Disclaimer: Both series used here belong to their respective creators.
Story idea: Wrath
Written by: Nai
Edit 1: One grammatical error and ffnet messed with our formatting. Fixed it. Enjoy people.
As you can see my sister suffers from OCD.
*pout* I prefer the term 'perfectionist' myself.
...
The gnarled wood of the trees was the white of bleached bone. Their leaves the color of ink.
They spread their roots deep into the black soil while their branches reached as if in supplication towards the obsidian sun that blazed in the white sky.
The sun climbed the dome of the sky bathing the colorless world in its nether worldly light. It reached its zenith and continued on till it was swallowed up by the horizon.
In the wake of its passing a true darkness settled upon the land. The sky, now dyed a velvet black, seemed to lighten slightly as the alabaster wood of the forest began to emit a soft luminescence.
The light breeze that picked up rustled the leaves, the sound strangely muted in the colorless realm.
Slowly the forest roused itself. The leathery rustle of delicate wings were heard as a skeletal horse with a reptilian visage and tail stepped out of the hollow of the tree it had been sheltering in to avoid the daylight.
It tasted the air with its forked tongue once, twice before it walked towards a low hanging branch to browse.
Several of its brethren drank the water of the nearby lake that reflected the moonless, starless sky upon its unnaturally flat surface that showed nary a ripple when the reptilian horses broke its surface.
A foal suddenly raised its head nickering nervously as the glow of the forest seemed to dim and the temperature dropped rapidly, a thin film of ice forming on the lake.
Out of the tree line ethereal figures appeared clad in loose flowing robes, cowls covering their faces, seemingly gliding across the ground as they made their way to the lake.
The foal settled as it noted the lack of concern in its elders, going back to grooming its wings.
One of the dementors bent and reached out with an emaciated finger tipped with a black claw to touch the ice. The thin film shattered at its touch allowing the creature to drink its fill.
Suddenly a pop rang out in the clearing, making the thestrals nicker and hiss in consternation, as every gaze was directed to the plume of white smoke that had appeared. The breeze shifted, blowing away the smoke revealing the first bit of color to grace the deadlands in the form of a boy with sun kissed hair and eye-catchingly orange clothes.
"What the hell?"
The thestrals' tongues flickered and their pupils dilated at the scent of the fresh blood dripping from Naruto's punctured thumb, their bloodlust awakened.
The dementors driven to a frenzy by the sheer amount of life force exuded by the boy gave a keening wail and threw themselves at him. The thestrals followed close behind, their beak like mouths glinting cruelly in the luminescence, their eyes hazed with bloodlust.
Naruto remained rooted to the spot inundated with wave upon wave of cold and despair. His legs were shaking as the proximity of the dementors dredged up every dark memory and feeling inside him.
He felt the loneliness and the hate engendered by the villagers' ostracism, he remembered the whispers of "demon" and "die" and watched Kakashi's lightning coated hand pierce the chest of a boy he had spent so little time with and yet who had influenced his creed so profoundly. He felt the despair welling up like a noxious sludge that was snuffing out his will to live. He wanted to… give… up.
His hand moved as ingrained muscle memory and subconscious survival instincts found his conscious mind lacking and took over his body. The kunai flew true, embedding itself to its hilt in the first onrushing dementor's chest.
Its agonized scream grated upon his entire being as he covered his ears to block out the terrible sound. Shaken out of his stupor, he took to the trees to avoid the monsters.
"As soon as I get back, that pervert is a dead man." He promised himself with gritted teeth.
...
Jiraiya of the Sannin was panicking.
The blonde handful had been pestering him for training and he had decided to begin instructing the legacy of his last apprentice a bit earlier than he had planned by passing on the toad summoning contract.
He had demonstrated the technique and coached the boy through the hand signs. When he had turned to detach the summoning scroll that he always carried on his back for Naruto to sign, he had felt Naruto's chakra spike.
He had turned around just in time to see the boy slam his hands on the ground and vanish in a puff of smoke.
Now the hyperactive brat could be anywhere depending upon which summon best matched his personality traits. He could be surrounded by hostile summon beasts or failing that arrive in some environment inimical to human life.
Jiraiya consoled himself with the thought that more likely than not the blonde menace was now surrounded by a pack of mules.
After all stubbornness and idiocy were his defining traits.
...
Naruto was leaping from branch to bone-white branch in a futile effort to lose his pursuers. The dementors were sapping his vast reserves of energy and willpower at an alarming rate and after receiving the experience of a diversionary clone that had been caught he was extremely motivated to avoid capture.
He shuddered at the memory of having every happy experience ripped from his soul. The thestrals were flying above the canopy, tracking him by the scent of his blood.
More and more of them were abandoning pursuit as his enhanced healing factor had closed the wound and the remaining blood had clotted and flaked off reducing the scent.
Over the course of the chase he had been steadily moving towards the center of the forest and he felt the trees thin out slightly as he came upon the majestic tree that dominated the clearing.
