Prologue
Tokyo, 1:47 A.M.
Though it was dark out, the lights lit up the city as bright as day. Cars whizzed quietly by, creating a constant hum that you eventually got used to. Yes, Tokyo was a beautiful city; but it had its bad parts, too. Yumato Kurio hurried through the alleyways with a lowered head and quick, hurried gait, scolding herself the whole while. Almost two in the morning, and here she was, in one of the most dangerous areas in Tokyo, alone. She quickened her pace to a half-jogging, half-running state to reach the safety and brightness of the streets. The alleyways were dangerous, malevolent areas for the many crimes to take place in.
She yawned - pausing to shut her eyes, then wipe away the tears that gathered, which silenced her footsteps, giving her the opportunity to hear the noise behind her. She froze, her hair on ends, and slowly turned, convinced that she was going to die.
Her breath let out with a whoosh as she realized she was alone. Laughing at her silliness, Yumato once again began to walk, closer toward the street.
This time she heard it, loud and clear. Someone was behind her. She slowed her pace, her heart pounding, and, gathering bravado, spun and called, “Who’s there?”
Her answer was silence and shadows. Suddenly acutely aware of the darkness enveloping her, of the fact that if she screamed, no one might hear her, she turned and bolted, her high heeled shoes clacking loudly on the cement, her breath coming out in short, irregular gasps. She stumbled as a heel broke, falling onto her side and cursing as her hands and elbows were scraped, but scrambled to her feet and this time limped along, casting wild glances behind her as the footsteps grew closer.
“Who are you?” she cried out as she stumbled again, caught herself on the wall, and kicked off her shoe. “Leave me alone!”
It was then she saw it - him, maybe, but she couldn’t be sure - a contour - just the contour, enough to send spasms of panic racing through her system and she began to cry, feeling her way along the wall to salvation - if indeed there was one - away from this monster - and she screamed, one long, piercing shriek that reached no one’s ears but her own and that of the monster with her....
Chapter One
Part One
The permeating gloominess of an impending storm sent the majority of the population of Tokyo inside to avoid the rainfall as the sun rose, half-heartedly trying to shine its way through the pervasively gray sky, the cloud-cover spanning out and thinning over Tokyo’s skyscrapers and buildings. Water dripped from gutters, filling the sewers, making the air moist and humid and the streets wed and muddy. The trees were heavy with dripping runoff and the grass a shimmering, silvery dew. All in all, it was going to be a very miserable day but Naruto didn’t mind. He loved the rain - its unpredictable, sporadic spurts and he loved the look of the drops shimmering in the weak, dim light, bouncing chaotically and randomly on the ground. He loved the smell of the autumn rain, that peculiar smell that tickled his nostrils and made him feel alive. And the erratic thunder, the lightning - it fascinated him, it never scared him one bit, although the same could not be said of Gaara.
He did not share his half-brother’s appreciation.
He glanced at the clock; barely six in the morning. With a sigh he reached for the remote and flicked on the tiny TV perched on a dresser in the corner of the room.
“-in the east side early this morning,” a pretty, platinum blonde was reading with a wide smile filled with perfectly straight, ivory white teeth. “Police think this is the work of the same person who murdered another young woman nearly two weeks ago.”
Interest piqued, Naruto began to listen in earnest. Was she talking about another murder? He sighed. When would the crime in this city end?
“Victim is yet unidentified and police have no suspects. They will not comment any further on the matter.” The blonde paused for a second, then changed the subject and he lost interest. Something about the stock market. Lifting the remote, he pressed the power button and the TV flashed off, leaving the apartment dark and soundless.
He frowned thoughtfully. Hm. Another murder. Briefly he glanced around the tiny one-bedroom apartment that his half-brother and him shared. It was empty. It usually was in the mornings. He scowled at the mess Gaara had made - he disproved of messes, any messes, especially messes his brother made and left for him to clean up - and picked up the unfinished bowl of Ramen, tossing its soggy contents into the garbage, then tossed the bowl into the sink, where it clattered against several similar dishes.
