[Hope in Ruination] Chapter 4 - Spirit Blossom

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Chapter 4 - Spirit Blossom

“Why do you need to go to Ionia to meet your parents?” asked Naruto, more than a little confused. “Why aren’t they coming here for you instead?”

The girl averted her eyes before replying, “Our parents are dead. They were killed 2 years ago, in a fight between gangs over Shimmer.” (1)

If not for the conical bamboo hat on his head, Naruto would be scratching his hair now. 

“I’m not following. What are you going to Ionia for if they’re dead? Or you just want to go visit their graves? Make it make sense.”

“You don’t know about Ionia?” asked the boy. 

Naruto exhaled loudly. He had never been good with kids. He was starting to lose his patience. 

At his reaction, the girl quickly explained, fearing that the only chance they had to leave Zaun would disappear if they made him angry. 

“There is a festival in Ionia where people celebrate the spirit blossom flowers. It’s a festival where you can speak with your loved ones who have passed away. It’s not a guarantee for the spirits to show up, but it’s the only chance we have. . .”

“I see,” said Naruto. 

He didn’t see it. He had never heard of anything like that until then. Then again, he was a foreigner, hailing from an entirely different continent, on the other side of the planet. There were still many things he didn’t know about Runeterra. 

“Will you help us get there? Please,” the children begged. 

“I already said I’d help, didn’t I? Let’s go. In the meantime, how about you tell me more about yourself?”

Their two children’s tale was nothing special; Hayley and Kyle, aged 13 and 12, were the orphaned children of two regular people from Zaun. The city was filled with orphaned kids like them. 

These two children’s parents had been regular labourers working in one of the many factories littering the City of Iron and Glass. Unfortunately, one night, on their way home, they became the casualties of a clash between two gangs over territory; the bigger the territory, the more Shimmer they could distribute to the junkies addicted to it. Hayley and Kyle were left to fend for themselves, all alone. 

“Um, mister, just in case you haven’t noticed, we’re heading the wrong way,” Hayley said, momentarily putting her tale on hold to point this out. “The bridge is that way.”

“They charge a big tax if you go from Zaun to Piltover by the bridge,” Naruto explained. “I have another way into the upper city.”

After blowing up the strip of land that connected the Valoran and Shurima continents in order to create a sea strait, the rulers of Piltover built a massive lifting bridge over it. 

This bridge had two main purposes: connecting Piltover and Zaun and serving as a gate that blocked the way for any ships sailing through the strait. All those who wished to use the Strait would have to pay a tax; only after that would the bridge be lifted, allowing them to pass. Suffice to say, Piltover had made a fortune out of it. (2)

The two children glanced at each other worriedly when they saw Naruto leading them to the outskirts of the city, towards the sea. Growing up in a place like Zaun and being orphaned from a young age, they had learned to be wary of everyone’s intentions. After all, it was not uncommon for the drug cartels in the city to kidnap people off the streets and experiment with various versions of Shimmer on them. Kids like them were especially vulnerable. 

Noticing their growing fear and anxiety due to his ability to sense negative emotions, Naruto patted the head of the girl and ruffled her dirty green hair with his rough, calloused hand. 

“You can stop worrying. If I wanted to do something bad, I could’ve done it long ago. But if you wish to leave, you’re free to leave. I won’t stop you.”

Hayley’s face betrayed her hesitation. 

“No, we’ll follow you,” Kyle unexpectedly said when his older sister remained silent. 

“Alright then. Stick close to me and keep up.”

Soon, the three of them found themselves on the shore of the strait, and the two children looked everywhere around them, trying to find his boat. 

Naruto lowered his bamboo hat on his back, revealing his shaggy, bright, blonde hair. The children would have commented on it if not for Naruto suddenly grabbing the boy from the back of his t-shirt like a kitten and throwing him effortlessly on his right shoulder. 

“W-What are you doing?!” the girl stammered, but she didn’t have time to react before Naruto grabbed her just like her brother and put her on his other shoulder. 

