Author's Notes: Thanks for coming to check out this story! With that said, this story is very different from what I usually write. It's a request fic from Professor SEELE 15. This story has been rated M for the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!
Rating: M
Warnings: Violence, Gore, Major Character Death... You have been warned!
Chapter 1
It is said that up at the highest mountain's peak, there prospered a sect of peculiar interests. A small group of people they were, and their beliefs were even less popular than they were. They saw the power and terror the tailed demons invoked, they saw the destruction they could unleash with one fell swoop of their mighty tails, and they were left in awe by the chaos they could spread. They hid in the shadows, waiting for a day, a moment, a chance to strike and liberate what they thought must be rightfully free.
-oOo-
He arrives at the scene too late, as per usual. He half-expects to see a blonde laid out in the open, covered in blood, heart ruthlessly torn out, chest burnt by the electrifying heat of his own created technique and a triumphant, retreating back with jet black hair flying in all directions as the enemy-and it's hard to think of him that way- swiftly slips away.
He half-expects to see a blonde, heavily panting, yet grinning from ear-to-ear, leaning over an unconscious boy with black hair. The two look winded, but he knows they'll be fine, and that's the only thought that keeps him going.
What he doesn't expect, however, is arrive at this scene. Pakuun is beside him. His faithful summon insists that this is the place, and Kakashi is inclined to believe him. The area displays the telling marks of a battlefield, but he looks around and doesn't find what, or rather who, he's looking for. They're both gone. He thinks to himself and passes a critical eye over the landscape again.
He ignores the wild thumping of his heart and heads back to the village. Kakashi has never felt more powerless than he has in that moment.
-oOo-
It's with a start that he realizes he isn't exactly where he should be. It's by the shivering of his body and his shallowly drawn breaths that he knows he's cold. It's seeing the iron bars, darker than the shadows around them and standing tall among the emptiness, that tells him how wrong things have gone.
His first thought is frightening, tinged by the biting edges of deep betrayal. They're scared of me… Did he maybe use the bastard fox's chakra too much? They're so, so scared of me… He used it to bring his teammate and friend and rival and whatever back home, so why? They dumped me here, didn't they?
He remembers a young boy, several years of age, all alone, cold and afraid, just like him at this moment. Alone because no one wanted him, cold because he didn't have the warmth of a family nor a mother nor a father, and afraid because no one looked his way twice without an insult at the tip of their tongues or a glare as icy as a winter's breeze. It takes him a moment to remember that the boy in his imagination is not fake, and another to remember that that's him, and those are his memories.
It takes him another moment to remember that that boy is not him anymore and a longer one to remember why.
The loneliness, cold and fear all crumbled into nothingness when he met them: his team and makeshift family. All three seep into his bones and shake his nerves with a vengeance. His loneliness becomes more pronounced as he sees nothing but bars and walls all around him, even with the darkness surrounding him. Where's Sakura-chan? And even idiotic, late Kaka-sensei is fine! I'll even be nice to Sasuke-teme!
The cold he feels drains him physically and emotionally. He looks down at his body and hugs himself when he sees only a piece of cloth, wrapped around his lower part same as a fundoshi. The iciness he feels shooting through his body makes his shivers evolve into something more, and he's not entirely sure they're just shivers. His shoulders shake and his eyes grow hot as a pressure builds behind them, but no tears fall because I saw this coming. I did. I did and I didn't care.
The fear comes later when some still sensible part of his brain argues no, no… they would never do this to me. They wouldn't! I know them! However, if he isn't in Konoha, and the villagers and his loved ones weren't the ones to lock him up in here… then where is he and who is it who put him here?
Naruto can't answer his questions, but he doesn't panic just yet. It's natural that he can't, he argues. He's been the dead last in class ever since day one at the Academy. He wouldn't suddenly grow up and have all the answers like Shikamaru seamlessly has. Nor would he study lots and lots until his head almost pops, and then, he'd just know things like Sakura-chan does.
