False Silence

Hiruzen Sarutobi was simply incapable of taking his eyes off of the boy in front of him. The boy had made an incredibly fast recovery in the hospital, the likes of which only being seen in Naruto Uzumaki himself. While the boy was in the hospital, one of his most trusted ninjas, Inoichi Yamanaka, delved into his mind. What the man had found was astonishing and horrifying. 

X

Adrik picked himself up slowly. Over a dozen buildings had been knocked down just to discover his location. Clearing the dust out of his vision, he saw the man who had caused such destruction. 

Doctor Finn Greighter, a man Adrik trusted, was now attempting to knock him out or worse. The man was dedicated as all hell. Adrik and Greighter spent eight days straight in a single fight. The only breaks that the boy got were when he tried to use hit-and-run tactics. Eventually, he slowed down just enough to get caught by a bolt of lightning. He was lucky it was only intended to knock him off his feet. This lead to his current situation, staring down a man covered in arcing lightning. The man's threatening silhouette was enhanced by the thunderclouds overhead. The sun was blocked out, constant cracks of thunder assaulting the boy's ears.

Adrik, now running on whatever was left of his physical and mental energy, made one last attempt to defend himself. He put both of his hands together, a tiny black orb forming between his palms. The orb slowly grew in size, rising in temperature as it became bigger. The center of the orb glowed bright orange. Adrik pointed the orb towards his enemy, launching a stream of incredibly hot smoke. Unable to see the other side of his attack, the boy was caught off guard when a single beam of electricity reached his hands.

Greighter watched expressionlessly as Adrik cried and screamed. The boy's arms were hit with an attack that was intended to only knock him out. When the boy resisted even more, he put a little more power into it.

Now, the boy was on the ground in a pool of blood. Unable to be affected by extreme temperatures, the boy was affected in a different way by the lightning. Instead of cauterizing his skin, the lightning acted like the world's sharpest serrated blade. It ripped through his skin easily, even making a few scratches on his bones. Everything in the lightning's path was completed shredded. Even his individual blood cells were damaged. Adrik was lucky that the man caught himself before the wound could reach past his elbows. 

Greighter gently floated down, the lightning no longer holding him in the air. The clouds grew darker as the rainless thunderstorm continued. He looked down at the boy, who was feeling a level of pain that rivaled his time as a subject of the worst tests. The man noticed Adrik had seemingly gone unconscious due to the pain. He sighed as he walked over to pick the boy up. As hard as he pushed to end the fight as quickly as possible, he never wanted this. The poor child deserved far better than he had been given.

Just as Greighter reached down to pick up Adrik, his eyes widened as he felt a sharp pain directly in the center of his heart. He felt the pain twisting and shredding through his system. He felt something leave his chest, then immediately stab back into him over and over and over again. From the shock and pain, the man could only watch as he realized the pain was coming from the boy under him. He looked at the boy's blood soaked hands and saw him holding a piece of metal rebar. 

Greighter slowly moved back, falling straight onto his spine, now facing the sky. His eyes were still widened at the unexpected turn of events. He saw the boy walk up to him, weapon in hand. Adrik stood over the man, crying blood now instead of tears. He raised his hands above his head, the rebar pointing directly at what little remained of Greighter's heart.

X

Hiruzen may not have seen it for himself, but he knew when someone had been through hell and back. This boy was likely the absolute worst of that case. Even so, here the boy, Adrik, sat. His spikey black hair reached slightly past his shoulders, orange embers occasionally glowing enough to be seen. The boy's eyes were the same. Black irises and pupils with occasional flecks of orange flickering in and out. Before being given a white shirt and white pants by the hospital, the boy was seen in what was once a blue shirt and cargo pants. White wrappings covered everything from the boy's knuckles to his elbows. When he put on the wrappings, the boy seemed to calm down considerably. 

Right now, Hiruzen was having trouble figuring out how to communicate with the boy. He had heard a similar language to the one the boy spoke, but couldn't put a name to it. One of his first decisions for the boy would definitely be to teach him their language, as he would rather avoid having to teach an entire village a new language for a single child. For now, gestures seem to work just fine. The silence was awkward, though.

Hiruzen smiled gently as he pointed to himself.

"Hiruzen Sarutobi."

The boy introduce himself as well, though his voice wavered slightly as he could feel the gaze of the second strongest person he's ever sensed. 

X

Adrik was on edge even after the kindness he had been shown in whatever city this is. He saw the old man in front of him turn in his chair, pointing his hand towards the large window, showing the view of the entire city from the office.

"Konoha"

The immediate conclusion was that the old man was telling him the name of the city he was in. Adrik continued to watch as the old man pointed at himself and then at the weird hat he was wearing.

"Hokage"

Since the man had already introduced himself, Adrik assumed this was his occupation. Based on his age, the respect he was shown, and the level of energy he felt, he figured out that the position of Hokage meant either he was the leader of the city or something close to it. 

Adrik still wasn't keen on speaking, even after the old man nodded for him to do so. Thinking over his options, Adrik moved his hand as if he were writing something down. Taking the hint, the old man nodded and placed a pen and a few pieces of paper in front of him. 

Hiruzen looked on in confusion. The boy made an easy, yet strange request. Neither knew each other's language, so he wouldn't understand the boy's writing any better than he understood his speech. It then clicked in his head as he realized what Adrik was doing. The boy was given a few words of their language, and he was going to use them as well as he could.

Scribbled onto the paper were the words Adrik had come to understand. Under one of the words, he sketched a figure with spikey hair and one of his eyes covered along with a mask covering the lower half of his face. Hiruzen looked over the boy's shoulder and saw exactly what he expected.

