...

A bird.

...

A beady-eyed yellow freckled groundhog

...

Sasuke wasn't enjoying his day, he had been stuck with guard duty ever since he had turned thirteen. Hanzo said it was an essential part of his training, and Mondo gloated at every oppertunity, continously commenting on how he was enjoying his free time chatting things up and trekking around the woods with a couple of friends.

The only things the boy-ninja could count on were the rat, the bird, and the beady-eyed yellow freckled groundhog. He had been watching the former two for the past month, and they always had something new to do everyday. The rat forever found new ways to rob the bird of her eggs, something the bird seemed to have an endless supply of... the groundhog was a recent curiousity that could not be ignored.

"Who am I kidding?" Sasuke lamented, burying his face in his hands, "The rat is a complete boor, the bird has nothing better to do than lay eggs all day and the groundhog..."

Sasuke couldn't quite catagorize the groundhog. It was an enigma, he gave it that, but he couldn't be sure if it was your everyday normal groundhog. He had never seen the world outside of Rokkaku and therefore did not know whether or not the groundhog was 'normal'. Regardless, it sat there, as if waiting for something to happen, sharing Sasuke's boring existance as it stared back at him with six beady little eyes.

Just one more hour he thought and he would be free. Some other poor boy 'in-training' would take his place for the night shift and he could go home, relax and have fun... well... he could go home, relax and listen to Mondo all night. He wasn't too overly pleased with his annoying guardian but it was a necessesity. His parents, before they gave their lives in the war with the Scarlet Moon Empire, had entrusted Mondo with the well-being of their ten year old son. They never returned and so the arrangement stuck, much to Sasuke's dismay once he had emerged from mourning and was able to analyse his situation more carefully.

"What are you trying to do now?", Sasuke asked rhetorically of the groundhog he kept vigil over. The curious creature was sniffing the ground around it and running frantically around in circles. Curious indeed... It began to dig with the tiny paws it commanded. Sasuke watched on, intrigued. The thing was far from cute but it was interesting, more interesting than the rat and the bird. It was probably the most exciting thing that had happened around the tiny hamlet of Rokkaku.

The movements of the groundhog increased rapidly. It began to 'eep' in what sounded like delight and dug more ferociously. "What have you found now?" he asked again, not expecting an answer, "Are you a strange species of dog and not a groundhog?"

"Eep! Eep!!!" it exclaimed happily, stopping it's dig and admiring the hole it had made in the ground. Sasuke, having nothing better to do, wandered over to the hole and looked inside.

"What have you found now, boy..."

In the two foot deep hole lay, at the bottom, a crystal. It glowed darkness, an oddity indeed. Sasuke had seen crystals like it before, Mondo's 'Mayfly Rune' being one of them. It indeed was a find, a great find, his find. The groundhog had found one, maybe it could find more! The ninja darted around, looking for the yellow groundhog, which was nowhere in sight.

Ah, it'll come back... hopefully, he shrugged as he pocketed the crystal. All he had to do now was go to the local runemaster and ask about it. Excitement raced through his mind, maybe he had found a 'True Rune' and was about to recieve his ticket to a life of adventure and travel, a chance to escape from the dull hamlet.