Hey guys, so this is just a quick thing that I thought of - obviously future chapters won't be this short, but it's just to see if it's something that people would be interested in? If there's interest, I will be continuing this, and the next chapter should be up in a week or so.
This fic is less of an incredible plot-changer one and more development, where fem!Naru learns a really big lesson early in life and realises that it's much easier to go through life when people think of you in a certain way, and so she develops layers that people around her eventually begin to break through.
Hope that made sense?
Luceat Lux Vestra - Let Your Light Shine
I was always a happy child.
Naru crawled off the floor and staggered to the wall, leaning heavily on the peeling surface. She stared into the cracked mirror with her right eye, and had to fight back against the tell-tale prickling in her eyes. The men, if she could even call them that, had cut deeply diagonally through her face, slashing through her left eye down to the jawbone at her right cheek, through her nose and whisker marks. The gash was crusted with deep crimson blood, and small rivulets dripped off her face.
Of course, I knew that most of the village hated me, but I was determined to prove myself to them, believe it!
Her left eye was encrusted with blood and drying yellow pus, and was throbbing in pain, even with her accelerated healing that thanks to her attackers she now knew was from the Kyūbi. She didn't try to open it. Her once golden hair was now matted with congealing blood and her face was almost unrecognisable, smeared with dirt, sweat, blood and pus. Her clothes were barely held in place and a number of lacerations, though none as bad as the one on her face, were littered throughout her body.
One day, I was gonna snatch that weird ugly hat off Hokage-jiji's head, and they'd hafta acknowledge me, 'ttebayo!
Slumping back into the wall, she slid down and curled into a ball. Grappling around her small frame, she found the hilt of a kunai one of the men had left behind. A shinobi then… She stared at the silver blade, enraptured in the colours that the reflected light gave off. She reversed her grip so that the blade pointed downwards, and positioned it a few inches from her heart. Could she do it?
Ne, I was gonna be powerful, like the Yondaime Hokage, so I could protect Teuchi-ji and Ayame-chan, and everyone would love me…
Worthless.
Waste of space.
Demon-child.
Whore.
Bitch.
Nothing was gonna sway me from my dream 'ttebayo!
She felt her heart break even more, and prepared to plunge the blade into her heart.
Idiot child!
The last thing she saw was a dog-faced ANBU appearing out of nowhere and swiping the kunai out of her hand, before a blinding pain in her head made her pass out. "Thank you," she breathed tiredly, before succumbing to the blissful darkness.
I was always a happy child. An honest, true-to-god grin was always found on my face, a little ball of sunshine.
A little ball of hated sunshine.
I wonder when things started to change.
So obviously it started out pretty dark, but because of a lot of the whole façade within a façade thing it's not often going to be dark - well, I'll give a few things a trial and see the feedback I receive, I guess.
Please review and criticize!
JC