Modern Ninja:
My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I'm nineteen, and I'm not exactly sure what I am. Some have called me a sociopath; others have called me a monster. While I'm not sure that they're right on the mark, I'd say they are pretty close. I suppose that I'm about as close to a monster as you can find. But ever still, I find myself able to empathize with the weak and just. I feel pain, sorrow, loss, and occasionally even joy. However, if there is one thing that sets me apart from the rest of humanity, it's that physically, I have been altered.
There are only a select few, which had the perfect genome, to be able to even qualify for the experimental procedure that is tampering with DNA. It mostly happened while I was in the womb, and on top of that it happened without the knowledge of either of my parents until it was too late. I do not blame them for this; in fact I cherish their memory because of the sacrifice they later made for me.
The tampering with my DNA was meant to turn me into a controllable monster. And if not for my father, that's exactly what I would have become. My father, like me, was a spy, warrior, and other wise a modern ninja. Not only that, but he was the best of the highest caliber. And because of this, he was able to kill and defeat almost all of those that came for me. The others were either too weakened, or to maimed to continue on.
My mother, died during childbirth. I've been told that there was a lot of stress, wounds and such that led to this. Apparently she was strong enough to fight even while pregnant with me. She must have been one tough fucking woman.
After all of this, I was taken in by my father's student, and my godfather. Though mostly I was just raised by former, Kakashi-sensei. They both trained me to be what I wanted to be most; it really wasn't that much of a surprise as I've been told. I wanted to be just like my father, I wanted to be lethal. Like I said before, it was in my genes that I am as good as I am. As my sensei's say, I'm a born killer. And I love it, the killing that is.
Whatever else you may think about them, they did not encourage this. In fact they, at first at least, discouraged me. They fed me no illusions at all about what I was becoming. But after a while, it became clear to everyone, including me, that this was the only profession that I could possibly be happy doing. Unfortunately, things almost never go as planned in my line of work. But for what it's worth, I have no regrets about what I've done.
So that's what I did most of the time. I trained in everything from hand to hand combat, knife fighting, firearms, and anything that you can think that could be used as a weapon. I learned to become a ghost's shadow when I needed to be. I trained in arts that had been long forgotten, and then some.
Despite what you may think, I had a relatively happy childhood. Of course you had to factor in that I was being trained to become an assassin of the highest caliber. Like I said, I was never sheltered from anything that might have been considered a bad or good influence. In addition to my training, I went to a public school, in a moderately bad neighborhood but not the worst. I dealt with all of the stupid drama and shit that went with it. I grew up with a surrogate brother, and dealt will the standard sibling rivalry that goes with it.
One thing that I never got was the whole girlfriend thing. Not that I've never wanted one, it just never worked out. Not the sex, just the whole relationship part. It would be cool to have someone that you could share everything with, but that can only work if the other can relate, understand, and not be afraid of you. Neither me, nor my brother have ever found anyone like this. So we just kind of stopped trying.
Anyway, so here I am, in a big city, looking for work ironically. After most of our training was over, we started doing very real missions. Well I can't say almost over as our training could never truly be over. Anyway, we got our missions that at first were just assassinations, and then later they evolved into something more complex. An example being stealing information, rescue operations, and taking prisoners. This may be a shock, but that was the world that I lived in and I loved it.
'So, why isn't he doing the same thing still?' you ask. The answer is simple. The company, or rather cause that we served more or less went out of business. As stupid as this may sound, that is more or less what happened. It was the cost of going somewhat legit. You see my father convinced the other council members that it would be more profitable to go public, and more or less become a mercenary company. A company that was willing to go where the law wouldn't, or couldn't go. A company that was big enough that no one was stupid enough to get in the way and try to put an end to the less than legal business that we did. But honestly, in the short time that we did operate this way, no one even hinted that they wanted to. We were the first such organization that had standards, one that turned down deals and jobs based on morels. We were one that did jobs that were sponsored by no one but ourselves. People who were powerful and otherwise couldn't be touched because they were so crooked we took out for no profit what so ever.
