- Demon: The Son of Deathstroke -

DISCLAIMER:

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS, ENVIRONMENTS ETC. OR FROM ANY OF THE SOURCE MATERIALS THEY COME FROM.

Chapter: 1 The Meeting

The man was running through the thick forest, he didn't know where to, he just had to escape the "thing" chasing him. He was scared, and that is saying a lot considering he was one of the Yakuza's top hit men. Still... all that considered, he was TERRIFIED. He stopped, and got behind a tree, turned and looked around it to see if he was still being pursued. The man, wearing a 3,000 dollar, three piece suite, all black, blood red under dress-shit, with a matching black tie, heard a twig snap. He pulled out a, what appeared to be a solid gold Desert Eagle, and aimed it at where the sound came from.

The scared man yelled in Japanese "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!" He was met with only a few seconds of silence, then in the same accent, he heard a somewhat of a robotic voice say "Death." Then a spray of blood hit the tree trunk, and the forest floor. The shadowed figure stepped out in the light of the full moon, to reveal none other than... Deathstroke. He wore a sleek mask, divided down the middle: one side black, the other orange. There is only one hole for his left eye. Behind the helmet, were long bands, as if he wore a bandana, one strap was black, the other, like the helmet was orange. He wore skin-tight leather, under a heavy set of stylized, bullet-proof armor: Chest plate with a popped up plate around the collar, medium sized Pauldrons, the left one carrying a small horizontal strap for holding bullet casings. Heavy Vamberaces on both fore-arms. He wore a ash grey Utility Belt, with a pouches for supplies, and a few grenades. He also wore another ash grey belt around his torso, diagonally, starting from his left shoulder to his lower right waist, and circled around. That belt held pouches as well. Cuisse were on his legs, with supply pouches on them as well. He wore knee pad armor attached to Greaves on his shins. On his feet were Combat Boots with heavy treads. To finish off the wardrobe, on his back was a Bo-Staff with extending ends, that can fire pellets from either end, Strapped straight up. And finally a modernized Uchigatana was in his right hand, stained in blood.

Reaching up, and slashing down, he cleaned his sword, and re-sheathed it at a diagonal angle: up-ward right to down-ward left. He looked down at the headless corpse and spoke in a cold voice "Tch... Thought you could hide? You can never hide from me, I can actually SMELL your fear." He touched the right ear piece in his helmet and said in Japanese "It's done, make sure the money is wired to my account, all 13.7 million dollars of it, try to screw me... well... let's just say I'll already have a new hit... understood?" The reply came in the form of a deep Japanese voice "Hai, Hai, Slade-San. It's already done, no worries. Sayonara." Slade turned from that frequency to another, and called someone else "Ravager, come in. Rose, are you there? Mission is complete. Do you copy?" Her reply came quickly "Yes, I read father sheesh!" "Good, now break up base camp, pack everything, and follow my signal, understood?" Rose replied "Understood, be there in 25 to 30 minutes, over and out." He shook his head and said "Teenagers...-sigh-" He begins to walk back, but soon, a device hidden in the vamberaces was beeping like crazy.

He lifted his right fore-arm and pressed a hidden panel on the piece of armor, and a holographic touch screen came up, and the numbers were going out of control. "Hmmm... there seems to be a huge source of energy 32.9 meters behind me... interesting." He followed the energy source until he came to a part of the woods that looked... distorted. He examined it for a moment, then he put his hand on it... and it disappeared. He pulled his hand back, and tried to walk through it... only to walk back out of it. He looked back at it. He looked around and looked at the scanners on his vamberace. He rummaged through his pouches on his utility belt around his torso and pulled out a medium sized metal disc with a dark glass dome in the center, and said "Let's see if this energy disruptor will do anything." He placed it on the ground, he pressed a small button on it, and the little glass globe glew red. He waited there for a while until he heard the grass behind him rustle, and said "Hello daughter, right on time... very good." Ravager was there wearing the same kind of armor as her father, only her "mask" was more like a cowl, showing her mouth, coated in black lipstick.