Naruto wants to counter the cold. He tries to use his chakra to warm himself up like Kakashi-sensei showed him once, but it doesn't work, and he can't figure out why.
The sound of a heavy, metal door opening with a dull thud makes his perplexed head swivel upwards to where he thinks is the source. His eyes water slightly as the bright light from outside illuminates the darkness he found himself in. It's only a second before the iron gate closes with an equally loud clunk.
Naruto narrows his eyes at the silhouette he can make out for the second the light envelopes a part of the cell, which isn't all that big, he realizes with a jolt, "Who're you?" He asks first because he wants to know, and something he can work with has finally come. The figure that moves in the dark fumbles around and Naruto can hear something click before a bright light eliminates the room. His eyes blink several times as they try to adjust to the sudden light.
Once he's more or less used to the new lighting, he looks around and sees for the first time that the only cell around is his, and the only thing there besides himself is the bald man who stands in front of his locked door.
He finds the situation eerily familiar and it's only a moment later that he realizes why.
In another, previous moment, he was in a position just like this. He stood at a locked cell's door and looked inside into the eyes of a huge demon fox. Even with its jaw open and its teeth a pearly white, with its eyes a deep, angry red and its ears long and alert, Naruto was not afraid because the demon, bastard fox was on the other side of the gate, and Naruto was safe from its strong, long claws and its pointy, sharp teeth.
He finds the situation eerily familiar, but his position is all wrong, and why can't things go back to normal already?
The bald man doesn't answer his question. He looks at Naruto from the other side of the bars, safe from the demon-fox brat, Naruto thinks bitterly, just like I was safe from the Kyuubi.
"What'd ya want?" Naruto asks, his blue eyes scrunched up as he tries to figure out the man's motives just by studying him enough, but he isn't Sasuke-teme with his freakish Sharingan eyes, and no matter how much he looks, he will never really see.
Then, the man does what Naruto would have never done for the Kyuubi. A set of keys jingles in the man's hand. His eyes warily follow an invisible trail starting from his drawn up knees, his slowly heaving chest to reach his scrutinizing eyes. The man's hand are hesitant and shaky as he inserts the right key in its hole. As he turns the key to open the cell, his hands grow firmer, surer and faster.
"Follow me," The man's voice is deep yet careful, firm but not enough to send Naruto scurrying the other way. His eyes have lost their wary edge, replaced by a sudden tension and a hasty sort of apprehension. He looks at Naruto the same as any of the Leaf's villagers. Hatred and a feeling of promise Naruto fears are coiled somewhere deep within.
However, even as he obliges and follows, Naruto can see the difference between this man's stare and the villagers' glares as clearly as the morning sun's rays. While the villagers directed their heated glares at him, Uzumaki Naruto: the demon-fox brat, this man clearly directs the same glower at him, Uzumaki Naruto: proud Genin of the Leaf.
Naruto can tell because he's not Shikamaru, not Sakura-chan nor Sasuke-teme. He can tell because he's Naruto, and knowing people has always been his only forte, the only skill that put him apart from everyone else, the only talent that didn't make the 'dead last' quite so useless, at least up until his graduation.
The man forcefully puts Naruto's hands behind his back. Naruto feels the cold bite of steel on his skin and knows he's being tied. He feels the sharp pain and the blood drip down his hand a second later and realizes the chains are not just chains, but are riddled with some sort of pointy iron teeth that are as sharp as kunai and hurt just as much.
The man leads the way out of the cell and into a long alleyway. It's warmer than the cell, and Naruto doesn't complain. The man ignores Naruto's questions, all thirty one of them, as they don't stop for a second (every time Naruto paused, the man is quick to turn his icy glare back at him, and Naruto is moving again, barely stopping the shudder from passing through his body, even as the chains around his wrists pull and gnaw at his skin as the man pulls harder and harder and harder).
