It was New Year's Eve. Yoshi was walking down the street while looking around the place that was bustling with people walking here and there. Many Shinobi could be seen running and jumping from roof to roof as they went on their way to complete their missions.
"Hey! Where is the board I ask?"
"Put the thing here!"
"Hey! Can someone get me more fireworks?"
"New Year's Eve! Watch the fireworks tonight! Buy the cake we made specifically for New Year's Eve!"
People yelling from everywhere could be heard. Still, it does not bother Yoshi whatsoever. Three children ran past him as he turned to the side a little as to not want to collide with them. He looked at the children running around with a smile on their face as they laughed. The people around him seemed to be happy, no, they were happy. Yoshi sighed to himself as he continued walking down the street.
Without him knowing, he was already at the street where people were setting up vendors for the night. Some of them has even started selling things for the day. There were ornaments, accessories, foods, even books and weapons. As the villagers were happy and waiting impatiently for the night's events, Yoshi was spending the time alone with himself and not a speck of happiness could be seen on his face. It was clear on his face that he was not looking forward to the new year. He sighed heavily as he thought of what was to come in the sooner future and the troublesome missions that he still needed to do. Yoshi scratched the side of his bandaged neck while yawning a little.
Time passed and Yoshi arrived on top of the Hokage's Stone. He looked over the village with a straight face with his hands in his pocket. He took a deep breath as he closed his eyes, letting his senses overtook him as he felt the cold morning wind on his skin and the sounds of the forest behind him. This kind of peaceful moments was rare for Yoshi to have since most of the time he was surrounded by alcohols and an abusive environment, thanked to his father.
"First attempt, jump off the cliff. One, to know if my healing abilities could heal broken bones or not. Two, to know if the impact on the head would kill me or not from this height."
Yoshi said as a reminder to himself according to his 'Suicidal attempt' notes. He opened his eyes and walked towards the edge of the cliff. He looked down as he gulped nervously. Yoshi did want to die, but remind you, he wanted to die fast and painlessly.
"How long the time of my falling from here while adding the possible delay of my fall if I fall on the tree branches then to the ground?" Yoshi asked himself while looking down at the trees below.
"Math. Always give me a headache. And I don't want to tire my brain before my possible death."
Yoshi sighed as he looked up at the sky and breathed out. He inched closer to the edge while closing his eyes. Few seconds of silence, Yoshi decided to fell down and he did just that. He fell forward slowly as he let his body relaxed. Then, he felt himself falling fast since there was no resistance from his side. Yoshi's heart was beating fast and all he could hear on his ears was the wind.
He waited for the impact to come and seconds later, he crashed onto some branches hard for a few times before fell to the ground on his back. Throughout the fall, he expected to lose consciousness, but here he was, still alive and fully aware of what's happening. Yoshi laid on his back as he could feel the pain on his back, sides, and head. Since he couldn't move cause of the pain, he only touching himself slowly from top to bottom with his hands to check for any external bleeding and surprisingly, there was none. The only things that were bleeding, a little, were the minor wounds caused by the branches.
Yoshi sighed when he noticed about all this. He could feel the pain and oh, how much he hate it. But amidst the pain, he could feel something's moving inside his body. It was as if his body was reconstructing itself from the inside and it felt weird and uncomfortable to him. For 15 minutes or so, Yoshi stayed laying on the ground, waiting for the pain to go away and his internal wounds to heal themselves.
"So, jumping off a cliff was not successful. Internal injuries are present but as expected they're healed. My head is not bloodied even a little. Sigh. This is ridiculous."
Yoshi said to himself as he sighed. He tried moving his arms and legs and they were no pain anymore so he decided to sat up slowly. He spaced out for a moment before standing up and strecthing himself to make sure his body was okay. As he was stretching, he saw a sight of Naruto's yellow hair in the distance. It seemed like he was walking alone with a down face in today's happy occasion where he supposed to go around doing pranks and laughing. Yoshi was contemplating whether to called for Naruto or not. He was not a busybody to care for others, but you have to 'groom' your card, right?
"Naruto! What's wrong?"
Yoshi asked as he jogged towards Naruto with his usual bored face and half lidded eyes, seemingly not cared about anything, which he did, contrary to what he said. Naruto, not knowing Yoshi's true intention, looked at him with saddened eyes before shifted his eyes away. Yoshi was confused at Naruto's unusual behavior today since most of the times, he would shift to a happy character in a second once he saw Yoshi.
"Hey. It's New Year's Eve. Want to go get ramen? I heard Teuchi-san is handing out free coupon right now."
Yoshi said to naruto, expecting to see a bright and happy expression on his face but all Yoshi got was a downcasted look as he shook his head. Yoshi was more confused now as he never expected Naruto to decline free ramen when he himself loved it. Yoshi stayed quite as he didn't know what else to say, causing the situation to be awkward really fast.
"You know. You can speak anything with me. I'll listen." Yoshi said while looking down with his hands in his pocket. The feeling of awkwardness and Naruto's silence made him anxious as he tried to focus on the ground to distract himself.
"Yoshi. There's scratches at the right side of your forehead. Are you okay?" Naruto asked instead of replying to Yoshi's words.
"....Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I fell down earlier. It's no big deal." Yoshi said while wiping the little blood away from his forehead with his fingers.
Naruto looked at Yoshi then to the bandages on his hands and around the neck. He was about to ask something but decided against it as he closed his mouth back and suddenly smiled widely. Gone the sad Naruto as it was replaced by the happy go-lucky Naruto. Yoshi looked up to Naruto and was confused for a second of what made him smiled, but brushed the thoughts aside as he deemed it unimportant.
