A Painful Sort of Love
What You Need to Know: The story which you have clicked upon, what you shall begin reading shortly, is inspired by the original one-shot chapter of Naruto. You need not have read this 'Chapter 0' to understand and enjoy the story below, but I recommend you do just so you can see how very different Naruto was between then and the official Chapter 1. This story can be considered a huge 'What if?' had Naruto continued as it had been presented in Chapter 0, with many of the same fundamentals and characters of the series at present appearing in different ways, at different times, and - in some cases - not like themselves. So get comfy, grab some popcorn or hot coco and prepare to embark on my vision of how Naruto might have played out had nothing changed between Chapters 0 and 1.
Concerning My Other Stories: For those of you that care, I am writing them. If you don't care and think you may care after reading this, check 'em out!
Uchiha Sasuke sits beside an open window as her class progresses. She listens to her instructor absentmindedly as she stares outside with her chin resting on the palm of her hand, her eyes half-lidded, fanning herself with the top-most buttons of her shirt unfastened. While she is usually an attentive student, this day in particular is very hot. The heat saps her strength, her attention lapses, and she behaves in a way similar to one narcoleptic classmate of hers. Her eyes gloss over the surrounding area, all bathed in harsh rays of sunlight. The school courtyard is empty, and few cars pass on the road outside the school gates. Across the road sits a winding pathway along a riverbank. It, too, is empty.
'No. Someone's there.' Just coming into view is a peculiarly dressed person. A small blonde boy dressed in a fur-collared orange jacket and orange pants slowly moves along the riverbank. Sasuke's brow furrows. 'It's damn near 35 degrees outside. What's this idiot doing with something so heavy on?' Just looking at the passerby in such a stifling attire alone makes her hotter. She has to look away, but as she turns her head back to the front of the classroom where her instructor stands still droning on, the boy on the riverbank collapses to a knee. Her eyes remain fixed on this stranger. Her fanning stops.
Slowly, the boy on the riverbank extends an arm to the ground and uses it as leverage to pick himself up. His hand has left a splotch of red on the riverbank pathway. As she looks closer, Sasuke can now discern that the entire left sleeve of his jacket has been torn away. His arm has been left bare and mangled. Blood streams down the entirety of his left arm. She looks behind him, following the way he had come. A trail of blood follows him with it now pooling at his feet as he stands still along the riverbank. Slowly, very slowly, he looks over his shoulder. Upward he stares at the one person knowledgeable of his presence on the riverbank.
Sasuke's lips thin. Her teeth clinch tight against each other. Her breath catches in her throat, and she feels a sudden chill. Despite the distance between them, both she and the stranger across the road make perfect eye contact. She finds herself unable to break away from his blue eyes made all the more stunning by the wet blood bordering them.
"Uchiha Sasuke-kun."
Finally, through the assistance of her instructor, Sasuke cancels the staring match with the bloody boy outside her school. In barely a second, she composes herself. "Yes, Umino-sensei?"
"I know it's a terribly hot day, but you need to pay attention, Uchiha-kun." The young teacher chuckles. "How about you help me pick up where I left off?"
"Yes, sir," Sasuke says. Albeit absentmindedly, she did manage to keep track of the lecture. She grabs her textbook and stands. With her head down all the while, she reads, "Twenty-five years ago, the Battle of Mt. Oinari occurred. The Country of Fire's last known ninja village was assaulted by the demon known as the Kyuubi no Yoko - the Nine Tailed Demon Fox. Over the course of three days and four nights, nine veteran ninja alongside the full might of the Country of Fire's military force combated the great demon. As it traversed the country throughout the battle, more than fifteen thousand soldiers and civilians lost their lives, including eight of the nine ninja. In the end, only one ninja stood victorious. Following the battle, this ninja known as Sarutobi Hiruzen proudly declared this: 'This is the age of man.'"
"The Kyuubi no Yoko is the last confirmed sighting of a demon in recent history. No demons big or small have been witnessed inhabiting this or any country part of the Elemental Continent."
At this point, Sasuke stops reading and retakes her seat. Her instructor beams at her, clearly pleased with her performance. "Wonderful!" he exclaims. The other students regard her with mixed reactions. Many of the boys scoff at her, laugh. Just one yawns. The girls fawn over her, complimenting her delivery of the school text. She ignores it all. Her attention is already back on what lies outside of the classroom.
A blood splattered pathway along the riverbank is all she sees. The blonde boy in bloody orange clothes has disappeared. Red footprints continue a short while from the pool of blood the boy had been standing in before abruptly discontinuing. The stranger is gone without a trace.
"But, you know," begins Umino Iruka, homeroom and History teacher of class 2-4 of Hidden Leaf Academy, "even though there aren't any documented sightings of demons since the Battle of Mt. Oinari so many years ago, that doesn't mean they aren't still among us. Demons are very capable of hiding among humans unnoticed if they want." He laughs. "Well, that's what I think anyway."
The class quiets down. They contemplate the words just spoken by their instructor. Demons among them? How frightening! Why in the world would those creatures be lurking around humans? Perhaps to eat them? Or maybe just to live peacefully? These questions pervade the classroom.
