Chapter One: The Birthmark:

No such thing as pure evil exist. There are only good intentions in the world. Good intentions can be projected in a good way or in a bad way. But no such thing as pure evil exist.

No such thing as adopting change warmly into the world exist. Change is feared by most people in society. Change is suppressed if found in society.

Perhaps one of the best well-known cities in the Republic to suppress change is Cashmere City. But how far can change be suppressed in Cashmere City when something wicked comes?

Cashmere City, Colorado

The perfect day on when Naruto Rosendale could call himself a normal human being never came. There was no "normalness" to him at all. He had a strange first name. He didn't represent any traits his parents had. He carried an accent distinctly familiar to that of a British fellow. And he was considered not as "Gifted," but as "Unusual," to the human eyes of Cashmere City.

Cashmere City, the capitol of Colorado, was not as big as other cities in the state. But it was a decent size to have a school, a church, and a few skyscrapers with green banners of a certain Capitol staff member: the Secretary of Agriculture. The symbol was a livestock in front of a huge red barn. There was nothing special about it. Other states had the same banner. Other states that were in charge of food production had the banners.

There was a sense of belonging somewhere, and a place known for food production was not it. Naruto felt the need to say to his parents that he didn't belong in this city. His voice and appearance made him feel that he belonged in Britain, but his nationality was not British—or so the Capitol staff members claim. And he was pretty sure he wasn't a clockwork human figure. He never heard a tick inside him, only a heartbeat.

Still, Naruto wondered why he wasn't viewed as "normal." He stood out the front door of his house; a log cabin house in the southern suburbs of Cashmere. The suburbs had rows of houses shaped rectangular like little boxes curving into a C formation.

Naruto' blue eyes saw aspen trees scattered around the neighborhood; some destined to grow in certain areas, others not so much. The ones that were not destined were cut down. The streets here were not as wide as the ones in the inner city, but they weren't as ruff and bumpy ether.

The day was hot. The sky was clear blue. Summer was nearly a month away. Naruto felt strong heat rays shine down on his face. His golden spiked hair reflected the bright sunshine. Birds chirped outside and then he heard a voice from behind him.

"Aren't the trees pretty, Naruto?" It was his mother. Denise Rosendale. She stood a few yards away. It was past noon, and she had just finished sweeping the linoleum flooring. Her height matched her son's (close to six feet) and her best quality was her hair. Her bright cherry-red beautiful hair, long past her shoulders.

"Yes," lied Naruto. Truthfully, he never did care about the beauty the aspen trees gave Cashmere. He was more interested in other things besides trees. Did he disagree with his mother about the trees being a beauty? No. The trees did make the neighborhood colorful.

But that's not what he wanted to look at on a Saturday evening. No. Not at all. It was strange for him to do this. To stare at the clear blue sky and not help but think that maybe there was something out there that could tell him what he was. Maybe there were answers out there. Or at least a theory of some kind on why he was different. It was almost as if he were not—

"Could you go upstairs to your room," Denise asked putting the sweeper back in the closet close to the dining room, "and put your dirty clothes in the plastic bag I laid on your bed? Then bring it downstairs and set it by the sofa chair for me to pick up? I'm gonna go outside and water the flowers Aunt Linda brought a few days ago." She waited not a moment before heading outside, refusing to listen to any complains her son made.

Naruto' face expressed annoyance. He did not enjoy doing simple task like that. He wanted to continue staring at the sky, wishing answers could come down from it. None came. None would ever come. He was stuck with unexplained answers. He shut the front door and headed upstairs to his room on the far right.

His room was full of blues. Blue walls. A blue bed. Blue carpets. It wasn't a light blue. It was dark sapphire. Naruto' favorite color. He picked up his dirty clothes and put them in a large plastic bag. He tied the top and carried the bag downstairs. The bag was heavy and large. He had trouble going downstairs and even when he took his time downstairs, he missed a step.

