A Touch of Death

By: I.K.A. Valian

Chapter One: Soul Blade

Summary

Uzumaki Naruto was blessed three times the day he was born. His father blessed him with the power of human sacrifice. His mother blessed him with her love. The Shinigami blessed him with a shard of his own soul.

A Soul Blade.

"Stay away from the demon boy."

"Don't go near that monster."

"If you get near that cursed thing, you'll die."

"Why do they let something like him walk around freely?"

"How can the Hokage let that menace near our children?"

"It's a good thing he's such a loser, he has no chance to become a ninja."

"I hope they fail him, even if he could pass. Can you imagine something like that becoming a ninja?"

"Something like him… I can't understand how they let a de-"

"Quiet! Speaking of that forbidden."

A young blond boy's haunted, longing gaze watched the crowd of other children before him. As the blond slumped sideways on a rope swing, he gripped one of the rope supports with a deathlike grip while he watched. The blank gaze almost made it seem like he wanted to cry, but no tears came.

The crowd of children mixed and mingled with adults, parents and other important figures. The children all showed off their shiny forehead protectors. New, freshly made, never-before-experienced-death forehead protectors. The parents all ooh'ed and ahh'ed at their grinning children. This was the result of five years of hard study and work, after all. Everyone was proud of their children. Proud of the next generation of shinobi of the Leaf. Conversely, everyone was happy and proud that the 'Dead Last', 'Demon Boy', 'Monster', 'Blond Menace', 'Prankster King' Uzumaki Naruto had not passed.

As Naruto sat on the swing, he watched the crowd and listened to the whispers of conversations. Many people were congratulating their kids on graduating. Many still were passing words of relief and barely contained spite for the blond. He couldn't hear it all, just the pieces that filtered through the wind to his ears. But he had heard it all before, so he could fill in the gaps.

"Hey."

Naruto looked up at the man that had appeared next to the swing. It was the silver-haired teacher named Mizuki. To Naruto, Mizuki had often given him the same cold looks that other villagers had given him, but not all the time. It had confused the boy, at first, but eventually he concluded that Mizuki must simply be trying to overcome whatever he felt to get to know the 'real' Naruto. During the test, even Iruka, supposedly one of the people who tried to be nice to him, had it out for him. Mizuki actually stood up for him, despite Iruka overruling the other man and failing Naruto anyway. That voice of support meant something to Naruto.

"Mizuki-sensei?"

"You do know Iruka wasn't trying to be mean earlier, right?" Mizuki asked. His expression seemed to be trying to convey his earnestness. Naruto simply shrugged in response. "He just doesn't want you to go out into the world unprepared. The life of a ninja is really hard." Seeing that his words were having little to no effect, Naruto continued to gaze blankly ahead of him, Mizuki changed tactics. "Like you, Iruka is an orphan. He's come to see you as something of a little brother, you know. If he let you graduate without being absolutely sure you could survive, you could die." Naruto glanced up at him with the curious look only young children can pull off convincingly. Mizuki smiled back. "I don't think he'd be able to forgive himself if that happened."

"Yeah…" Naruto looked down at the dirt and swiped his foot through the loose soil absentmindedly. There was a well worn rut in the ground where his foot had been swiping it for years now. "It's just… I really wanted to pass this time. You know?"

Naruto could feel Mizuki nodded in understanding, even if he couldn't see it. "I know exactly what you mean. I failed my Chunin Exam twice myself." Hearing this, Naruto turned to stare up at Mizuki with surprised shock. Mizuki nodded with a kind smile. "Yep, it's true. I really, really wanted to be Chunin those first two times, but I failed then too. If I had known about the secret way of becoming Chunin the first time, I wouldn't have had to suffer being put into the hospital all those times from working so hard to win."

"You… wait? Secret way?" Naruto fully turned to face Mizuki, his face lighting up with an emotion that couldn't be quantified. Hope, desperation, and something in between. "There's a secret way to become a Chunin? Then maybe there's a secret way to become a Genin! You gotta-" Mizuki's eyes widened comically. He motioned for Naruto to follow him before he turned and walked away as fast as he could without making it seem like he was running. "Wait! Mizuki-sensei!"

Naruto hopped off of the swing and chased after his teacher. As soon as the two were out of earshot of the rest of his class, Mizuki smacked Naruto upside the head. "Dummy," Mizuki said. "Don't go shouting about secret things like that! They're called secret for a reason!"