“Hold onto the hextech arm, little girl. You too, boy, don’t let go of my hand.”

“Where are you taking us?!” the two kids asked in a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement that they themselves could not understand. 

Naruto chuckled a bit at their scaredy-cat-like reaction and then burst into full-blown laughter at their gasps of amazement when he started walking on water as if it were solid ground. 

“You’re walking on water?!”

“How are you doing that??”

“Magic,” he said simply. 

“You are a mage?!” she said in awe. She had never seen a real mage; she had only heard stories about them. 

“Mhm. Now hold on tight. I’m going to start running.”

⁂

“Mister, are you really, really, really sure?” 

It was the 5th time (at the very least) that Hayley was asking this question, and Naruto would have been exasperated by now if not for how happy the little girl appeared to be while she looked at herself in the mirror. 

“Yes, I said it’s alright. Go help your brother pick his own clothes too before I change my mind.”

It was not only Hayley who was euphoric; the boy was overwhelmed by surprise and happiness too. The grimy, dirty kids with greasy hair and rags for clothes were unrecognizable now. 

Hayley was wearing a beautiful, pink summer dress with white dots, and her long, dark green hair turned out to be a beautiful, shiny, raven-black colour after she cleaned herself up. 

As for the boy, he was wearing a pair of beige capri pants and a blue button-up shirt. His hair turned out to be black as well after cleaning up, not green, and it was combed neatly to the side. 

Both of them were also wearing new pairs of shoes and straw hats on their heads.

He had been forced to dip into his savings to fix his hextech arm, and now he was spending additional money on buying a few changes of clothes for the kids, but Naruto found himself smiling behind his mask because their happiness was so pure, it was infectious. They had never seen, let alone worn, any clothes as beautiful as that. 

As they left the clothing store and followed Naruto on their way to the port, the children were watching their every step, walking with great attention and care not to scratch their shoes. It was as if they were a treasure. 

“I don’t know how we can repay you for this,” Hayley muttered shyly. 

“From what you told me, it’s supposed to be a holy pilgrimage. You couldn’t go there the way you were.”

“But still, these clothes must’ve cost a fortune,” the boy also said. 

Naruto waved it off. 

“It was a thrift shop. It wasn’t that much.”

The children did not say anything to that, but they didn’t buy his words. There was no way that the shop that they had just visited was a second-hand store; they were not entirely clueless about the world. 

 

⁂

It was not long before he found a ship sailing towards Ionia because the kids he was escorting were not the only ones heading there. The port was packed with hundreds of people who decided to attend the Spirit Blossom Festival. 

The image of two well-dressed, beautiful children accompanying a masked, rough, dangerous-looking monster hunter raised many eyebrows, but most people did not dare poke their noses into his business. 

Due to his several month-long voyage across the ocean before arriving to Valoran, Naruto had long since gotten his sea legs, but that could not be said about the kids too. Their enthusiasm at boarding a sailboat for the first time in their lives was curbed one hour after their departure. 

Four days later, Naruto sat on a bench in a more remote area of the deck and enjoyed the warm, morning sea breeze while reading from a very large scroll. 

The land was nowhere in sight, but he could see another two sailboats treading the waters alongside the ship he was on. Sailing in a group like that was usually a great idea because there was safety in numbers; it deterred most acts of piracy.

“What are you reading, mister?” Kyle asked curiously. 

“It’s a scroll about magic,” he replied.

The boy let out a “whoa!” sound while standing up on the bench to peer over his shoulders. 

“I don’t understand a thing.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s a different language.”

Even if the boy knew the language, he would not understand much because Fuinjutsu was very difficult, but Naruto didn’t tell him that. 

“Is that the language of the place you were born? What is it called?”

“We just called it ‘common’. It didn’t have a special name.”

After arriving in Valoran and getting hit with the language barrier, Naruto wondered many times how come everyone on the continent he was born was speaking the same language while in Valoran there were dozens of different languages and even more dialects. 

