With A Devil's Heart

Ascendance

There was once an old saying, "Misery loves company."

Naruto thought this saying was complete and utter nonsense. He couldn't imagine being miserable around company. It wasn't that the miserable loved company, but that the miserable was no longer so horribly lonely when there was someone walking by their side.

Until then, Naruto had wondered if it was truly possible to meet someone just like him. The other children had their parents, the adults had their families. Whenever he watched them, laughing and practically glowing with life as they passed him right on by, he teetered between hating them and wishing to be there, walking alongside them.

It was a fluke. He looked up at the same time as she glanced around, shaded eyes and warily hunched shoulders. He blinked and the woman was gone, but the whispers weren't. Those eyes that he saw directed at him were turned to her, and in that moment Naruto understood why misery loved company.

He had met someone just like him. You have my eyes, miss.

Other children would have watched her go without giving it a second thought, as they had no reason to follow. There was no reason to be curious when they had never experienced the bitter aftertaste of loneliness.

Without any preamble, Naruto leapt to his feet and pushed through the crowd. (Or that's what he thought of doing, but really he was just moving through because no one wanted to touch him, to look at him).

He was almost too slow to see her again, because she's apparently a trained ninja while Naruto struggled with even the simplest things in school. He had never once received grades higher than a bare passing, and never high enough to actually graduate. Eventually, he managed to catch up when she stopped at a dango shop to treat her sweet tooth.

Naruto wanted to go up and talk to her, but part of him hesitated.

Hey miss, he wanted to say, you have my eyes.

When someone shoved by him, making him tip over and hit the ground before he could catch himself, he shot a glare at the offender. The man nearly yelped and scurried away, his face white and sweat building on his forehead. Naruto once again tasted bitter loneliness, because even though it was amusing for two seconds, it doesn't change the fact that everyone hated and feared him.

The next thing he felt was panic, because he had taken his eyes off of the woman who was just like him, and she moved like the wind. Naruto wasn't particularly surprised to find she had disappeared when he looked back at the restaurant, but it wasn't overly difficult to find her again.

He wondered if the villagers knew how obvious they made their disliking of them. For once, though, he wasn't too upset by their reactions, because finding her would have been impossible without them. Naruto followed the stares and whispers, leaving a trail of suspicion and loathing behind him as he went.

The woman had a peculiar shade of hair, neither brown, or black, or entirely purple. He caught sight of the spiky ends of her ponytail as she walked up the steps of an apartment complex, still finishing off her mitarashi dango.

It was pure luck that her apartment was on the outside, with a window. Eight year old Naruto managed to pull himself all the way up three stories, staring through a window that could do with washing. He still couldn't work up the courage to introduce himself to her. Part of him was afraid that she was some kind of smoke illusion - as soon as he reached out, she would slip through his fingers and disappear into a memory.

There was the Hidden Leaf Village symbol made out of dango sticks on the wall, and several more half-formed in various spots. Written on the wooden flooring was some kind of sealing formula, of which Naruto had to squint his eyes to make out the details.