The bag fell out of his hands and rolled its way down to the bottom of the steps. Naruto met the bag as his face impacted it when he too had reached the bottom. Pain swelled inside him. He was bleeding. He saw where he was bleeding. It was on the right side of his rib cage. Touching the t-shirt, Naruto was surprised to bleed a color other than red. His warm blood, a violet color. The odd color puzzled him. What? Why was his blood colored different? He hadn't remembered seeing that before. Wasn't blood supposed to be red?

He lifted up his shirt and what he saw shocked him. There was a large wound his right side, just a few inches below his armpit. A wound that revealed fake skin peeling off as if someone had scratched him with razors. The pain of sharp blades against his sides lingered in his mind.

He started to peel off the fake skin, disgusted at what he was seeing. What was this? Why the fake skin? What was it there for? He couldn't have imagine his parents had done this. No. It must have been someone else. But who? And why?

Naruto found his answer on what the fake skin was hiding. It was a mark. A birthmark. A large violent, purplish-blue mark the shape of an N with a thin diagonal line going across the letter. Blood seeped from the letter. He picked at his birthmark, wondering what it stood for. His name? What he was? What was the thin line for? Why was he bleeding a different color other than red? Was this proof that he wasn't human? Was it proof that maybe there was something out there? Was it proof that his parents were hiding something from him? Something important?

The bleeding was stopped once Naruto wadded up his t-shirt he took off and pressed it against the birthmark. The bleeding may have stopped, but the pain wouldn't go away. It stuck with him a little longer. He wished it would go away, but it didn't. He was forced by the pain to sit on the last step of the stairs and wait for the pain to go away.

After a while, the pain started to go away, and Naruto was able to move freely without aching much. He did what his mother had told him; he placed the large bag of dirty clothes near the sofa chair five meters away from the stairs and placed the slabs of fake skin on top of the sofa chair. The fake human skin slabs were as long as half a ruler stick and very thin, but palpable.

The moment Naruto slouched against the sofa, the front door's doorknob twisted. He watched it slowly turn, and while the door was in his view, he prepared himself to see Denise come into the house with a few flowers; she usually pulled the ones out that were ruined.

Time for some answers, Naruto thought.

Chapter two: Secrets:

Appalled, Naruto did not expect the first thing for his mother to do is cry when she saw his mark. Was it worry? Sadness? He'd thought that she would berate him and refuse to tell him any answers about his mark.

The violet blood, smelling like vinegar after a long while (probably from making contact with outside air), made his nose wrinkle. He hated the smell. How could he have not figured this out? The birthmark? He was sure he'd fallen multiple times when he was a kid, why hadn't he noticed it before? The fake skin? The artificial skin hiding something that could explain why he felt different from the rest of the other kids. He had trouble understanding. He couldn't come up with reasons on why he spoke a British ascent that had no resemblance to his parent's native tongue. What was happening? Was he stolen as a baby? Was Denise his kidnapper? Was it her husband? Were they both here to give him a false life? It wasn't a horrible life, it was decent and fun at times. But now, it seemed like all the fun and happiness was yanked out of his past experiences as a child.

Denise finished rubbing her eyes and finally said, "I'm a terrible mother. I'm an absolute terrible mother."

Her son, did not disagree nor did he agree. "What is this birthmark?" He pointed to the artificial skin. "What the hell is that?" Inside, he wanted to yell at her. He was angered inside. He felt hurt. He felt curious. All the feelings mixed together seemed to make the sunny day, not so sunny anymore.

Another pause came before he heard his mother speak. "I have longed to tell you the truth, Naruto. I've longed to tell you everything you needed to know, but I … I couldn't. I was too happy with how things where. I've lost so much before you came into my life. I just couldn't bear the thought of losing another child."

Another child? What's she talking about? Naruto had been told that he was an only child. He had no brother or sister. He had never seen any pictures on the walls of another child. He's never seen an empty room inside the house for another family member to stay in.

