A/N: This is my third fic, one that I hope I can work on alongside my other current one, Naruto – Rewrite. The idea came to me a couple nights ago, though it was probably brought on from reading to many NaruAnko fics and other fics where Naruto leaves Konoha. Anyway I'm hoping this turns out good, so let's get the show started!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

"talking" / "thinking" / "demon talking" / "demon thinking"

A Reason for Living

Prologue

It was a warm, humid, and rather unseasonable night in October, as a young woman with bright purple hair and pale grey eyes in a tan trench coat and fishnet top ran through the forests several miles west of Konohagakure. She'd been running for a good three hours now, all to escape that unending nightmare she had had to endure for the past six years, along with a small blonde-headed boy that she was carrying on her back. The young woman, Mitarashi Anko, had made her decision to run from her home in Konoha after what she had witnessed earlier that night.

Flashback

Anko had been returning home after an evening of pleasant interrogations with Ibiki Morino, the head of the interrogation division of the ANBU, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, when she came upon a heart wrenching scene; one that she had already witnessed twice this week, On the streets below, about twenty or thirty people had cornered a small, blonde boy, with ocean-blue eyes, into a dark alley.

The seemingly helpless boy was wearing tattered shorts and what appeared to be a worn pillow case for clothes. As he cowered against the wall, curling into a ball, he held a bright orange-red, stuffed fox in front of him, seemingly hoping it would protect him.

Suddenly, there was the sound of smashing glass and a small yelp of pain. One man in the crowd, obviously intoxicated, had thrown a half drunk bottle of sake at the boy, hitting his left arm. Soon, the other members of the mob were throwing whatever they had on hand at the blue-eyed child. Rocks, knives, shards of glass, and even kunai and shuriken were now being thrown; the various objects leaving scratches, bruises, and embedding themselves in the young blonde's limbs and torso.

When the objects ceased flying for a moment, one man stepped forward from the group of jeering people, and after knocking the crying, bloodied boy's stuffed fox to one side, the man picked him up by his hair. He tossed the blonde towards the crowd, who immediately ran at the small child and started mercilessly kicking him.

Anko watched all of this in sheer horror, as the boy was kicked relentlessly, she heard varying cries of, "demon," "monster," and "brat," spat at the boy. She soon heard the faint sound of chirping birds, followed the feeling of a large spike of chakra. She looked back in the alley and saw the man who had only moment's ago tossed the helpless boy into the maddened crowd, illuminated by a white orb of chakra in his right hand, which was sparking violently. Whether it had been the darkness of the alley, or that she was too focused on the soon to be dead blonde, she now saw that she recognized the man. The silver hair spiked off to the left, the mask that covered most of his face, the hitai-ate pulled down over his left eye, and the grey ANBU armor. It could only be one person: Hatake Kakashi.

Then, the little boy who had finally passed out from the unimaginable amount of pain being inflicted upon his tiny body, was held up by another ninja, his Jounin vest clearly visible in the light generated by Kakashi's technique. The ninja held the boy's arms out to either side, almost as if he were to be crucified. She then heard the man shout, "Now, Kakashi, kill the demon and put an end to the suffering of this village!"

Time then slowed for Anko, as she saw Kakashi pull his right arm back and charge crying out, "This is for the Yondaime!!" What happened next, even she didn't completely understand why she did it at the time, but Anko leapt from the roof and towards the alley and cried, "Not another step Hatake! Sen'eijashu!" Two snakes then launched themselves from the right sleeve of Anko's trench coat and proceeded to coil themselves around Kakashi's legs, each biting into one of his ankles. As she landed, she kicked the shinobi that was holding the blonde boy back into the crowd and grabbed the small child before he hit the ground.

He looked even worse up close. Blood and dirt were caked all over the boy's clothes, what little remained of them anyway, as well as on his arms, legs, and face; some of the blood being dried, while most of it was moist and fresh. His left arm was in ruin; the bone in the forearm had punched through the muscle, leaving the arm completely useless. There were still a few kunai and shuriken along with a shard or two of glass embedded in the boy, mostly in his arms and legs. Just holding the frail child in her arms, the snake mistress could tell his breathing was way off kilter, as some breathes were very shallow and others painfully deep. Anko could only assume that one if not both of the boy's lungs were punctured or even collapsed.

She quietly thought to herself, "To treat such a small kid so cruelly and horribly, even if he holds that damn Kyuubi no Kitsune, this is just too sickening." Anko moved slightly to the left as a shuriken whizzed by her, grazing her right cheek. She turned and saw the man who had been holding the little boy now in her arms. The man shouted at her, "What the fuck are you doing snake-whore?! Let us kill that damn monster like we should have four years ago!"

A kunai was now pressed up against Anko's throat, as the one-eyed scarecrow had finally gotten free of the snake mistress's snakes. "Anko," he said coolly, "give me the boy now, otherwise, I can't guarantee that you'll get out of here unharmed."

Anko, then frowned and softly, yet harshly said to the ANBU captain, "You've become lower than dirt Kakashi, to be able to attack a defenseless child without any remorse."Then, as her blood began to boil, the snake mistress spat, "I'll never let anyone hurt this kid again. I've seen what this kid's been through and container of the Kyuubi or not, he's a defenseless child and I will not let you, or anyone else lay another finger on him!" Anko then swiftly kicked Kakashi in the groin, causing the scarecrow to drop to his knees, then she sent a few more snakes at the maddened mob, as a distraction. Swiftly grabbing the boy's stuffed fox, Anko took back to the rooftops and sped off towards her apartment.

An hour later, Anko, with a pack full of supplies, and a bandaged up blonde child on her back, was staring down at the village of Konohagakure, from the high wall that surrounded it. "Guess this is goodbye for now," she whispered to no one, before leaping over the wall and down into the forest below, leaving behind only another silent whisper, "I'm sorry, Sandaime-sama."

End Flashback

Finally stopping, the snake mistress placed the blonde boy against a tree, and smiled weakly at the sleeping child then saying, "Well Uzumaki Naruto, looks like you've given me a new reason for living."

A/N: There you have it, the prologue's done! Well now that the editing's done I can breathe easy for a day or two. Anyway, R&R please and thank you!

Translations-

Hitai-ate: Headband

Sen'eijashu: Hidden Shadow Snake Hands