***********
It was late morning when Hiruzen walked out of his office with a tobacco pipe in hand. As he was about to walk away, suddenly he saw the current matriach of Hyuuga clan, Hyuuga Hiashi, walking towards him with a stern and serious face. Hiruzen sighed at the sight of Hiashi but still have his gentle face. Clan matriach won't come to the Hokage without reason, especially if they came straight to the office. It's meant, the matriach had something important to discuss about with the Hokage and it was never good, Hiruzen of course knew about it.
'New Year, new problems.'
Hiruzen thought but still he didn't showed his tiredness or annoyance as they were not fitted that of a Hokage. He would do his job and bear any responsibilities as long as it involved the village and his people.
"Hokage-sama. Have some time to spare?"
************
The restaurant was filled with people from various ages laughing and talking to each other while enjoying the meal. Yoshi was seated still on his chair as he looked towards the individual sitting across of him. In front of him was an unexpected adult named Shikaku accompanied by his son, Shikamaru. Beside Yoshi was Naruto as he ate the delicious meal without a care in the world, leaving Yoshi to face with the very uncomfortable situation alone, not like Naruto knew who was actually in front of them.
Shikaku was eating calmly whilst Shikamaru was looking at me with a pity look as if apologizing for his dad's behavior. Yoshi caught Shikamaru's gazed and nodded his head in understanding, though he was clueless of why Shikaku suddenly invited him and Naruto to a meal. The only answer they got was "a quick meal before new year", or something around that words.
"So, how's your one year living here?"
Shikaku asked Yoshi as he put down his chopstick and looked at Yoshi with his dark eyes. Yoshi turned his eyes towards Shikaku as he gave him a small faint smile.
"Yes. It was fine living here. It was a great village."
"Hm. Glad to hear that. What's wrong with your forehead?"
Shikaku looked at the scrathes on the side of Yoshi's forehead with a raised eyebrow. Yoshi looked to the side for a second before looked back at him and was about to answer him when Naruto said it first.
"He fell. Not long ago. It's nothing bad." Naruto answered with his usual big smile as he still eating his food.
Yoshi nodded his head, don't know what to make of Naruto backing him up, somehow. Though Yoshi knew that Naruto didn't knew the real reason of the scracthes, he still thankful a little bit for answering the question for him with the fake reason he told him. For some reason, Yoshi felt uncomfortable talking about his fail attempt of suicide, so he wanted to avoid any questions about his scracthes as much as possible since it would just made him remembered about it.
Shikaku looked at Naruto briefly before saw that Yoshi nodded his head, confirming Naruto's words. Well, as a smart man that had read Yoshi's file case and one of the people who knew of the 'stuff' that happened with Yoshi back then, he doubted the answer he got, but he didn't showed it on his face as he nodded. Suddenly, Shikaku coughed to catch the attention of his father.
"Dad. What actually are we doing here? Can we go home now? You knew mom would be angry if she knew that we disappeared in the morning without eating her breakfast."
Shikaku sweat dropping at his son's words as he laughed awkwardly. He rubbed his neck as he pulled out a small leather book and slide it onto the table towards Yoshi.
"Actually, I want to give you this. I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable. Read it if you have a free time."
Yoshi grabbed the book but didn't opened it whilst Naruto was trying to take a peek of it's content. On the other side, Shikaku was looking at the book with narrowed eyes then looked at his father in curiousity. Shikaku brushed away his son's gazed on him as he got up and smiled at both Naruto and Yoshi.
"Well, I guess it's time for us to leave. Don't worry, I'll pay the bill. Happy New Year to you two."
Without waiting for any reply, Shikaku then walked to the counter to pay. Shikamaru looked at Yoshi and Naruto as he bid them goodbye and Happy New Year before stood up and followed his father. Naruto stood up and yelled with a smile from across the restaurant towards the father and son.
"Thanks for the bill, old man! Happy New Year!"
After the two left, Naruto went back to eat what left of the food they ordered whilst Yoshi looked down to the leather book in his hand. Naruto noticed his friend still didn't started eating so he called for Yoshi and shoved a meat into his mouth without warning. Yoshi was shocked at the action as his eyes widened but he eat the meat nonetheless.
"Yoshi! Can you started eating already? Or I will finish them all. It's free food. Don't waste them." Naruto said, a little annoyed at Yoshi's attitude.
Yoshi was tired today, not like he never did before, so he didn't have the mood to put up with Naruto's childish behavior, but he needed to put up the 'good friend' act for now. So, Yoshi smiled against his will at Naruto and nodded. Then, he started eating the food as Naruto smiled and went back to eating.
*************
A shinobi was running in the forest fast whilelooking back occasionally with a terrified expression. His figure was full of wounds and blood, his shinobi clothes was torn everywhere, his hitai-ate was nowhere to be seen along with his weapon's pouch. His head was bleeding and ran down into his right eye and down his cheek. One of his arms was bleeding profusely from a long deep vertical wound caused by a knife or a sword that started from his elbow and ended just above his wrist. The shinobi could not feel his hand anymore at this point as the pain was forgotten by him. The only thing was on his mind was to run away and made it back alive to his village.
'What the hell was that?!! That man is not in any way a human! He's a monster. He's not a shinobi either judging by his outfit and he's not from any village like he said. But, that man.....he's a threat to us. To the ninja world.'
The shinobi tought to himself as he kept running but by the minutes, he begun to slow down as his head was beggining to feel dizzy from the blood loss. Still, he didn't give up and pulled out chakra pills from his flak jacket's pocket and ate two of them to give him energy. It was 3 days before he arrived at his village and he planned not to stop at all as he was afraid of his attacker finding him and the fact that he really medical attention. Either way, he needed to go back home fast if he didn't want to die.