Despite that Naruto wanted to know more about the subject, he could not come up with a decent wording of sentences to speak at this moment. His eyes showed hunger for more information.

Denise caught on to it. "I'm so sorry. I've lied to you, Naruto. I've lied. I never told you this before, but I've lost faith in myself after the terrible accident I a few years ago. But then you came into my life, and made it—"

"Stop! Just stop!" cried Naruto. He was so angered, he wanted to hit his mother. She wasn't trying to answer his question. Rather, she was trying to manipulate the question to make him feel guilty and her the one to be forgiving.

Ignoring her voice, Naruto went back upstairs to put on a new shirt. He had left the stained shirt on the sofa chair for his mother to deal with. The slightest thought to pause did not reach his mind when he reached the front door.

"Wait!" protested his mother. "Please come back inside. I'm not angry at you."

Naruto had just taken two steps down the porch's steps and stopped. He made a backward glance to see his mother near the threshold, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "Angry with me? What the hell does that even mean? I should be angry at you! You've been keeping things from me this whole time! And now you're acting like it's my fault!"

"Don't yell at me, I know what's best for you!" his mother claimed. "Your father is gonna be here soon. Don't get yourself into trouble and act foolish. Come back inside."

Naruto pointed accusingly at her. "I have a suggestion." His tone dripping with wicked sarcasm. "Why don't you go back into the house before you make yourself look even more foolish?" He saw his mother's mouth open. "Oh that got your attention, did it?"

Once he knew he'd made her feel bad, Naruto walked off, out of her view. All she could manage to yell is, "Wait! Where are you going?"

He ignored this. He was too upset to answer. First the blood and pain. Then the fake skin. Then the birthmark. And then to have his mother try to manipulate his questions to where it made her the victim and not him, utterly bothered him.

He continued to walk down the street and pass several houses, one of them happened to be his aunt's house which he'd rarely visit because she was too busy taking vacation days with her daughters, and then complaining to the Rosendale family how she had no money afterwards. He passed a cornfield, just not too far from his aunt's house, tall and thin like golden, crisp wands pointed up at the sky; the corn still had plenty of room left to grow.

Not knowing where to go, he did not expect to go as far and arrive at a bridge a little ways from a main dirt road leading to the city. He had walked over two miles. His legs did not hurt. His wound, regretfully not bandaging it before an unthinkable long walk, did not pain him much. His body did not tire at all. In fact, he was ready to walk some more. It felt good to be able to walk away from his house. Get some fresh air to cool off some of his anger. He did not feel like apologizing whatsoever. It wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair that his mother wouldn't tell him anything about the mark. Clearly the birthmark had to be some bad omen if his parents had never told him about it. And the fact that they had artificial skin covering made his case much stronger.

The bridge Naruto came across, was not a surprise to see. It was just a surpise he'd made it this far from his house. He'd seen this bridge before. It was long. Probably about half a quarter of a mile. It was one of many bridges in this city where violet currents of water flowed underneath ugly sea green metal. It was no joke. This bridge wasn't a bridge one would see in a happily-ever-after fairy tale. It was an ugly bridge. An ugly bridge belonging in a horror film.

But at this point, he did not care about the looks of the bridge. He rested his back against the rails. He sighed loudly. He didn't expect this day to have his Saturday turn out this way. The fact that his father would be coming home made matters worse. His father had always sided with his mother. Naruto hated him for it. It make him feel belittle. Like it didn't matter what he thought. He was sure to get chastised by not only his mother, but also his father when he got home.

Did his mother really think she knew what was best? It wasn't true. She had no idea how he was feeling. What did she mean when she said she was a terrible mother? She had shown no signs of being terrible. Just difficult to deal with at times. But never terrible. What made her say that? Was it because she hid the birthmark from him? Naruto believed the answer was more complex than than that. It had to be something else. Something that was probably bigger than he'd ever imagined.

