Naruto: Path of the Zealot!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything besides the lint in my pocket and the tool in my pants.
Summary: There are many men who rise to great things, others are born into it. Some are chosen. Uzumaki Naruto is one of those chosen few, Lord Jashin shall bathe in the blood of his sacrifices.
AUTHOR'S AREA: This is my first story and the plot has been rolling around in my head for a LONG time now. I know where it goes, but as to the end, we'll find out together. No longer will I bore you with my meaningless drivel, ONWARD, TO MY NEW MASTERPIECE!!!
The Whispers
On December 17th, it all changed. The moisture on the surrounding area was mildly distracting to the utterly bored man in the way the dull light of the tunnel. He would certainly give his life for his Lord Jashin, but he was beginning to question his ability in choosing leadership. The winds sweeping through the cave suddenly picked up a rock, weighing about a pound, and slammed it into his head, showing Lord Jashin's own form of humor.
The man was dressed in his ceremonial robe, consisting of a midnight black robe that seemed to absorb the very light around it and yet twist it back at the same time, creating an odd visual effect that surround each and every other member of this religious gathering. In addition to the robe he wore his scythe, strapped to his back the dual blades of plain steel showing his rank as a Listener, and the long, ornamental shaft showing his various deeds committed in the name of the Lord Jashin. Many were ignorant to the fact that all the supposedly 'Evil' deeds the members of the cult participated in, were each individually recorded in their own way as an ornament on the shaft of their sycthe. Those observing the various shafts would hold a horrified interest in the ornamentations of some of the various weapons, the tall man himself had quite the shining record despite his low rank.
As the First Hand finished his oh so invigorating update on the will of the Lord Jashin, which never really changed, consisting of how their Lord wanted his name to be a feared thing once again, as it was in the time before the Village Genesis. The tall man shook his head in annoyance. 200 years and he still couldn't pay attention to the high and mighty bastard. Within the ranks of the supposed 'cult' this man had risen to the top in the comparatively short time of 500 years, due to his sheer strength and ferocity. However he had much lacking in the intelligence department, which made him an absolutely insufferable leader to the man.
The area the cult gathered in did not change from Revelation to Revelation as some believed. There was one holy place in which The Revelation took place once every decade. The Whispers of Jashin were indecipherable as they sped through the cave at breakneck speed. To the mortal eye it seemed like a massive wind was constantly being blown towards the inhabitants of the cave, however the older members of the cult were anything but, the First Gift having blessed them with immortality as well as the ability to decipher a few words every now and then within the tunnels. This place was called The Voice for a good reason, he thought, as the winds howled and the words "Nara" and "kage" fell on his ears.
The Revelation always took place in the very center of The Voice, at a large, natural pedestal made completely of obsidian; despite the lack of volcanic activity anywhere near the region. Within the obsidian were wisps of a blood red liquid, which swirled in a current all its own, independent of any source but Lord Jashin's will. Even the Hands were unsure of the pedestal's origin, quite a feat as they had been around at least a millenia to ascend to the seat, one would think they would learn about something so insignifigant as a pedestal when it was part of their rituals.
The tall blonde man sighed quietly so as to not disturb the ceremony taking place behind him. Hidan was really hoping for a change from the normal, something to spice things up a bit around this dreary place. The wind did naught but howl around him in a comforting manner, and Hidan could not help but to smile wearily, as his Lord reassured him. The cogs were turning, and while the product would not come soon, it did not matter, for time was nothing to an immortal.
What's outside
Sneaks inside
How we contaminate
This warzone
of my soul
I underestimate
~ Korn - Appears
The small boy looked around him suspiciously, as the wind picked up slightly around him, blowing his bangs into his eyes annoyingly. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he skulked towards the great Kawa no Konoha, or River of the Leaf. Today was a boring day all around. The boy had decided to take small break from that of his routine training, which left very little time for getting out and about in his home town.
Many civilians looked up to and worshipped the shinobi, they saw them as saviors, guardians deserving the highest praise. Yet, they understood very little about their stealthy counterparts. Many shinobi were constantly under heavy stress, wether it be from constant missions or their own social lives. This led to them blowing off steam through training. The boy could understand this very well, as he could no longer feel angry, when he'd tired himself out, when he was dancing on the borders of the unconciousness, he was truly free from his haunted existence. That still, was not enough to truly get rid of all of a persons troubles. That involved relaxing from time to time.
The boy realized he was close to the river as he heard its fluid mass screaming at the surroundings, hauling ass down the easy slope that Konoha was built upon. The property value of the homes surrounding the river were down to a horrid amount, the homeowners having to raise their voices to be heard from opposite sides of one room.
Not many knew how the boy relieved all of his social stress, not many paid much attention to him when he wasn't visible to all. He plopped himself down and baited the hook. He brought the rod around and snapped it forward, giving himself a good amount of distance. The water may have been fast, but only strong fish swam up river, and Uchiha Sasuke was all about challenging the strong.