“That is because of Ninshu,” Kyuubi unexpectedly spoke to him. The fox rarely did or told him anything helpful nowadays. Lately, whenever he opened his mouth, it was either to mock or to annoy him. 

‘What’s that? Never heard of it.’

"That's what Ninjutsu was at first. Originally, chakra was not meant to be used for battle, for killing. The Sage of the Six Paths shared his chakra and his teachings with other people so they could connect with each other on a level beyond what mere words could achieve," Kyuubi said.

‘The Sage of the Six Paths, huh? I thought he was a myth.’

"He was very much real. He was my creator," the fox said in an even voice. "For a while, it worked great. Ninshu connected people and made them understand each other. Decades passed, and humans started to speak the same language and live in peace. But after the Sage died of old age, humans' greed and thirst for power bared their fangs. They twisted and perverted the teachings of Ninshu, creating Ninjutsu. They weaponized the gift the Sage had given them. It showed me that there will never be peace, that you, humans, cannot and should not be trusted with power because you are worse than animals."

“[...] Mister? Mister? Zaun to mister? Hello?”

Absorbed by his conversation with the bijuu, Naruto had unknowingly stopped listening to what the little boy was saying.

“Sorry. I got lost in thought. What were you saying?”

“Do you have anyone you want to talk to at the Spirit Blossom Festival?”

Naruto shook his head. “Not really.”

“So your family is still alive. It must be nice…” Kyle said wistfully.

“Nope. My parents died on the day I was born.”

“Then why wouldn’t you want to talk to them?” the boy asked, visibly confused. 

“Because my parents didn’t love me. They tried to use me for an evil ritual, to summon a demon. But something went wrong, and the demon killed them instead of giving them power.”

It was a mixture of truth and lies because Naruto couldn’t just share such sensitive information about himself with strangers. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that,” the boy said quickly. 

Naruto patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I made peace with it a long time ago. If things had gone differently, I would not have been the man I am today. I might not have even been here or met you and your sister in that dingy pub in Zaun.”

At that moment, Hayley’s shout reached their ears:

“Kyle! Come quickly! Come see the dolphins! They’ve come out to play!”

The boy looked like he was torn between wanting to keep chatting with Naruto and going to watch the dolphins. 

“Go on, don’t keep your sister waiting,” Naruto shooed him away good-naturedly. 

Once the kid left, he returned to his studies. Now that he lost the ability to cast most of his ninjutsu techniques, he wanted to become proficient in Fuinjutsu more than ever. 

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Becoming a fuinjutsu master required years of studying under the tutelage of a master. But Naruto had never had a master, and now that he was on a different continent, it was impossible to get one even if he wanted. Progress was slow; still, he was getting there. 

⁂

The trip by boat was fairly uneventful. Other than a drunkard falling off the board and Naruto jumping to rescue him because he could easily walk on water, nothing major happened. 

The scourge of the sea, the pirates of Bilgewater, knew better than to launch attacks at that time of the year when the sea was filled with pilgrims sailing to the Spirit Blossom festival. The pirates never fought against superior numbers. 

That being said, time flew by, and, on the sixth day since the start of the voyage, they reached the shores of Ionia. 

One of the first things Naruto did upon arriving in Navori, the most populous region of Ionia, was to find the nearest pub. 

Maybe it was due to the fact that he was in a port town, or maybe the monster hunters, mercs, and sellswords were just as rough and rowdy in Ionia as they were in Valoran, but the atmosphere in the pub was very familiar to Naruto.

The children held onto the sides of his grey cloak, intimidated by the mean and dangerous-looking people everywhere around. 

“This ain’t no place for kids, pal,” said the bartender instead of a greeting. 

Naruto shrugged his shoulders and put a few golden coins on the counter before taking the massive polearm off his back and letting its handle rest on the counter.

“Give me a mug of ale,” he said as he took a seat on the bar stool, “and two of whatever non-alcoholic drink you have.” Turning towards the kids, he told them, “Hop on the bar stool too. Don’t be scared. No one can touch you as long as I’m here.”

