Disclaimer: I own Naruto. Do you?
Why is this story not titled Bringer of Death? Does it not sound overwhelmingly more badass? It does, doesn't it?
I thought about it, but ended up dismissing BOD as too blunt, too irreconcilable with the image of Naruto I find myself describing. Icy Gray, on the other hand, is two adjectives strung together. You don't know what it's trying to portray. I might be talking about the texture of Naruto's kunai, deadly and precise. Or gray could veil Naruto's eyes as he sheathes that kunai in flesh, each mark inflicted on others, a wound upon his own soul.
Muahahahaha!
But if you think BOD sounds better, let me know, and I'll change it.
Chapter 1: One Day
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Naruto unconsciously tightened the grip on his side each time weight came down on his right leg. A row of ribs were broken, splintered through his skin. The wound registered faintly like tiny insect bites across the side of his stomach, but at his current rate through the woods, it wouldn't be long before the sobs broke through.
Not for lack of trying. Naruto knew some techniques for blocking pain that were crazy effective, that could numb out sensation from the neck down. But pain was just an indicator, the messenger boy of the biological realm, so to speak. While killing the messenger boy proved immensely satisfying, it didn't remove the problem squirming around his innards.
Fuck.
Ow. Double Fuck.
Naruto reached over his shoulder for the throbbing mass of new hurt, pulled out the offending kunai, and tossed it whistling backwards with only a slight stumble.
The hitch in step nearly threw him off the branch. He jammed his fingers into the rough bark of the tree and turned his momentum left onto the next thick bough.
He paused, frowned at the vague pull in his ribs. The kunai had broken his concentration, and, logcially, he should be spasming in a heap now on the forest floor. Probing cautiously with a finger, he made a circling motion, than rough jabs towards the protruding bits.
No pain.
That was good, he supposed, in a convenient sense. He had enough problems on his plate without having to feel the whole body aching with each step.
But medically bad. No pain meant dead nerves. At some point, when the adrenaline cut short and the new neurons budded forth, he'd be left with all that pain to deal with at once. The human body was messed up.
The terrain ahead opened up into the rocky beginnings of bare hillsides, with only scraggly bush for any conceivable cover. He squinted, hard.
Light.
Open space, then a dizzy climb up an inwardly-slanting rock surface.
Fuck.
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Wind whistled past the sleek four man squad, carrying past leaves and scabs of bark scraped off each push from a branch.
There was little need for soft steps, Frog noted absently, while in close pursuit. Especially when tailing single prey, it was useful to thunk down a bit harder on each tree, expend some effort to put flocks of shrieking birds in flight.
Make it known to the target that someone was behind him somewhere. His hands grow slippery, he gets a bit sloppier with each muted echo of pursuit. He makes a mistake. And that's the shinobi game.
This target didn't even need to be given the same consideration. Half the fun was mostly over, left in the blood trails across the greens and browns. For the hunters, it was now time to simply pick up the pieces.
Frog allowed himself a tight grin. After this was home, forty miles and half a day's journey away to the west. After this was beer, and money, and women. Maybe all at the same time. He'd have to consider this new dark fetish of his, and invit- his eyes widened.
"Wire!" It came out a bare rasp, a second too late.
Raven's foot wandered an inch too far.
The ANBU awkwardly turned his forward momentum into a desperate sideways tackle, just as the glint of metal grew prominent, and the trip wire thrummed tight.
The team dispersed. Frog took a lower perch on the same tree with his abashed mate sprawled on an upper limb.
Silence, cold and tense. The dull roar of the wind softened into the soft whisper of a breeze.
Frog extended all senses through the foliage, then the underbrush. He kept a mental count to five, the standard delay fuse for an Iwa tag. Then up to twelve, the Kiri standard. Beads of sweat formed on his palm, percolated through the rough cloth of the fingerless gloves.
Numbers. Focus on the numbers.
The wind whistled innocuously past, setting the trees to rustle and sway. Frog dug his heels in on the bark, noted absently the restless shifting of his younger compatriot on a higher branch. Something to tease about later. Hell, he didn't feel too good himself.
Frog narrowed his focus on the wire. It had long stopped throbbing from Raven's first disturbance, and now it didn't do much, stubbornly resisting the breeze.
...
Frog adjusted the aim on the kunai.
...
Sweat trickled off his brow.
...
Now, this was getting ridiculous.
Raven gave a clenched grin. "Probably didn't have enough time to set up anything, right? Rolled out the wire and heard us coming behind him."
Tension drained slowly away.
Frog pulled off a glove, and used the wet cloth to wipe away the perspiration on his brow. He felt a drop of liquid splash on his forehead, grunted, "Don't worry 'bout it, Rave. Happens to everyone."
A shaky laugh.
