AN:/ What do you mean I shouldn't be starting new fics when I haven't finished the 8 other ones currently ongoing? I thought that was what all the cool kids are doing.

—

He's not crying. He's not.

He's a big boy now, even has his own room in the orphanage, and that means he's not crying. It's just that it's dark, and he was supposed to be back by supper but he's not sure how he's ever going to find his way to the orphanage now.

He'd been playing by the training grounds for the older kids, watching people throw kunai at marked targets, when a few of the shinobi in training had seen him and opposed to his presence.

So here he is, in the dark, after having run away from the bigger kids with the sharp weapons. He had been laughing as he ran, but now, as he takes note of his surroundings once again, he has to force back a sniffle.

He's in a forest, lush and overgrown. It's hard to see where he is going in the dim light, and he keeps tripping over tree roots and rocks. His left knee is scraped and vaguely stinging.

And it's getting cold.

Despite that, he is not crying.

He rubs one grubby hand against his eyes and tries again to find the path. He's not sure what use that is, since he's not sure there ever was one in the first place, but he's not sure what else to do. The Matron will be so angry with him if he doesn't get back soon, and he's sure he won't be getting any supper.

That had been the reason he was outside in the first place, after all. Because the Matron had been angry with him sneaking into the kitchens to steal away food.

He'd been so hungry. He's always hungry. Even now there's a cramped feeling in his stomach.

He trips, again, and goes tumbling down a small hill. He cries out in shock, even if the pain fades quickly. A bird watching on a nearby branch rustles dark feathers and takes flight.

"Ow," he mumbles, rubbing his face. He's rolled into some sort of clearing, broken stone steps leading farther into the darkness.

He blinks and grins.

A path! Finally. He pushes himself up and moves forward, not questioning his good luck.

The path doesn't lead towards the village though. He pushes through the darkness and sees a small, broken structure nestled in between two large trees. A broken archway leans to one side, the stone carved with something that is now too worn away to read even if he could, and vines creeping along everywhere.

"Oh," he mutters in disappointment, kicking a stray rock. He then shivers at the breeze and turns a wary eye at the dark sky. The moon is just visible.

He glances back at the small building and shuffles in place. On one hand, he really should continue to search for the road. On the other hand, he's tired and it's cold out.

He wanders slowly in, passing under the archway and keeping a curious eye out.

"What is this place?" he wonders, sliding the cracking shōji doors open and peaking inside. Dust motes float by, ticking his face, and the floor looks broken and rotten. The walls are in relatively good standing, and the roof intact, so he shrugs and walks in.

The ingrained habits from the orphanage have him nudging his shoes off, even though he regrets it as soon as his bare feet hit the floor. It's a small building, big enough for some sort of entryway and one room behind that, so when he closes the crumbling shoji doors against the wind it's no longer freezing.

With the last fading light he scrambles into the most stable looking corner and curls up into a ball, his overly large clothing serving well as a makeshift blanket. Sleep comes quickly.

—

Dark eyes watch as the small child settles into sleep. A white tail swishes back and forth in contemplation.

"An odd human, to have slipped past the barrier," a voice says in thought, sharp teeth flashing in a grin.

A white snout lifts into the air.

"Smells strange too," another voice answers.

Identical shapes stand guard over the night.

—

Naruto wakes up to light streaming through the cracked shoji door and yawns. He blinks a few times and rubs his grumbling belly, before sitting up.

Now that he can see a little better, the building looks to be in better shape than he originally thought. The walls are a muted orange, peeling in places and cracked, with crumbling scrolls attached. Weeds are poking out of the floor, but what looked rotten in the darkness turns out to be relatively intact.

In the middle of the otherwise barren room there's a small altar with nothing on it. Rice paper is peeling off of its supports, but even the windows look like they were decorated at one point.

It looks old, and abandoned, but not decrepit. In fact, as he steps out of the building, the green crawling along the stone arches and pillars looks almost magical.