Two young children sitting at the bar next to a rough-looking sellsword made for a strange sight, but the others knew better than to try starting up any trouble. One look at Naruto’s hextech left arm was enough to tip them off that he was not to be trifled with. In a way, it was funny; that prosthetic arm was not even a quarter as strong as his own arm, but it had done wonders to keep troublemakers away from him. 

A few moments later, Naruto got his mug of ale, and the two kids received two mugs of water. At his pointed look, the bartender said defensively: 

“What? I told you this ain’t no place for kids. You think I’m selling apple juice here?”

“Forget it,” said Naruto with a sigh. “Tell me what’s going on around here. Other than the Spirit Blossom festival.”

Seeing as the blond pushed another coin to him, the bartender didn’t protest and started talking. 

“You might wanna exchange your money into another currency. Noxian coin won’t get you far around these parts. You might even end up with a shiv in your spine.”

“I’m not hearing you complain about it.”

The bartender shrugged. “Business is business. I’ll take whatever I can get. But most Ionians aren’t like that. A few years passed since the first invasion of Noxus, but people haven’t forgotten nor have they forgiven. And now with Noxian troops gathering on Fae’lor, tensions are rising again.”

“Fae’lor? Where’s that?”

“It’s the easternmost island of Ionia. Well, it used to be ours, but now it’s under Noxus’ occupation. Anyone who opposed them was massacred. Those who surrendered were displaced; they got deported to Noxus’ mainland, never to be seen again. Damn those cruel bastards,” the bartender muttered a curse under his breath.

“Rumour goes Noxus has yet to give up on their conquest. I’m afraid that in a year or two, another bloody war is going to start.”

[...]

⁂

Half an hour later, Naruto picked up his weapon and left with the two children in tow, heading towards a town in the hills of Navori, Danshan. 

Any other time, the sinuous path leading to the town would be empty, but with the coming of the Spirit Blossom festival, it was packed with pilgrims wearing white cloaks now. 

The children were awed to see so many people of all sorts of races and nationalities gathered together without fighting each other. 

“At this pace, we’ll be on this road, in queue, for days,” said Naruto. 

There were more people than he could count, and they were advancing so slowly that they often stood waiting even 15 minutes at a time before finally taking a few steps forward.

“No, this won’t do. Come here, you two. We’re taking a shortcut.”

Kyle and Hayley squawked in excitement when Naruto picked them up in his arms and suddenly leapt up from the crowd. 

Many people gasped and pointed with their fingers at his display of superhuman capabilities. The murmurs only increased when Naruto started running along the very steep hillside as if it were flat ground, defying gravity. 

⁂

“I’m sorry, we don’t speak Ionian,” said Naruto to the monk who came to instruct them on what they were supposed to do. 

He was talking in Va-Nox, the most used language of Valoran, but, unfortunately, this place was Ionia. The monk threw him and the kids a look as though he were looking at filth before turning around and going to other pilgrims. 

“You look like you could use some help.”

That breathy, dreamy voice made Naruto turn around startled, his right arm immediately going to the handle of his polearm because he had not sensed their arrival. 

It was a slender woman, quite a bit shorter than him. Most of her body was covered by a long, white, hooded cloak, but her face was still visible. . . and she was breathtakingly beautiful. However, those slit, amber-coloured eyes and the three pair of whisker-like marks on her cheeks (eerily similar to his) tipped Naruto off that she may not be entirely human. 

His hand clenched on the handle of his polearm, and he pushed the two kids behind him, instinctively trying to protect them. If he weren’t in the middle of a temple at the moment, surrounded by pilgrims, he would have already unsheathed his weapon. 

“You’re not afraid of little old me, are you?” the woman asked, smiling at him teasingly. 

Realizing that he could not sense any negative emotions coming from her, Naruto relaxed his stance and let go of his weapon. 

“I don’t react well to someone sneaking up on me,” he said. 

She giggled.

“I was just done with my rituals and was about to leave when I noticed your interaction with the monk.”