He peered at a tree at the other end of the bridge where the gravel road was seen, and would be seen further down the road until it reached the asphalt, and that's when many people knew they'd reached the city limits. The tree was not aspen. It was an evergreen. Big. Beautiful. Bulgy. It was singled out by all the other scenery. Not much beauty was seen around this area. It was as if the bridge cast it's ugliness around, and the only thing that repelled the ugliness was the evergreen.

The sound of rushing water against rocks embedded into the ground annoyed Naruto' ears. He'd much rather hear peaceful water running through. The only thing making it bearable to withstand was the evergreen tree. He couldn't help but stare at the evergreen tree. It helped his mind sort out his thoughts. It's not like he'd never seen an evergreen before. There were plenty of them surrounding Cashmere's outskirt.

Naruto wanted to hate his mother for not choosing to tell him about the birthmark. The birthmark was solid evidence that maybe what he speculated about himself was true. But still, human beings did not have this kind of mark, did they? Was it possible that his mother and father had one? If he or she did, why hide it? Why hide the N shaped birthmark? Was it for protection? And by that, who was really being protected?

He suspected the protection was not necessarily for him, but for his parents. His parents, embarrassed already by the fact that Naruto looked nothing like them, or other family members. Could he have been adopted? And if so, for what cause?

At this point, Naruto wished he'd never found out about the birthmark, or at least not have discover that it was hidden. Hiding something from him only tore away the trust he had in his parents. He had to admit to himself that finding the birthmark probably caused more harm than good. The good— Naruto finally had proof that he wasn't as normal as any newborn in the Republic. The bad—a trust was melting away

The image of his mother becoming teary-eyed instead of angry when finding out her son had discovered the hidden birthmark made Naruto curious. Why the tears? Why not the anger?

Naruto looked up when his ears heard a whistle coming from the other side of the bridge. It was familiar and far. For a human, he was surprised to be able to hear it. Especially with the noisy currents running. A familiar whistle. A boy's whistle. A boy Naruto dreaded to hear. It was Dylan Mead; a classmate of his.

Naruto got along with lots of people at Cashmere High. He had a friend named Ralph, who treated everyone with respect, despite his or her inner and outer differences. It was a personality Naruto didn't have, but always tried to aim for.

Dylan Mead was a different kind of person. He enjoyed being a bully. He fed off of other people's fears. He enjoyed putting down other kids at school who were not as popular as him. His favorite kid to torment was fifteen-year-old Naruto. It all started in middle school. And it never stopped. What caused Dylan to go after Naruto so much was anyone's guess. Naruto' good looks? Naruto' wealthy family? Naruto' slightly better grades? By slightly, it means an average B student rather than an average C student.

The thought of running to hide crossed Naruto' mind. Maybe the other boy hadn't seen him yet.

It was too late. No longer than two minutes passed by before Dylan reached the other end of the bride and spotted Naruto. "What have we here? A loser? A loser who can't help but look at his own ugly reflection in the water?"

The water was actually a dark-brown, almost like a river of Root Beer, which made it hard to see a descent reflection of someone's face.

"I can say the same thing about you too," Naruto spat back. "Come to see your ugly face as well?"

Dylan did not take the reply kindly. He raised one of his fist. "You want to say that again?"

"No," admitted Naruto. He did not wish to stir a fight at this moment. There was no surprise to him to see the other boy get offended so easily. Unfortunately, the other boy was never good at even taking constructive criticism. He was too smug. "I do want to say something though," Naruto pointed out. He saw the other boy raise an eyebrow. Then continued. "This bridge is probably one of the ugliest things I've ever seen in my life. But I'm afraid something uglier stands in my view."

If anything upset Dylan, it was this. He ran at the other boy yelling, "Why you dumb brat! Don't you know I'm older than you?" This was quite true. Dylan may have been a solid athlete, but he was nowhere near to having decent passing grades. Did being an athlete have anything to do with it? Of course not! Naruto' friend Ralph was a straight A student, but that never stopped him from being excellent at sports. Football in particularly. The fact is Dylan just didn't try.

