BURN
A/N: recently I've been on a final fantasy 7 kick and been looking threw a number of stories, and although there are a few good ones out there, I feel that the silver haired bad guy is severely underrepresented. As such I feel it's my civic duty to do my part and give the man another story, kind of, more of an homage really, but it's pretty obvious that I'm basing my story off him. Any way I'll just let you read the story and you'll see what I'm talking about (hopefully).
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Prologue
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For as long as he could remember he had always known something was different about him. He wasn't blind nor was he stupid. When he had been younger he had seen how the other children had played in the park, had gone shopping with their parents, gone to school to learn whatever it was that they taught there, a million other little things that he had never done. And even then looking at their happy faces he had felt nothing, no jealousy, no envy; no anger just a cool indifference. And that was when he had first thought that there was something truly different about him, not because he had never done any of those things but because he simply did not care that he had not. He knew that he should feel something, he may not of been an expert on psychology but he knew that there should of been something. And even in the face of this revelation he felt nothing; he simply accepted that that was just how he was. Sure he was a little curios, but he was content with his life, and truly why would he even want to be like the other children playing happily under the protective watch of their parents eye.
It was only a few years later that he discovered just how different he was from those around him. In all honesty he had discovered his curse/gift/burden; still he did not know how to classify the creature that had become his unwilling tenant. He had finished a long day of training and was sitting in his room meditating like his sensei's had taught him, however unlike the many time he had done this particular exercise in the past something new had happened. At first it had felt like a thought on the fringe of his mind, a memory long forgotten. As he focussed on it had become stronger transforming from a foggy memory to a presence in the back of his mind. Eventually it had turned into a towering inferno of emotions and thoughts alien to his own and before he could pull back the world around him bleed into black and all he was able to see was a set of looming rusted bars standing ominously before him. For once in his relatively short life he had felt a number of emotions coursing threw him. Confusion, surprise, awe, even fear all these new felling coursing threw him all at once was almost too much and he found that his legs could no longer support his body and he fell to his knees. Intellectually he knew what the creature before him was, the nine long tails waving like some kind of raging inferno behind it were a dead giveaway. Thought he was slightly confused as to why he was seeing it, he had been told the creature had died years ago. However on a far deeper level he saw, no something like this can't be seen, no he felt something drastically different. It was power. Undiluted, unrestrained, uncontrollable power and he could not help but feel awe upon seeing the large, red silted eyes staring down at him. unfortunately that awe was not to last, for all the power it possessed it was still nothing more than a mindless beast only capable of roaring and thrashing about in its cage. And for the first time in his like he felt sympathy, no not sympathy. Truthfully he was not sure what he felt, sadness perhaps but that was to simple a word. Empathy perhaps as he could see himself in the fox in some way. He was training to be strong, to be powerful but here before him was something almost godly in strength but still just a mindless beast and he wondered if that would happen to him, if at some point he would become so powerful that he himself would become like the beast in the cage in front of him and for the first time he well and truly felt fear.
It was not long after he had come to this disturbing conclusion that he returned to his room as if none of the previous events had happened. He had gone to one of his sensei's about what he had seen and in doing so learned just how different he was. He was the jinchuuriki of the kyuubi no kitsune, a human sacrifice, made to protect the people of the village from the great beast wrath. This was all true and in more than one sense. He knew that his life was anything but normal that he was being trained harder than any of the other children his age, that more was expected of him than of others that he was being moulded, shaped into something the village could use to protect its self that in a sense of a word he was being sacrificed again for the greater good of the village and the people living inn it. no he was not stupid he saw what was happening had seen it even before he had meet the kyuubi this revelation simply gave his life context. And he was fine with that, he would be their sword, their shield whatever they needed him for, but the lesson he had learned from his meeting with the fox would stay with him and he vowed to himself that he would never become like that, that no matter how strong he became, no matter what he became in the future never be like that, That he would always have a purpose in this world, and if some day he lost his that purpose than he would make it his to find a new one. Yes he had learned his lesson well. No matter what he had to do, no matter what he had to become there would always be a reason for him to exist, even if he had to burn the world to ash to find it.
