13 Prejudice and virtue

For the next few days Teruya attempted to preserve himself by doing a stay-over at his friends, coupling it with him attempting to hide in the village amidst the population. For some time Teruya assumed that it did work, as he didn't face his mother, yet his hopes got dashed by the third day with a feeling of his ear being twisted.

As one could have foreseen, trying to hide away from a shinobi without any expertise that is also ones mother ended up being a fools errant. The reasons for her 'finding' him only on the third day were that she simply found his attempts at hiding 'adorable', and decided to give him some hope.

As such later that day Teruya found himself with his ears almost falling off - both figuratively and literally at the same time. The former from the two hour long nagging about the foolishness of him endangering his health by attempting to use chakra on his own body, and the latter from having his ears twisted while being nagged.

At the end of the lecture she unceremoniously dropped new set of weights with heavier weights, just to compensate for him 'cheating'. After the previous lecture Teruya simply had no energy left to bother arguing so he silently accepted them – though he did stumble when he was trying to pick them up for the first time.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~

It was a cool evening, and one could see two boys carving some small figurines. They were Sasori and Teruya.

"All right, fess up." Sasori spoke up as he worked on the right upper arm of his carving.

"Fess up what exactly?" Teruya looked away from his work to Sasori.

"Don't play coy with me, since quite some time ago you started to keep up with the hyperactive Pakura. I want in."

"Oh, that's simply because I'm stronger, better and more handsom-" "Yeah, right. And then you woke up from the dream." Sasori interjected before Teruya could finish boasting.

'Okay, he wants the method, then he will get one. Though I will have the last laugh.'

Teruya held a laughter inside of him, as he imagined Sasori's dejected face when he gets presented a much heavier weights from his mother after he learns the body strengthening, just like him.

'That's what the friends are for, right?'

After that Teruya proceeded to explain his method of strengthening his own body using chakra, however he told him to have his own parents oversee his learning process, so he doesn't injure himself. He is his friend after all.

He also learned that Sasori was also learning on how to control chakra, though he was at the level of keeping five pieces of paper stuck to him simultaneously. After learning that Teruya definitely didn't use the chance to flex his own control and tease Sasori, not at all. That would be childish.

On a completely unrelated note Sasori's pouting face was really adorable.

Pakura also started learning chakra control (in a younger age than we did as she had more chakra, so she was allowed to start practising sooner), but she has difficult start with her bigger quantities of chakra, as such she still trying to keep one piece stuck to her for 5 seconds.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~

Few weeks have passed and a familiar trio could be seen running through the village. Yet in that time if one paid attention to the youths they could see one of them having a hand partially covered in sand. Civilian passer-by's didn't really make much of it, merely raised their eyebrow with a confusion before carrying on with their life, but when they passed some shinobis it did cause some of them to turn their heads towards them with a hint of disbelief in their eyes.

But this day the said trio wasn't running throughout the village for fun, but with haste. At the same time other people could be seen closing off their shops and doing the same.

"Quickly let's run to the public library and take a shelter!" Sasori screamed as he ran first.

"Stupid sand, I hate it!" Teruya exclaimed as he followed Sasori. "It gets in the clothes, in hair, in eyes, everywhere! Absolutely annoying! At least we wear sandals, so there's none in our shoes…"

"Stop being grumpy cat." Pakura spoke to him as she overtook him. "Speed up, I don't want to get caught outside when the sandstorm gets here!"

Indeed, the trio was busy running because of the sandstorm, that on average can be witnessed twice a month in the Sunagakure.

Luckily for them they got inside the improvised shelter (library) half a minute before the storm arrived.

Inside of it there were quite a lot of people, many just like them took a shelter from the sandstorm inside of it, making it a bit cramped.

"*groan* Now I will scoop sand from my hair for the rest of the week." Teruya complained as he shook his head in an attempt to get rid of the sand.

"You won't be the only one doing that." Sasori spoke up as he dusted is clothes. "But it is you that hate it the most out of all of us."

"Out of all the places, did we have to hide in the library?" Pakura grumbled. "This place is sooo boring."

"We will figure something out. How about you Sasori take Pakura with you and see if she finds something interesting. Meanwhile I will search for a spot for us to sit until the weather passes." Teruya said.

"Sure, let's go Paku-chan. Maybe we can find some shinobi story for you." Sasori said as he left with Pakura into section of adventure stories.

Meanwhile Teruya went towards the reading area, where one could usually find a place to sit and read.

As he looked around he saw the area packed, but as he was about to give up his search he saw an old man sitting alone on a bench, while the rest of the villagers kept their distance away from him, despite having room for more people to sit there.

The old man was bald and had white thick eyebrows, white moustache stretching down around 20 centimetres and around half a meter long white beard. When Teruya used his senses as a sensor the old man gave out a feeling of a calm and slow summer stream. Sensing that Teruya decided to approach.

"Hey old man, would you mind if me and my friends take a seat next to you?"

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ [Old man POV]

"Hey old man, would you mind if me and my friends take a seat next to you?" I heard a youth speak to me.

"I do not mind, but shouldn't you be afraid of me?" I asked him.

"Afraid? Why?" He asked bewildered which gave me a surprise, as usually everyone knew of me. Not in a good sense of knowing though.

"Because other villagers believe me to a beast. They fear and despise me, as I am jinchūriki of the one tailed." I told the boy, and at my words I saw his eyes widen in realization. However, instead of fear what I saw in his eyes was… understanding and admiration?

"I see, so you are the rumoured jinchūriki." He said without any hint of fear, surprising me.

"…are you not afraid that I might attack you and destroy the village?" I asked.

"Let me ask you few questions first. For how long have you been a jinchūriki?"

"…for around 30 years."

"And how many times did you attack the village or it's people?"

"…I see."

"The data doesn't lie. And if anything old man, I'm impressed by you sir." He said, surprising me again.

"Impressed? Why?"

"For decades you are scorned by the people, yet you keep a tailed beast inside of you, protecting everyone. I know how it feels to be hated because of a prejudice, and I honestly doubt that I'd be able to maintain such a positive outlook towards everyone around me." He said with a look and conviction that told me he isn't lying, that he experienced something similar, and yet he wasn't even five year old, which didn't make sense.

"If anything" He continued. "I'd probably not care about anyone of the people that are prejudiced against me, and yet here you are, protecting them. Such a virtue is worth admiring."

At his words I felt some weight fall of my shoulders. "Thank you." Despite knowing what you're doing is right, it is a terrible feeling to be hated by the people for which you sacrificed yourself. "What's your name?"

"My name is…" "Teruya! The storm has quickly passed, we can go out!" I heard an energetic voice coming from a girl that was running towards the boy next to me.

"Let's go! Let's leave this boring place already, I feel like falling asleep here." She said as she took the helpless boy and started to drag him outside. The boy - now identified as Teruya – smiled helplessly at the antics of his friend and said towards me "Stay strong old man, and thank you." before the duo vanished in the crowd heading towards the outside.

I didn't need to ask what he was thanking for as I knew. After our discussion I felt a big relief, just like a man finding an oasis in a desert.

'I think I'm starting to like sandstorms.' I smiled feeling at peace.