However, when it came to fights, he did try his best to win. But there was no backing down anymore from Naruto. Naruto was not going to let the other boy win another fight like all the previous results had been. The reason on why he could not fight for himself in the previous fights was because he didn't want to make a bad impression on himself in front of other people. He didn't want to be seen as "troublesome," and Dylan being the victim. He also didn't like talking to other people about being bullied. The people might think him an even more bothersome child than Dylan.

Dylan met the other boy halfway across the bridge, and was not the first to land a hit. He was struck under the chin, the other boy's hand going upwards. The hit hadn't been hard enough to cause his mouth to bleed. There was large amounts of soreness coming from that area though.

The fight did not last long. Nor did it go smoothly. Naruto had his back slammed against the rails and was punched brutally where his birthmark, after so long had not bled, began bleeding again. Slowly. Seeping and smelly as the sense of vinegar intensified the more blood seen. The sharp pain rushed toward his fingertips and down towards his toes. It was pain from head to toe, only caused by a single punch.

The violet blood soaked Naruto' shirt and as the other boy stepped away, not at all surprised, there was laughter coming from him. Dylan's laughter. "I knew it! I bloody knew it! You're not human at all! You're a fake!" He had no luck meeting Naruto' horrified eyes that seemed to be glued to the blood. "A fake! That's right! My father was right about you. You never were one of us. A fake deserves another fake!"

The last sentence made Naruto look up. His wounded mark still bled, despite that he tried to stop it by putting pressure on it. Getting not one, but two shirts drenched in blood probably would upset his mother when he got home. But what did it matter now? She was already upset after finding out her son had discovered the hidden birthmark. "What did you say?" he asked.

Dylan smirked. "A fake deserves another fake."

"What other fake? What are you saying?" Naruto perfectly knew what the other boy had said. He had hoped for more information.

And Dylan deliberately gave it to him. "Face it, Nark, you and your parents are a fake in this world! Your pathetic mother is a liar and your father—" Dylan would have said Naruto' father was a loser for believing the Rosendale family was actually a "real family." But Dylan was stopped. His nose was broken. His mouth bled and his neck was twisted as if a person had ringed his neck with his or her bare hands. In this case, it was his bare hands. It was Naruto' hands.

The attack had happened to quick, Naruto never believed his anger could get the best of him. It did. The idea clouded his mind to realize what he had just down. What a cold blooded act he had committed.

It was all happening to fast. Naruto fell down on his knees, adjacent from Dylan's head. At this point, Naruto did not feel anger. He felt sadness. He shed tears as if he were at a funeral he had never thought possible of going to.

The mistake was at large. It was at its peak. Naruto knew it when gaping at his bloodstained hands—a metallic smell mixed with vinegar disgusted his nostrils. But somehow the nasty smell did not make him flinch back. He stayed where he was, galvanized by what had happened. His mind hadn't thought matters could worsen.

It did.

Not long—maybe three minutes passed by before his ears heard dreadful noises. The sound of sirens coming from cars. The Capitol guards were arriving at this location. He thought to escape the scenery. He thought to escape Dylan's dead body. He thought to escape the horror of what took place on what should have been a peaceful, Saturday evening. None of which took place.

About half a dozen black vehicles parked unevenly on the dirt road leading to the city's main streets. Capitol guards dressed in black gear wore helmets the shape of acorns to cover his or her identity

Naruto did not need to look at their faces. He knew what he'd see. Anger? Horror? Fear? He did not rise his arms as many criminals do after being caught, nor did he stop crying. He did not speak to the guards.

All guards had their guns pointed at Naruto. None of them knew that if a bullet was launched at the boy, it would not break the boy. The boy was already broken inside, long before their arrival.