Hello! This is going to be a side project for me, so I won't update this as much as the other fic.

I got bored, so I wrote this. I'm not going to just stop this one, I hope.

I'm planning on making this a long fic, it'll just take a while.

Hope you like it! Hikaru's pic is on my profile thingy.

Chapter 1:
Enter: Kurogane Hikaru

“Hey, kid, where do you think you’re going?”

I looked back at the group of men that were about to surround me with a cold look in my lavender eyes. After all, I was mute and couldn’t give them any of the smart retorts brewing in my mind.

This seemed to have angered them, and the leader snarled “Don’t you give us that look! I think we should teach you a lesson on manners, what do you think, boys?”

The others grinned and advanced toward me. I only watched with blank, uncaring eyes that were hidden under my long purple bangs as they circled me and gave me hungry looks. “We’re going to make you wish you were dead, little girl.”

In the blink of an eye, I punched him in the gut and he flew a few feet into the wall of the alley. How dare he call me a little girl! Sure, I may be small (2’7”), have shoulder-length (purple) hair, and I may only be 6, but I sure as hell wasn’t a girl!

I was furious, how dare these thugs think of me as an easy target! They lunged at me and I disappeared. Suddenly, they all collapsed and stopped breathing, blood spilling from their throats and mouths. I stood several feet away with a satisfied aura and a blank look. I turned and continued walking toward the marketplace. When I finally made it to the busy streets, I made a beeline toward a stand that sold sweets and bought a bag of sweet cakes, dango, and other sugar filled goods.

“I don’t get it, Hikaru-kun, you come every week and buy the same thing, but you never get any bigger, either way. How do you do it?” the lady who owned the stand said.

I shrugged and left after waving good-bye and walked to a restaurant. I was hungry and I still had some money left over from what I had snatched from the thugs that I had killed just minutes before.

I took a seat near the back and a waitress came to take my order, which I pointed on the menu. As she walked away, two strange people came into the restaurant and I watched warily as the two cloaked figures made their way towards a table near mine. I thanked the waitress with a smile and a nod as she gave me my food and bowed. As she left, I dug into the miso ramen and watched the strange people from the corner of my eye. They seemed to be conversing, but I couldn’t tell due to the high collars on their black cloaks (which had red clouds embroidered on them) and the hats that they wore. I finished up my miso and my tea, and, just as I was about to stand and leave, a large man barged into the restaurant and scanned the room before locking his angry eyes on me and storming over to my table.

I mentally sighed and prepared for the idiot to confront me. I could already tell that he was part of the gang of men that I had killed by the red band around his wrist. He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and lifted me into the air like a rag doll, glaring at me.

“You did it, didn’t you!? Little brat, I’ll kill you for what you did to my comrades!” he snarled, spitting on my face and causing me to give a disgusted look.

He pulled back his hand, about to punch me in the face, but a woman cried out and distracted him.

“What do you think you’re doing to Hikaru-kun! He hasn’t done anything to you, you brute! Let him go or I’ll get the officials in here!”

I looked to see the woman who worked at the stand with my favorite sweets glaring at the large man. He grinned lustfully and tossed me aside, I landed on all fours to prevent injury to myself and narrowed my eyes at the idiot before me. He was just about to hit the woman, but with my incredible speed I appeared before the woman and caught his fist.

‘Don’t you dare hurt her!’ I growled in my mind, since I could not voice it to him. I glared hard at the man, my eyes flashing gold before resuming their normal violet. He gasped and stumbled back, just staring at me with wide eyes before he glared menacingly at me and dashing out of the restaurant. I wasn’t going to let him off so easily, but I couldn’t do anything right now.

Dusting myself off, I went back to my table and dropped some money to cover the bill and then made my way to the exit, smiling at the woman before vanishing from sight.

I sat on a roof, staring up into the night sky with an unreadable look. I had been sitting there for an hour, waiting for the right time. He thought he could get away, but he didn’t think I would look for him. He thought he could mess with me without punishment, but he did not expect me to come for him. He did not expect me to track him down with my excellent sense of smell and wait for him on top of his hide-out until he was asleep.

‘Fool, he has no idea who he’s messed with.’ I thought, grinning in the shadows.

After another half-hour of waiting, I peeked into the room and saw that he was finally asleep. I jumped down, landing softly on my feet without making any sound, and expertly picked the lock on the front door before slipping inside and closing it behind me. Quietly, I crept toward the back of the hide-out to the room he was in and broke inside.