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Chapter one
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It was days like this that he felt every one of his almost 70 years of life and times like this when he truly envied his predecessors, all of whom had died at a relatively young age defending the village. None of them had had to the time to look back on their lives and see all the mistakes they had made and to have the time to regret the things they had been forced to do to protect their village. But not him, he had held this office for more than half his life and now in his old age he found himself looking back on his life more and more. Sure there where good time. He remembered his genin days fondly, they may not of been the most peaceful times but he had been young and the world was new to him and most of all it had been simple, he did what his sensei told him to do. There were no thoughts about the questionable morality of his chosen profession, no over baring responsibility on his shoulders that he could not even escape in his own home now. No life had been simple back then and more than anything he wished that life could have stayed that way. But that's not the way the world works. He had grown up and his youthful naivety had left him and it its place a sense of fatalistic realism had taken its place and he saw how the world truly was. That by definition ninja were forced to sacrifice their honour, and in many cases much more for the good of their village and as Hokage he was sometimes forced to make that decision for them. And that thought brought him to the innocuous file sitting on the desk in front of him. There was nothing particularly special or even classified about it and it was hardly the first time he had read one, after all. All ninja, especially anbu, were required to go for a psych evaluation at least once a year. However it was the subject of the report that had made Sarutobi feel every day of his age. Regret, almost overpowering regret hit him every time he read his name, saw his face, talked to the boy. He was his greatest failure, one he regretted more than any other in his life, even more than the incident with his traitorous student. But back to the psych report, there was nothing new in it that he had not read in previous ones but that did not make it any easier on him to read. A worrying disconnect with the world around him. Almost complete emotional detachment, though there was at least a little hope on that front, he knew that he had at least a few ... he wasn't sure he would use the word friends but it was close enough for him. A complete lack of empathy, the list went on and on. He was happy to say that the boy still retained some emotion it had it was just incredible muted almost to the point where no one else could detect it. But it was the disconnect with the world around him that had Sarutobi the most worried. After all a ninja with no ties to his village was almost guaranteed to go missing nin eventually, and for someone like Naruto their wasn't even the fear of being hunted to hold him back after all one did not become a s-class nin at thirteen without having the power to back up his claims and in all honesty as it was he could probably count the number of people that might have a chance against the boy on one hand and he had no doubts that as the years went by that number would steadily drop until the boy truly became peerless.
No more, he had to take charge of this situation he had let the council run the boy's life for long enough now and he would be dammed if he lost one of his ninja to the foolishness of the old fools down the hall. It was his job to keep the village safe even if it was from itself. Now the only question was what the hell was he going to do? How did you reverse years of ingrained behaviour? This was a problem he knew was going to keep him up at nights until he figured out a solution, so for the sake of his sleep cycle he put down his pen turned his char to the large window in the back of his office stared out over the village he had given so much for and turned all his mental processes to the problem that was Uzumaki Naruto.
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He was sitting on the roof of anbu HQ staring staring up at the night sky, he wasn't sure why but he had always been drawn to the night sky. However even if he wasn't sure why he knew that this was one of the few places he could get even a moments peace in this world. A world he was finding harder and harder to understand. He had been alive for almost thirteen years now and he found that as each year went by the world started to make less and less sense. Well that wasn't entirely true nature made sense to him, animals, plants, rivers and oceans he could find some semblance of logic and reason there. It was the people that inhabited it that he had trouble understanding. Oh he knew he was different, had a different way of seeing thing, a different way of living his life that he was raised different than others even that he housed a demon, all these things made him different but still at the end of the day he was still human so it made no sense to him as to why he was simply unable to connect with others. Was it him, was he lacking something important that allowed others to understand one another or was it simply that he had become so different from the rest that they others no longer looked at him as though he was still human. He didn't know, he probably would never know he simple found it too difficult to think like them, he wasn't even sure how they though. So instead of trying he retreated into himself, tried to reason out there behaviour and when he could find no reason for their actions, their thoughts, even for their existence he left them and instead found solace in things that did make sense, the night sky, the stars and planets moving around in their pre set courses, a river flowing down and eroding stones in its path, even birds flying through the air all these thing mad perfect logical sense to him and he found comfort in their logic.
Unfortunately his internal musing was interrupted as he felt the air being displaced indicating that someone had just shushine'd behind him. "hello sempi, a beautiful night, no?" he greeted one of the few people he might call a friend, he was still unsure of the exact meaning of the word but the man standing behind him was one of the few people he had meet that did not completely confuse him, he was also one of the few that seemed willing to put up with his admittedly cold personality.
"Ah, Naruto so this is where you ran off to. And here I was thinking you had finally found yourself a girlfriend."
He was also the most annoying person he knew, well certainly in the top ten at any rate.
"Why you persist in concerning yourself in my love life I will never understand. Besides you are very well aware that I do not have nor have I ever had a girlfriend, and if you're going to go out of your way to annoy me than you could at least try to be a little more creative." He answered without turning his head to the man still standing behind him.
"Maa, maa. What can I say, you ran off so fast that I didn't have a chance to think up anything better. Besides even if it is a little overused you can never go wrong with a classic. Besides I'm pretty sure I've been telling you to call me kakashi for longer than I've been teasing you about you lack of arm candy." Kakashi answered taking a seat beside his younger friend.
All Naruto could do was shake his head in annoyance. "Perhaps but I'm sure that you didn't come here to nag at me about my lack of 'arm candy' so to speak."
"You wound me, can't I just drop by to visit my ever so cute little friend." He teased. Naruto only gave him a level stare. "Hee, hee, right," he laughed rubbing the back of his head. "well the Hokage did mention something about wanting to see you tomorrow or something, I wasn't really listening, you see I had just gotten to the art where Moroko had confessed he undying love foe shinji and was about to remove ...." he was unable to finish due to a small perverted giggle.