"Oh… Sorry," Naruto's shoulders slumped for half a second before he started shivering. He looked up at Mizuki with shaking clenched fists and bright eyed enthusiasm. "Mizuki-sensei! You gotta tell me about the secret way to become a Genin!"

"I don't know…" Mizuki muttered. He stood up taller and looked about the empty academy training yard. From the way that he looked like he was about to walk away again, Naruto felt his heart quicken. "I don't-"

"Please!" Naruto begged. "I'll do anything! Please! You just gotta let me try!"

Mizuki sighed dramatically and slumped forward. "Alright. This isn't going to be as easy as the other test. If you tell anyone about this, even Iruka, then you won't just fail to become a Genin, you'll be kicked out of the academy and never have a chance to become a Ninja ever again."

Naruto's eyes hardened. "No way! I'll do it! No way I'll get caught!"

"Good," Mizuki said with an approving nod. "Here's what you gotta do…"

That night...

"Naruto?" Naruto froze, feeling the blood drain from his head. He slowly turned around and found the Old Man Hokage standing there. He held a pipe in one hand and looked half asleep. It was pretty late at night, though, so that wasn't too surprising. Not to mention, Naruto was in the man's home. With a curious glance at the scroll tied securely to Naruto's back, the old man asked, "What on earth are you doing in my home at this time of night?"

"Uh…" Naruto's voice shook but his resolve hardened. He quickly put his fingers into the appropriate hand-seal and shouted, "Take this, Sexy Jutsu!"

The ANBU standing guard outside only heard the Hokage scream, "Aaaaauuuuggghhh!" They'd been on the old leader's guard detail for weeks now and nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. They also didn't really need to guard inside the home, because honestly, anyone who went up against the Hokage, a man known as the God of Shinobi, deserved the reprisal they received. When they arrived inside, they were stunned silent. They didn't know how they were supposed to react when they found their Hokage on the ground, unconscious, with blood streaming from his nose like a pair of broken faucets. Normally, they'd call a doctor, but the look of absolute happiness and pleasure on the old man's face made them wonder how he could have been defeated so. It was simply baffling to the poor, overworked ANBU. One of them eventually went for a doctor.

Naruto ran into the forest clearing. He slowed to a stop next to one of the trees and leaned against it as he heaved and gasped for air. Despite his labored breathing and the sweat sticking to his face and soaking his clothes, Naruto was grinning like a loon.

"I always knew that the Old Man was a pervert!" Naruto said. His labored breathing quickly vanished as his energy came back to him with a burst, just like always. As he pulled the scroll off of his back and laid it on the ground, he laughed insidiously. "The wrinkled old fart should just give me the hat now!"

Naruto looked at the scroll and figured he had to wipe blood across the big red seal to open it, just like Iruka had explained in class. He took out one of his kunai and cut his thumb. With a quick wipe, his blood was streaked across the seal on the scroll. Just as fast, the blood was sucked into the seal and the scroll loosened.

"Hah, nothing to it!" Naruto crowed triumphantly. He unrolled the scroll and started reading the first entry, which looked more like an item seal than anything else, if not much more elaborate than the one Iruka had them practice with in class. Unable to make heads or tails of the design, Naruto looked to the few words written beneath the seal. "Uzumaki Naruto Soul Blade. What the heck? What's a soul blade? And why is my name in here? Eh, whatever. I'll just find out."

Naruto repeated the procedure for opening the scroll. He cut his finger and wiped it across the big elaborate seal. With a small pop and an explosion of chakra smoke, the seal gave up its contents. When the smoke cleared, Naruto found a sheathed katana.

"A sword?" Naruto picked up the sword and pulled it out of the sheath. Nothing in particular looked out of the ordinary or special about the sword. There were no cool engravings on the blade like he'd seen in Manga or the movies. The blade collar was so badly tarnished that it was black. The black guard was still in good condition, but the wood looked old and dried out. The handle looked rather ratty with the old cloth wrapped around it in the traditional braid pattern. The blade itself looked fine, though even to his untrained eye, it was easy to see the blade needed a cleaning. "This thing's a piece of junk! I wonder why it had my name on it? Eh… It doesn't matter. I need to get a jutsu down or I'll never pass this test!"