Despite the desperate circumstances he could not help but be awed by the sheer scale of the old banyan like tree. Its softly glowing branches spread out in all directions from its truly massive trunk. From each branch several prop roots hung down. Some had touched the ground and developed into thick trunks themselves, rivaling the girth of any of the Hashirama trees that made up Konoha's surrounding forest.
The tree exuded an aura of age and serenity. It seemed to pulse with renewed vigor at his approach as if somehow recognizing him.
The keening of a dementor too close behind him for comfort had him scrambling towards the ancient banyan. As soon as he entered its shadow, he felt a strange sensation not unlike water flowing down his body.
He turned back to find several of the creatures hovering at the very edge of the clearing before they left without even a whisper of sound.
He breathed a sigh of relief as the oppressive presence of the soul suckers vanished.
He trudged up to the main trunk of the tree and started looking for a way back to his own world. Halfway round the tree he stopped as he came across a gap in the wood. It looked suspiciously like a doorway so he let himself in.
The inside of the trunk was surprisingly dark considering that the walls were gleaming. The light seemed muted somehow as if someone or something had repressed it. It was the same effect as that of the dementors but taken up several notches.
As Naruto's eyes adjusted to the dimness he could make out a figure slouched in a stark stone chair at the end of the chamber. The being was humanoid and over ten feet tall at first glance.
He felt nothing from the being. No chakra, no intent and no motion. Not even the rise and fall of a chest. He was about to conclude that the being was dead when it opened its eyes languidly, freezing him in place.
His world contracted and all he could see or think of were those silver eyes set in black sclera and their dispassionate gaze. Crushed under the weight of his mortality he realized that in front of that being he paled into insignificance.
He was nothing to it, could do nothing to it and do nothing to affect its actions.
"Human. Your soul has been tempered in the pyre of Death time and time again. I shall allow you speech in my presence in respect for your mettle. Speak your wish."
The otherworldly voice resonated in the chamber, devoid of emotion or inflection. Crushed by the pressure of its undivided attention Naruto sank to his knees on the smooth wooden floor.
Finally gathering his scattered wits he spoke faintly, "S-summoning jutsu."
"Know you what you request, human? You seek to pay for your death with your own blood? I am the Shinigami. Summoning me will cost you your very existence in the impure world."
"I can see that to protect those you consider dear you would consider your demise a fair exchange. Then come."
The world seemed to shift around Naruto and he was suddenly kneeling within arm's reach of the Shinigami. The aura of darkness seemed to fade and he could make out the features of Death incarnate.
The God had long white hair similar to Jiraiya's and its greyish purple skin was covered with black tattoos. Its visage was demonic with a mouth full of sharp teeth and it was wearing a loose white haori cinched at the waist with a thin strip of white cloth leaving most of its tattooed chest exposed. It wore black hakama pants with a ceremonial knife attached to one side.
The Shinigami reached out with its right hand wrapped in prayer beads and tapped the immobile Naruto's forehead with a black clawed forefinger.
"I shall allow you the leeway to call upon the beings who owe me allegiance. My thestrals and dementors will answer your call and while the dementors will not harm you as long as you bear the mark of my favor, their obedience will have to be earned. The thestrals are the prize steed of the deadlands and if you treat them well they might allow you the honor of flight on the wings of Death. "
Seals flowed out like water from the point of contact and arranged themselves in a rough approximation of their positions on the Shinigami itself on Naruto's body before sinking into his skin and imprinting on his very soul.
The sheer agony of having his soul tampered with shut down his mind and he disappeared in a puff of smoke, banished back to where he had come from.
...
Naruto had died more than any person in human history. Every single time he created a shadow clone, he was creating another copy of himself with the same personality and will to live that he himself possessed and sending it out to die.
When the clone dispelled it sent back every experience it had obtained in its short life including the brief moment of terror at its impending oblivion before it ceased to exist. This was why shadow clones were so underutilized compared to elemental clones that did not return memories when they dispelled.
No sane person could stand the feeling of dying again, and again and yet again.
Naruto had always created upwards of ten clones and used them for the same tasks in fights. Thus even when they dispelled he could not recognize that he was receiving their memories as they were so similar to what he himself had experienced during that time.
Yet he knew what it felt like to be lethally stabbed in the heart, neck, eye, lung and so on even though the original had never experienced the same (obviously).
Naruto had died hundreds of thousands of times and never regretted it even once because each death had served a purpose. They had kept his dear ones safe or made him stronger and there was nothing the Uzumaki wouldn't do for his loved ones.
...
The Shinigami was immortal but it was forced to deal with mortality over and over as it assimilated the souls of all those who died in the impure world before allowing them entry into the pure world. This was why it had identified with Naruto and agreed to the summoning pact.
As it leant back in its seat after sending Naruto away to catch up with the backlog the few minutes of interaction had created, it wondered how Naruto would utilize his new skill.
It was pleasantly surprised to find that its usual apathy about human matters was absent.
...
Authors' note:
This idea came upon us with all the subtlety of a train wreck. Give us reviews about what you thought about the concept and whether you would like to read more about it. If this receives a good enough response we are thinking of prioritizing this over our other ongoing work "Of Illusions and Shadows".
So rate and review people. You know the drill. :)
NaiWrath out.