AN: Thanks to everyone for checking out the first chapter. It's appreciated!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden or any of its characters. Those rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I only own my OC's, such as Gekido Cardinal, Isamu, and others who will be introduced as the story progresses. Hope you like it.

Prologue

Monster

The door started shaking, and there were voices outside. It was a sturdy door made of hardwood. The shake was very subtle and stopped almost immediately, as did the voices. The residents inside the house, an eight-year-old boy and a fifty-year-old man, lifted their heads to listen. Everyone thought this man was the boy's father, but he had only been looking after the child. The boy was lying on the front room on the couch, and the man came into the front room from the kitchen. As the man approached the door of the house, they hear a distant crash, like the sound of an explosion, but in this case, it sounds as though one of the other houses in the small fishing village has been completely demolished. There were screams.

"What was that?" the boy asked. There was another explosion, and this one rocks the small house. More screams.

"I don't know," the man said in a hushed voice, trying to keep his footing as the ground rumbled beneath him.

"Is it the ones who took Kansei?" the boy whispered. Even at this age, he knew that the village they had called home was under attack.

"Maybe!" the man shouted, silencing the boy. Suddenly, there are no more screams outside. The village was quiet. The only sounds were the burning buildings and blowing winds. "Shit, did they hear?"

The man went slowly toward the door. Silence. The man took a deep breath as he inched his hand to the latch. Was it them? Had they found the boy at last?

"No," the boy whispered to the man. "I'm scared. Don't open the door, please."

The man, once a shinobi, knew that opening the door was the wrong decision. He nodded at the boy, and inched away from the door. "Go," he said, pointing to the kitchen doorway. "Get to the passage. Now." The boy nodded and tiptoed toward the doorway. There was another explosion, and some laughter. Sadistic laughter.

The boy pushed aside a small rug near the sink and revealed a wooden door. The door led to a secret exit from the house. Slowly, the boy lifted the door and began to descend into the passage. The man was right behind him, standing near the door. The man looked down at the boy and smiled. It was a pained, sympathetic smile.

"Come on!" the boy whispered.

"I'll be right behind you," the man replied. "Go, I promise."

The boy nodded, and, hesitantly, he descended, bringing the door down above him to close it. The boy climbed down the steps and his feet hit the ground within seconds. He turned and looked down the dimly lit passage, and started walking toward the exit.

Halfway down the passage, there was an explosion above ground, directly above the tunnel. Dirt fell from the crudely dug ceiling, and the ground shook. The boy struggled to stay on his feet when a second, even bigger explosion took him off his feet. Scared, he scrambled to his feet and began sprinting down the passage.

Ahead, he was able to a set of wooden steps leading to another hatch. He climbed the steps without much effort, and pushed the hatch above him open. The chill of the air hit him before he was even out of the passage. His vision went white as he exited, and the wind blew freezing snow onto his exposed skin. He climbed out completely and before he could shut the hatch, something caught his eye. He looked up.

A lone figure stood just feet from him, dark and silent.

The figure wore a black cloak emblazoned with red clouds, which contrasted greatly with the snow blanketing the ground. The shadow smirked from beneath a great straw hat. It was an evil grin that made the boy shudder.

The stranger tilted his head up. He had slanted blue eyes and very long blond hair which he wore drawn into a half ponytail with the rest hanging down freely. One bang hung over his left eye. He held a hand out, with the palm facing the boy. In the center of the palm was a thick line. The boy was taken aback when the line opens wide, revealing that there is a mouth in the center of his hand.

"Sasori, my man," the stranger said. The boy was confused at first. Who was Sasori?

A moment later there was a bit of movement behind the boy. He turned halfway to see a second cloaked man, this one also wearing a straw hat. He was hunched over, and strands of black hair framed this one's scarred and tough-looking face. The cloaked figure's arms were outstretched and the boy could see that his fingers were moving, as though he were puppeteering. In front of him stood the man that the boy had been with in the house: Aiko. His body was also slouched, looking badly beaten, and his limbs were limp.

Behind both Sasori and Aiko, their precious village burned. Smoke billowed into the air, and villagers were strewn about, painting the snow scarlet with their blood. The boy struggled to hold back his tears as they threatened to pour down the sides of his face.

