Shadows of Mind and Body

Chapter 2

"You're what?!"

Yuugi winced, and grinned sheepishly at the light-veined outline of Kaiba. "I'm planning on moving into an apartment in Konoha...?"

The figure sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Great. Just great... do I want to know what brought this on?"

The sheepish grin grew bigger and earned another sigh. "Don't tell me you're just moving in on a whim..."

"Well, no?"

"Then why? As I recall, magicians are actively discouraged from living in the shinobi villages under normal circumstances, which yours aren't. And isn't there a mind-reading clan in Konoha?"

A chuckle. We've dealt with mind-readers before, Kaiba.

Kaiba made an exasperated noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. "I know, but ninja mind-readers... one slip-up, one sign you're less than normal..."

Yuugi shook his head. "We've already figured out a plan for that, Kaiba. Yami can block some of our more incriminating memories -"

He was cut off by a sharp gesture by one hand. "That's not the point, Muto. If you screw up, you could expose all of us, make the entire Magician's Court and all the mages under our jurisdiction targets! You must have some reason to put us all at risk like that, so what is it?!"

A moment of silence, punctuated only by the faint whispering of the Shadows, as Yuugi carefully put together his response.

"There's someone here," he said, finally.

"A mage?"

"No, not a mage... he's training to be a Genin. A boy, eight years old, name of Naruto Uzumaki. He's an orphan -"

"You can't just move there for some charity case -"

"He's not just a charity case!"

The taller man drew back, startled. Yuugi sucked in a breath, forcing himself to calm again, then continued, with only a slight shudder in his voice to betray his fierce outburst.

"He's not just a charity case. He's... he's only eight, and the village..."

He shook his head, then pushed a tendril of violet forward. Kaiba's own shadows, after some hesitation, extended outward and finished the offered connection, and Yuugi shoved every memory of what he'd seen forward. The loneliness in the boy's eyes, the deep wounds in his soul, filled with clinging darkness, the other children in the playground, the hateful looks from the crowds, Naruto's own voice, "Who needs friends? They're all stupid, I hate them!"

The sheer relief in the boy's eyes, when he'd realized Yuugi meant to stay.

He pulled back, breaking the connection, and watched as the air around Kaiba boiled with suppressed rage, far more intense than the irritation from before.

"Did I really just see that?" He hissed. "How dare they?"

Yuugi nodded, scowling.

"We can't just leave Naruto alone after that. He doesn't have a single friend, and he has no official guardian - all he has is a father-daughter duo who run his favorite restaurant, one of his teachers, and someone he calls Gramps, who I can only assume is one of the village elderly, and they're hardly ever around for him!"

He shook his head and forced himself to calm down again. "And besides that, there's some reason why he's treated so badly. There has to be. I mean to find out."