They're outside well after Naruto has grown bored of the tedious, continuous march. However, the sight of shiny, white snow glowing in the rays of soft light doesn't help Naruto figure out where he is, but he can tell he's somewhere high up, higher than he's ever been before. They walk for a long time in Naruto's perception. They keep walking well after his legs start feeling numb and his skin and fundoshi stop being such great defenses against the icy wind. Naruto has the energy and mind to ask only thirty four more questions before he grows tired of being ignored and his bones shake with the strain of keeping him on his feet.
The pain from his wrists grows numb along with all feeling in his body. The cold makes him painless, emotionless, but his captor hears none of his unspoken complaints nor his hidden whines and urgent inquiries. Naruto focuses on the white vapor that appears in front of his face every time he breathes, he likes it and giddily breathes in more than is needed just to see it grow larger in front of him. His brain decided it is okay to stop forcing headache-inducing thoughts into him a while ago, and Naruto feels all the more grateful to it.
Their destination is reached far long after Naruto decides it's okay to let the man drag him there, leaving a long trail of coppery, crimson blood behind. As the man forces him back to his feet for the last time, Naruto glances at the large, beige, intricately-decorated gate in front of him before he looks back the way they came while the man searches for something within the pockets of his warm-looking robes.
As he looks back now, the trail, covered by snow and his own red blood, doesn't look so long. He can still see the building from which they emerged, and it's not so far away. Naruto only has a moment before the man is pulling at his chains again, forcing him inside and into the domed building they have come to.
There are torches on the walls. Naruto feels warmer than he has since he woke up in that prison. He counts the warmth as a blessing and relishes in the light emitted by the fire burning brightly at either side of the wall. He loses count of the torches on wall by the time he reaches thirty six, as it is then that he sees movement from further up front.
The door at the end of the hallway creaks open slightly, and Naruto can make out another person, also clad in warm robes, on the other side.
The man leading him quickens his pace, and they reach the door swiftly. Heat colors Naruto's cheeks a deep red as his embarrassment grows deep. How is he supposed to feel when a number of people are watching him, almost like a hawk would its prey, and he is wearing nothing but a fundoshi? It's not a good feeling, Naruto now knows by experience. That feeling becomes even worse when their curious stares and harmless whispers turn into heated, hating glares and harsh, mocking murmurs that rock Naruto's world.
Naruto doesn't know when he is moved to the center of the room. He is too busy screwing his eyes shut. When he opens them again, a man, who Naruto thinks might be a leader or something, is chanting, and Naruto only hears the rest of his speech, "-Naruto, Jinchuriki of the Hidden Leaf, Jailer of the Esteemed Kyuubi,"
Esteemed? Naruto wonders to himself and listens to his gut feeling. He doesn't interrupt the man's speech, "The soul shall be purified. The body shall be broken. The prison shall be destroyed. And the reign of the mightiest tailed beast shall begin once again!" The man concludes and the hall erupts into a murmur of soft-spoken cheers. The words go over Naruto's head, and he understands nothing of it.
"Destroy the Jailer!"
"Kill the Jinchuriki!"
"Get rid of the Demon!"
It's then that Naruto understands what they plan to do with him. Needless to say, he doesn't like it.
"Eh?!" Naruto's first reaction would be comical even to him under any other circumstances, "I'm not the Demon! You've got it all wrong! It's the Kyuubi who's the tailed beast! He's the Demon!" The murmurs become angry and the suggestions turn infinitely more gruesome.
"O'Kyuubi-sama! How dare the Jailer speak as such?! Burn him, burn him!"
Naruto did not know of the sect that lived high up in the mountains. He did not know of their odd beliefs and love for tailed beasts. He did not know they worshipped the beasts he viewed as demons, nor did he know of their hate for him: the Jinchuriki, the Jailer, the Demon in their eyes.
Author's Notes: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked the first chapter! Please tell me what you thought of this.
Until next time!