He mopped up the last of the sweat, tugging on his hair a few times to numb the prickling adrenaline high.
Change of plan. He wanted lots of beer, maybe two women. Slippery, wet delight.
Reaching up, Frog slapped Raven with his glove—froze.
Straightened out to full height on the perch, Frog was presented with a graphic view of the stump of Raven's severed thigh, oozing blood with faintly gurgling bubbles.
A leaf alighted gently. It made to swirl away, shuddered briefly as if in indecision, but stayed stuck in the sticky mess.
Frog automatically dipped chakra-infused fingers down into the wound, ignoring the sharp gasp of surprise from his comrade. He met Raven's glazed, curious eyes.
"This is going to hurt."
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Naruto's fingers twined around five, brief seals. He couldn't remember their names.
He gathered chakra slowly to his lungs, felt the gradual trickling of a depleted reserve struggling to meet new demands.
The comforting, consuming warmth of fire centered in his mind, and he relaxed his grip to allow the controlled chakra flow to pulse in tune.
Naruto drew out the seals in smooth succession, brought the last to his lips, and took the cue to intone solemnly, "Katon Housenka." Honestly though, if he had his way, it'd be called the kiss-of-death no jutsu. He giggled a bit to himself, his chakra twisting in strange shapes in his throat. Kiss of death, get it? 'Cause his lips were involved. And people were gonna die.
Chakra gave a final, decisive pulse.
Bursts of fire erupted from his lips, spewed in a wide angle. On touching ground, some spurted out in tufts of loose dirt, but most caught on the dry vegetation and expanded quickly outward, releasing a thick, black smoke.
The gelatinous mass rose quickly upward, yet lingered beneath the sloped, curving roof of the cliff-side. It expanded horizontally, following the line of the rock face.
Naruto plunged into the smoke.
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Tiger thoughtfully fingered the taut wire, physically with a gloved hand and mentally by a few rough prods of his chakra.
Up close, it wasn't difficult to identify the wind element imbued in the thin steel.
He looked across the clearing to Raven's limp body sprawled on the forest floor, Frog bent over the nebulous green glow of healing chakra.
"How is he?"
Frog grunted in acknowledgement. "The leg's back on, but he won't be using it for a while."
Tiger clucked his tongue. It wasn't out of motherly disapproval.
It'd be himself lying their unconscious if he'd taken point. Their target was no pushover, even when half dead.
It was instead a signal for Rat and him to peel off and continue pursuit.
Both vanished.
Leaves swirled into the vacuum, the space where two men had been moments before.
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Naruto drew in a deep breath. Coughed.
A lot more air went in than he was prepared for, whistling by and into his nostrils as he sped across the trees.
He gave his ribs an experimental poke, grinned faintly at the slight twinge. After the agonizing business of shoving bones back in place, Naruto had the benefit of being one of the few shinobi capable of waiting out his wounds.
His smile waned as the chill of the fading day bit into his bones. It replaced the constant, sharp pains of traveling in bad shape, burrowing deeper into his body.
Screams.
In his head? Naruto wondered idly.
Explosions.
Ah, maybe not then.
He picked up the pace.
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Tiger regarded the open range with a clinical eye. The smoke was a problem, given the character of the one who made it. Poisonous?
"Taichou, smoke's legit. Scrub fire hereabout tend to let off that dark colour." Rat replaced the SP counter back into his utility pouch. It was a useful little device, gave off a dark sheen at contact with poisons. Didn't come with standard issue, but then Rat hoarded a bulk of these specialized equipment on his person, little odds and ends that came in useful once in a while.
Blow it away then, just to be safe. His hands came together in familiar seals, mind shaping the fluid tumult of wind. Rat saw the beginning of the sequence and gave a nod. He moved a few paces to right, to establish a crossfire.
Or was it a cover line? Tiger couldn't remember. Whatever the term, the relative position of the two ANBU made it so that whatever enemy came barreling out of the smoke, he and Rat could steam the punk from both sides. Yeah.
"Fuuton: Daitoppa!"
Whirlwind chaos erupted from the last seal, swept the landscape clear of smoke and whatever else was left over from the last smoldering embers of the fire. The jutsu chased gray tendrils up the cliff side, leaving a shimmery haze of heat trapped near the top.
Burnt dirt.
And not much of anything else. Rat let out a slow breath. He squinted at the captain.
"We go up?"
"Give it a few minutes."
They waited out the silence by staring at the ravaged hillside. Whatever green there had been was now covered over by oppressive grays and blacks, both from the aftermath of the fire and from the pooling shadows cast by the tall, slanting cliff face.
Rat felt a drop of liquid splash down on his cheek. It wasn't blood.
It was worse.
He cursed.
"Gonna rain. Gonna be a bastard."