The pauldrons weren't as big as his, and the chest plated armor seemed to hug her figure tighter. The vamberaces weren't as big and as rounded as his were. The colors were the same, black and orange. Her cowl also had other changes, such as longer bandana sashes, and the left eye hole was covered, and the right eye hole was opened. The color scheme of black and orange was the exact same. She rolled her eye, and took off her mask/cowl, letting her sliver hair fall down her back and around her face. She replied "Yeah, yeah... what's going on here? There's a HUGE energy reading, and this portion of the forest is distorted." "That's what I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to disrupt the energy flow now... there, done." The disc's dome then glew green, and a small part of the distortion disappeared, and a small dirt road appeared before them. "Hmmmm, a dirt road... seems recently used..." he said, and Rose's reply "And there are lights up ahead..." He picked up the device, put it back in the pouch it came from, and said "Let's go have a look, shall we?" He began to walk forward with her right behind, in silence. They walked for only 20 minutes until they saw it... a HUGE wall, normal polished wood in color, and at the top was trimmed with red paint.

They saw a huge double-door gate out-lined in the same red paint. Painted, also in red on the gate doors is the kanji for "hermitage." Slade studied it all for a second and then said "Hmmm never once did I think, after chasing a target all they from Japan... ALL the way to forests in China, that I'd find a village in the middle of nowhere." Ravager replies "Not to mention... it seems Japanese in origin... was our target escaping to here?" "No, his movements were too sporadic... if he was, he would've come STRAIGHT here, and instead he was looking for cover... too bad for him. Let's scale the wall to see who or what's inside." She nodded, and they made their way to the wall. They made it to the wall and pulled out their Grapnel Hooks, launched them and they attached to the wall. The mercenaries made it to the top, and put their grapnel guns away.

They looked up, and Ravager went slack-jawed, they were both looking at a village, a fully inhabited village. There seemed to be a celebration going on, kids holding sparklers running and laughing, adults having drinks and laughing to, everyone having a good time. "Hmmm... a village that's completely hidden from the world... amazing." Deathstroke said. His daughter replied "Yeah, it's Japanese in origin... OH! Look! They have... telephone poles? That's weird, because the village itself looks... looks..." "Feudal Era most likely." Rose looks up her father "Yeah exactly. This is weird..." Deathstroke nodded and noticed something on some of the kids and adults. "Look, some of the kids and adults have a head-band on their heads... even the adults have some sort of uniform." Rose looks down and sees the uniform: a green flak jacket with a zipper, a thick rectangular collar, buttoned on shoulder flaps, three rectangular vertical pouches on either side of the zipper, a dark blue sweater, with rolled up sleeves, dark blue sweater pants that ended mid-shin, white bandaging with a small rectangular holster strapped around the bandaging on either thigh, fingerless dark blue gloves with a rectangular metal plate over the back of the hand, the same white bandaging over the shins, and dark blue crock sandals. On the back of the flak jacket, and on the shoulders of the sweaters, were a red circle with a swirl starting from the bottom of the circle.

On the head-band was a symbol of a "leaf" with a swirl in the middle. On their lower backs was a rounded tan leather pouch as well. "Hmmmm they seem to be a military force or something." Slade looked at them, using his "Tactical Vision" and examined the contents of the pouches: shuriken and a kunai knife in the little holster on the thigh, scrolls in the pouches on the jacket, and more shuriken, kunai, scrolls, and medical supplies in the rounded pouch. "Based on their weaponry, they seem to shinobi." Rose went bug-eyed "WHAT? Are you kidding me? An entire village filled with NINJA?" "It would appear so... hmm? Look, over in the center of town, a large gathering of people." They make it to the town square, where there were stands for food, games, toys, and so forth. People having a good time, looking at a villager making his way onto a huge stand, with a huge paper mache creature, that had red colored, slitted eyes, big ears with a black "mask" pattern over it's eyes and going all the to the ear tips. It had a muzzle with a black nose, and it's lips were black as well. It had orange fur, human shaped "paws" and the back "paws" looked like the feet of a primate. The other odd feature, is that this animal had 9 tails. "What kind of animal is that?" "Hush, we might learn something from that that villager."