Naruto Uzumaki speculated on the subject of his observations. Sasuke was the polar opposite of Naruto, and yet, he was almost the same. Where Sasuke had the village public wrapped around his seven year old pinky, Naruto was ignored by most, and hated by others. Yet, at the same time, both boys were utterly alone on the deepest level of self. There was no family, nor friends for the two. Just a deep seeded mistrust of people. While these seeds were sewn by different demons, they were there all the same.
Naruto dwelled on these thoughts for a long time. As time passed his mind drifted off to more and more random subjects, thoughts branching and drifting as they pleased, and he was relaxed. His mind jumped from why exactly Sasuke smelled like lilacs and lavender to the existence of a higher power. His questioning of his own beliefs was quite the conundrum to himself. He closed his eyes with a smile on his face, questioning the religions of various peoples. No one was safe, from the Christian god, to the Peagan thousand.
He sat there in a philosophical, lethargic state. He could do this for hours at a time, unknowingly cultivating his mind, sowing the seeds of creativity and the thirst for knowledge setting in. However, when he was forcefully shaken from these thoughts by a symbol invading his minds eyes, he couldn't help but utter the word "What in the Seven hells is that?". Not four feet from the boy levitated a large, crimson red, upside-down triangle contained within a black circle.
Naruto was by no means an idiotic person, he considered himself quite the opposite, being only seven and having his comparatively vast vocabulary. However, being young, he had to extreme disadvantages in this situation. The first was the humans natural curiosity, he wanted to find out all he could about this symbol that blurred out everything else. The secondary reason was naievte, as being in a ninja village had its pros and cons, not knowing how to react to situations most people could just run away from was definitely a con.
There was always a retard. One in every bunch. The retards of the ninja world were those who rushed off headfirst into battle, as well as those who played pranks on the civies. There was occasionally the odd gennin or chunnin that would get their jollies off by using a small genjutsu on civilian people, and watching chaos unfold. Naruto himself had witnessed it many times. You see, if he'd ran the hell away from it, a completely normal response, he figured he may trigger horribly humiliating traps. The last story he overheard about a ninja prank somehow involved three Rotweilers, a tub of sticky glue, a pink, vibrating bunny rabbit, and a pineapple labeled 'Hitler'.
He could not for the life of him stop staring at the odd floating glyph and its surroundings. Nothing had dissapeared, it was just, diffracted. Everything was twisting and turning in and out of focus, and it was one of the most interesting sights he'd ever seen, watching as the pine needles extended and danced in the light was perplexing as to how it happened. The odd outside civilian observer may have noticed the boy staring off into space and shrugged it off. A ninja observer would've slowed to check for one of those pesky genjutsu, but wouldn't have found anything wrong with them. However, to a follower's eye, the boy was surrounded by his own diffraction of light, radiating maybe half of an inch from his body.
Naruto couldn't help himself now, he reached out to hover his hand around it. He wasn't curious enough to touch it.....yet, he just wanted to see if it would do to him what it did to its own surroundings. When his hand was a foot or so from making contact with the symbol, it shot forward and dissolved itself, painfully mind you, into the young Uzumaki's brain. He screamed bloody murder as he fell to the ground, writhing in sheer agony as his brain exploded and spontaneously combusted all at once, his eyes spewing forth thick, horrid falls of dark liquid.
Naruto's observation point was that of a tall pine tree, near the faster area of the Konoha river. The sounds of rushing water, rustling leaves, and laughing people should have been surrounding him. The background noise should have been just bordering the level of painful. Yet, all he heard were the whispers, at first quiet, but they grew fast into a great cacophony of undecipherable words that he was quickly lost in. He might have caught a word had he not been in such horrible pain. They continued for what seemed like days, and invading his mind, and when they were getting to be bearable, it all increased, the pain was immense. Naruto had never gone through this before, and oh God it hurt. The whispers declined slowly, seeming to take hours to his tortured seven year old mind. As the whispers faded, he heard a scream, long lasting and shrill, it echoed off of the surrounding area, and he looked for the source, when he realized. It was him, and his hands were covered in blood. He remembered the blank animals, he remembered the scream, he remembered the whispers, and then he remembered nothing.
I'm still doing a bit of work on this one, as I'm unsatisfied with both the length and eloquence. LOOKING FOR A BETA. CLIFFHANGER, you may think you know where I'm going with this, but you have no idea. I'll improve with my writing, but my creativity currently can't be improved as there will be twists and turns you couldn't have imagined. And I will be adding my own things, such as the Hierarchy in the Cult, and most likely contending cults. And he will NOT be leading around a shitload of immortals at his beck and call. Get that shit out of your head Now. You'll see where this is going....ish.
The last paragraph is my kind of tribute to the Gorillaz song, "Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head". For those of you who haven't heard it, it's not the feeling of his brain exploding..