Tiger looked over his shoulder to look at the black thundercloud borne up by the autumn wind. It crawled in dark rolls, trailing a curtain of rain, and as they looked, the cloud rumbled and flashed fire.
"That thing'll wipe out his trail better than any trap or jutsu," Rat continued grimly.
Tiger nodded. "Then we go." He paused, regarding the cliff with a critical eye. "I'll go first, give you a call if I get up there ok."
He gathered chakra to his feet, expelled it in a controlled burst. As chakra ballooned down into the ground, his body cannoned upward, taking him well above the level of the cliff.
Tiger clenched his eyes shut as his trajectory took him through the heat haze and the last lingering vestiges of smoke.
His eyes opened. Widened.
Explosive tags. At least a dozen of them, scattered haphazardly on the edge of the cliff.
Curiously enough, none of them were lit.
As the arc of his jump sent him hurtling closer, Tiger quickly ran through the types of triggers available to most tags.
The standard ones, of course, could be activated by infusing some degree of chakra into the tag, the actual amount dictated by the desired delay period. Then the paper starts burning, rate controlled by chakra imbued, until it reaches some critical seal central to the grid pattern.
Thus Kablowie.
Thus death.
These looked like the standard ones.
Tiger snorted. No fucking way.
Alright, pressure triggers were pretty popular with Kumo nins, right? Explodes on impact or any kind of blunt force contact. Theoretically speaking, this was the most likely choice considering his imminent landing, but the tags were spaced out widely enough, so that he wouldn't have to worry much about stumbling on one by accident. Unless of course…
He hadn't blown away the smoke. Came down blind.
Son of a bitch!
Tiger grinned. Not bad. A bit naïve trying to rely on the smoke screen, but not bad at all.
Both feet descended, found the narrow space between tags. He called out a warning back to Rat and gave him the thumbs up.
The tag near his left foot started fizzling.
Tiger gaped. Even as he moved to throw himself back off the cliff, he knew it was too late-- the fuse was too short.
His eyes widened. He screamed.
"DON'T EXPEL CHAKRA TO CUSHION—"
His world erupted into an inferno.
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The first stout drops of rain plopped on the ground out of the sky. Water drummed hollowly on the wet trees across the forest and moved out over the flat grasslands. Fat blades of grass turned sluggishly in the wind, and the thunder boomed up high above, and the lightning shattered the air into pieces.
A slight drizzle sifted down out of the night sky and wreathed around the blocky border outpost, hissing in the lanterns sealed on each side of the wooden gate and making the dirt of the road leading up the gate fluid with mud.
Naruto slipped through the gates.
The town was a shabby affair, with rough houses packed tightly together, second and third stories projecting out over an uneven center street. Naruto walked easily through the dirt lane with soft steps muffled by the mud and training.
A stray dog with little else on its mind slinked out of the shadow to bark at him. Naruto turned his head slightly and gave the animal a long, level stare. The yipping trailed off and it cringed back, tail between its legs. Naruto bore down on the wet dog purposefully, driving it back a few steps. The dog wined, then yelped, turned, and fled.
Suprisingly, he felt better.
There was a snort.
Naruto sighed. He tossed up a hand as well, for good measure.
"Alright, I'm late."
A young girl stepped out into the rain swept street from a side alley. "Why didn't you send word that you were coming?"
"Word got caught." He made a snatching motion in the air. "Tortured. Kinda the reason I'm behind schedule in the first place." He frowned. "What are you doing up so late? I promised your mother I'd make sure you got your sleep. You're going to get me in trouble, Haku."
"I've been waiting for you, Naru-kun." Her tone became arch, dark eyes wicked.
"You're not stacked enough to be —" Naruto dodged the crumbling brick, hands making a warding off gesture. "Alright, I get it."
He dipped a hand into the pack slung across his back, fished out several scrolls, and gave them to her.
"Here," he instructed. "Talk to Sarutobi, and we'll see if we can make some arrangements."
She nodded, traded for the scrolls with a small pouch. "Get a room. Stay off the streets for a few days."
Naruto took the pouch, but shook his head. "Can't. Got stuff to do. People to see." He waved off her protests.
"I've got it under control, Haku. I know my own limits. And I can go on a bit more."
She was silent for a bit. Just to let him know. Then her eyes softened. "Take care of yourself."
They stood silent for a while, enjoying the quiet company of one another. Naruto twitched first.
The movement drew her eyes across to him, away from the handful of silvery stars in the night sky, the shiniest of the bunch to make it past the clouds.
He was gone.
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AN/ And that's the chap.
Good? Bad? So-so? Personally, I think I managed to pull off 'badass' pretty well. Maybe a little description-introspection heavy. Maybe a little bit silly in tone. Maybe a little bit too dark?
It's a buffet. Grab a bite of each.
Hollah.