Awaken from the Ashes (Naruto Childhood Friend Story)

Prologue 4: That Night

Suiton = Water element

It had been a day just like any other. She spent time with her friends, though mainly Naruto and Sasuke, who had become her friend only a year before. The eight year old returned home as she normally would after school, she ate with her parents like she normally would, she played in her room until bedtime as she normally would. But, unknown to her at the time, that night was going to be anything but normal.

She didn't know how long she'd been asleep for that night before she woke up to the sound of screaming and... fire? When she opened her eyes to see what was happening, there was a masked man standing over her. Before she could react, the man had grabbed her and started carrying her out of her room. Once she was outside her room, her eyes widened in horror.

The house was on fire, and it wasn't a small one. "Kaya!" She heard her mother scream. When the man turned to face Kaya's parents, she saw them. They stood there, reaching for her. They were about to move forward it seemed, saying something along the lines of 'let her go' though Kaya's mind wasn't working well enough in the chaos to hear it properly, when suddenly kunai were thrown, striking each of her parents directly in the throat. Kaya froze entirely in the man's arm as she watched her parents fall to the ground.

When the man turned to leave, Kaya turned her head to look at her parents only to see a burning piece of the roof collapse onto their still bodies. She tried to scream but she was too horrified to make a sound. She tried desperately to struggle out of the man's grasp, but she was too weak. She wanted to run over to her parents, to save them from their house, but she couldn't.

When the man brought her outside, she regained her voice and started screaming. "Help! Someone, please! Help! Please! Someone-" Suddenly, she felt something sharp poke into her arm, and everything turned black.

By the time people were able to respond to the screams they'd heard, or react to the light from the flames, the man and Kaya were already gone, and no one had seen them. Several nearby shinobi rushed to the scene, and nearby civilians that had heard the commotion gathered around to see what was happening.

Any of the shinobi that could use suiton jutsu did so immediately to stop the fire, but it was too late. Almost the whole house had already been reduced to ash or had collapsed, leaving very little standing and even less intact. Several shinobi had arrived on the scene to try to figure out what had happened. After all, what if it could mean a threat to the village?

The next morning, while he was walking around, Naruto overheard something that caught his attention, and filled him with unexplainable anxiety. "Did you hear what happened last night?" One woman had quietly asked another on the side of the street.

"You mean about that family that got killed last night?" The other woman asked.

The first woman nodded. "I heard a little girl screaming last night and when I went to see what was going on, there was already a crowd of people and shinobi there. The whole house got burnt down. I heard they found the bodies of the parents."

"Which family was it?" The second woman asked, now curious.

"I think their name was Kaneko, or something?" When he heard that, Naruto's eyes widened and he started running towards Kaya's house. Surely it couldn't be, right? Kaya had to be okay, right?

At a different part of town, similar rumours were being whispered, and Sasuke couldn't stop his feet from racing toward his friend's house. Please. He thought. Please don't take anyone else away.

Naruto and Sasuke arrived there at about the same time, and both ran over to one of the shinobi at the scene. "What happened!?" They both asked at the same time, not bothering to hide their worry. The shinobi turned to look at the two then sighed. This was going to be difficult to explain to them.