This Ugly Yet Beautiful World
By Quick-n-Popular
Disclaimer: "Naruto" and its characters are not mine. My title has nothing to do with the anime going by the same name, neither does this story.
Author's Note: This has been an idea on my mind for a long time and now I'm going to put the first chapter of it through the wringer of you reviewers. New chapters will come soon as well as those for my other stories: "Kin of Darkness, Naruto of Light", "A Change in Development", "The Mute Shinobi", "Naruto of the Village Hidden in the Grass", and lastly my Bleach Story "Companionship of the Strangestr Variety". I'm hoping to get them out before this weekeend ends, if not expect a new chapter next weekend. I'll try to be prudent in my updates.
In the meantime, enjoy.
Chapter One: Discovered
Zabuza Momichii had seen a lot of horrors in his life. Hell, some of those said 'horrors' were created by himself during the time when he was one of Kiri's legendary Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. But what he saw before him made his own guts churn and he had a sudden urge to hurl.
Suspended up high by ninja wire by the wrists and ankles was a naked figure in the size of a child. Its limbs were bent in odd angles suggesting that arms and legs had been broken in numerous places and yanked out of their sockets. Deep cuts that seemed to run to the bone all over the child's body, was packed with rock salt and maggots that only seemed to be the only thing moving on the figure as they wriggles their way all over the blood-coated body. The head of the child was lowered, a burlap-sack mask covered his head save for a opening over the right eye where the eye itself was dangling out of its socket, more maggots and other insects scurrying in and out of the hole and around the dangling eye. The child's lower section was the most disturbing as the genitals, that would have distinguished the child's gender, had been removed and the abdomen had been disemboweled, the lower intestines spilling out onto the ground where the fecal matter of the child lay with flies swarming all over.
No matter how grotesque and disturbing the display was, what was shocking Zabuza the most was that an eerie red chakra was enveloping the child like a shield. Another part seemed to act as a hand as it gathered the rejected intestinal organs and began to gather them back into the body like someone winding up a rope or hose. At the same time, it seemed to be busy recreating the reproductive organs the, now revealed boy, had lost. Two reasons came into Zabuza's mind as to how this was happening. One was that the boy had an unheard of bloodline that allowed total body regeneration and repair or….the boy was a Jinjuriki, a living host of a demon and a weapon of a village. Zabuza was betting on the second, seeing as how vile and evil the chakra felt to his very core. Zabuza thought long and hard about the subject before him, before just being a spectacle of horror that he had stumbled upon while his pupil/tool was out making their campsite. The boy was repairing himself either by his means or something else's. Having such an invincible tool/pupil under his whim would benefit Zabuza greatly. After seeing that the abdomen of the boy was now intact once more, he made up his mind and slashed at the supporting ninja wire that held the boy up and grabbed the boy as he fell like a stone to the surface. Upon contact with Zabuza, the red chakra surrounding the boy flared and acted aggressively, burning and festering Zabuza's skin.
"I'm not here to hurt you, boy." Zabuza said, his nerves of steel holding himself from yelling out in pain from the chakra's defenses.
The chakra stopped and seemed to consider the moment before going back to repairing the boy. Zabuza heaved a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in and began to walk with the boy to where his apprentice was making their campsite. Upon entering the site, Haku, Zabuza's apprentice and tool was placing some firewood together before she looked up and her eyes widened upon what her master had in his arms.
"Zabuza-sama, who's that?"
Zabuza shrugged as he brought the boy inside his tent and placed a blanket over the boy before emerging and looking at his apprentice.
"Once he recovers, he'll be our newest asset, Haku. However, his mind is going to be in shambles over what happened to him. Apparently, Konoha doesn't value their greatest weapons and this boy is one of them."
Haku's eyes widened and then she nodded. Inside, she was shocked to have found someone who Zabuza had found on, somewhat, similar circumstances much like her own. She watched Zabuza going back to make a perimeter of the area of their campsite full of detection traps and seals, which what he was doing prior to finding the boy.
