It takes a thousand words to describe a picture. A falling leaf though cannot scream for help, lets its beauty to relays it's hope. Its shades to relays it wishes and its silence whistles as cries for their need of saving. Krimzonrayne
Silence of leaves, by Krimzonrayne, the avatar of blood-god.
Prologue: When a leaf fell
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other fic mentioned/crossover/refers to in this story. I'm not making a cent from this so don't sue me, it's not like I'm an heir to an hotel empire or anything so you won't get much.
Author's note: Weeee hoooo, this is my first Naruto fics, it is inspired by "Memoirs of Geisha and a lot, and I mean a lot, of Naruto fan fictions. Amongst those are Naruto's mum, Two Tailed Angel and Lover's in Konoha.
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Good and evil are very hard to define let alone understand. There a saying that every single one of us is capable of an evil deed and a malicious thought. And when such moment descends upon us, an innocent soul will surely suffer. Like a beautiful leaf which fall because of a stray blade from a careless man.
As mentioned earlier, evil is something difficult to comprehend but what is simple, however, is its effect.
Like tonight, a band, no, the whole village was committing an evil act. Though if you asked them, they're would've said they're saving their village. From a demon, the Kyuubi no Kitsune to be exact.
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Naru didn't know why everybody was beating her, what she knew was that she's dying. As she lay there she can tell that something was wrong. Nobody heard her screams anymore. She crosses her arms protectively over her head and just wait for it to end.
Suddenly it stopped. The maelstrom of cutting knives and bludgeoning tools stopped inches in front of the pale face. It seemed like someone just press pause on a television. The uncanny silence was perturbed a sound that was scantly louder than a whisper, but it was clear in homicidal villager's ears.
"Can someone answer me this. Why would villager from a Konoha, a village which I respect and honored, gang up an innocent little girl like a pack of rabid wolf?"
"Y..you don't understand Nozomi-sama, she the demon fox that attacked our village five years ago. She killed my wife." A man who was waving a pitch-folk threateningly at Naru, protested.
"Is that so..." The same soft voice whispered. Naru could hear the sound of foots steps coming closer, as if he/she was making his/her way through a crowd of people. The blond girl, whose hair is now a garish shade of red due to the obscene amount of blood that coated it, struggled to open her eyes but she couldn't do it. There was too much dried blood that glued them shut.
"Hello little fox, what is your name?" The voice once again whispered, this time it was a lot louder, almost as if the owner was right in her face.
"N..Naru" The girl tried to say but there was something wrong with her voice, she almost didn't hear it herself. It was as if she was mute.
"Rest well, my little fox." Naru heard the same voice whispered, this time it was warm and comforting.
Then finally, after an hour of running away from an angry mob and what seem like an eternity being beaten with inches of her young life, Umizaki Naru finally lets the blissful sleep claim her.
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Kibou Nozomi, most celebrated geisha of her time and the grand mistress of her family art, was furious. Minutes after saving a young girl's life, she had rushed into a hospital only to find that non of the so-called healers would touch the dying girl, or rather 'demon' as they called the poor child. It wasn't until she found one of the more sensible doctors that the girl has any medical treatment.
"Excuse me Nozomi-sama, were you the one who brought Naru in?" A doctor in white surgical gown asked.
"Yes how she doing?" The geisha asked in the same quiet voice she always used.
"Surprisingly well considering she has broken almost all of her rip cage, two collar bones and not to mention numerous cuts and bruises she has suffered. Most of her external wounds have been taken care of but…" The doctor paused, as if he's not sure whether to disclose the information or not. The unrelenting look on the geisha face, however, soon changed his mind.
"I'm sorry to say this but, due the extents of the damage, we can assume that she has suffered a large amount of internal damage. We also have no idea on the state of her state of mind when….if, she wakes up."
"Haruno-sensei!"
The woman turned around to face with a nurse who couldn't have been older than twenty.
"Haruno-sensei, Naru-chan has woken up.!"
Ignoring the doctor's protest that she shouldn't be there, Nozomi quickly followed the pair into the surgery ward. The masked of confident she always wore as a geisha almost wavered when she saw the condition the girl was it. Apart from the bloodied bandages around her small frame, it almost seem like she was never hurt in the first place!
