The Bells of Notre Dame
"Morning in Paris
The city awakes
To the Bells of Notre Dame
The fisherman fishes
The baker man bakes
To the Bells of Notre Dame
To the big bells
As loud as thunder"
The great bells rang out through the city.
"To the little bells
Soft as a Psalm
And some say the soul
Of the city's the toll
Of the Bells
The Bells of Notre Dame"
"Listen. They're beautiful, no?" The blue haired man addressed the children crowding his stall. "So many colors of sounds, so many changing moods. But, you know, they don't ring by themselves…"
"They don't?" a tiny, human shaped mass of wriggling water squeaked, much to the delight of the children.
"No, you silly boy," he whispered conspiratorially back. The man drew back the curtains to reveal the singing bell towers. The children peered through, wide eyed. "Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower lives the mysterious bell ringer. Who is this creature?" he turns back to the fascinated children.
"Who?" the water figure repeated.
"What is he?"
"What?"
"How did he come to be there?"
"How?"
"Hush!" the blue haired man smacked the tiny water boy with a stick.
"Ow!" it cried in its shrill voice, as the children laughed.
"Suigetsu will tell you. It is a tale," he voice dropped dramatically, "a tale of a man… and a monster…"
20 years ago…
'Dark was the night
When our tale has begun
On the docks near Notre Dame…'
A baby's cries filled the night air as four figures rowed through the night darkened canals of Paris.
"Shut it up, will you?" one man with deep red hair urged the frail looking woman beside him.
"We'll be spotted!" another dark skinned man with a cloth over his face exclaimed in a low voice.
"Hush, little one," the woman pleaded with her wailing child.
'Four frightened ninjas
Slid silently under
The docks near Notre Dame...'
"Four guilders, for safe passage into Paris," the boatman demanded when they'd pulled ashore. Suddenly, armed guardsmen sprung out from the shadows, brandishing steel.
'A trap had been laid
For the ninjas,
And they gazed up
In fear and alarm.'
A shadow approached the frightened shinobi.
'At a figure
Whose clutches
Were iron
As much as the Bells…'
"Judge Orochimaru!" cried the red headed man in fear.
'The Bells of Notre Dame…'
A dark horse advanced on the trapped shinobi, its rider a fearsome man that had brought the Shinobi Empire to its knees.
'Judge Orochimaru
Longed to purge the world
Of vice and sin.'
At a nod from the powerful man, the shinobi were clapped in irons.
And he saw corruption
Everywhere except within.'
"Bring these shinobi vermin to the Palace of Justice," he ordered, the disgust thick in his voice.
"You there! What are you hiding?" a guardsman shouted as he tried to wrestle the tight bundle out of the woman's arms.
"Stolen goods, no doubt," Orochimaru commented with a snarl. "Take them from her!" he ordered.
'She ran.'
The shinobi woman deftly leaped away from her attackers, winding her way through the city streets .Orochimaru kicked in the flanks of his horse, tearing after her. Through the darkened streets and over fences she ran to escape the Judge. At her first chance, the woman slipped into a narrow ally way, effectively evading him.
Eventually, she made it to the center of the city. To the steps of the great cathedral, Notre Dame. Knowing Orochimaru wouldn't be far behind; she forged ahead and banged on the doors with all her might.
"Sanctuary! Please, give us sanctuary!" she screamed for anyone inside. The woman turned to see Orochimaru appear through the fog. Too late. With a mighty leap, Orochimaru's horse landed on the hallowed steps. The Judge reached out and snatched the bundle from the woman's arms before she could get away. The woman fell back from the momentum, and cracked her skull open on the steps. Blood drenched the stone ground beneath her.
Orochimaru didn't even bat an eye at the fallen shinobi, his attention drawn by the renewed cries of the baby in his arms.
"A baby?" he pulled back the swaddling clothes, "A monster!" he gasped in horror. The Judge anxiously looked back and forth trying to figure out what to do with his discovery. Hate filled eyes landed on a well twenty feet away. Resolved in his decision, Orochimaru approached the well, and swung the baby above the opening.
Just as he was about to release the child, a voice ripped through the fog…
"STOP!"
'Cried the Archdeacon.'
"This is an unholy demon," Orochimaru explained as if it were obvious, "I'm sending it back to hell, where it belongs.' He held the baby back over the well.
The Archdeacon looked up from the shinobi woman's corpse, "See, there, is innocent blood you have spilt on the steps of Notre Dame."
"I am guiltless," the Judge argued, "She ran, I pursued."
The Archdeacon couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Now, you would add this child's blood to your guilt on the steps of Notre Dame?"
"My conscience is clear," Orochimaru insisted.
"You can lie to yourself and your minions," the Archdeacon responded with a scowl. "You can claim that you haven't a qualm, but you never can run, nor hide what you've done, from the eyes…" he pointed to all the statues of the saints staring down at them. "…the very eyes of Notre Dame!"
'And for one time
In his life
Of power and control...'
Fear spread across Orochimaru's face.
'Orochimaru felt a twinge of fear
For his immortal soul…'
"What must I do?" he pleaded to the holy man.
The Archdeacon carefully lifted the woman's broken body from the stone steps. "Care for the child and raise it as your own," he responded.
"What?" Orochimaru spat. "I am to be saddled with this misshapen…" the words trailed off, the curl of revulsion never left his lips. "Very well, but let him live with you here in your church."
"Live here?" the clergyman questioned in disbelief. "Where?"
"Anywhere," came the response. "Just so he's kept locked away where no one else can see… The bell tower, perhaps…" he suggested. "And who knows? Our Lord works in mysterious ways." Orochimaru turned a sadistic smile towards the baby. "Even this foul creature may yet prove one day to be… of use to me…"
Present Day
"And Orochimaru gave the child a cruel name, a name that means 'a demon only loved by himself,'" Suigetsu revealed to the wide-eyed children. "Gaara."
The wriggling water morphed again into the image of a tiny Judge Orochimaru carrying a baby. It hovered about, acting out the story as Suigetsu regaled it. It climbed a range of shadow stairs, climbing higher and higher into the bell tower, and morphing into the twisted form of the child as it grew.
"Now, here is a riddle
To guess if you can,
Sing the Bells of Notre Dame.
Who is the Monster?
And who is the Man?
Sing the Bells, Bells,
Bells, Bells,
Bells, Bells,
Bells, Bells,
Bells of Notre Dame!"