Adrik had written down the words he knew, with quick sketches underneath them. "Kakashi, Naruto, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Konoha, Hokage." He handed the paper to Hiruzen, who studied it for a few seconds with a smile. With any luck, he'd only need the boy to fill in some gaps while his best scholars worked on understanding this new language. He'd also need to set up some courses for Adrik to understand their own language. Hiruzen had a feeling that Adrik would surprise everyone with this communication endeavor. 

As Hiruzen remembered his break was about to start, he decided to teach Adrik some more easy to understand words while they walked somewhere to get food. Along the way, they were joined by a blonde boy in orange, Naruto Uzumaki, who made himself known with a big smile, a wave, and a shout.

"Hey, Old Man! You on your lunch break?"

"Ah, Naruto. As a matter of fact, I am."

Seeing the two boys notice each other, Hiruzen took Naruto along to go get food. Perhaps the two would be able to become friends, even with the language barrier. Naruto seemed to be good at making new people smile, at least.

The trio headed to a ramen stand known as "Ichiraku Ramen", Naruto's favorite place to eat. Well, his only place to eat. Speaking of Naruto, Adrik could see very clearly that the people of the city held some sort of negativity towards the boy. In fact, he could feel a fair bit of hate pointed at the boy. Seeing the old man had also noticed, Adrik decided to ask. He tugged on the sleeve of his robes to get his attention.

Adrik pointed a thumb at the people discretely, pointing at his own eyes then pointing at Naruto with a questioning gaze. The old man didn't even need to gesture back, the sadness and guilt in his eyes being more than enough of an implication. Adrik stared slightly concerned at the blonde boy, who didn't seem to notice any of the glares.

The trio finally arrived at the ramen stand and sat down. A man came out from the back to welcome the customers, grinning as he recognized two of his favorites. He sent a smile and a nod towards the newcomer, not recognizing him in the slightest but trusting the Hokage's judgement.

"All right. So what can I get for you three today?"

"I'll take two bowls of miso, old man Ichiraku!"

"I will be having the same."

The three looked at Adrik in anticipation. Hiruzen facepalmed as the boy tilted his head in confusion. He forgot about the whole language barrier thing.

"He'll have one bowl of the same just to start."

The ramen chef nodded as he went to work. Naruto started up conversation with the Hokage as they waited, Adrik listening in and secretly taking notes of the new words.

"So, old man, how's Smokes been doing?"

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at the apparent nickname that Naruto created.

"'Smokes'? Why that of all things?"

"He smells like smoke."

Naruto's deadpan face said all it needed to. Even without having the blonde's enhanced senses, Hiruzen caught the smell of smoke easily. It was strange, though. He was somewhat certain the nurses at the hospital would have had him shower once he could get out of bed. 

"Well, the boy has been doing decently well. I'd say he'll be speaking our language easily very soon. He's smarter than he realizes."

Naruto would have responded if it weren't for the sweet bowl of pure heaven in front of him. He did a quick prayer before digging in, Hiruzen doing the same. They glanced over at Adrik, who carefully recreated their exact motions. He even did his best recreation of the words he heard. 

Everyone at the stand smirked as Adrik's eyes widened upon tasting the ramen. They all had a good laugh when Adrik was too encapsulated by the food to register their joke about adding a new ramen lover to the village.

"Can't believe we found Smokes on our first A-Rank mission. I mean, it's only been two days since we graduated and we all have an A-Rank on our records! I'll be Hokage in no time at this rate!"

"I'm sure you will, my boy. And when you do, I'll finally be free of the accursed paperwork for the rest of my life!"

The two chuckled at their running inside joke before digging back in for more.

"Hey old man, I almost forgot!"

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at the boy.

"What the hell's up with my shadow clones? I told one to go get some ramen for takeout yesterday and Sakura hit me after I tried asking her out. But that wouldn't make sense since my clone was the one to get hit, not the real me."

"Ah, I see you're beginning to understand the power of the shadow clones. Rest assured, that is normal for the technique. Whatever your clones learn, you will also learn upon dispelling them. This also applies to training with chakra. Muscle memory can also be gained, though at a much slower rate since it borders on being a physical activity. But you will have to do physical conditioning on your own."

Naruto's eyes widened as he processed the information. He then gave an evil smirk as he realized what this new discovery entailed.

"Do not get too hasty, my boy. If you dispell too many at once, you'll be, how do you say it...'feeling that shit for weeks'?"

The two chuckled as Naruto nodded along. Even with the restriction of memory overload, Naruto was planning to abuse the living hell out of this technique. Naruto glanced over at the other person his age, turning back to Hiruzen with a question.

"Hey, old man, where's Smokes gonna be staying? He isn't a ninja and he isn't a Leaf citizen, so where will he live?"

Hiruzen had been contemplating that very matter as Adrik wasn't technically bound to a village or its people. His solution to this problem came in the form of the blonde boy in front of him, actually.

"Well, since it's just you and the nice landlord lady, I'm sure he could get an apartment next to yours. It wouldn't hurt to live near a friend."

Hiruzen gave a soft chuckle as Naruto grinned. See, Naruto had been living in an apartment complex ever since he was six. After he moved in, everyone else left except for the landlord, who was a retired kunoichi. Apparently, the lady had been friends with Hiruzen when they were in the academy, still keeping in touch as the years went by. In short, Naruto was the happiest he could be right now. He'd never gone over to a friend's house before, and never had a friend over at his. Even if there wouldn't be much of a difference between rooms, having company so easily accessible far outweighed any negatives. Even the language barrier couldn't hold Naruto back from having a friend. Besides, Naruto was pretty good at reading people, unless said person is a certain female clan heir with dark blue hair and lavender eyes. Not to name names or anything...

Naruto and Adrik would definitely be the best of friends from now on. Naruto promised that. And Naruto will never go back on his word, even if the world comes crashing down.