“Knowing what Noxus did to Ionia a few years ago, I can’t really blame him,” he said. 

“Are you from Noxus?” the woman asked curiously, and Naruto’s eyes dropped to her knees when he noticed something moving under the long cloak she was wearing. 

“No, but everyone speaks Va-Nox on Valoran. Are you from Valoran too?”

“Not quite. I just happen to speak many languages. But I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Ahri~”

“I go by Ifrit. I’m a sellsword,” said Naruto. “These two are Hayley and Kyle, the clients I’m protecting at the moment. You said you could help us out?”

The children hid behind Naruto’s legs shyly when Ahri smiled and waved at them. 

“Aww, they’re so cute,” she cooed. “But yes, I’d like to help you. It would be a pity if you came here all the way from Valoran and returned empty-handed. Come, follow me to a spirit tree, and let’s grab a spirit bud each.”

Seeing as the children were too short, Naruto grabbed two flower buds for them. 

“You’re not taking one?” the woman asked.

“I’m here for them, not for myself.”

She looked like she wanted to ask another question but decided against it. 

“I see. Well, normally, the locals would take the spirit bud and place it on the grave of their departed loved ones. If the flower bud blooms, that means that their spirits are at peace and they will come to talk to you for a short while. But if the flower wilts and nothing appears, that means that spirit has yet to find peace.”

“So what do the pilgrims do? Some of them are from thousands of miles away, from across the sea.”

Ahri went to one of the stalls managed by the monks of the temple and bought a gourd from them. 

“How much is it?” he asked when she returned. Ahri and the stall owner were talking in Ionian, so he did not understand their words. 

Seeing him trying to give her Noxian coins, she giggled. “You really aren’t from around here. You can keep the money; it wasn’t much. Now, let’s go to the river.”

He looked at her suspiciously. 

“If pilgrims need to go to a river, why are they all coming to the temple?” 

The tone of his voice must have tipped her off in regards to his feelings because she asked teasingly:

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Yeah, sorry I’m not blindly trusting a woman I met only five minutes ago. The last time I saw a beautiful woman telling a man to follow her, she dragged him into an alley and ripped his chest open.” (3)

Kyle and Hayley were startled by his words and hid behind his legs once again. 

Ahri decided to stop teasing him and took her white hood off, revealing her long, luscious, raven-black hair tied in a long braid and a pair of large fox ears. A fluffy white fox tail also poked from under her cloak, making him realise that that was the thing he had seen moving underneath her cloak before. 

“Whoa!” Kyle and Hayley both let out an exclamation. They had never seen anyone who looked like her in Zaun, definitely nobody as beautiful as her.  

“I’m a vastaya. I sensed a familiar feeling coming from you and I thought you might be someone like me. That’s why I wanted to help you. I don’t have any hidden intentions.”

Naruto studied her for three very long seconds before letting out a sigh. His Negative Emotions Sensing did not detect any lies.

“I see. Sorry for suspecting you. And thanks for the help.”

Ahri was surprised to see him drop his wariness towards her that easily, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“It’s alright. I understand the wariness. But to answer your earlier question, pilgrims come to the temple first for this,” she said and shook a bit the gourd she had bought. “It’s a spirit drink; it will help you forge a connection between the physical world and the spirit realm. The monks would also guide the pilgrims in what they are supposed to do and help them with their cleaning rituals before attempting to commune with the spirits.”

Ahri put her hood back on and hid her fox tail again under the cloak before telling him and the children to follow her. They walked down the hill on a more remote pathway, avoiding the crowds as she led them to the river. 

Finally arriving at the river, Ahri instructed the children to shed their clothes and wash themselves in the waters of the river. 

Thankfully, the spirit blossom festival came this year during the summer, so it wasn’t cold. The spirit blossom flowers bloomed randomly; there wasn’t a fixed date; sometimes they could bloom even two or three times a year, while other times they would not bloom for several years in a row. The time of the year they bloomed was not always the same either; it was not uncommon for the spirit flowers to bloom in any of the four seasons in Ionia. 