Naruto re-sheathed the sword put it down next to him. He unrolled the scroll a bit more and groaned. "Shadow… Clones?!" Naruto cried in exasperation. "Why does it have to start with what I'm bad at?"

Several hours later...

"I found you…"

Naruto, scuffed and bruised, looked up at Iruka and grinned. "Hey, look! I found the nose bleeder!" the blond said with a snicker as he pointed at Iruka.

"Idiot," Iruka shouted. His head suddenly increased in volume three times, due to the Big Head Jutsu. "I found you!"

Naruto grinned and scratched the back of his head. "You found me," the blond said. "But I only just got one of the jutsu down. Hey! Hey, sensei! You gotta pass me if I learned one of these jutsu, right?! Let me show you!"

"Naruto…" Iruka said slowly. "Why did you steal the scroll?"

Naruto frowned in his confusion. "Don't you know, sensei?" When Iruka shook his head, Naruto shrugged. The boy figured that his teacher probably needed for Naruto to explain it before he let him demonstrate the jutsu he learned in order to pass. "It's the secret Genin test!"

"Secret Genin test?" Iruka questioned. "Who told you about that?"

Naruto grinned, feeling he was on the right track. "Mizuki-sensei, of course! I know he probably wasn't supposed to tell me about it, but I really wanted to pass and so he told me about the secret test. But, you have to keep it a secret." The last part Naruto whispered as loudly as he dared.

"Mizuki… but why would he-" A loud whistling pierced the calm of the clearing, making Iruka's eyes widen. "Get down!" the man shouted as he shoved Naruto out of the way just as a brace of Kunai passed through the space. Thanks to that intervention, the deadly spears of metal missed Naruto entirely and smashed right into Iruka. The force behind the thrown knives blew Iruka off his feet and nailed him to the tree he was standing in front of. Thankfully, the kunai didn't hit any vital spots, though Iruka knew if he didn't get treatment soon he'd bleed to death anyway.

"I see…" Iruka said, wheezing as his brain caught up to the present. "So that's it."

"Wh-what?!" Naruto shouted. "What's going on?!"

At this point, Mizuki appeared when he hopped down from the tree across the clearing onto the ground. The tree he came from happened to be exactly where the hail of kunai had come from. Mizuki now openly wore a look of cruel superiority.

"Damn you Iruka," Mizuki said. "I had him in my sights. If you'd just stayed out of this, he'd be dead and your parents would be avenged."

"What's going on?!" Naruto shouted. He picked up the scroll from where he'd fallen and clutched it tightly to his chest.

"Naruto," Mizuki said, turning to the boy, "give me the scroll."

"No," Iruka shouted. "Mizuki lied to you and used you to get the scroll. Mizuki's a traitor!"

"Oh?" Mizuki let out a dark, slow chuckle. "So now I'm the liar. And a traitor, you say?"

"Will someone tell me what the heck is going on?!" Naruto shouted.

"You know what?" Mizuki said. He crossed his arms contemplatively as he dipped his head in thought. "I think I will. Naruto, how about I tell you the truth!"

"What?" Iruka shouted. He gasped and grunted as pain shot through his body as he started pulling kunai from his body. "No! Mizuki, you can't! It's forbidden!"

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Naruto asked. "What truth?"

"Haven't you ever wondered why everyone in the village doesn't like you?" Mizuki asked. He looked at Naruto with the cold look that everyone else usually did, but now there was a cruel smile to go with it. Naruto didn't like the look, in fact his instincts screamed at him to run, but… he had to know. He just knew that whatever Mizuki was going to tell him, it would explain everything. It was the answer he'd been looking for ever since he knew how to ask the question. "Haven't you ever wondered why the teachers are mean to you at the academy? Why the other children refuse to play with you? Why people's pets and wild animals growl at and chase you? Why grown men and women scream at you and try to hurt you? Why you're always alone?"

Naruto's eyes were wide open as he listened to Mizuki list almost everything he suffered right in front of him. Mizuki knew! Mizuki knew what he went through. But then why… why was Mizuki looking at him like that? Mizuki's eyes were so very cold right now. "Why?" He needed to know. He didn't care how cold the man looked at him, he needed to know! "You know why?"

"Of course I do," Mizuki said as he stretched his hands out in front of him, as if welcoming him. "Everyone does. They're just not allowed to talk about it. I'm sure you've heard them talking about it before, only for them to stop, suddenly. Because it's… forbidden. Right?"

