A Cage of Clouds

A/N: Thanks so much for sticking with me in this story! I have a bunch planned and hope I can pull it off. This chapter is going to be a bit 'all over the place.' Just stick with me and things will go back to being coherent next chapter.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto

"Speech"

Jutsu

"Demon/summon speech"

'Thought'

'Demon/summon thought'

Flashback

Chapter 3- Expect the Unexpected

Hizashi was panicking. Well, he was fairly concerned, seeing how Hyuugas never panicked. Why? He had tried to find Naruto after the celebrations for Hinata, but he was nowhere to be seen. The boy's appartment, a new gift from the Hokage, was empty, he wasn't sleeping in the tree, and he wasn't even sitting on the Yondaime's head and watching the village.

'Where else would he be?' the branch Hyuuga wondered.

He ran back to the compound, into his house and looked through the rooms. In one, Neji was asleep, a placid look on his bandaged face. His father smiled, but wasted no time in checking all of the other rooms.

Empty.

"Naruto?" he mumbled, walking outside. He worried that the boy was finally attacked by either an angered Hyuuga or a mob of villagers. He'd feel like he failed Minato, his friend, if anything happened.

Wait, there was somewhere else he knew. Naruto sometimes went to the part on the outer edge of the village, maybe he was there.

He wasn't too famliar with the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, but he did make a habit of seeing the boy around a few times per week to make sure he was safe. He didn't talk to him, it wasn't his place or in his power. As much as the Hokage wanted the Hyuuga to adopt him, they knew he'd end up getting the caged bird seal 'one way or another.' The balance of power was an eternal, omnipotent force that no one wanted to disrupt.

Finally, panting only slightly, Hizashi arrived at the park. No one was there, it being early in the morning. He walked around, searching for a sign of the blond but finding none. Then, he stumbled on a bench with a t-shirt on the ground right next to it.

"Isn't that the shirt he wore to the party?" he thought out loud, looking at the blue shirt sideways. Naruto had taken the shirt with him, but it seemed like he didn't get out of the kimono that he leant the boy.

There was a track of footprints starting at the bench and running away towards the trees though the soft ground. "Oh Kami. Someone took Naruto." He made a bunshin to tell the sleeping Hokage and immediately took off, Byakugan activated to see where the man's footprints went.

Naruto felt groggy, bouncing up and down every second like he was a toddler. He couldn't quite see yet, everything was blurry, but he had an idea that he was being carried. It felt like someone was holding his body at their sides while jumping through trees.

'The last I remember, I was sitting on the bench. What happened?' he thought.

Slowly his vision was returning. The world was sideways as the man jumped through the sparse forest. Naruto saw his clothes, but couldn't turn his limp head up to see his face. The man wore a black hooded shirt and black pants, very inconspicuous at night, but not the best choice in a crowd. At the cuffs of his long sleeve shirt, Naruto could see dark olive skin and black armored gloves. Around his right wrist was a headband with three clouds. What on Earth did that mean, he wondered.

"Hello?" Naruto asked.

"You are Naruto Hyuuga." The man's quick statement demanded an answer. The branch Hyuuga had enough feeling his neck to turn his head and see his attackers face. The man was dark-skinned with a black bandana on his head, covering croppy brown hair with bangs that spiked down to his eyes. The man turned his dull brown eyes on Naruto, expectant of an answer.

"Y-yeah," he stuttered. "Where are we? What's going on?" He activated his Byakugan and glared at the man. His captor, he didn't know the man kidnapped him though, had jonin level reserves and tame chakra. On top of that, the blond couldn't recognize any of his surroundings, much less make sense of what happened.

"Nothing," the man replied, stopping. He grabbed Naruto's side harder and slung the boy over his right shoulder, freeing his hands. After a few hands seals, Naruto felt his body go numb again and drifted off to sleep.

"Hiruzen-sama!" A voice shouted. The Sandaime was asleep, it was 3:00 in the morning. "Hiruzen-sama!" the voice repeated, banging on his beddroom door.

The Hokage shot up and looked at the door. He knew that voice. "Inu! Its three in the damn morning!"

"Hizashi-san found something. Its about Naruto." Suddenly, the old man's eyes winded and he quickly grabbed his normal shinobi clothes, not his Hokage robes, and ran out of his room. It was kind of creepy to have ANBU inside your house in the Hokage mansion, but he had grown used to it over the years. It was still insane how often the job called for him being always ready.

"Hizashi!" He commanded, walking out of his room to see the silver haired ANBU and the branch Hyuuga standing there. "Tell me everything!"

