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The Dark Rising

Prologue: The Last Ninja

Death. Desolation. Loneliness.

They were the first to greet Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha. As the blond haired youth regained consciousness and began to open his eyes his sense of smell was assaulted by the terrible stench of death and decay. His sight partially restored, he took a few moments to compose himself then, with a few unsteady steps, he stood up. He scanned the horizon with blurry eyes to find... nothing. Absolutely nothing to see for miles around, nothing but the red tinted sands of an empty, unnatural desert.

Suddenly, his form stiffened, and twin blue eyes opened wide in horror as his vision cleared. He was wrong. The desert wasn't empty at all. It was littered with hundred of thousands of corpses, all of them dried out by the sun. Some of the bodies had their flesh melted from their bones, their faces the mask of ultimate pain and suffering. Suffering nausea at the horrible sight, he scanned his surroundings once more, in the hopes of finding out at least a clue to confirm his location. It was then that his eyes fell on two corpses a few feet away.

One of them had his eyes wide open revealing the withered but still recognizable remains of the Sharingan. His posture was that of a tired and defeated man, silenty taken by death. The other, futilely shielding her face with her arms in death, had shocking pink hair. She was curled up thightly, and Naruto didn't have to see her face to know that she had died horribly and in great pain. Trembling with sorrow and grief, Naruto approached the bodies with shaky steps.

"Sasuke, Sakura."

Naruto felled to his knees right next to the corpses of his teammates-no, friends. His head began to hurt from all the silent questions filling his brain. He raised his head to the sky and screamed. Unfortunately for the boy, no one was left alive to answer him.

A sharp stinging pain suddenly flared out in Naruto's right hand. With a yell of pain he raised the offending appendage to observe it but immediately regretted doing so. The flesh of his hand had begun to rot and decay before his eyes. No sooner had his hand withered away when his whole body began feeling the same pain he experienced earlier.

As Naruto writhed in agony, his memories slowly began to return. Suddenly, his eyes shot open and his body grew still. As he wasted away, dying ever so slowly, Naruto began to catch glimpses of the past, memories that began to haunt him.

He remembered.

And he screamed.

BREAK!

Don't be alarmed if Naruto screams too much in this chapter, most of the time, he'll be as soft spoken as Marvin the Martian, but billions of times eviller.

Expect an update soon, I MEAN IT!