So why did this end? It was pretty much finalized when my parents died. They were among the deadliest people alive, my father considered by most to be the best ever. It took almost thirty, very very skilled, men to take him down alone; he killed twenty seven of them. The surviving three continued to live the rest of their very short lives breathing out of tubes and such. Anyway, after my family, the leader and face of the company was assassinated, things slowly fell apart. This didn't come as a surprise. Kakashi and my god father, Jiraiya, had warned me that this was coming, that it was inevitable. Obviously, there were a lot of people that didn't want us around.
So now, here I am, working for myself. I and my brother Garra, who also had his DNA tampered with, are making ends meet by being private detectives. It wasn't that hard for us to get our licenses'; we still have a lot of friends in the police and FBI. Well, friends that weren't crooked. These friends were very interested in helping us out if we continued to act on the principles' that our fathers founded.
Again, here I am, walking down some random main street in the bad part of the city on the way to a potential job, and hopefully a new client. As I look around, I get mixed looks of fear by those that recognize or have heard of those like me, and hateful neglect that everyone has towards everyone else.
Now that I'm out in the open, which is in the public eye, I don't usually bother with disguises or discretion while I'm out in the city. Of course, I always use the utmost stealth whenever I'm on a mission. Anyone that has heard of me and my kind could recognize what I am just by looking at me.
I dress like some anti-hero right out of detective or suspense film. I wear a heavy black and slightly orange trench coat with a high collar, combat boots, and dark camouflage pants. And of course I'm armed to the teeth with everything from knives, a short pump shotgun, and even a short sword that I'm not even bothering to hide. It's tied compactly around my lower back sticking out horizontally on my right. You would think that this would get in the way, but far from it. My favorite weapons are easily my two custom pistols. They are some serious man stoppers. In addition I also carry a flash bang and various grenades including ammo for all of the above. You can never be too prepared, at least not in my experience. To top all of this off I wear one of those old school gangster hats that were made famous in the thirties. When I first tried it on, I thought it looked corny, but Garra talked me into it, and I have to admit, he was right.
As I walk through this concrete jungle in the pouring rain in the middle of the night, I can't help but be disgusted and depressed. As I walk by a dirty movie theater a whore flashes me and tries to come on to me. As I ignore her completely and keep walking she gets pissed and starts yelling and screaming at me. Something about her being better than me, yelling in a futile and pathetic attempt to convince herself that she isn't the dried up dirty ugly bitch that she is.
I get another fear filled look from some punk trying to act hard. He will become a bad person; they are the only ones that have cause to fear me. The city itself is afraid of me; I've seen its true face, the streets around the world are extended gutters, and the gutters are filled with puss and blood. One day, when all of it breaks the dams and floods over; and all of the whores, politicians, and vermin are downing in their own filth, they will look to me and the few others that can do something about it, and they will cry out, 'Save Us!' in some desperate attempt at last minute redemption and salvation. I don't know what the others will do, but I'll probably respond with a whisper, 'no'.
Another fear filled look as I arrive at my destination, a simple house in what was once a good place to live.
"It's time to go to work." I speak out loud, listening in idle curiosity of the various tones that I pick up, a mixture of excitement, sorrow, and curiosity.
As I ring the doorbell I let myself be seen by the security camera I note that is supposed to be hidden. After a minute, a frail boy answers the door. I still can't get used to the look on his face. I've seen it before. It's the look of old seasoned warriors that weren't cut out for the job. That lifeless look should never have to be shouldered by a child. The boy's mother behind him is seemingly just full of life and joy, something isn't right here. But before I leave this place, for whatever reason, I will have answers. My conscience demands it.
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Well, what do you think? This was just something that I thought of off of the top of my head one day. If I get enough good reviews I may decide to continue with this little project of mine.
