A Little Story

Neo watched with fascination in her eyes. This man was so much different than everyone else she knew. She was a thief and a murderer but this man was giving her a chance. A chance to change her life. She had been running and hiding from everyone. People who knew about her or people who knew Roman.

They wanted to use her for the things she was capable of but this man did not. He just wanted her to not go down the wrong path and make the same mistake his friend did. He was willing to forgive her just so she could move on.

Guilt welled up inside Neo. She remembered all the things she did and tears gathered in her eyes. How many children lost their parents in the attack of Vale. How many people died just because they were doing their job.

It was like a dam that broke and tears started falling from her eyes. She grabbed his hand and Naruto pulled her into a hug. For the first time in years, Neo cried like a child. She grabbed his shirt tightly and buried her face in his chest.

For almost half an hour she cried and then she fell asleep. Naruto laid her down in the bed and covered her body because the weather was chilly. A small smile formed on her face and burrowed into the sheets.

Naruto sighed looking down at his soaked vest and shirt. After a shower, he wore clean clothes and dried his hair. He was tying his hair that had grown past his shoulders. Suddenly, Naruto stumbled back into the wall when he glanced at the mirror.

A look of horror and surprise flashed in his eyes and his breathing sped up. Naruto clutched his head when a wave of pain assaulted his brain. It seemed as if he had unlocked something, fragmented memories of some kind that were not his.

"Ashura...." he breathed out slowly and tried to get back his bearings. Naruto could not believe what just happened. Instead of his reflection, he saw the reflection of Ashura, son of the sage of six paths.

'Have I started hallucinating or was it just another PTSD attack?' He questioned himself and peeked inside the room to check if Neo was still sleeping. After checking on Neo he checked Pyrrha, who was busy in the library. Good thing they did not see what happened.

...

Neo found it quite difficult to open her since she was sleeping so comfortably. She turned around in the bed but did not identify the room. It took her a few more seconds to identify that she was in another person's room. After straightening her clothes she looked around to see her umbrella in a corner and grabbed it.

A travel bag caught her eye and she started searching it. There was a set of male clothes, dust, some books that she could not read, ink and paper, tent, and dry rations. She returned back to looking through the books but nothing in them made sense to her. the weird symbols inside the book made her head spin and stuffed them back into the bag.

The click of the door opening alerted her and she brandished her weapon. However, when she saw Naruto carrying food, she lowered her guard.

"Good, you are awake." He took off his cloak and put the paper bags on the table, "I don't know what you like to eat so I just bought a little of everything."

Neo gulped while looking at the food full of table and took a seat. She took tiny bites of everything and Naruto joined her on the table. Most of the dishes were similar to what he usually ate since the culture of Mistral was somewhat like his home.

After he ate almost half the food on the table Naruto took out his weapon for maintenance. he waited for Neo to eat her fill and then start the conversation she mostly communicated by signs or expressions. He had to give it to her though, she was the most expressive person he had met.

It wasn't much later when she finished eating and wrote something on the paper.

"Pffftt.. hahaha." he laughed loudly and answered, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki and if you think it's a weird name that it means maelstrom whirlpool." he explained.

"There are some things that I wanted to talk to you about." Her expressions said that she was interested in listening.

"Things are pretty bad, the last thing people saw was Atlas, White Fang and Grimm attacking people. The negative emotions all around the world were at peak and so every kingdom seems to have suffered Grimm attacks. Many villages were lost and the Schnee company has placed an embargo on dust."

Neo listened to each and every word closely committing them to memory.

"Haven Academy was also attacked and seems to have suffered major losses. According to people almost all the Huntsman and Huntresses died while fighting hordes of Grimm and the school has closed down."

"Crime is all-time high, White Fang and bandits are running around freely. there is no law and order to keep them in check and bandit raids have been attracting even more Grimm."

He sighed and looked outside the window into the dark night, "What I am trying to say is; the situation is pretty bad. I don't know about your plans but only some cities are safe, like this one. You would be ambushed if you take one step outside this city.

He looked at Neo while continuing, "Now, you have a choice. You can travel with me and we can watch each others back or you can do whatever you want on your own. I'm not your jailor and I won't stop you if you walk out of this room. The only thing that I will say to you is that don't do anything stupid that will get you killed. You have a chance to start anew here."

He finished checking his sword and sheathed it, "I'm going to leave tonight because some people have been trying to tail me. I got rid of them but they will soon find me again."