Hizashi explained that he was a clone and the original was followed Naruto's tracks. "It's Kumo," the Hokage figured. "Kumo has taken Naruto-kun."

Kakashi, the ANBU Inu, looked down at the ground with Hizashi, both having one similar thought: 'I failed you Minato...'

"We need to send a team of ANBU after them, now! They have a five to seven hour lead on us. Bring Naruto back, Hizashi," he added, knowing the man could catch up before ANBU. The old Hokage nearly nad a heart attack after Hizashi told him the truth because he knew, deep inside, that the kidnapper already had too large of a headstart. Konoha would not cross to far into Kumo's boards to retrieve the boy, as Hiruzen knew it would provoke a war.

After the men left the house, he slammed a fist into the wall. "Dammit," he cursed, showing a rare bout of anger.

Time skip 2 days

Opening his eyes again, Naruto awoke. The terrain hand changed, now a mountainous region with huge jagged peaks and poofy clouds closer to the ground. In the vallies ran rivers, starting from the mountains and running all the way to the ocean. 'Where am I?' he wondered. He was on a path running through the mountains, only 20 miles from Kumo, not that he knew. It was dark, maybe late at night.

"Only two more hours now," the man commented, turning his eyes at the boy slung over he shoulder.

"Why did you take me from Konoha?" Naruto tried to glare at the man, reasoning that he was trying to take him from the village. He was surprisingly close to what happened.

"I cannot answer your questions," the man replied in a bored monotone. He stopped his fast pace, pulling off his bandana and tying it around the boy's eyes in a blindfold.

Naruto sighed visibly at the black cloth over his eyes."You do know that I can still see right?" The man groaned for forgetting that, cursing himself for not being able to maintain his clan's signature sleeping genjutsu for longer. His limit was two days, though he couldn't use it in battle.

"Soooo," Naruto said cheerfully, "what's your name?" He faced the man through the blindfold, using his dojutsu to see.

"..."

"What village are we going to?"

"..."

"Do you even talk?"

Was this his fate? To be stuck, carried like a sack of flour by someone he didn't know. Fate, fate was a cruel thing to the young boy, mixed with the added portion of destiny. Who knew, maybe his destiny was to never know where he'd end up. The last time he was conscious, he was beginning to think his fate might draw him to be brothers with Neji. Not that he worshipped fate like the real Hyuuga. How much could he really change, and how much was out of his control?

"..."

"Answer me you bastard!"

"Where did you learn that kind of language?" He asked, thinking of knocking the boy on the head. 'Well, It's for the best. Raikage-sama advised me to keep him asleep.' He tossed the boy down from his shoulders, making him land on the uneven path with an umph.

"Good night," the man stated, slamming his palm on the Hyuuga's head just enough to knock him out.

The Raikage was sitting in his office, tense. How was he to know whether the mission was a success or not? It had been two full days, and the anticipation was too much for any one man to handle. To be frank, until he discovered the unfortunate Hyuuga living on his own, he thought the task of kidnapping a main house member impossible. He had not a clue who this kid was before his spy heard word from a passing Konoha shinobi.

'A' slammed his fist into the desk, cracking it. Where the hell was Nekki? He should have gone himself to make sure the plan worked. Even though he disliked the morality of the situation, he was backed into a corner by the lack of bloodlines in Kumo.

He heard a quick knock on the door. The unseen ANBU in the room raised an eyebrow, thinking it'd be the person that made their Kage so bothered. "Come in," said 'A'.

The door creaked open revealing a man with unruly brown hair covering his olive face. He had an indifferent expression on with a slight twinge of annoyance. He tossed the small figure clad in a fancy black kimono on the ground. The boy had spiky blond hair and black blindfold on his eyes. Nekki, the now named kidnapper, crossed his arms.

"This was far more painful than you suggested A-sama," the man said.

"Why so?"

"I spoke to him for 20 seconds and he's as ridiculous as your brother," he deadpanned.

The Raikage doubted that anyone was as foolish as that rapper, Bee. "I assume this is the Hyuuga?"

"Hai. Can I go home now? My wife is probably worried sick, not knowing why I've been on a mission." At a nod from his superior, he left the room to go home. He wondered if his daughter would be awake this morning already, as it was about 6:30am.

"So this is Naruto Hyuuga," 'A' said to no one in particular while he looked at the small boy in front of him. He wasn't really sure what to do anymore now that he had the boy. What was supposed to happen? The kid willingly joins them in his naivety? They use him as breeding (the thought of which pissed off A)?

"ANBU!" He shouted. They all cowered internally at his loud, dangerous tone that promised pain for disobedience. "What do we do now?" Everyone seemed hesitant to answer, considering that the buff Raikage always thought that he knew best.