"Hello Naru-chan, how are you doing?" The geisha asked softly.
The girl opened her mouth to say something but no sound came out. Her hands shot to her neck as a sudden realization dawn on her.
"Oh Kami, I'm mute." Naru said softly, and then realized she just said something. "But…how?"
"It's alright, calm down Naru-chan. It's alright." Nozomi whispered comfortingly as she hugged the girl. "I explain later, just rest for now."
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"Nozomi-sama, from what you've said earlier, I take it that you know what's wrong with her?" The doctor asked after Naru has fallen asleep in the woman's arms.
"Yes, I do. She is suffering from a unique condition where her voice box is damaged to an extent that it can no longer take the stress of talking loudly or even at a conversational level for that matter."
"The same condition you suffer from?" Doctor Haruno asked, dropping his voice so no one else would hear.
"Very perceptive of you, Haruno-sensei." Nozomi replied in the same low voice.
"Do you know that Naru-chan here, dreams of becoming a strong ninja and perhaps even a Hokage one day?"
"An admirable dream….."
Haruno waited for almost a minute, hoping that she would understand where he's going with this before his impatient got the better of him. "Do you know what this condition means?"
"Of course I do doctor, I used to be a ninja once as well."
They continued to sit in silence for the next quarter an hour before the doctor excused himself go see another patient.
The geisha stared at the door for a moment before whispering to the apparently sleeping girl. "He's gone now Naru-chan, you don't have to pretend to be asleep anymore"
"Ho..w….." Naru's voice disappeared as she tried to raise it. She took a moment to calm down and begin again, this time it was barely audible. "H..how did you know I wasn't asleep?"
"Your breathing was irregular, but that not important. What's important, however, is that do you know what we meant we were talking about your condition and however it would affect your dream of becoming a ninja?"
Naru was going to say no, but it was easier for her to just shake her head. It was hard to even make a little noise.
"One of the advantages of ninjas is their usage of charka in form of Ninjusu and Genjutsu. To successfully use one of them you must be able to mold charka, do the correct hand-seal and called out the name of the jutsu." Nozomi paused to let the information sink in.
The girl has a distant look on her eyes for a second before asking softly, careful not to aggravate her condition. "So, there's no hope for me to become a ninja."
"While it is possible to perform a jutsu without all those three elements, such as ninjas who only need to one handed seal to use certain jutsus or some jutsus which can be used by whispering the name, being a ninja with only these few technique in your arsenal will limit you." Seeing the look of despair on the blonde face, Nozomi decided to offer a hand. "I can teach you some of those jutsus if you wish."
The original Uzumaki Naru would've jumped up and dance in joy at the thought of learning new jutsu, but what happened earlier that night has changed her in more ways than one.
"Thank you for your offer Mam but if I can't be a real ninja, I rather not become one at all. I don't want to deface my dream by making a mockery out of it." Naru stated sullenly.
Nozomi sat there and stared intently at the girl for a while before reaching a decision in her mind.
"Naru-chan how about I take you on as an apprentice and teach you my way of life?"
"But you said I couldn't become a ninja." The girl said in surprise, though her voice was instinctively low so it doesn't disappears like before.
The geisha was surprised. Though she wasn't arrogant about the fact that she is THE most celebrated geisha in the land, it's unheard of for any girls Naru age not to recognize her. 'Maybe it would be nice not to have my reputation precedes me.' She thought ruefully.
"I never said I'm a ninja dear. I'm a geisha."
Nozomi saw that the girl was in deep thoughts again and decided to give her time to makethe decision. Kami knows it wasn't an easy one for her to make.
Naru tucked at the woman sleeve before asking hesitantly, "What's a geisha?"
If anyone says that it's impossible for a geisha to face fault, they lied.
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There it is folk, my first ever Naruto fan fiction.
Please reviews.
Sorry for grammatical errors, English is my second language and I don't want to trouble my pre-readerwith another story.
Anyone interested to be my pre-reader for Silence of leaves please e-mail me, get my address from my profile