Neo was in a bind. She wanted to stay with Naruto but how could she let go of her revenge so easily. Naruto was like a light for her. It scared her somewhat when she thought that he would leave her alone once again. However, her hate for Cinder was not quelled yet and if she traveled with Naruto than he would not allow having her revenge.

Naruto watched Neo struggling with her emotions but did not say a word. This was a test of her will, even he went through the same thing at a point.

His eye followed Neo's figure when she suddenly stood up and walked out of the room. Naruto sighed sadly and started packing his things. He opened a map and selected the most straight forward route towards Haven. He wore his scarf and cloak back on and walked towards the window.

When he was about to jump out the door opened and Neo walked in with her own bag. Naruto smiled and without even asking he picked up Neo and jumped out of the window.

They traveled through the rooftops while Neo observed Naruto closely. Even when he was jumping from place to place his steps did not make a sound. His movements were so smooth that it felt like she was flying and each position he jumped to was either very hidden or in the shadows of other buildings.

This was something that huntsmen were not trained about in schools. Even the criminals or thieves that she had seen were not this good in sneaking around. Different questions popped in her mind but she did not ask them now.

Soon, they left the port city behind them and Naruto started jumping from tree to tree. He did not dare to go fast since he was not sure if Neo could handle it but after thirty minutes of constant tree jumping, he stopped and looked around.

After being sure that they were not followed he jumped down and let Neo on the ground. "We have to be sneaky, everyone who looks like a huntsman is being watched so we need to be careful." Neo nodded and followed after him.

Naruto took out another cloak and gave it to Neo. She wordlessly accepted it and started writing in her book. "Can you tell me more about your friend?" She wrote.

Naruto thought for a second and nodded, "If you want to know about my friend than you need to know about his older brother, Itachi."

"Itachi was a genius, at a young age he was able to defeat people who were professionals double or triple his age. When he was just in his teens, he killed his entire family of hundreds of people only leaving his little brother behind who saw him killing their own father and mother. What no one knew was that the family was planning a coup that might start a new world war and Itachi did not want his family to be remembered as warmongers."

Neo shuddered in fright, she couldn't believe that someone would do such a thing.

"What no one knew was that Itachi only wanted to kill people who wanted the coup to happen. There were many people who wanted to kill his family and they slaughtered everyone else but all the blame fell onto Itachi's shoulders. My friend was the only one to survive that massacre and he was Itachi's brother Sasuke."

"People loved Sasuke because he was last of his family and their family had a very powerful semblance that was passed down from parent to child. Sasuke grew arrogant and hungered for power. He would do anything to gain power and kill his brother since he thought that Itachi was a traitor."

"I and Sasuke were in the same class when we were young. I hated him because everyone loved him, and I was the most disliked person. I was just a lowly orphan and no one had the time to listen to me but when we sparred he faced me properly like a fighter. We became rivals when I started improving and there came a time when we even became friends but the stronger I got, the more he thought of killing me because I was the wall between him and his revenge."

Naruto laughed self-depreciatingly, "I was a measure of strength since he could win against everyone but not me. Then everything went to hell when an insane man got interested in Sasuke and he ran away with that criminal."

"In the end, Sasuke achieved what he wanted the most, he was able to kill his brother and have his revenge but he soon found put that Itachi was given orders from higher-ups to kill his family because they knew about the coup. Darkness consumed him and he killed the one who gave orders but it was not enough. He wanted to kill everyone related to that man."

"There was a time when Sasuke saved my life, he jumped in front of me when an enemy attacked but he was also the one to shove a fist coated with lightning right in my chest." He traced the place and Neo watched closely how close it was to his heart.

"There were many times when we confronted each other, each time I tried to stop him while he tried to kill me. Sasuke wants to break all the bonds and even he believes that I'm his only friend, his only weakness in. Now, he wants to kill me with every fiber of his being."

He smiled sadly and ended his story, "You see Neo, even after killing his brother, Sasuke never had peace. He was so angry at everything that he couldn't see that he had already gained a new family. He had a teacher who was willing to teach him everything, a girl who is still madly in love with him and a friend who was willing to lay down his life for him."

Naruto intentionally left many parts from the story. There were many things that he could not say to Neo unless he wanted her to be suspicious of anything. The main point was that if a powerful family had been massacred than people would know about it. It was a good thing that she did not question him. He did not plan to reveal his origins to anyone unless he could trust them explicitly.