One of the braver shinobi replied. "We can get him checked out by the medics?"

"Uhh alright. That makes sense," 'A' rubbed his temples in annoyance. Even after he had finalized the plan he still didn't know what the hell he was doing. Shouldn't there have been someone in the village who had a clue about kidnapping kids?

After some quick thinking, he developed an assertive tone. He looked at the kid, out cold on the floor, and said, "I need a guard outside his room at all times. He's going to stay in the hospital for three days, hopefully we'll figure something out by then. Rat, you're guarding first. Bird, you're next. Someone get Tenga to talk to the boy and figure him out. And where the hell is Mabui!"

"H-Hai-Raikage-sama!" The four hidden ANBU stood up and each walked out of the room, one with an odd looking rat mask grabbed Naruto. Before they all got out, Bird turned around.

"Mabui is asleep," he sighed. "And we aren't..."

At the hospital, two hours later, a boy was asleep on a white bed. It was a pristine room, coated with newly painted white walls. Various machines beeped as a line rose and fell in peaks. A window in the wall let in some of the morning light. Sitting in a chair, a woman with a white hospital gown that had a cross on it talked to a man who had just entered. She had long black hair and based her entire future off of the study of iryo-ninjutsu. It appeared that the Raikage wanted to take no chances with determining Naruto's health.

He had a mark under his right eye and medium length, spiky black hair. The coat that he wore was a beige color with a dark grey hood and a stripe running up the middle. Tenga was an odd man. In the village of Kumo, not many wanted to learn the workings of the mind or how to use any justu related to perception. Fortunately for the village, Tenga was such a man. If he was able to be reborn, he'd surely choose to be a Yamanaka, just so he could realisticly apply his skills. At present, he was forced to sort through video feed at T&I, though he sometimes helped Airi, the most ironically named female interrogater in history.

"So what is the condition of the Hyuuga?" He asked the nurse conversationally.

"He's slightly malnurished and has been for quite some time. This wasn't caused from the trip here, I assure you. He also has insanely large chakra levels for a five year old, maybe low genin already. His bloodline appears to work fine, not like I'd be able to tell that for certain. He's a little bruised and battered, but it seems like he will be totally fine in a few days."

"You have no idea who he actually is either, eh?"

"No," she replied, a bit downcast. "It's wrong. I only care about helping people, it's my life, and I didn't think I'd live to see the day where I have a kidnapped child as a patient. He was malnourished though... it's somewhat justification, considering that he is in far better hands."

"I agree, but we shouldn't voice dissent. It's the Raikage's decision, and we all just go with it. After all, this village has been doing great since 'A' took his the Sandaime's position."

"I thin-"

She was interrupted by a high pitch yell. "What the HELL! What's going on?" Naruto was awake and utterly confused. He had no clue why he'd be in a hospital if he was just kidnapped a few hours ago. He wasn't aware of the time that he was out cold.

"Didn't Nekki tell you anything?" Tenga asked, concerned and annoyed. The man was a brick wall, but he was good with his clan's genjutsu.

"Who?" Naruto asked.

"Nevermind, I'm not allowed to talk about that," he amended, making a hand gesture with his hands for the nurse to leave.

"Then what can you talk about!" Snarled the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. He was fed up with all of that crap. He tried to move his arm and hit one of his captors, only to find it paralyzed at his side, caused from some sort of poison.

"Fine, kid, look. I need get an understanding of you first. Okay?" He tried to comfort the distraught boy, only receive a short nod and a softening of his features. "First, what's your name?" Thus began the barrage of questions.

Reluctantly, he answered. "Naruto Hyuuga."

"So, Hyuuga-san, were you a branch or main house member?"

"Branch."

"Are you aware of the caged bird seal?" The man eyed hin with a raised brow.

"Yes," he replied, deciding on one word answers.

"Do you know why you don't have it?"

"No."

"Who were your parents?"

"Don't know."

"How do you view your village?"

Naruto paused, this questions was a little more revealing. He didn't really want to pour his soul out to an enemy of the village. Jiji would hate him if he got back. 'An answer for an answer,' he thought. "What village am I in?"

The kind of qualified 'interrogator' groaned visibly. With enough of his studies, he knew that he had to help out the kid to get anything more worthwhile. "You're in Kumogakure."

A/N: For sake of a consistent chapter length, I'm stopping it here. Next chapter Bee will make his appearance and Naruto will begin his life in Kumo. I warn you, he won't always be this distrustful. Tenga was that guy... just search him up on Narutopedia xD. Also, more of Konoha's actions.

Until next time

Stay troublesome,

~Waffles