When he was out of eye-sight, Haku turned towards the tent where the boy was put into. She blushed, slightly, at knowing what made her discover what gender the child was when Zabuza had brought him in. Haku quietly walked into the tent to look at the newest addition to their unit and what she saw surprised her and terrified her as well. The boy was riddled in scars all over his body. The word 'demon bastard' was scribed in crudely over his left arm. His head was wrapped up in a blood-stained burlap-sack mask that was held tightly around his head. A tear in the fabric revealed only one eye which was closed. Sprouts of blonde hair could be seen protruding from the weaves of the fabric of his mask giving him a rather scary look when put all together with what she saw of him. He roughly looked to be her age, maybe younger, and based upon his sleeping visage Haku could tell he is, or was, maybe; a peaceful person who wouldn't harm anyone. However, what ever state he would wake up in, Haku was sure it wasn't going to be pretty.
As if on cue, the boy's only visible eye moved from left to right before snapping open. His body then snapped up straight and he emitted a loud, muffled, due to the tightness of the mask; shriek of agony as his eye seemed to vibrate rapidly.
Haku, startled at first, ran and engulfed the boy in a hug.
"It's alright! You're safe now!" She shouted against his shrieking before she felt the boy go limp and fall back down panting hard, his body shaking uncontrollably.
Getting up from him, she noticed his eye shift and look at her. He began to try and say something.
"Hold on." Haku said with a gesturing placating finger. She then turned around and went out of the tent before coming back with a pair of shears. "Lean your head forward." She instructed. The boy complied and she began cutting the burlap-sack mask from the underside of his jaw-line of his left side. She kept on cutting until she was right next to his ear and then put the shears away as she put two thumbs underneath the sack material and began to pull up and proceed to remove the mask from the boys head. When it was fully off, her eyes widened and she unconsciously leaned back away from the boy.
"What?" Asked the boy.
Haku reached into the side of her side pouch and retrieved a small mirror, usually used to see around corners, and handed it to the boy.
Unnerved by her reaction from removing that mask from his face, the boy shakily took the mirror and looked into it and then promptly dropped it. He slowly retrieved it and looked once more.
What he saw made his whole body quiver in shock and sickness. The whole left side of his face was a sickly mixture of yellow and purple, sagging and squished around like a badly misshapen clay sculpture. A reddish-brown set of sagging rings underplayed disfigured way his left eye was in its eye-socket. The right side of his face was a paler yellowish color but had the places where it was also tinged in purple. However, unlike his left side, there was no eye present. A shriveled shield of skin covered where his eye used to be. Tears came to his left eye as he slowly touched all over his face his mouth slowly becoming a grimace before he couldn't take it anymore and threw the mirror to the ground and buried his head in his hands and cried with all his might.
Haku stood there numbly watching the boy falling apart upon the revelation of his face. After a few minutes, she walked over and sat next to him and held him as a mother would a child, 'shushing' him into sleep as he laid his head in her lap.
Zabuza soon emerged and took one look and turned around and sat down at the campfire, looking over the horizon as dusk seemed to be settling in.
As the campfire became a ablaze in the evening hour, Haku, and the newly awakened but still shaking boy; emerged from the tent and sat across from the fire and Zabuza. No words were spoken as the fresh fish caught were the only sounds being made as they crackled upon being cooked over the fire.
Then…
"Why did they do this to me." The boy asked, barely above a whisper. However, both of the others caught it.
"What's your name, boy?" Zabuza asked, his piercing-eyes looking directly at the, now, mask-less boy.
"N-Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki." The boy answered.
Zabuza shook his head. "No more. Those who would rather have you dead than recognize your importance shall no longer hear that name again, nor shall you. Naruto Uzumaki has died when his village killed him."
The boy looked in shock at Zabuza's declaration.
"Then who am I?" The boy asked.
Zabuza smirked, inwardly, at how easy this was going.
"Tsuki." Zabuza answered. "Like the moon, you'll be something to be gazed at in wonder but something no one shall ever touch or yield." Except for me.
The newly christened Tsuki nodded his head and then looked down at the burlap-sack mask he still had in his hands. He refitted itself over his head and then took the shears Haku had used earlier and made four vertical slits over his mouth. When he was finished, he looked at Zabuza and bowed towards him.
"How can I repay you for saving my life, Zabuza-sama?"
Zabuza smiled behind his own mask. The tool was ready to be sharpened.
To be continued….