'Demons?' Sasuke ponders the words of her teacher. She begins to fan herself again. She forces herself not to worry about the odd boy who stood along the riverbank. She assures herself that someone will discover him soon enough. Blonde hair, blue eyes, orange clothing... And blood covering a good portion of his body... He stands out in every way possible. She suppresses the chill running up her back. She forces herself to not think of the boy. 'As if. Like it says in the book, "This is the age of man." Demons are history now.'
The last bell of the day rings and Sasuke pounces from her seat. Her messenger bag is strapped across her body, and she is already scrolling through her phone with one hand and placing an earbud into her ear with the other as she heads out the classroom. On her way through the second-floor hallway, a couple of girls stop her just before she can start her music. Eagerly, they all ask her to go out with them for karaoke. A quick and easy dismissal along with an insincere smile is all she needs to get by them. Her music begins to play now, and whatever nuisances that would have bothered her as she heads downstairs and toward the way outside have been successfully drowned out. At the exit she nearly collides into her slow moving classmate and student body president, but she manages to plant her feet in time to prevent the collision. He regards her with sleepy eyes and she him with a scowl. He shrugs, apologizes, and lets her pass through the doorway first. Finally, she has left the school building.
The first thing Sasuke pays heed to when she steps foot in the courtyard before her school is the growing number of students standing along the riverbank pathway. Without a doubt, they are examining the traces and pool of blood staining the pavement. As she nears the road between them, she can make out one boy crouching, placing a cloth to the ground and bringing it just shy of his nose and sniffing it. He passes it to the next person beside him. His mouth moves. "It's blood." Although she is unable to hear him, Sasuke can tell these words had just left his mouth.
A shrill scream erupts from within the throng of students closest to the puddle of blood, and quickly more begin to gather around it. Sasuke ignores it all. She weaves through incoming students as she crosses the road. She now walks along the riverbank, toward her home, away from the commotion. 'It's way too damn hot to stand out here just to watch the teachers scratch their heads about some blood on the sidewalk not even on school property.' She leaves without even a second look back.
Ten minutes go by and she is already halfway home. The abysmal heat only propels her forward as Sasuke seeks to get indoors and blast her air conditioning on max. To this end, she takes the quickest route home, through a park situated somewhere between her school and home. While she typically travels through the park both on her way to and from school, she typically sticks to the stone pathways leading through the area. Today she deems it acceptable enough to instead walk on the grass.
It is as she passes by a tree that the music on Sasuke's phone begins to slow and lower in volume. It as she passes by a tree that she hears a vigorous rustling of grass and a series of low grunts. It as she passes by a tree that she notices streaks of red running along the tree's bark. Her music continues to play, but Sasuke stops. Back full force in her mind are thoughts of the injured boy she had locked eyes with not much earlier in the day. Back then, she had been far enough away from him for her to convince herself to not help him despite his condition, but now she stood incredibly close to him.
'It's too hot for this shit, man.'
But, still, helping an injured person is to be expected in this kind of situation, right?
Only a few meters away Sasuke sees the shaking of bushes below a particularly large tree. The bushes cease moving. Hesitantly, Sasuke approaches the bushes beneath the large tree. She pulls the earbuds from her ears, music still playing, and wraps them around her neck. "Hey," she calls out loudly. "I saw you not too long ago. Actually, it was a few hours ago. And, actually, I think you saw me too. I was in the school you passed. We looked at each other. I thought you would have found help by now, but I guess you haven't for some reason." She stands just in front of the bushes. "Since you look like you can use the help, I was thinking I could bring you to a hospital to get that arm looked at."
All of a sudden, the bushes begin to rustle again. Sasuke, startled, stumbles backward a few steps. The shaking, however, stops just as suddenly as it began. A loud whine and several grunts emanate from the bushes. Unlike the rustling, they do not stop. Somewhat flustered, Sasuke heads back to and into the bushes, pushing aside foliage now able to discern exactly where the boy sat in the bushes thanks to his loud and very, very odd howls of pain.
"Stop moving already, dumbass! It's obvious you're hurt badly, so making any unnecessary movements is going to cause you tons of pain. Just lay down and let me..." She stops. She is at a complete loss for words. Upon diving into the bushes and pushing aside all of the leaves between them, lying on the ground is not the bloody boy Sasuke had been expecting to find. Lying there in his place is a fox with shockingly bright almost blonde red fur and deep blue eyes staring back at her intensely. Looking closer, she makes out the blood streaming down its left foreleg and splattered against half of its face and a large gash running along the top of the leg.
It is what she does next that will forever change both her own and the life of the fox before her.
Author's Note: Assuming you've gotten this far, I hope you enjoyed Chapter 1. I have always really enjoyed stories in which Sasuke is female, and I have always wanted to try my hand at writing one. The thing is, it seems as though nearly every one of them is the same thing just written in another writer's style. That or the character has been changed so drastically without enough development (this is key) that it may as well be an entirely different character. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to write something that would not only stand out but would also make Sasuke being female not just a gimmick and make sense as a part of the story. Hopefully I'll succeed in doing that.
I'll have more of my thoughts to share in Chapter 2. Until then, feel free to review and comment on this thing I wrote. I need to know what you think, people!