The Demon Child

The Beating

Chapter 3: The Beating.

Updated on 11-17-2020.

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Naruto awoke with a  loud yawn as the first few rays of sunlight filtered through his blinds and into his bedroom. The past few days had been the greatest days of his young twelve years of life. He had made friends. Real friends who cared about him and who he could play and laugh with. He even had a family or what he guessed was a family. They would eat together, play games together, and even talk about their day-to-day activities together. 

Today was going to be the day he would finally get to join Ino, Shikamaru and Chōji's class and he would be a lier if he said he wasn't a little worried about the move. Not that he minded all that much anyway. Anything had to be better than his old classroom of that he was sure. It was in the middle of such thoughts that the sound of somebody at his door snapped him back to the here and now. Opening the door he saw Ino waiting outside with both Shikamaru and Chōji at her side. Noting the trio's placements he could see that funnily enough, both boys stood in the same places their fathers had only a few days before with Ino in the middle. Both boys said not a word. Chōji as always was far too busy with his chips and Shikamaru likely deemed it to be far too troublesome to do even a simple hi. Naruto for his part could never understand why the roundish boy ate so much food as he clearly didn't need to but he wasn't going to voice that thought for a second time. The boy had a tendency to blow up both literally and figuratively. The first time he saw that he had nearly fallen on his ass when a kid had called him the three-letter word that started with F and ended with T.

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"You ready Naruto-kun"? Ino asked.

"Oh yeah, I just need to go get my stuff. You three go ahead I'll be out in a minute". Naruto said before turning around and running into the house looking for his things. Just as quick he was out the door jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He was only a block or two away from the school when he was kicked from his right side. His things flying onto the adjacent building. Naruto had no time to react before the first of many blows landed. One blow after another after another came with great speed and power with seemingly no end in sight. Naruto could feel his bones breaking under the onslaught. Blood pooling in his mouth drowning him. The world around him growing darker by the second until the world was nothing but pure darkness.

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Naruto awoke again in what looked to be a meadow. Before him stood a house of modest design and a man with red hair busy cutting logs and piling them up next to the house. Naruto unsure what was happening slowly made his way to the man. But before he could utter even a sound the man spoke.

"Naruto-kun it's been some time. How are you"? The man asked with an even tone.

"Do...do I know you"? Naruto asked the man before him.

"Yes and no Naruto-kun.". The man said confusing Naruto even more. He was talking in riddles.

"Care to help an old man out? I'm been very busy working as of late as you no doubt can tell". The man said before gesturing to the large pile of firewood. A pile that was nearly as high as he was tall and as wide as his forearm.

"Why do you need so much? It's not cold out". Naruto said to the man who only nodded his head in agreement.

"This is true Naruto-kun it's not...but I'm not doing it for that". The man said cryptically confusing Naruto even more than he was already.

"I don't understand". Naruto replied but taking the ax in hand nevertheless and began to work on cutting the logs and piling them onto the already fairly sizeable pile that already existed.