Rin then discreetly used a sealless diagnosis jutsu to scan her body. It didn't take her long to sort out the problem. "She will be fine, there is no lasting damage. A blood replenishing pill and a couple nutrition pills with her breakfast for a week should prevent this from happening again. She will need to take better care of her body, otherwise the baby would be in danger."

"Baby?" Tazuna repeated dumbly.

Rin smiled. "Congratulations, grandpa."

Said grandpa promptly rolled his eyes into the back of his head and fainted on the spot. Now Rin had two patients to look after. Great.

Knowing that she had a baby growing inside of her was exactly what Tsunami needed to pull her out of her crippling grief. This happy news had, quite literally, injected some life into her.

Upon hearing her savior needed to find a place to stay, Tsunami quickly offer them lodging as a show of gratitude. And no, she would not take no for an answer.

This was how Rin and Naruto came to stay at Wave.

As it turned out, Rin's expertise as a healer was much sought after in Wave. The refugees flooding into the small port town were mostly not at their best of health. The cold weather did nothing to help the situation either, not to mention the slum-like refugee camp at the edge of town was a warm bed for incubating diseases. If Rin had not been there to offer her service, Wave would be fighting a plague come summer.

The local populace were so grateful of Rin, they gave her a small house with a plot of land and asked her to stay.

Rin set up shop and called it 'Sea Breeze Clinic'.

When business was slow, Rin would take Naruto to the woods to collect herbs with his help. Her chakra control was not delicate enough to recognize minor details on a plant. Besides, even if she had god-like chakra control, she still could not tell colors without her vision.

Naruto once told her he had bright yellow hair and blue eyes with three slash marks on each cheek. Rin wished she could see for herself, but all she could do was seeing the boy with her hands. His hair was thick and spiky, most of the time gravity-defying. When she ran her fingers through his hair, it would bounce back almost immediately. His eyes were large (one would shudder at the devastating effects of his puppy eyes), but when he smiled they often close up to make way for his ear splitting grin. Rin imagined the boy would have a fox-like appearance when he was happy, especially with those whisker marks on his cheeks.

She bet he was as cunning and mischievous as a fox, not that she wanted to find out at the receiving end of his pranks.

Naruto was a natural at making friends. When he was not helping Rin out around the house, he was running around town and being his cheerful self. Less than a month since they got there, the kid could already greet every single person in Wave by name. Three more weeks after that, he had all the adults wrapped around his little fingers.

On the last day of spring, Naruto came home with a six-year-old street urchin in tow.

"Please, oh please can we keep her?" Rin could almost HEAR the puppy eye look on Naruto's face.

Great. Other people bring home stray animals, Naruto brings home stray kids.

Rin sighed again and not for the first time asked merciful Kami what she had got herself into.

The 'her' turned out to be a very androgynous 'him'; Rin discovered that after scrubbing the new kid raw in the tub. According to the number of times Naruto used the word 'pretty' when he described his new brother, Haku would grow up to break hearts men and women alike.

Rin had the urge to bang her head against a desk when she ran a scan and found that Haku had a rare and powerful bloodline. She would need to train him in chakra control so he would not accidentally hurt people around him.

Giving it a bit more thoughts, Rin decided it would make sense to give both Haku and Naruto the comprehensive training on all ninja arts. Just the other day there was this bloodthirsty Kiri ninja with a giant butcher knife strapped to his back wandering through town, terrorizing innocent town folks everywhere he went. Who knows if they would be bumping into more of those unsavory kinds in the future! One could never be too prepared, after all.

Jiraiya had never entertained the thought of mutiny, until now. His godson, Minato and Kushina's living legacy, was gone because some foolish civilians thought it was a great idea to get rid of the 'demon fox incarnate' by handing Naruto to those Kumo bastards on a silver platter.

If those kidnappers were not burnt to ashes already, Jiraiya would be flogging their corpses right now.

Jiraiya wondered not for the last time if he should have raised Naruto by himself, assassins from Iwa be damned. Who needed enemy when your own people treated you like garbage!

Not like it mattered anymore. Naruto was lost. The Fourth's sacrifice was for nought.

Yet Jiraiya refused to quit. He vowed to find Naruto again and bring the boy home, even if it meant tearing the entire Elemental Continent apart one country at a time! Starting with Cloud Country...

A/N: Hi all. This is my first Naruto fanfic. It will be Naruto/Hinata eventually, but my focus right now is not on pairings at all. Please review if you like the story. Thanks.