It's peaceful, and secret looking. It makes him feel like he's stumbled upon something amazing, that at any moment he's going to tumble into a hidden kingdom and have to save a princess.

He grins.

He slips on his shoes and starts his exploration. There's a patch of overgrown dirt to one side, having maybe been a garden at some point, and a moss covered well in the very back. It's too tall to peer into.

There's some crumbling stone by the archway, looking to have at some point been statues before time and weather had worn down their shapes.

That's about it.

"Huh," he mutters, a little disappointed. He had found nothing to indicate a secret society, or magical princesses. Unless they were at the bottom of the well.

Still, it was a cool looking place, and one that was obviously abandoned. Which just meant that it was free to claim. A lot of Naruto's things used to be abandoned too, from his clothing to his toys.

He nods his head. He'll come back, but first he really needs to find the village and get some food. Maybe by now the Matron will have forgotten her anger at him and he can sneak into the building for lunch.

He scrambles down the path he followed last night, passing back under the archway, and sees that the stone continues further uphill. The sunlight filtering through the leaves shows that if he had only gone the other way he probably would have made it back to the main road.

He starts whistling a tune he heard from one of the orphanage workers and keeps walking.

—

He comes back the next day, stumbling through the thick forest until he finds the path again. From the road you would never know that there's something in the forest, the dense leaves hiding the path until you are right upon it.

He has his backpack with him this time, stuffed everything he could think important for a secret base. This meant his ratty stuffed frog, the crayon stubs he'd been hoarding, loose scraps of paper, two packets of instant noodles, one extra pair of pants, and a bucket.

He swings himself over a downturned log and into view of the stone archway. A grin breaks out on his face and he scurries forward, ducking under low branches and vines.

"Helloooo—" he calls out, more so he can hear his voice echo across the clearing then because he expects an answer. He's used to talking to himself.

He drops his bag on the ground in front of the building and starts yanking things out. His frog, named aptly Gama-chan, gets put gently down on a small rock sticking out of the ground. The crayon stubs he organises by colour on the ground.

He pats his knees and looks at one of the large trees overlooking the clearing. It's much larger than the ones he's climbed before at the academy, and much wider than the spindly one in the orphanage courtyard.

He climbs it. He can't even reach the first branch, so he has to resort to overturning his bucket and standing on that first, but he's eventually able to pull himself up to the first branch and hang his pants at the end of it.

He nods to himself decisively. It might not be the prettiest flag in the world, but it does its job.

Climbing down is a lot easier, since he just jumps and rolls like they have been teaching at the academy.

He still ends up banging his elbow on the way down, but he laughs it off and grins.

He scrambles back towards his bag and unrolls a few sheets of paper, pinning the ends with some pebbles lying around.

"Well Gama-chan, what's the game?" he lays down on his belly and grabs a green crayon, scribbling a little frog face in one corner. Last week they had played Shinobi and Nuke-nin. Of course, since they didn't have anyone else to play with they had ended up roping in one of the orphanage supervisors by stealing his orange book. The man might not have realised he was playing with Naruto, but that wasn't the important part.

This time, he thinks he wants to try being the shinobi.

"A princess?" he asks the frog, switching out for a pink crayon and scribbling a lump that might, if you squint, represent a princess.

"We can rescue her from, uh, from the evil—" he switches colours again, this time for a murky brown, trying to think of who can be the evil overlord, "—the evil food stall man."

Last week one of the merchants in the market district had thrown fruit at him when he didn't leave quick enough.

He draws a box to symbolise the food cart around the princess and nods. He looks at Gama-chan and frowns determinately.

"We gotta be, be sneaky," he says, with a finger to his lips. He doesn't want to be caught, because nothing good ever comes out of people seeing him when he plays his games.

He sketches out some more boxes to represent the neighbouring businesses, gets distracted drawing a crocodile eating one of them, and then hums to himself, rolling over to watch the clouds drift by.

He's trying to think how he can save the princess, but he's not even sure what would be the princess in this situation. Not the food, since people buy that all the time and you don't buy princesses. No, it has to be something precious, and unique.