Ahri let her white cloak slip off her shoulders, and she also took off her knee-high white and red boots, making Naruto have a hard time not staring at her pale, slender, bare legs. 

The smile and the coy look she sent his way let Naruto know that she had caught his eyes straying, and the blond was grateful at that moment that the mask and the bamboo hat covered most of his face, not allowing Ahri to see how red he became. 

But Ahri did not comment on it and stepped into the river with the children, who were wearing only their undergarments, walking until the water was almost up to her knees; the children were waist-deep in the water. 

Having brought the gourd with her, she handed it to the children and told them to take three gulps of it each. To their surprise, it was sweet; it tasted like nectar. 

“Now, tell Ahri whom do you wish to see?” she said kindly as she bent down to their eye level and placed her hands on their shoulders. 

The two siblings both flushed at their proximity to her; it appeared as though she had that sort of effect on everyone, not just on Naruto. 

“We wish to see our parents,” Hayley said. “They died 2 years ago. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. . . I just wish to tell them that we are fine. I want to tell them that I took good care of my little brother. I want them to see that we haven’t given up and that we’ll continue to fight.”

Ahri’s heart went out to the little girl, and she squeezed the children’s shoulders as a way to show them her support and to give them a small measure of comfort. 

“Put the flower buds into the water. Hold them; don’t let them float away. Now close your eyes and think of what you have lost. Think of your parents and the beautiful moments that you have spent together with them.”

⁂

After hearing from the children the story of how their parents died, Naruto had inwardly expected their spirits not to show up in front of the children. After all, they had been murdered by a gang and left behind their two kids in a city as dangerous and unforgiving as Zaun. It wasn't exactly a nice way to go. But he was proven wrong when the ghostly silhouettes of two middle-aged people appeared in front of the children. 

It appeared that the spirits of the departed still watched over their loved ones even in death. 

The parents’ spirits did not linger for long, but their short appearance was enough to make their two children burst into crying. 

“Forgive your useless father for not being around for you. You deserved so much better.”

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t be there with you. But we’re so proud of you, Hayley. You too, Kyle. You did so well to survive. You didn’t give up where others would.”

The two spirits also turned towards Naruto and expressed their heartfelt gratitude. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try talking to your parents too?” Kyuubi’s voice rumbled in Naruto’s mind at that moment. 

The emotional moment that resulted from the children’s reunion with their parents wasn’t enough to make Naruto’s feelings on the matter change. He had no lost love for his parents. 

‘You told me yourself, didn’t you? They chose to seal a tailed beast inside of me, their newborn son. My mother was your previous jinchuuriki, wasn’t she? So there’s no way they hadn’t known how difficult my life was going to be if they sealed you inside of me, especially with them gone, unable to protect me from the village. They knew what sort of fate they were cursing me with but went along with it because Konoha’s well-being was more important than their son’s well-being. I have nothing to talk about with them.’

At his words, Kyuubi became silent, and Naruto returned his attention to the real world. It was just in time to see the spirits say their final goodbyes and the teary-eyed children coming out of the river. 

⁂

The trip back to the port town was unnaturally quiet. Naruto did not know it, but, normally, Ahri was not one to stay silent but she had sensed the unusual mood that had settled between Naruto and the kids.

Danshan town had long since gone out of their sight and the beautiful spirit trees with their bright pink flowers were starting to become scarce, giving way to the wide, green plains as they approached the coast. 

The port town had just appeared on the horizon when Hayley pulled onto Naruto’s cloak softly and stopped. 

“Mister,” she called out to him. 

He turned and looked down at the little girl, whose face was still red from how much she had cried after telling the spirits of her parents goodbye. 

“Yes, Hayley?”

“I. . . I don’t want to go back to Zaun.”

When he remained silent, she spoke again. 

“I don’t want to go back to that place. . . any place is better than Zaun. . . I-”

She trailed off, unable to finish her words. 

“Mister, take us with you!” the boy suddenly spoke. 