The slouched stranger behind the man, presumably Sasori, moved his fingers only slightly, and Aiko began to move, as though he were a puppet.

"Let's play with him a bit, Deidara." Sasori spoke in a deeper and hoarser voice than the other cloaked man. His voice was void of emotion. A massive metal scorpion-like tail emerged from underneath his cloak, moving through the air like a serpent.

The other shadow, whom the boy assumed must be Deidara, nodded in agreement, smiling devilishly from behind his golden blonde hair. "Hmph. I like the way you think, Sasori."

Sasori moves his fingers and Aiko came walking slowly toward the boy, groaning as though in pain. Weakly Aiko's head rose so that he could meet the boy's eyes. Tears welled up in both their eyes.

"I'm sorry," Aiko said. An instant later, the metal tail blade pierced through the man's torso and protruded a foot from the center of his chest. The ground before him was covered in red. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. The blade tail was quickly pulled free. The man fell to his knees, and then fell lifeless into the snow without a sound. The boy gasped, and reached up to his cheek, touching the blood that had splattered there with his fingertips. His eyes grew wider than he ever imagined they could as his fingers met with the red liquid.

Sasori stood very still, emotionless, the bloody blade retracting. The boy screamed. He whirled around and ran, away from both figures and the lifeless body of Aiko. Away from the burning village.

He started trudging through the snow as fast as his legs would allow in nothing but ragged clothes and simple sandals. The boy heard a low, intense grumble as a giant white bird crashed into the snow to him, exploding in a shower of frozen gravel, fire and snow. They were after him, as expected. He knew that his chances of escaping were very slim. There was nowhere to hide. He could only run.

There was a deafening crash behind him as another giant bird explodes on the ground. The cloaked men were approximately twenty, thirty feet away. He urged himself to remember what his mother and Aiko had taught him. If there were ever a time in his life, it was now. Concentrating all of his chakra into his feet, he sped up even more, zipping across the snow, running faster than he ever had before. Ahead, he could see where the snowy mountains began to flatten out and he knew that just beyond those mountains lay a great deal of flatlands, and beyond that lay a dense forest. His escape seemed impossible.

Even so, the sapphire-eyed boy kept running.

There was a whistling sound behind him. He turned and saw a third giant bird sailing toward him, but on top of this one stood the blonde cloaked man, Deidara. The boy rolled out of the way as the bird whooshed by. As he did, Deidara's hand wrapped itself around his throat. He was lifted off the ground as the bird kept flying. The ground was far below him now and the bird was only climbing higher. He struggled against his foe's grip, kicked at the air, tried to pull away. But he knew it was futile, that it was over now. He should have expected that once they'd found him, there would be no escape. Aiko had always told him people were after him, very dangerous people. And there they were, at his village.

The blonde man lifted him so that he could see the boy's face closer. The blonde-haired ninja reached into the black, red-clouded cloak he was wearing with his free hand, reaching into a bag hanging on his utility belt. When his hand emerged it was holding a clump of white clay. The boy looked into the blonde's deep, wide, emotionless blue eyes. Blue eyes looked into blue eyes. Eyes full of terror into eyes full of delight. The frightened boy spoke.

"W-who are you…!?" the boy asked his kidnapper, his onyx hair whipping about in the wind.

The blonde laughed a nasty, mocking laugh. He opened his hand, revealing the vile mouth in its center. The tongue of the mouth grabbed onto the white clay, sucking it into the hand. The blonde boy waited a moment, and out of the mouth-hand emerged a white spider figure, as though the hand had molded the arachnid from the clay. The spider leapt from his shoulder, covering the eight-year-old boy's face. The boy cried out, his shouting muffled. The clay spider exploded, and the blast was just big enough to knock the boy backward from his enemy's grip. The boy plummeted to the snowy ground.

Smoke billowed from his face as he fell and began to lose consciousness. An arm caught him just before he hit the ground, and just as his eyes closed he was able to see that the thick arm belonged to Sasori. The last sound he heard before everything went black was the taunting laughter of Deidara.