He rolls back over and looks at his lopsided map.

"Stall man, stall man, stall man…" he sings, thinking. Food stalls have food, and people selling food, and little pots with shiny coins. And banners with things written on them.

His eyes widen, pushing himself a little and looking at Gama-chan.

"The sign!" he cries out, giggling.

He quickly scribbles a box on top of the original one, and circles it a few times. Next to that he draws a frowning stick figure waving its fist. He nods resolutely.

"That doesn't help you figure out how to steal it in the first place," Gama-chan says. Naruto gasps and pokes the plush animal in its bulging cheek.

"Yes it does! We go there, all shinobi-ee and, and sneaky. And then! BAM! Rescue the princess."

The dead and shiny eyes of Gama-chan glint.

"You're going to get caught if you do that. You should think about how you are going to 'BAM' "

Naruto hums, picking up the frog and looking at it closer.

"You're so smart Gama-chan. How come the other, other animals don't talk?" he asks, tilting his head. Some of the other children at the orphanage talk about 'invisible friends' but that's silly, because Gama-chan isn't invisible.

The frog plushie is silent.

Naruto sighs and puts it down again. Gama-chan doesn't talk all the time, seems to only when he's alone and talking to himself in the first place. He never says much when he does either.

He looks down at his map and frowns.

"I'm a shinobi. Tha' means I'm gonna rescue the princess like a shinobi," he continues, grabbing one of the crayons, "which means, uh—"

He's not quite sure exactly how shinobi go about doing missions. He's not sure it's ever been mentioned in class, can only remember stories about big battles and the shinobi rules.

"—which means I gotta' be like a shinobi," he finishes.

—

"The frog smells like a youkai." White fur shifts, eyes glinting. "I wonder if it would taste good."

"It was probably attracted by the smell of the boy and got trapped in the thing he loved most. Must have been a weak spirit to have mistaken a human for a frog," the other voice muses, tail waving in thought.

A snort.

"A pitiful snack, you mean. Pity, there hasn't been any offerings here in what seems like centuries."

—

Mission 'save the princess' goes off mostly without a hitch. He muddies his face and hair in a puddle and waits until the stall is really busy. The crowd of people serve to distract not only the merchant, but the nearby shinobi. Everyone is looking for pickpockets and thieves, not virtuous little boys saving princesses.

He considers every hurried customer and watchful shinobi an enemy, people in league with the evil stall man. He tiptoes passed them with his amazing shinobi skills and evaluates his method of attack. The stall and the surrounding buildings are the castle that he needs to climbs the building behind the stall, using a couple boxes left in the alley and a convenient drain pipe running up. It takes a good couple minutes to get to the roof of the two story building, and he collapses for a second on the hot tiles to catch his breath.

Eventually, he reaches into his bag and unwinds the fishing hook and string he got from scavenging from one of the rivers. Peering over the ledge gives him the perfect view of the street and crowd.

"C'mon," he mutters, lowering the line

The banner is bolted into a wooden post, but not very well. A couple tugs on the hook has the frayed fabric ripping off. It's bigger than he is, but it's also made out of cloth so it's easy enough to pull up.

Of course, a giant moving banner is not very subtle, so he only just gets it up over the ledge before yelling bursts out from below. He rolls it up and scrambles away, climbing down the drain pipe he originally climbed up on.

The heavy crowds means the merchant can't leave his post, but he knows shinobi will be after him soon if he doesn't hide.

Getting the cloth in his bag is impossible, and he doesn't try. Instead, he runs off towards his hideout.

"Little brat! Come back here!" the vendor yells at him, waving his fist in the air very much like in Naruto's drawing.

He giggles.

A few people try to chase him of course, but the surprise and confusion gives him a head start that he desperately needs. He has short legs.

He bursts through the leaves of the forest and trips over a root sticking up. He and his precious 'princess' go tumbling down.

