Safeguarded
Tainted Dreams 03
Warnings: I'll probably have bad grammar (especially spelling)… Poor attempts at Japanese… and perhaps have out-of-character characters. Hehe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Full Summary:
It's not easy being hunted and chased by strangers after something inside you, lurking with much power, unknown even to his owner. People died to save IT and people hunted to gain IT. So what is IT that lurks within the young Uzumaki Naruto who faces much sorrow as he continues along his path with his bodyguard?
A story of duty, of love, of hate and revenge; of choices of decisions and of regret. Will the blood of the one you love most be an equivalent exchange for power to kill the one you hate most?
------------------------------------------------------------
Authors Note/Warnings (again): PLEASE READ… this is for your own sanity.
Hello everyone! Before reading this fic, I would highly recommend reading these warnings/notes first. Other than the warnings above, I would like to stress a few aspects of this fic.
My guilty conscience has gotten the better of me and my need to complete things has been nagging me to write this. Hehe. This fic is my "alternative" to "Beneath the Sakura Tree" and sort of like my apology to all those I left hanging on chapter two. This story will have a similar plot – though with altered circumstances.
Although aspects regarding the plot are still tentative, I have a few concrete ideas regarding the story.
This story will include angst/drama and violence. I will endeavor to satisfy my readers despite what little knowledge in writing I have. (This is my first shot at writing action) I ask that you be fair in criticizing my work (I'll be sad if you flame me! TT) and in turn, I will make an effort to improve my fic.
There is a possible character death but I would like to once again stress that the plot is still tentative. This story is slightly AU-ish though not completely.
I have mentioned this in my other fic and I would like to mention this again. The hot man smexing! (HEE! –Perverted side emerges-) though this is rated M, it's mostly for the above warnings and devastatingly, not for the bedroom action. (Ducks the rotten tomatoes being thrown by angry readers and… oddly, myself) I, for the life of me (or anyone for that matter), DO NOT know how to write intimate scenes (I got frustrated-intimate-scene-writer syndrome or something). I'll probably end up saying shit like "and he stuck the thing in that place and began his mission to completion." SEE?.! And already I feel unsettled! So if you guys wanna include scenes like that, either imagine it, or help me write one. (oh goodness. I can't even envision how unsettling that'll be. LOL.) But who knows? I may pick up a trick or two and actually learn how to.
This warning has become much of a template for me to write, but I THANK all my future reviewers. Reviews really do encourage lazy/school-absorbed/disheartened authors and tend to speed things up. Despite my possible lack in reply, know that they are VERY much appreciated and considered! Suggestions, comments, (-healthy non flame-) criticism and other stuff you wish to tell/ask me about are encouraged! Even if it's not relevant to the fic… it's still fun to read what you guys have to say, so go on ahead!
So… that's all… (thinks back) … I suppose. Please read with an open mind or don't read at all! –glares- There's no point in reading something you obviously don't enjoy and no one if forcing you to read this… At least I hope not… With that said, I would like to wish you luck in reading and I do hope that you enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PROLOGUE: Fragmented Pasts
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Fire tore across the field like a swarm of bees, crackling, buzzing and deafening the still of the night. Red, bright, hot and fearsome, it swept mercilessly like molten lava. Dancing to the song of destruction, it crushed trees, burnt fields and shattered houses in its vicious rampage.
The scent of destruction ran through the air, thickened with the stench of cinder, burnt wood and flesh. Smoke so thick, it washed the skies grey and clogged the lungs from air. Like a fearsome horde of demons, it cascaded through the skies with power and might, blocking out even the slightest light from the moon.
Screams of anguish drilled fear to the bone, overlapped by the roar of the inferno. The mighty battle cries of innocent men were long overpowered by cynical laughter of their aggressors. Heavy clinks of metal and the crackling of power were now replaced with loud thuds of battered corpses.
Sheer chaos enveloped the town of fallen bodies and tainted soil. Broken bodies littered the ground, bloodied, murdered… gone.
"Run my child!"
That voice. Pained, gruff and demanding rang in his head repetitively as he ran through the inky depths of the forest. That voice was his prayer, the one thing that kept him going, commanding him to run, and pleading him to never stop.
His aching feet continued to work despite the pain that rang within his muscles. They were like machines, continuously moving, left right then left again.
Warm hands enveloped his, pulling him farther and farther away from his family, his friends and the remnants of his home. The man, his navigator, his savior, steered his way through the twisting paths of the forest, ducking past branches that hid the littered sky. He didn't know where they were headed; all he knew was that they needed to get away.
"Run and never look back!"
His blue eyes were blurred from unshed tears obscuring the complicated paths. Eyes that had seen far too much blinked back what little courage he still had. He would not cry.
Not now! Please not now!
They were moving quicker now and the hand had begun to tug persistently for him to hurry. His blond hair, dirtied by layers of ashes, was brushed back by rough winds that mercilessly threw itself at the lithe form of the boy.
The tears were flowing freely now; his courage long gone with the wind. His legs were trembling as he urged himself to run.
