Taketori Monogatari Chapter 1: A Very Short Prologue
Disclaimer: Blah blah don't own Naruto blah blah all rights to their respective owners blah.
Unknown Location, Unknown Time:
A man was sitting in an empty white space, meditating.
Well, he wasn't so much sitting as he was simply existing. He was just kind of being there. This white space wasn't even really a place; it was a plane, a realm between the worlds of life, death, dreams and waking. With his mind, he was reaching out and feeling the the natural forces of the world. Push and pull, birth and rebirth, yin and yang. He felt these existential forces, these dualities that slowly exploded outward and imploded inward, as if he witnessing a supernova occur in slow motion, only for it to collapse under the weight of its own power and succumb to the gravitational pull of the resulting black hole. These forces were without light, sound, or heat, yet they felt as natural as the beating of one's own heart.
It was as if the world itself were alive.
It was in this realm that the man was searching. For what, you might ask? He was looking for a means to end a painful cycle of tragedy that the world had faced for countless ages; an endless chain of calamity and pain that shaped and shattered the world each time it repeated.
A curse of hatred and despair.
The key to stopping such unspeakable misfortune lied in two souls, two lives that resurfaced throughout history, always growing alongside one another only to inevitably rage against each other in a cataclysmic battle. The man projected himself outwards, releasing pulses of his own existence and observing the tides of fate to determine if those waves of power had uncovered any trace of the two destined souls.
He had been doing this for ages, and he would continue to do so until he could find what he was searching for. He had seen many strange things in the tides if fate, some from the past and many from a time yet to come.
He had seen the moon look down upon the world with a malicious and envious gaze.
He looked on in sadness as a family tore itself apart out of conflicting ambitions.
He watched in horror as the teachings of a sage were violated and transformed into weapons.
He bore witness to brothers waging wars against each other and saw the many wars to come.
He saw beasts being ripped apart and sealed in the name of power.
He gazed in awe as death itself touched down onto the mortal plane to tear the world asunder.
He made out faint traces of men who were not who they were and red clouds sailing across a black sky.
He was overcome with a wave of nostalgia as six paths headed in one direction, merging into one road.
He looked upon an entire world that should not have been but was, and was shocked to realize that it was-
There! There it was, a bright flash that interrupted his meditation. Like a sonar, it let out a soft pinging sound accompanied by a small light. The man had foumd exactly what he had been searching for. He knew this presence. He recognized this soul by heart. Even with this small glimpse, the man knew who and what this was. He spoke a single word, one that connected the soul to the tragedy of the past and the conflict of the future...
"Asura."
Konohagakure, Hi no Kuni. Thirteen years before the rampage of the Kyuubi (13 BNT):
The shinobi of the hidden village, acting as its military force, were at war with nearly every other ninja village in the Five Great Shinobi Nations. Their primary opponent: Iwagakaure, the village hidden in the stone. Iwa had initially sent large military squadrons through Kusagakure, a minor nation, to lay siege to Konohagakure and various vital locations in the Land of Fire for the sake of protecting the interests of Iwagakure and the Land of Stone. There were also a few minor skirmishes between the forces of Konohagakure and Kumogakure, but those did not hold as much significance.
Anyway, our story begins on the grounds of Naka Shrine, one of the village's more famous historic locations. The shrine was revered by the Uchiha clan and was also venerated by the Senju clan before the tragic decline of the proud lineage. Our focus is one Fujiwara Hiroto. For readers from a Western culture, he would be referred to as Hiroto Fujiwara.
Hiroto was a nice guy. He was in his mid-thirties and had never married, but that would not be a surprise. After all, his job was not glamorous, nor did it pay highly. You see, Hiroto was the groundskeeper of the Naka Shrine. Every day, he would wake up, get dressed for work and head down to the shrine to make sure it was nice and clean. His job wasn't too exciting, but as long as he got a weekly salary, he wouldn't complain.
Good old Hiroto had finally finished up the day's work. He was strolling back to his cozy, single bedroom apartment to wind down after a long day when he decided to enjoy the scenery of Konoha. He gazed longingly at the beautiful sunset that dyed the sky a magnificent orange and watched as the shadows cast by clouds danced across the faces of the Hokage Monument. He looked at each face and tried to recollect the name and history behind each one. On the far right was the current Hokage, the Yondaime, Namikaze Minato. He was gaining a name for himself after creating some sort of ninjutsu that let him jump around the battlefield in the blink of an eye. Many people believed that this was the same jutsu used by the Nidaime, Senju Tobirama. Let's see...next was the Sandaime, Sarutobi Hiruzen. The old coot was still alive and kicking, if Hiroto remembered correctly. He was known as "The Professor" and was rumored to have mastered over a thousand different jutsu.
'Pfft. Damn ninja and their tall tales.'
They always had to exaggerate everything. The only rumor more ridiculous than that of the "Thousand Jutsu Ninja Professor" (he stifled a laugh at the thought of how absurd it sounded) had to be the one about the man who could grow trees with chakra. Hell, a few people even thought all the trees around Konoha were grown by the guy!
"Tch. Ninja are so full of shi-" Hiroto's statement was cut short by what he recognized as one of the most fearsome sounds an adult male could ever hear: the cacaphonous wailing of a baby. Hiroto glanced around cautiously and beheld a truly terrifying sight. It was a baby, swaddled in cloth and placed in a cradle in the side of the road. Beside the cradle was a sword, likely a nodachi (Hiroto wasn't very wise when it came to swords; he had little use for the things.) with a small paper tag tied to the sheath.
Now, you had to look at this situation from Hiroto's perspective. Children are terribly expensive to raise, especially babies. Babies are far worse than any other age group simply because all they did was eat, shit and cry. Hiroto preferred his life to be peaceful and quiet.
Babies were neither of those.
Then again, his daily life was pretty boring...and that sword did look pretty nice.
"Ah, fine. I'll take the whiny meatsack." Hiroto announced with an air of finality. He approached the baby, abandoning his caution in favor of curiosity. Leaning over, he examined the cradle and then the sword next to it. He bent down on one knee and took the paper tage that was tied to the jet black sheath in one hand, inspecting it and in a somewhat pensive manner. The only thing unique about the tag were the two Kanji characters written on it.
"Taketori, huh? Well kid, I might have a name for you after all. What's the worst that could happen?"