"Oh no!" he cries, scrambling after the bolt of cloth. The princess is unhurt, and with a sigh of relief he picks himself up and heads deeper inwards.

He passes back under the stone archway and smiles up at the moss-covered stone.

"I'm back!"

From within the small building Gama-chan snorts.

"I guess you got away then, pity."

Naruto pouts, dumping his bag on the ground in front and kicking his shoes off. He opens the shōji doors and peers in.

"That's mean, Gama-chan!" he complains, eyes looking for the small plush. He eventually finds it sitting a few feet from where he last left it, and he picks it up.

With Gama-chan in one hand and the banner in the other, he starts evaluating where he should hang it up.

Eventually he decides that the pants in the tree, although a valiant effort, need replacing. He drops Gama-chan back onto its rock and swings the banner over one shoulder. He's able to climb the tree a lot faster this time, and it takes no time at all until he's switched them.

Back down on the ground, he dusts his hands off and hums in thought. He has no idea what it says, but it looks nice and proper, even with the fish hook dangling down one side.

"Perfect!" he declares, spinning around and grinning at Gama-chan. He rifles through his bag and takes out his paper and crayons.

"Mission, done," he declares with a grin, "What's next?"

—

"Does that say—"

"Fried Tofu for sale? Yes, yes it does."

"Huh, maybe the kid knows something after all."

—

It's getting late, shadows growing long through the rustling leaves. Naruto kicks his legs about as he lays on the ground, a pile of paper and crayons scattered around him, and he sighs.

"I gotta go back," he finally mumbles, kicking at the dirt.

"Or you could not," Gama-chan says. Naruto rolls over to look at it.

"What d'ya mean?" he asks, tilting his head. Gama-chan is once again silent, and he sighs again.

He rolls over to watch the darkening sky and hums in thought. He could stay, he supposes. He's done it already, but he doesn't think the Matron would like that all that much.

She'd been pretty angry at him earlier, not because she was worried so much as because she's very meticulous about routines.

He stretches out and sits up, gathering all his things. He hides the papers under the raised board in the building, and leaves the bucket where it sits by the tree. Everything else goes in his bag, Gama-chan on top.

He stops right under the archway and looks at the small clearing with a grin.

"Be back soon!"

—

Naruto has been going to the Shinobi Academy for as long as he can remember. He's not that good at it, has a hard time concentrating and can never stay still, but it's a lot of fun. They get to climb trees, play organised games and listen to really cool stories about shinobi. The teachers don't seem to like him all that much, and he doesn't have any friends, but that doesn't matter to him.

He's becoming a shinobi, which basically means the coolest thing ever.

He's also younger than a lot of his classmates, but he doesn't let that hold him down. He works hard so he's not called the baby of the class, and makes sure that he stays smiling.

Which means, a few days after finding his hideout, he's really surprised when the boy next to him turns around and stares at him in suspicion.

"You're not planning something dumb, are you? You're smiling a lot."

Naruto blinks.

"No—"

"Kay," the boy interrupts, turning back towards the front. Naruto huffs and puffs out his cheeks, turning back to fidgeting in his seat and doodling Gama-chan in his notebook.

The notebooks stay in class, and his in particular is bent and ragged.

The teacher stops talking and he looks up, noticing that people are starting to put things away. He hurries to shove the book and pencil in his desk and stands up with the rest of the class, bouncing on his feet.

Rolling class is next. Rolling class has an actual name, but he doesn't remember it. It's the one where they get to do a lot of somersaults and get pushed off of things so they can learn to fall properly, and it's probably his favourite class.

His neighbour glares at his bouncing and he sticks his tongue out at him in answer.

"Ok class! We have a special guest coming to show us some shinobi techniques. Everyone line up and behave now," the teacher yells out, smacking her desk with a ruler. The class settles.

Naruto edges into his place in the line and tries to look attentive. A lot of time the 'special guests' they bring out are boring, low-level nin showing how to throw kunai or start fires. Besides, a demonstration means having to pay attention and is as far removed from rolling class that something outside can be.