I loomed over the large man’s body and sneered at him. ‘Just another scum-bag to wipe out from the living world, he will not be missed.’ I thought, reaching into the shadows at my feet and pulling out a long, slender knife.

‘Tell the Death God that I’ll be seeing him soon enough.’ I thought and sliced the man’s jugular vein on his neck. He woke with a start and choked before going into a series of spasms and then lying limply in a puddle of his blood. I sniffed and cleaned the knife on his shirt before slipping it back into the shadows and turning to leave, only to freeze when I realized there were others in the room with me. I squared off my shoulders and waited for them to do something.

The two cloaked men only stood there with a dark aura radiating from them. I narrowed my eyes, but made no other move, it was clear that I was dealing with tough opponents and I was smarter than most who would have tried to escape or attack. I knew I had no chance of escaping now that I had their full attention and that it would be foolish to attack them head-on without knowing my opponent. So I waited.

“You’re a pretty smart kid, aren’t you? Well, boy, this is your lucky day,” one of them said in a snakelike voice, giving a crazy, old man kind of laugh. “We were on a mission to gain some valuable information from the group you slaughtered, but now it seems that our mission has failed. Thanks to you, boy, our search is going to be a little more difficult, but we may have gained something else… Don’t you agree, Sasori-kun?”

The bigger, bulkier of the two spoke in a deeper and more menacing tone, but I did not falter. “We are taking you back to our headquarters. If you do not fight, we will not harm you, but if you try to get away, we will have to use precautions that you may not like. Is that understood?”

I looked at them for a good minute, before nodding my head.

“Don’t talk much, do you?” asked the snakelike voice.

I opened my mouth and pointed down my throat and shook my head.

“You’re a mute?” he asked and I responded by nodding. He gave that weird laugh again and added “Well, this is going to be interesting, eh, Sasori-kun?”

The other only grunted before picking me up and walking out of the small building. Immediately, I noticed that he was made of wood and that he was hollow, which meant that this was a puppet and that he was inside. I knocked on his arm and looked into his false eyes. He seemed surprised at first, but he shrugged it off and decided to bring it up later.

Being only six years old, I was starting to get tired and fell asleep, keeping my guard up just in case.

When I woke up, I was lying on a traveling mat with a blanket wrapped around me underneath a large tree in a clearing. I blinked and yawned silently before sitting up and stretching. I quickly scanned the area; I was the only one in the clearing, but I could feel that the two guys were nearby.

I rolled up the mat and folded the blanket and left them under the tree before going to the, now completely extinguished, fire. I sat down and picked up a stick and started to doodle in the ashes. After a good 15 minutes, they came back and I stood to greet them with a bow. I finally got a good look at them. They were both pretty tall, but the guy who took off his hat had long, black hair and yellow, snakelike eyes. His skin was as white as the dead and he gave off an aura that screamed pedophile. I still could not see what the other guy looked like due to him still being in a puppet.

“Well, since you are awake, we might as well give some proper introductions. I am Orochimaru, and my partner is Sasori,” said the snake-man now known as Orochimaru.

I bent back down and wrote “My name is Hikaru. I do not care what you call me, but even mention that I am feminine in any way and I will stab you in your sleep.”

Orochimaru smirked and chuckled “Of that, we have no doubt, but you must realize that we are far more powerful than you may think.”

I smoothed my previous message and wrote “I will find a way, Orochimaru-sama. Do not underestimate me.”

Again, he chuckled and said “You have manners and a sharp tongue, you are an interesting little boy.”

“How old are you?” asked Sasori. I was surprised that he actually spoke up, but replied nonetheless without hesitation.

“I will be seven in a month, Sasori-sama.”

He then asked “Were you trained in the ways of the shinobi?”

“Not exactly. I never went to the academy, but I watched and learned. I have a photographic memory and only need to see something once to remember it.I know enough taijutsu to put up a decent fight, my ninjutsu and genjutsu are average while my speed and accuracy are above average. I specialize in lightening and wind techniques.” I did not say more about myself, still not trusting them completely, but I did not lie.

“You are hiding many things, but that is to be expected. No matter, we shall find out eventually. Now we must be on our way, it will take us another three and a half days to get to headquarters,” said Orochimaru and he tossed me over his shoulder. With a nod to Sasori, they took off toward the west.

It was lunch time when we finally stopped and ate. It was a meager meal, but I didn’t complain, I had survived on less. We were about to continue on when I sensed a large group of people approaching. I stood still, facing the direction of the newcomers, and listened intently. Orochimaru and Sasori seemed to notice them, too, after a minute and they both cursed.