“Kyle!” the girl said in an urgent voice, trying to shush him, but he continued regardless.

“We’ll be useful to you, I promise! Hayley knows how to cook! And I-, I’ll. . . I’ll learn how to fight! I’ll carry your baggage! We’ll do anything you ask of us! Please! Just. . . don’t leave us. . .”

He was the first adult who had shown them any kindness. Not only had he saved them from the scum who had tried to rob them of their money in Zaun, but he had also bought them new clothes, took care of them, protected them, and thanks to him, they had been able to talk to the spirits of their parents. 

“I’m sorry, kiddo. But I can’t take you with me.”

The boy started crying, and the girl began shedding tears with him as well, but Naruto couldn’t give them a different answer. He truly felt pity for them, but, in the end, there wasn’t much else that he could do for them. He had already helped them as much as he could. 

“I’m a sellsword. I live a dangerous life, usually fighting demons and other dangerous monsters. How do you think that I lost my left arm?” he said and raised his metallic prosthetic arm as if to drive the point home. “I live every day expecting it to be my last. My entire life has been like that, and that’s not something that’s going to change anytime soon. You will die a meaningless death if you come with me. Your parents wouldn’t want you to throw your life away, would they?”

When he brought up their parents, the boy stopped insisting, just crying quietly. 

“I won’t take you back to Zaun,” said Naruto in a subdued voice. “You can go wherever you want.”

He took off his large backpack and placed it on the ground. 

“Here, take this,” he said and handed Hayley a small leather pouch. 

It was quite heavy for a girl as young as her, and when she opened it to take a look inside, she gasped.

“I’m not a wealthy person, and I don’t know any orphanages that could take care of you. The best I can do is give you this and hope that the two of you can make it on your own.”

The girl and the boy were lost for words because the pouch was filled with over a hundred golden Noxian coins. It was enough for the two children to live without any worries about their finances for more than a year.

“It is not wise to give two children such a large amount of money,” Ahri, who had been silent until then, chose that moment to speak up. “As the saying goes, the human heart can be vicious, and an innocent man treasuring a jade could become a crime.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the little girl.

“If someone saw how much money you have, would they let you two children be? Chances are that they would rob you, or worse.”

The girl gulped; she was reminded of what had almost happened to them in the pub before they left Zaun. 

“If you have a better idea of how to help them, I’m all ears,” Naruto said. 

“As a matter of fact, I do. Why don't you take the children to a monastery? For example, the Kinkou Order, the Hiarna Order, and the Shojin Monastery are some of the most well-known, reputable, and righteous places that accept children and train them to become members of their cult. You don’t even need to pay them for it, but it would certainly speed things up if you did.”

Kyle and Hayley both perked up at her suggestion. 

“But it won’t be easy. Becoming a member of an order of martial artists requires hard work, discipline, and a pure heart. You may never even see the outside world for years.”

“Anything is better than going back to Zaun,” Hayley said resolutely. “Will you take us there, miss?”

Ahri smiled. “You’re a brave little girl, aren’t you? I don’t mind taking you there. As long as Mister Ifrit, here, agrees with it.”

Naruto thought about it for a few moments before nodding. 

“I’ll come along and make sure that they’re in good hands.”

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN:

(1) Shimmer is a drug that gives superhuman abilities. On the flip side, it’s also extremely addictive and causes severe physical malformations, tumours, or death. 

(2) Think of the Suez Canal in real life.

(3) Evelynn from chapter 2. 

I have also attached some pictures to this chapter:

• Ahri wearing a white cloak (2 pics)
  

• Ahri's outfit under the cloak
  

• map of Runeterra
  

You can go to this link if you wish to explore the mao of Runeterra instead of seeing just a pic of it. It is a nice, interactive map of the world https://map.leagueoflegends.com/en_US

Also, I recommend you to watch this League of Legends cinematic. It's about Yasuo, Yone, and the Spirit Blossom festival. Ahri makes an appearance too. Very nice animation and great voice acting. 10 minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4L0OkSrsI8