They looked at the man, who was wearing a ceremonial kimono, and had messy short black hair, average weight and height, as he began to speaking in Japanese "On this date of October 10th 1996, we celebrate the defeat of the Kyuubi no Yoko at the hands of our legendary leader The Yondaime Hogake six years ago! He gave his life to defeat this monster..." he pointed to the paper fox when he said this "so that we, the people of Konohagakure may live, and prosper to be the strongest shinobi village in all of the five shinobi countries! Let the celebration begin!" He grabbed and lit a torch, and threw it onto the paper mache fox, and lit it on fire. The people cheered and began to dance and play games. "Hmmm, very interesting... more knowledge is required." Slade commented. His daughter was about to reply, but then she heard something, a commotion in an nearby alley way, then... screams of pure terror. "Dad, someone is in trouble, by the pitch, it seems it's a little kid, possibly a boy, I think he's in trouble!"

She said as she jumped towards the noises. Slade sighed, put his fingers to his ear piece in his helmet and called his former war buddy/butler Wintergreen "Wintergreen, come in." "Hello sir, was the mission successful?" "Yes, but we have come across something of interest, we will be investigating further." "Very well sir, I'm about to start dinner, and I'll keep it warm for you, and the young lady." "Thank you Wintergreen, that'll be all." He went after his daughter, to see what was going on. They looked down and saw a little boy, 5 or 6, backing up the dead-end of the alley way. He was looking at the villagers that chased him there, some were civilians, others were ninja, all holding weapons of some sort, the villagers were holding broken bottles and glass shards, and the shinobi were holding the weapons they normally used. The little boy was wearing a white t-shirt, orange cargo shorts, and had weird little "whisker marks" on his cheeks, three on each. His hair was messy looking, blonde, and had deep blue eyes, which looked very scared. He looked at the people before him and pleaded "P-please... I d-didn't mean t-t-t-to make you all a-angry... please don't h-hurt me..." One of the shinobi walked forward with an utterly pissed off look in his eyes and replied "You DEMON! You took my father and older brother! To avenge them, I WILL KILL YOU!"

He charged with a kunai aiming for the boy's heart. Ravager grew VERY angry, drew her Uchigatana, jumped down and made a perfect horizontal slash, cutting the man's forearm off. He was stunned, then grabbed the bloody stub, screaming in pain as his severed limb rolled to a stop, his stub squirting blood with every pump of his heart. Ravager was sending a glare so cold to the people, some lost control, and wet themselves. She said in a cold monotone voice "You touch another hair on this boy's head, I'll kill you all..." One of the male villagers said in a shocked voice while tending to the now "three limbed" ninja "How dare you?! Attacking one of Hokage-Sama's shinobi is punishable by death!" "I don't care... NO ONE is gonna hurt him while I'm here GOT IT?!" One of the female ninja walked up, spinning a kunai on her finger and replied "Oh yeah? You and what army little girlie?"

Rose was about to reply when Deathstroke landed with a huge *THUD* and held his bo-staff in his hand, he straightened himself out and looked them all dead in the eye and replied "Armies are over rated, she has me." He whirled his staff from hand to the other, and looked at all the people before him, all scared of the new arrival, and he chuckled "Hmhmhmhm... terrific... I can actually SMELL your fear." They all backed off from them, and the boy clinged to Ravager's leg and pleaded with tear filled eyes "W-will you please help me?...Please..." Rose looked down with a sad smile on her face, knelt down putting her sword away, and then hugged him tight "Don't worry little one, no one is going to hurt you, I promise." Before he could reply, there was an "explosion" of smoke, then appeared The Sandaime Hokage, a man in his mid 50's with a small white beard on his chin, a somewhat wrinkled face, intense eyes, with three "line" marks coming out from around his eyes, some sun spots on his right cheek. He wore a white scarf, white robe over a red one, and wore a diamond shaped hat, with a white diamond shape in the front with the kanji for "fire" in the white. The rest of the hat was red, with a cloth hanging from the hat, covering the back of his neck and stopping half way towards the front, leaving his face exposed. He pulled out the wooden pipe he was smoking and said "Thank for leading me here Kakashi, well done." Then, out of nowhere another man appeared, he was much younger. He had silver, spiked in such a way, it looked like it was defying gravity. His right eye was normal brown, while the other looked red with three "tomes" circling the pupil.