A group of ANBU circled in on us and I just stood there, pretending to be scared. Suddenly I found myself being pulled inside of the puppet and we were on the run. I took this time to get a good look at Sasori. He was young, or so he seemed, with short, red hair and brown eyes and fair skin. The aura he gave off was dark, but not wholly evil; more like resentful and dangerous with an underlying of sorrow. He looked down at me and I gave him a look that said ‘I thought so.’

He gave a small grin and I smiled up at him. For a moment, we understood each other. I don’t really get it, but I felt comfortable around Sasori, his eyes were like mine.

Just then, we came to an abrupt halt and I looked through the puppet’s eyes to see that we were surrounded. Sasori came up with a plan and looked down at me in a sad way before he used a kunai to scratch me up a bit and rip my clothes before I was pulled out of the puppet and was dangling by my collar. The puppet held me up and I pretended to quiver in fear as it spoke to the ninja wearing masks.

“Don’t come any closer or I will dispose of the boy,” he said in a dark tone. I closed my eyes and allowed a few fake tears to fall.

The ANBU stopped and the leader seemed to have come up with a plan of his own. A kunai was held up to my neck and I opened my eyes wide and froze, if they thought I was just a kid then they might try to save me and I won’t have to bother with that pedophile. I connected to Sasori for a split second, but it wasn’t going to kill me if I never saw him again. The leader began to talk to Sasori, while another ninja came up behind and used a replacement jutsu while snatching me out of the puppet’s grasp. Just as he swapped me with a log, I jammed a small black shard into the decaying bark without anyone noticing.

Satisfied, I wrapped my arms around the person who ‘saved’ me and shivered in their arms. A few of the ninja, including the guy who had me, made a hand seal and we all disappeared in a whirl of leaves. We appeared in a large clearing and they all began running, which way I could not assess since they went too fast for my senses to catch up with me after teleporting.

I ended up passing out in the person’s arms not long afterwards.

I don’t know how long I was out, but I was awakened by the sound of hushed voices. I was lying on a bed that was pressed up to the wall; the sterile smell indicating that I was in a hospital.

“The Akatsuki had him!? Why did they not kill him? Is there something that he knew that they wanted from him?” asked an elderly voice.

Akatsuki, huh? Well, what do you know, I was kidnapped by a couple of members from the most feared group of S-classed criminals.

“We’re not sure. He was pretty scared when we saved him, I sure hope the poor kid’s not traumatized. Such a young thing… he’s probably only four or five years old,” said another voice. I could tell it was a guy because it was deep.

I decided now would be a good time to wake up and opened my eyes. I pretended to gasp and back into the wall as far as I could. I pulled my legs up and buried my head in my arms, trembling for good measure. I heard shuffling and felt a hand on my head. I snapped my head up and revealed my ‘frightened’ and ‘tearful’ expression.

“Hey, there, it’s ok. You’re safe now, don’t be scared,” he said, patting my head to calm me. He was the ninja who saved me, they both smelled the same (like dirt and fresh spring grass). He had silver hair that defied gravity and most of his face was covered up with his hitae-ate and a mask.

I sniffed and nodded my head, then rubbed my eyes and he wiped away my tears.

“What’s your name? Where do you come from?” he asked.

I gave him a sad look, only half-forced, and pointed at my mouth, shaking my head sadly.

“You can’t speak? Did those men do it to you?” the man behind him asked. He had white and red robes on with the fire country symbol on his hat. I guessed that he was the Hokage.

I shook my head and looked around for some paper and something to write with. My rescuer realized what I was looking for and disappeared from the room for a second and came back with a pad of paper and a pen. As soon as he gave it to me, I wrote “Thank you. My name is Kurogane Hikaru and I don’t have a real home, I’ve been alone since I could remember. Those men didn’t hurt me that bad, they said that they were taking me to their lair but I don’t know why. I’ve been mute since I was born.”

As they read it, the Hokage commented “You have excellent penmanship, Hikaru-kun.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama, I had to learn alternative ways to communicate since I am unable to speak. Because of it, though, I have learned much and I am often told that I seem much older than six years.”

They both frowned. “Six years? Why would a group of S-class criminals kidnap a six-year-old boy?” the Hokage muttered gravely. The other nodded.

“They may have wanted to use him as a hostage or perhaps to take him in as an apprentice or servant,” he suggested.

“What are you going to do with me now?”

I waited for their response, showing nervousness and worry. They both smiled reassuringly and the Hokage replied “How would you like to be a part of Konohagakure?”

That's all for chapter one! See you next time!