All Naruto could do was roll his eyes at his friend. He may have been one of the strongest people in the village, but that certainly didn't stop him from being a pervert. "You know one of these days someone's going to use that book against you somehow and then will see who gets the last laugh." He said before standing up and walking over to the far end of the building and shushining to his apartment for a well deserved rest.
Back on the roof of anbu HQ kakashi sat quietly looking back to the spot his younger friend had disappeared on and slowly let out a small sigh. He had know the younger man for almost nine years now ever since he had been assigned to help train him along with a number of other anbu and in that time he felt he had gotten to know him rather well, relatively speaking, he doubted that anyone really knew what exactly he was thinking. And for the first time in his life could say that he had found some one that was more fucked up than he was. Sure he hid it well, they both did, he with his little perverted book and the time he spent staring at the memorial stone and Naruto with his cold professional manner. But he knew that if he was being honest with himself that he had more than his fair share of mental problem, most shinobi who live long enough to make anbu do, but the boy he had come to see as a friend had him and most probably every one else beat hands down. And the fact that he had not cracked yet was a testament to his will power, but kakashi knew that it would happen, sooner or later no one could live that kind of a life and not. And to be honest kakashi truly hoped that he was nowhere near when it happened, it might sound cruel and uncaring but kakashi knew that when it did happen that it would be big messy and the chances of anything in the vicinity living long enough to tell the tail were slim to none. So he did what he could, he tried to help the boy interact with others, to explain emotions like love, and empathy when the boy became confused by the actions of the people around them and he hoped and prayed that he would someday finally understand what it meant to be human, though he may not of held out much hope for that ever happening it was the least he could do, after all anbu looked out for each other, they had to, if they didn't then they would all end up alone and even crazier then they all ready were.
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"... What?" he asked with barely concealed annoyance.
"I thought I was rather clear but if you want the condensed version than I'm ordering you to become a jounin sensei." Sarutobi said as if he was discussing the weather.
"But ... why? I mean I'm I was never even a genin myself; I don't even know the first thing about it. besides it would be a waste of recourses, if I was teaching them I would be unable to perform my regular duties, what if something came up that need my attention?" the truth was he simply didn't want to be forced to be near anyone his own age, he had enough problems understanding the other anbu members and now he was going to be forced to be around people his own age, the though alone was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
"Oh it won't be that hard, teach them some of the basics, do a few D-rank missions, it's simple. And as for wasting 'resources', don't worry we got along fine before you and I'm sure that will survive without you for a while. Besides, if and I do mean if something were to come up that needed your personal touch I'm sure I could find a substitute replacement to teach in your steed while you were away. As for why, well I'm an old man and as such I've earn the right to make life difficult for young people such as yourself. Now if there's nothing more," he gave the young man standing on the other side of his desk a stern glare that told him there was nothing more. "You're to report to the academy at noon today to pick up you team." He paused to search through a stack of folders on his desk before throwing one at him. "You'll find everything you need to know about them in there, dismissed." And with that turn back to doing his paperwork.
He just stood there stunned for a moment trying to come up with some way he could get out of doing this. Unfortunately the Hokage had been rather forceful about this mission and he knew that his word was law and he was now stuck training a bunch of bats (never mind the fact they were the same age). "Hai Hokage-sama." He said with a crisp salute before shushaning out of the office.
Once he was sure that the boy was gone Sarutobi let out a little chuckle. It may not have been perfect but it was the best he was able to come up with. hopefully interacting with people his own age would bring the boy out of his shell, or at the very least the genin would annoy him to the point he wasn't able to simply internalize it, though that option had the potential for a number of dead genin but the chances of that happening were rather small and it was a chance he was willing to take. After all he had been Hokage for far too long now and he needed to find someone to take his place, and Naruto was rather high on his short list. He had all the power he needed all he needed now was to develop some sense of humanity and he would be perfect to take his place in a few years. Laughing a little at the thought of Naruto buried under a pile of paper work he turned his attention back to his own, sent it his strongest death glare in the hope that just this one time it would burst into flame, and when no flames were coming he let out a sigh and began to read reports about some complaint from some merchant about some other merchant.
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A/N: just the prologue, sorry it's so short I just want to see if people are interested in reading this. If I decided to continue this I'll probably just make this part of the first chapter and keep going. Anyways as I said my Naruto's going to be based vey heavily on sephiroth (unfortunately I haven't played crises core so I'm sorry if my Naruto's a little different) also a few people from the game will be making an appearance (minor characters mostly Hojo will be the most prominent) but mostly I'm going to try and work with the characters in the manga. Anyways that's all for now let me know what you think, If I don't get enough review then I'll assume no one wants to read this and I'll probably go back to my repo story.
As you can see I just added my first chapter underneath of my prologue. Also I would like to apologise for my lack of action I just wanted to get all this psycho babble out of the way early to make it up I promise some kind of fight scene in the next chapter. Also as you can guess without Naruto there the genin teams are going to be all fucked up so who he ends up with could be any one so if you have any suggestions I'd like to hear them. I already have an idea of who I'm going to use but you never know one of you guys might think of something I misses so let me know.
Well that's it for now and as always reviews are very much appreciated.