I was running but I wasn’t running towards the shabby hut. I was going to the apple farm I used to go to snatch some apples. Satiating my hunger was more important than arguing with that old man.

It was quite far from the village. I had found it while roaming around aimlessly by complete coincidence. A beautiful farm with many different fruits of small quantity. It was a little suspicious that someone had this farm. It was too small to be some sort of commercial business but it wasn’t small enough to be a personal farm of someone. It was likely some rich person wasting his money to get some fruits of high quality all year.

I went to the apple trees and climbed up to get some of the juicy apples from the top again. There were about 20 trees that were filled with many apples so I wasn’t too scared of being caught. There was no person guarding this place either.

Just when I had plucked off a couple of apples and was planning to get down a rustle came from the trees nearby.

“So, it’s you who has been stealing my apples recently.” It was an old man with dark hair. He had one arm in a white cast supported and tied to his shoulder with the help of a white cloth. One of his eyes was covered with a dark eyepatch. He wore high-quality cloth that didn’t suit his face at all. He was walking towards me while looking intimidating and giving off a weak energy at the same time. His appearance was like a mere disguise to the threatening aura that he was leaking.

I almost shit my pants looking at him. I knew there was no time to be nervous anymore and jumped down the tree with one leap. My knees were crying with pain as I rolled over in attempt to minimize the impact. Something had scratched my arm as I was rolling causing me to bleed slightly. I ignored the wound and ran in the other direction as the madman. I ran and ran and ran, not daring to look back in fear that he would be right behind me, right by my shoulder staring at me with that eye of his. I ran till I was back at the hut, hurryingly opening the door and shutting it loudly. My breath was an absolute mess. My mind was in disarray, I couldn’t think straight. My body buckled with tiredness as the adrenaline wore off. A sharp pain rose from my arm causing me to yelp and hold it.

“You! How many times have I told you not bang my door little runt!” The old man was at home this time. For the first time he wasn’t looking at his stupid swords. He looked paranoid with a crazed look in his eye. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red with bags under them. “I swear!....” But his face relaxed a bit when he looked at my arm. He took my arm and checked it up with a frown but this time there was a little worry instead of the usual annoyance.  “What happened with to your arm?”

I wasn’t able to answer him, still scared out of my mind. He Tsked in annoyance like usual and put some transparent liquid on the wound before dressing it with a clean cloth.

“I told you stop roaming around the village every day for a while!” He kept talking and berating me like a regular parent for the first time in his life. When he saw that I wasn’t registering anything he was saying, he stopped and threw me on top of my mattress with a blanket.

“Just go to sleep. What does it matter, we are leaving tomorrow anyway….”He was muttering something but I was too tired to understand. I didn’t know how much I had ran but I had ran the fastest I had ever in this life. I imagined how jealous Lee would be if he saw me before passing out from exhaustion and shock.

….

….

Danzo looked at sharp branch on the ground. It was placed in a weird angle and if someone walked into it without noticing it would get hurt. He snapped the part of the branch that had some blood on it and examined it before looking in a certain direction. “What a fast boy…… Seven.” With a call of a number, a person suddenly appeared by Danzo’s side with a weird mask on.

“Find out who that boy is and whether he can be used or not.” He said to him plainly.

The masked man merely nodded before disappearing into the forest again.

…..

…..

Lee was back at his “home” lying in bed. He felt a bit weird today. Usually when he comes back to the orphanage he goes to sleep instantly after eating due to exhaustion. He didn’t like to play with the kids in his orphanage because they all picked on him for his thick eyebrows and long hair tied in a braid. They were all lazy as well never working hard and only talking about becoming great ninjas.

Lee wanted to be a great ninja too. Everybody would respect him then and no one would make fun of him. Just like the Hokage!... and his parents.

He stared at the moon from the window thinking that he shouldn’t take extra apples from Kenji anymore. He was his only friend and training partner. What if he also starts making fun of him? Lee didn’t want that. He swore to bring something to eat for Kenji the next day. Finally putting his mind at rest, he dozed off.

….

….

Hakai was going through a tough week. Wondering if his head might fly off one of these days by accident. He thought that he had found inner peace but was far from it. Just the fear of death had driven him into a frenzy. He knew it was probably because of that kid. He stared at a small boy sleeping soundly on a mattress.

Yes, this kid that he had tried to ignore. A kid that had appeared out of nowhere in his life. At first, he couldn’t accept that he could have a kid. But when he looked at him closely, he was starting to resemble his grandfather more and more. He was a very weird runt more so than himself when he was a kid. His eyes looked intelligent beyond his years and he was more disciplined than any other kid his age that would probably waste their time playing all day.

Hakai couldn’t deny it anymore. The reason he felt so restless was because of this weird kid. Even if he was weird in the end, it was his kid. When had he become so weak without realizing? When had he grown so Idle? At this rate he couldn’t achieve his goal no matter how much effort he put into it.

It was time… It was time to steel his resolve and take responsibility. He packed what little was left in the hut along with some necessities. He wrote a letter to his assistant to handle all the orders of katanas that were left and put his son on his shoulder like a sack before storming off in a direction that was different  from the leaf village. It was time to leave this comfort zone that he had built for himself.

TMBTL

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