The eye socket had a long scar, starting from above the eye brow, down to the cheek. He wore a mask that started from his nose and covered his entire lower face, and was connected to a sleeveless gray under shirt. On top of that, he wore light gray chest armor/jacket that was strapped over his shoulders. A white mask was hanging on the left side of his head, that looked like a dog, with red marking on the cheeks of the mask. On his arms were long dark gray "sleeves" the stopped just short under his shoulders, they had white bandages tied on them, also near the shoulders, just under the hem of the sleeve. These sleeves ended as gloves that also had a metal plate on the back of the hand, and vamberaces tied around his forearms. He had a Tanto, holstered perfectly vertical on his back. He wore dark gray pants that were tucked into strange looking armor of the same color as the pants. It looked like some sort of "bindings," and on his feet, were dark gray crocks.

The man, known as Kakashi said "No problem Hokage-Sama, I'm just glad we made it in time..." he looked to the new comers and continued "and that we had some help, thank you, both of you." Deathstroke nodded, and Ravager held the crying boy closer. The old man made a sign with his left hand: the pointer and middle finger pointed up. Then 5 five more men appeared wearing the same outfit as Kakashi, all actually wearing their different animal masks and in a kneeling position, all sounded off "Hai, Hokage-Sama!" The old man, who was eying the mob, inhaling and exhaling some smoke from his pipe replied "Anbu! Take these fools, and place them under arrest! Bring them to the holding cells at your headquarters." The mob began to protest, but then an invisible force, or energy made everyone, including Slade and Rose shutter. It was so powerful, it made the surrounding alley way quake a little... it was coming from the old Hokage. He looked at them with a death glare and ordered "ENOUGH! Take them NOW!" The now identified "Anbu" nodded, got up, and in an instant, captured everyone in the mob, and took them away in the blink of an eye. The Hokage turned to Kakashi and said "Hatake." The young man replied by kneeling like the previous Anbu "Hai?" "Good work Taichou, return to my office... I'll be there shortly, with Naruto and our new guests." The now identified Captain nodded and vanished in swirls of smoke. The Hokage looked to the Wilsons, and bowed slightly and then straightened out.

"Thank you both for looking after young Naruto there, he wouldn't be here if you hadn't shown up. My name is Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, it's pleasure to meet you." Deathstroke reattached his staff, placed it in it's holster, and then took off his helmet, revealing a man who appeared to be in his 60's. His hair was cut somewhat short, and slicked back, and was pure white. He had a leather eye-patch, his good eye was blue, almost as intense as the boy's eyes. He had a strong looking jaw, nose, and furrowed eye brows that were also white. He had the same kind of beard as the old man, but smaller and was to, white. "My name is Wilson Slade, my Mercenary name is 'Deathstroke,' and this is my daughter," he said hiking his thumb to Rose "Wilson Rose, otherwise known as 'Ravager." The Hokage looked over to the girl rubbing small circles on Naruto's back. Saying she was beautiful, would be an understatement. She had long, shining silver hair like Kakashi's, an eye-patch over her left eye, and her armor was the EXACT same as her father's from the, boots, gloves, chest armor, etc. It wasn't as big or bulky, and one could tell she had a very voluptuous and athletic body under the armor. Her face was very feminine. Sarutobi then nodded and said "Pleasure to meet you, please follow me, and bring Naruto." Ravager stood up suddenly, with Naruto in her arms saying "NO! Not until YOU explain why YOUR armed forces AND your civilians are ATTACKING A LITTLE BOY!" Hiruzen sighed, walked over to Naruto and made the Shinobi Hand Sign of the Rat, and Naruto instantly fell asleep. She was about to ask what he did, but the old man raised his hand up, silently asking for her silence. "Follow me to my office, and all will be made clear. Trust me, this'll be a long and sad tale..."