.

"Shut that dog up!" The voice is oppressively loud - louder, even, than the dog itself - and Naruto can't stop himself from turning quickly to look.

That unfortunate instinct has been burned into him.

He is still dusty from the desert across the border and sand lays about his skin and hair and clothes like a fragrance. As he moves his head to look it flies of from him still and moves away in clouds.

The group around him is noisy and they get pushed forward again, past this. But Naruto remembers.

.

He has never really been one for .. normal things like tourism and sight-seeing (even if he doesn't remember such an opportunity ever presenting itself to him) but he lets himself get shuffled along with the other portly and expressive ones around him.

They laugh and they joke, and he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Perhaps this is why Sakura comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder.

Her smile is light and she seems polite as she guides him to a fixture in the middle of the room where they can sit. She smells like the forest after the rains have gone and that makes Naruto remember his home.

.

She is upset with him, and he can tell she won't believe what he just told her. Naruto might not really blame her, but he isn't too sure what humans do and how they interact, so he's had to go with what few experiences being the outcast of a village of demons has given him.

And it's frightening the way she moves and how she speaks when he compares her to that, because they only bare their teeth in anger and she is shining them right at him with full force. And she is trying to look into his eyes though he ducks his head and tries to hide them and that is wrong because he doesn't want a conflict with her.

Are all humans this strange?

Naruto decides to prove himself to her. To prove of what he can do and hell if the human still won't believe him then.

It is not until the icicles have already formed on his eyelids that Sakura notices how cold it's suddenly gotten around them. She still doesn't want to believe him, but ten feet away people are still sweating and she can see the frost running up his fingertips from whey they touch the seat beside him.

She does, however, notice him faint sideways into her lap.

.

Hours later, when she finds Kakashi at the bar, the strange boy still hasn't woken up and she's starting to get aggravated and, dare she say it, a little .. frightened.

But they are soon arguing, Kakashi and her, because he thinks the boy needs to be examined - and usually she would agree, but from the tone of his voice and the trace of his eyes, she doesn't think he wants this strange kid examined by anyone she would think of.

This is not right, and it upsets her.

But when she remembers to look at the boy, guilt lacing her chest like uneven stitching, she finds him gone. His seat is still cold though..

.

Naruto is hiding underneath the Yondaime's porch, and the man knows he is there but he won't try to get him out and this makes Kakashi mad.

Furious, even.

They are arguing loud enough outside the house for the Fourth's wife to step outside, hands still soapy from doing the dishes and a clean cloth tucked under one arm.

No one comes to blows, yet, but there is clearly tension even though Yondaime won't tell his wife just why they are arguing.

They step inside and leave Kakashi to glare at the taunting darkness beneath those aging boards of a porch. He doesn't say a thing more, but Naruto knows he wants to. His body language is obvious in demon tongue and he pulls himself further under the house, until what back he has room to move in actually hits the brick-shod wall.

He is not afraid of Kakashi, or the other humans lingering around. But he will not come out.

.

Some of the Yondaime's kids stray too close to the darkness under the porch, so he calls his children back to him with candy.

They don't notice his unease, and even if they did it's clear that they wouldn't understand.

His wife obviously doesn't.

She is pushing the youngest one on a swing, higher and higher, and laughing while the child squeals with delight.

This is when what Naruto has been running from attacks.

It is too fast to be seen clearly, but Naruto doesn't look too hard at it anyways - even after it manages to steal away the toddler roaming the edge of the woods with a deadly swipe of claws. The blood flies in the air and does not land before the creature, and toddler, are both gone.

Yondaime's wife is frozen in shock, but the man himself has already taken to herding his children into the small house. It is not really that difficult of a task, all he has to do is direct the stampede.

An unearthly noise is let loose from the woods so near to the woman that sounds right through her ear and she screams in rely and runs.

The noise is echoing and haunting in a shallow kind of way that makes one's bones feel foreign in their own body. Naruto covers his ears and hides his head in the spider-infested dirt (and safety) under the porch. The woman hides hers under her bed, her children not far after.

Yondaime is the only one left near enough to the demon to smell the foul scent of it's breath lingering in the air. He is half-afraid to turn around to face in that direction less the creature slit his throat. As if it would refuse to attack because he had his back to the thing.

Do demons have morals..?

Naruto sees the strike before it happens, because he had never stopped watching in horror, and he darts out so quickly from beneath the porch that he partly slips on the grass and slams his side against that sharp edge of the wood in his hurry to get out.

He tackles the Fourth, just barely, managing to grab the man's legs and falling pleasantly.

The pain from before is nothing compared to ten new groves etching themselves across his back deeply like river stones.

When Yondaime gathers his wits enough to look around him again, Naruto is already back under the porch, digging himself a hole where he can in the lowest end of it. The only evidence he had even come out at all would be those quickly drying patches of blood where Naruto dripped over Yondaime's coat.

The creature coos in pleasure and settles in on a branch overlooking the house.

And waits.

.

.

.