He donned a jacket and, as an afterthought, grabbed an umbrella on the way out, just in case it decided to begin raining again. He let himself out of the apartment building and took the stairs two by two, letting himself out into the brisk, frigid early morning air. He took a deep breath of it, filling his lungs up, enjoying the escape from the stuffy, dark apartment and let it out slowly, then stepped onto the sidewalk and began to walk up the street.
There weren’t many out this morning, although there was always people out, no matter the condition of the weather, in Tokyo. He nodded and smiled at an old man ambling down the street with a plastic bag of a dozen eggs and half-jogged the rest of the way up the slight slope.
He reached the large, inconspicuous brick building before almost anyone else did. The janitor was always first, though; everyone always wondered how the old, graying man managed to get there so early and leave so late. Some spread the rumors that he lived in the closet with his mops and brooms.
He opened the side door and slipped inside the dimly lit hallway, shutting the door behind him before walking down the hall. He stopped before a door marked ‘Mr. Uzumaki, 6’ and opened it with one of the keys among many on his key chain.
The schoolroom inside was dark and empty. Whistling, he flicked on a switch as he heard the first patter of rain on the large windows adjacent the room. Teaching sixth grade certainly didn’t get a person rich, but he was happy and he liked it. As he opened the ivory colored curtains aside with a swipe of his hand he could hear the students begin to arrive, the constant bustling hum and giggled talking. He began to write the lesson of the day on the blackboard, the chalk making clacking sounds every time it came into contact with the black surface.
Students began to file into the classroom, the classic ambling and dragging the feet in an attempt to put off the beginning of the school day as long as possible. Naruto smiled and greeted several of the students who waved and said, “Good morning, Mr. Uzumaki,” before sitting at their desks.
The day passed surprisingly quickly, the promised showers throughout the day not as heavy as expected but Naruto still opened his umbrella as he left the school building. The rain pattered softly off the material, falling off the edge around him, splashing his legs when he accidentally put them out of the range of the umbrella. He adjusted the stack of papers beneath his arms and a nearby teacher laughed good-naturedly at Naruto’s struggle.
“You should get a car, Uzumaki, why don’t you,” he said, chuckling, as the fifty-ish teacher got into his own car.
Naruto waved with a smile. “No thanks, Mr. Iruki, I’m fine as I am. I enjoy walking.”
“Whatever you say, Uzumaki.” Iruki rolled up his window and drove away with a muddy splash in Naruto’s direction. The teacher decided not to go home - it was too gloomy there - and instead grade the papers at the nearby park, where there was shelter and the papers would stay dry.
By the time he reached the park, the ends of his pants and his shoes where soaking, but he didn’t mind. He set his umbrella down, set the papers in his lap, and took out a red pen, soon becoming absorbed into his work as the day wore on and the light rain gradually stopped.
It was past five when he finally finished the papers and, looking at his watch, wondered if Gaara was home yet. He didn’t know what his brother did in the day - he had no job that Naruto knew of - and he was gone some nights, too, sometimes until the early morning, sometimes not coming home at all until the next night. With a sigh he gathered the papers he’d graded and made his way home, taking longer because he was walking slowly now and there was more people out.
He reached the apartment building and looked up at the average brick building before him, the depressive, gray look that always made him wish to move to something more cheerful, but Gaara wouldn’t like that. Gaara liked it just where they were and if Gaara liked it, they were staying.
He bit his bottom lip and finally stepped up to the door, fishing awkwardly for his keys while trying to keep the papers from flying from beneath his arm, tightly clasped against him and managed to bring out the key chain, find the correct key and insert it before opening the door and letting it swing open. For a moment he stood in the doorway, staring into the gloomy, dim hall, and tried to remember if he had anything to do, if he’d forgotten anything, to postpone coming home, and nothing came to mind. He sighed again - he was sighing a lot today - and stepped in, closing the door behind him. Perhaps, if he was lucky, Gaara wasn’t home yet.
Perhaps.
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Chapter notes: Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto or any of the characters in Naruto, although I wish I did. >