He pouts.

They trudge out of the classroom, a few students chattering quietly in excitement. There's a man standing in the middle of the field, and the teacher moves forward to talk to him.

Naruto zones out. On the other end of the field a few older students are practising jutsu, and he watches with wide eyes as they flicker back and forth, swapping with logs and rocks and, in one disastrous attempt, each other. He's pretty sure they've covered the theory for that particular technique, but he can't remember its name.

"—and that's why he's going to show you how to set a basic trap," the teacher says, and he zones back in, interest piqued.

The nin standing in front of them waves lazily and opens the front of his vest to show an assortment of wires and hooks.

"C'mon closer, this one's real easy," the man says, and they gather round. The group sits down and watches curiously as he starts taking out a bunch of tools and things from the vest.

Most of it seems to be wire, the metal but thin kind that a lot of shinobi seem to use but that they haven't been given yet. Naruto eyes it in interest.

"This here is what makes a good trap work so well, it's thin and hard to see when stretched out, but strong enough to trip a raging elephant. You guys know what an elephant is? No? Nevermind. The main thing is that you can hook anything with this and make a really basic trap in a really short amount of time," the man says. Naruto tries to keep up with that, but mostly gets caught up on the fact that the teacher probably said his name but he didn't hear it earlier.

The man unspools a bit of wire and snips it with one of the tools, so that he has about an arm's length.

"Ok, so the first step is making sure you have the right amount of wire. You need there to be a certain amount of tension and give in the line, like how string instruments are made. Now we just…" he takes two kunai and stabs them into the earth, stretches the line across them so that one end is tied and the other one loops back, "so this is good enough for tripping someone, but probably not all that great as a trap. Does anyone know how we can make it better?"

A few hands go up. The man's eyes crinkle and he nods towards where one of the clan kids is looking superior and smug.

"Traps have to be hidden," the kid says, who Naruto realises he also doesn't know the name of.

"Yes, that's true. The most important thing to remember about traps is that the enemy should never see them coming. Even the most simple and basic of traps can result in victory if the setup is done right. But in this case, we're in the middle of a field, how would you hide this trap?"

The kids all start talking over each other, trying to come up with the best way. Naruto stays silent, staring at the patch of ground the wire stretches across. Something about it looks—off.

"You, whisker kid. You look like you have an idea," the nin says with a somewhat malicious grin, nodding towards Naruto. He blinks.

The class goes silent.

"Of course!" Naruto yells, mostly as a reflex. He pause and wrinkles his nose.

"Naruto never has any good ideas, you should ignore him sensei," a girl with pigtails says, in a nasally voice.

The nin shakes his head, grin not dropping an inch.

"No, no, I'm curious, you looked to be in deep thought there."

Naruto puffs up, and then deflates a little.

"Why hide it at all?" he asks, shrugging. The class groans.

"Idiot!" the girl with pigtails yells, "sensei already said why."

The nin's smile widens.

"He's right, in this case."

The class stills, and Naruto blinks in surprise.

"I am?"

The man nods, eyes turned up, and points to the trip wire.

"When an enemy sees a trap like this, something simple and unhidden, he's going to think 'that trap is a trap, there has to be more around', and then he is going to be scared. A scared enemy will be on the lookout for things that look out of place, like—" he stabs a kunai into the ground in front of the wire, causing the ground to collapse, the thin covering of grass falling away to reveal a pit, "this here. They'll find the second trap and think to themselves 'oh, that's it. I'm safe now.' "

A boy with a buzz cut frowns and raises his hand.

"But what is the point of letting them find your traps?"

The nin nods, and gestures towards the trap.

"Would you say that there's anything else to this? Would you look at this and be scared?" he asks. The class shakes their head.

Five more kunai go flashing out. Five more pits open up, causing a foot long gash in the soil.

"That is why. Your enemy will see easy obvious traps, and be blinded to the true trap. Layers are the key to being one step ahead of your enemy."