"Mizuki," Iruka shouted. Desperation creeped into his voice as he pulled at another of the kunai nailing him to the tree. "Don't do it!"

"It's forbidden?" Naruto asked. "Why?! Why is it forbidden? Why can't anyone tell me what I did wrong?! What's wrong with me?!"

"It has to do with a great terror that took place twelve years ago. No one can tell you because the Third Hokage created a law," Mizuki said, his cruel smile widening into a toothy, hungry grin. The effect of the grin and the cold look in the man's eyes, combined with the moon light, made the man look crazy. Insane.

"A law?"

"A law that you can never be told of," Mizuki said.

"What law?!" Naruto shouted. This was it. He had to know. This would explain everything.

"No!" Iruka shouted as he pulled the second to last kunai from his side and quickly went to work pulling out the last one in his leg.

"The law states that everyone is forbidden from telling you that…" Mizuki's cold glare turned into a hot one full of rage and hate. His grin became like the mouth of a devil, as if he were breathing fire. Naruto felt a tremor of terror run down his spine as he simultaneously wished he could shut Mizuki up and at the same time, wished he could make Mizuki speak faster. "…you are the nine-tailed fox!"

"The nine-tails… I'm… I'm…"

"Stay away from the demon boy."

"Don't go near that monster."

"If you get near cursed thing, you'll die."

"Why do they let something like him walk around freely?"

"How can the Hokage let that menace near our children?"

"It's a good thing he's such a loser, he has no chance to become a ninja."

"I hope they fail him, even if he could pass. Can you imagine something like that becoming a ninja?"

"Something like him… I can't understand how they let a de-"

"Quiet! That's forbidden."

Mizuki laughed like a man possessed while Naruto slowly lost his grip on the scroll. The bundle of paper slipped from his arms as he stared forward without seeing. Flashes of every pain in Naruto's life, everything he'd suffered, every hurtful word and action all passed before his eyes. Now, though, every one of those dark whispers, cold looks, and small violent smacks when he got too close made perfect sense.

"I… am the… fox…" Naruto said in a slow and stuttering voice.

"Yes," Mizuki crowed. He pulled free one of two giant shuriken strapped his back and flung it toward Naruto. "You are the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox! You are the one who killed all of the villager's loved ones! You killed the Yondaime Hokage! You killed Iruka's parents! Everyone, even Iruka, hates you to the very core of their being! Now die, you filthy demon!"

The shuriken flew across the clearing, straight for Naruto's head. His instincts screamed at him to dodge, to move, to do something. But his mind knew. Just knew. He was the demon. He deserved to die. He shouldn't move. If he moved, he would live. If he lived, then the whole village would still be sad. They hated him. The entire world hated him! If he died… maybe they'd be happier. If his death was the cost of everyone's happiness, then… he'd make it so. He closed his eyes and felt the tension in his body simply vanish as if it had never been there. It was the most peaceful he'd ever felt.

"Naruto! NO!" Naruto's eyes snapped open when he heard the shout and the sudden and jarring sound of metal piercing bone and flesh. Iruka was hovering over him protectively. And he was crying.

"Iruka!" Mizuki shouted. "Stop getting in the way, you fucking idiot! I'm trying to kill the demon! You hate him, right?! He killed your parents."

"N-Naruto," Iruka said, completely ignoring the irate shouting behind him. He stared straight into Naruto's blue eyes as he spoke. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should have been there more for you. Maybe I could have been a better teacher."

"Iruka… sensei?" Naruto squeaked out. "W-why? Why would you…"

"Because, Naruto," Iruka said. The man smiled, a warm and kind smile completely unlike anything Mizuki had ever shown him. It was the smile of someone who didn't hate him. It was a smile broken by the blood that suddenly dripped from the corner of his teacher's mouth, drawing a crimson line down to the man's chin where it began to drip down onto Naruto's leg. "You're not… a demon… to me. I recognize you as… Uzumaki… Naruto. My most… precious student. A true… leaf… ninjaaaa…"

Naruto watched with his eyes wide open as Iruka's eyes rolled up into his head. Yet, even as Iruka fell unconscious, he slumped to the side to avoid landing on top of Naruto. The boy could only stare at his unconscious, bloody, dying teacher as Mizuki laughed coldly.

