Scars of War
I don't own Naruto, Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi and is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.
Prologue
The sky was bleak and grey, the clouds were dark and rained a constant stream of ash that fell like snow, smothering the world below in layers upon layers of dark grey. The once lush trees that the land was known for was nothing more than shriveled husks of their former selves with not a bit of green in sight for as far as the eye could see.
A lone figure walked among the dead forest, their soot stained cloak giving nothing away of their identity as the hood of was drawn and an equally ash stained scarf was wrapped lightly around the figures neck and covering their mouth.
The figure made no noise even as their long walking stick dug into the loose ash covered ground. In fact no noise could be heard other than the occasional wisp of wind that mournfully whispered through the memory of the once grand forest.
The figure suddenly stopped when the wind carried the smell of rot and decay that directed from the north west. The head of the figure turned in that direction, grey gloved hands lightly gripped the walking stick before the figure decided to trek towards the horrid stench carried by the wind.
It took a few hours of walking in the silent forest before the figure happened upon the object of its inquisition.
A horrid grey humanoid figure stood crouched above what looked used to be some furred beast, now a gory red paste crushed into the grey ashy ground. The crouching humanoid looked like a dangerously malnourished human, it had impossibly long legs and arms, its back was turned to the cloaked figure. The humanoid's spine easily visible under the tight skin, the creature's few wisps of long white hair flowed gently in the wind as it made horrid sucking and crunching sounds while it feasted on the bones and flesh of an unfortunate victim.
The cloaked figure's grip on its walking stick tightened in anger before they walked forward towards the hunched creature.
As if sensing its presence the creature quickly whipped around to face the incoming threat, the creature's face was sunken, its eyes void and black, the mouth covered in crimson blood and its horrid brown and cracked teeth bared treating at the approaching figure.
"Hoooorrrrrrghhh" The creature's warning hiss sounded like a deep gurgling sound of a drowning man.
The figure did not stop, in fact there walk turned into a full on sprint, the sudden burst of speed whipping back the figure's hood to show an old man with white spikey hair and dull grayish blue eyes, and among his wrinkled face was three whisker like marks on each of his cheeks.
The man rushed towards the creature with both hands now gripping the walking stick like it was a sword. In response the creature stood at full height, towering over the man at twelve feet tall, its long arms slashing out with its soot stained claws.
The man easily dodged by jumping back a few feet, the creature's claws momentarily sticking into the ground. The man used the creature's temporarily disabled appendage as an avenue of attack as he jumped on the long trunk like arms of the creature and sprinted up its limb.
The creature reared back, desperately trying to pull its claw out of the ground, but the creature never stood a chance. The man leaped from the creature's elbow and used his momentum to crack his walking stick onto the creature's temple, stunning it. In the same motion the man seemed to glide behind the creature and wrapped his legs around the creature's neck.
The creature finally getting its claw out of the ground, began to flail around wildly, trying to get the man off its neck. The man however was firm and only tightened his legs around the creature, it struggled for a few more moments before it decided to try and fall unto its back and force the man to get off.
But as the creature began to fall the man contorted his body back and tossed his walking stick like a javelin into the ground, the end sticking up poised to stab into the creature as it fell, and stab it did. As the creature fell back onto the ground the walking stick easily pierced its tight skin and right into its heart. The creature reared its head up in agony, allowing the man just enough time to jump away from the creature before he was crushed under its oversized skull.
The man watched as the lanky humanoid's attempts at standing back up grew weaker and weaker, its horrid screeching echoing though the dead forest.
After a few more moments the creature was finally dead, its tar like blood staining the ground and the man's walking stick. The man sighed tiredly, feeling his old age as his bones and muscles protested even after that short bout.
"There goes another perfectly good walking stick," the man's voice was rough and deep, his vocal cords strained from years of shouting and throat abused of decades more of alcoholism.
The man sighed at the pathetic creature's corpse before turning his back to it and walking away towards the east. But he has no destination, for there was nowhere to go, no towns, villages, or settlements anywhere. For he was the last of his kind, the only person in a dead world presided over by dead Gods, and it was all his fault.
The old man reached a hill top, he had a clear view of the surrounding area for miles, the man's frown on his face deepened as his grayish blue eyes gazed at the dead forest of his homeland. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to the ashes of millions of dead souls, the silence was his answer.
A short prologue to my new story, I will be updating this fic from time to time when I feel the inspiration to write but don't want to write for my other story.
The creature described is inspired by the wendigo, there may be other creatures that I will show later that are inspired by other media but nothing that would feel out of place in the Naruto world.
This isn't much to go off of to review with I know so I won't ask for one here, all I ask is that you at least follow if you are intrigued and want to keep an eye on this stories development.
Thank you for reading.