"What about you?"
The trees had grown taller, branches thicker and the leaves more luxuriant. What little light the pale moon had provided could no longer be seen. Their eyes were not trained for darkness; both now too blind to move through the intricate structure of the forest grounds. Continuously, they tripped over branches and stumbled upon rocks, together doing the best they could to anchor each other.
"Don't come looking for me. I'll come find you, I promise"
Each tree mimicked the other, each path unceasing. Everywhere looked the same; everywhere was nowhere. The perplexing spiral that was the forest seemed but a ceaseless wormhole of trees, rocks and leaves. They were traveling up a path that seemed to circle, seemingly tricky and unforgiving.
"But Papa, where will I go?!"
The mist had built up to a thick blanket; anything below the knee could no longer be seen. The forest floors were heavily draped with dried leaves, crunching at each step they took.
"Away from here…Don't let them catch you."
He tripped, fell and stumbled to the ground, blood painting the forest floors red. With his flesh raw and with the pain ripe, he struggled to his feat; that arm tugging his body for support. He cried, his body scraped and tired, refusing him of his pleas to move forward. No matter how high those arms raised him, no matter how gently those words soothed him, the boy continued to fall helplessly to the floor, hitting, scrapping and surrendering to fatigue.
He was tired, God he was tired. His body shook. He was scared. He wanted to go home but home was gone; destroyed by the merciless men and engulfed within the red raged flames.
He laid their, face flat on the blood stained leaves, convulsing in a fit of repressed tears and anguish. The faces, the blood, the fallen bodies… They haunted him, over and over he saw them fall, and over and over they blamed him.
And the terror in his fathers eyes, the smile that wavered as he kissed him goodbye. It replayed over and over again, taunting him, reminding him that his father had bid him farewell.
"Please…" His face was covered in ashes and smeared with dirt. The tears that ran along his cheeks never helped clean his dirtied face. "Oh God, please!"
Dead leaves shattered as they crumpled beneath the boy's fists. "Papa!" The anguished cry resounded through the forest like an angry wave. "Please papa…" the whispered words were trembling, wavering but helplessly fighting to be heard. "Please find me!"
And he remembered the men, the men that caused such anguish, such terror to his people, to his home and to his family. A hooded man with the eyes of crimson, they attacked with pointed weapons, shiny, sharp and merciless.
Crimson drips
Crimson falls
He'd witness the flesh of his family torn like meat caught within the sharp fangs of angered lions. It was brutal, each and every scream deafening.
Scarring all
Tainting all
Blood. There were pools of blood, abandoned over the floor; spilling over the grounds that supported happy men and loving mothers.
"You are my most precious person, remember that."
His father was a strong man with saddened eyes. Warn from his older age, but warm, inviting and loving. He'd look upon his son, worried. Somehow, the boy knew his father had known of what was to come.
"Sometimes when you want to protect someone you love, you have to make sacrifices."
This was his father's sacrifice. This was his fathers love, his father's ultimate gift. He lived because he was his father's most precious person.
"Papa says he loves me, so will papa make sacrifices for me?"
Oh God did he wish he never uttered those words; those cursed words that held too much of what happened, the words that would separate him from his father.
"Wholeheartedly"
"Papa's so cool!"
"I don't need your stupid sacrifice!" He was desperate, Lord was he desperate. He shouted; he shouted because he was angry he shouted because he wanted his father back. If he could alter time, his father would be safe, if he could alter his words, he father would be here.
"But what if papa has to make scary sacrifices? I don't want papa to be scared because of me!"
"Love makes people stronger, no matter how scary things get."
But he was scared even with his fathers love. He was afraid and he wondered if his father was afraid as well.
He curled into a ball, willing the world to stop spinning, willing those hands to stop shaking, willing that voice to quit crying. He laid still, his hands stubbornly latched onto the ground. He wouldn't leave. He wouldn't leave! He'd wait for his father. His father promised he'd come. His father promised he'd stay strong because he loved him and his father loved him as well. He'd wait and be strong. He'd wait until his father came because his father never broke promises…
He waited and the moon stayed still
He hoped and the stars kept his dreams
He stayed strong and the wind carried his fears
He cried and the ground caught his tears
And in the chill of the night, a young boy learned that promises could be broken.
His father would never come.
TBC…
AN: How was it? I do hope you'd comment or leave suggestions. It's rather different to be writing this way and I do hope I'm doing this effectively. Hehe!
I would like to thank the people who have reviewed for my older fic, Beneath the Sakura Tree. I have chosen to discontinue it and these people have inspired me to write this- a fic very much similar to it- to compensate for its incompletion. This (in its own little way) is my apology to you guys. I hope ya'll enjoyed reading this!
perishedlove, Esplodin' Ookami, Failing Mentality, darksone, DarkRavie, Narutard Kiba
This fic is dedicated to you guys and others who have read Beneath the Sakura Tree. Again, I'm sorry for its discontinuation.
-Tainted Dreams03