"I was going to kill that idiot anyway," Mizuki said with a grin as he pulled the second giant shuriken from his back. "That bastard was always getting special treatment when he was such an inferior ninja! I was always better than him and he got all the attention. Now, it's your turn to die, fox boy."

Naruto reached out a trembling hand toward the bloody Iruka. His fingers barely grazed the man's cheek, but he pulled his hand back like it was burned. Iruka was cold.

"He's… dead…" Naruto whispered. "Iruka-sensei is dead!" His vision became blurry as tears started to gather in them. He long ago refused to cry, because tears never did anything for him, but he just couldn't stop them now. Where as before, he was content to die, but now… Now, Iruka was dead because the man had believed in him. The man had called Naruto his most precious student. Iruka was crying… Why was Iruka crying?

"Yes," Mizuki said, spinning the Shuriken around in his hand until it was just a blur. "And now, so are you!" With that, Mizuki shot forward.

When Mizuki spoke, he drew Naruto's attention. At the sight of the vile hatred on the man's face, directed at him, Naruto felt a heat explode in his gut. It quickly became a wave of rage that pushed aside anything but the fact that Iruka was dead and this man in front of him was why.

With a snarl, a grimace, and strength he never had or was aware of as he used it, Naruto hopped to his feet and put his hands into the special Ram Hand-seal that he'd just learned. The boy shouted "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" at the top of his lungs, pushing all his rage, and hate, and anger, and hurt, and sorrow, and pain, and suffering into the words, and along with all of that, as much of his chakra as he could push into the jutsu.

Mizuki smirked at the uselessness of it all. "You just don't learn, you idiot!" He snarled as he swung his hand down to slice the demon in human form in half. He didn't even get within half a meter. Six different sandaled feet smashed into his face and knocked him up into the air and then backwards into the center of the clearing.

Of course, one doesn't become Chunin without learning how to roll along with a hit. Though his face was still pounding in pain, it wasn't anything he hadn't dealt with before. Mizuki landed in the center of the clearing on his feet and quickly took in his surrounding, as had become habit from living so long as a ninja. That was when he felt the blood drain from his face.

Hundreds upon hundreds of solid clones were surrounding him. It was like he was in a forest of orange now, instead of green. And more were still being created!

"Wh-What the hell?!" Mizuki shouted, terror creeping up and through his body. "What the hell kind of monster are you?!"

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" every single Naruto shouted at the top of their lungs. Mizuki cried out as his eardrums burst. He dropped the giant shuriken and grabbed his ears. "You killed Iruka-sensei! Now you're going to die! Dattebayo!" With that cry, the clone army shouted in unison as they charged forward.

Once again, being an experienced, Chunin ranked shinobi saved the miserable traitor's life. Though at this point, he couldn't hear a thing, he could still fight. And so a kunai found its way into his hand as he started to beat the clones back with a display of taijutsu that was, if nothing else, on a spectacularly higher level than the rest of his abilities. His skill with taijutsu was why he was a taijutsu instructor at the academy, after all.

Nevertheless, the stream of clones was like a never ending river of orange. Though Mizuki could kill three or four before they could get close enough, the other six that were attacking him at the same time easily got through to punch or kick the man. Mizuki, now deaf, growled. He lashed out with a kick while at the same time sped through a number of hand seals, ending on Snake.

"Earth Release: Greater Stone Spike Field!" Mizuki shouted as he slammed his fist down into the ground. From that point out in all directions, the very ground convulsed as spikes of earth shot out from the surface. The earth technique was devastatingly effective against the army of shadow clones. Despite this, the technique only took out a little over half of what was there. Mizuki watched, winded, as the rest charged in, their mouths open in silent battle cries. Cries that would probably have ruptured his ear drums again had he not already been deaf.

"Earth Release: Ground Bullet Storm!" Mizuki once again smashed his fist into the ground and all the spires of stone started breaking apart. Instead of falling to the ground, however, the pieces of rock flew into the air and began circling around the epicenter of the jutsu. The flying shards of razor sharp rock easily destroyed whatever remaining clones there was, as well as destroying every part of a tree that was in range of his jutsu.

Gasping for breath and fighting off chakra-exhaustion induced sleep, Mizuki cursed under his breath. "Damn monster fox… Forcing me to use almost all of my chakra like that. Where is he?!"

Mizuki hopped from the center of the now ruined clearing toward where he'd killed Iruka and the last place he'd seen Naruto. There he found the boy huddled over Iruka. The giant Shuriken that was lodged in the man's back was now tossed off to the side in a puddle of blood, presumably Iruka's. Naruto quickly noticed Mizuki.

"I'm going to kill you!" Naruto shouted as he scrambled to his feet and readied… a sword. Mizuki laughed after reading the boy's lips as he picked up the bloody giant shuriken.

"You'll try," Mizuki said with his sadistic grin. He was still low on chakra, so he'd just have to settle for doing things the old fashioned way. "But in the end, little fox, you'll die. Hah! I rhymed!"

"Ahhhh!" Naruto shouted as he ran forward with the sword held high. Mizuki smirked and twirled the shuriken around his hand as he dashed forward. He humored the boy and brought his own weapon in to clash with the sword. Mizuki knew that the rotation of his shuriken would knock the sword away from him and then proceed to slice the kid's head off.

There was a loud screech of metal. The sound of flesh and bone being cleaved. And then Mizuki's hand, along with a shuriken, broke into five pieces and fell to the ground. Naruto's sword, meanwhile, had taken on a light green sheen, and was completely whole.

Mizuki dropped to his knees, his eyes wide in fascinated horror, as he watched blood squirt out of the stump where his hand used to be. The traitor gasped, as panic welled up inside of him and licked his body. He was about to scream when something smashed into the back of his head, right at the base of his skull, and sent him into unconsciousness.

Naruto had watched everything that happened in wide eyed, confused wonder. His sword had not only chopped that asshole's hand off, but had chopped the big metal shuriken into so many pieces. He didn't know that when hands were chopped off, blood would squirt out like that. A part of him felt ill in his gut at the sight, but another part was completely and utterly satisfied with the result, and in fact, wished the man's head had come off too. Then an ANBU appeared out of nowhere and knocked Mizuki out.

"Damn," the ANBU said as she took in the damage. "I should have moved faster." At this point, the ANBU, clearly a woman from the sizable bust under her armor, noticed the downed Iruka. "Shit."

The woman ignored Naruto and moved to Iruka. She put a hand to his neck and cursed again. With three hand signs, she muttered, "Lightning release," and then slammed her hands down onto Iruka's chest.

Naruto cried out and moved to attack the woman, but was quickly shocked into stillness when Iruka opened his eyes and gasped loudly. The man's face was pale and he looked like he was about to drop dead again in the near future, but right now he was alive. Alive!

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto cried. He didn't care if he cried now. Hadn't the Hokage once said it was okay to cry when you're happy? Well, he was really happy now.

"Damn you, Umino," the ANBU said. A green glow now covered the woman's hand as she pressed down on one of the man's wounds. "You were dead for a couple of minutes. You take too many chances."

"Heh… So I do." Iruka's breathing was irregular as he gasped sometimes and other times just breathed in shallowly.

"Just hold on," the woman said. "You're in good hands now." She'd said this as much for Iruka's sake as for Naruto's. The boy looked like he was about to start breaking down.

"N-naru-" Iruka started to say as he tried to push himself up. The ANBU was having none of that and cut him off by pushing him back down onto the ground.

"Quiet," she said, "Everything will be taken care of. Just rest now." Then she looked up at Naruto and made a shallow bow with her head. "Thank you for defending a comrade and defeating a traitor. The Hokage is waiting to see you."

"I… wha-"

*THUMP*

And then there was nothing.

A/N: So I found this hiding away in my story folder just gathering cyber-dust and looking sorry. So I decided, why not post it. The idea isn't new, but I also have several other proto-stories started in my folder and I've decided to just post them all for shits and giggles. By all means, please review and let me know what you think. This story line has several more chapters done, but I won't be posting them one right after the other. Instead, I'll be posting other Naruto stories I've got saved up as well. If any of the fragments of receives enough good comments in reviews, I might even give it it's own full story, so review if you like the idea! Also, should anyone else suddenly find themselves inspired by one of my fragments, you are free, nay, encouraged to follow that plot bunny/inspired muse wherever it might take you. Consider this blanket permission, so long as you follow one rule:

Give me credit for creating the idea.

That's it. That is all I want as far as that is concerned. Other than that, thanks for reading!

~I.K.A. Valian