THE BADGE
Prologue: Bloody Murder
by eggadshorace
» Fandom: Naruto
» Rating: M
» On Going(WIP)/One-off/Series: WIP
» Classification(s): Humor, Action/Adventure, Horror... Romance?
» Warnings: Violence, Language, Sexual Situations
» Pairing(s): Officially undecided, but, the usual prospects
Poetically enough, Uzumaki Naruto is a KCPD detective hunting in the wild urban wilderness of Konoha City for the serial killer who once destroyed his life… along for the ride are Uchiha Sasuke: PI, Sasuke's agency of misfits, Naruto's partner Gaara, medical examiner Chouji, P.A. Sakura, and many, many more. Meant to be a spin on every detective show and novel ever created.
Chapter-specific warning: violent, gruesome death ahead, of an OC.
Prologue: Bloody Murder
"Now, be a good girl, and hold still for me…"
She was on her stomach, writhing away from the darkness in his voice like a naked, blind worm, leaving a widening pool of blood behind her as she crawled. Tears tracked down her cheeks, through the blood and snot from her broken nose, and she made a tiny mewling whimper as his footsteps echoed behind her.
Her throat was crushed and blood bubbled out of the corner of her mouth as she rasped out moans. She had no more teeth. Her ribs had punctured her lungs in multiple places; she'd been hamstrung. She could no more run than she could shriek as he grabbed for her.
Her broken fingernails scrabbled uselessly against the woodgrain as he jerked her up by her hair, bowing her mangled, shredded body back so that her face was close to his.
His eyes were crimson, the color of rosepetals and mourning. He held her close, like the lover he had been, and whispered to her tenderly.
"My poor darling, but you're a mess. You really couldn't take it, could you, darling?" He gave her a little shake, face still loving. "I'll confess, it saddens me that I'm going to kill you."
She gurgled, and he stroked her face. "You know I must. I've ruined you for anyone else. How could you ever love another after I've loved you?" His hand stroked down her flattened chest, to the ruin between her legs. "No one could possibly compare.
"Darling, let me have a small memento of our love." The hand ran back up her body and cupped her face. "To remember the times we shared."
Two fingers and a thumb loomed, filling her vision. Her world narrowed to a small, screaming pinprick, dull horror blooming like a black flower in her heart.
"Give me your eyes, darling. I need them , and you shouldn't see anyone but me…"
"Gyah!"
Somewhere in Konoha City, Sasuke Uchiha woke with a jerk, hand clapped protectively over his left eye.
His harsh breathing was the only sound in the dark room, Tiffany-shaded lamp casting a dim golden glow over an ancient, scarred desk and worn leather chairs. A bottle of cheap tequila and half a lime lay warming, and a cup of coffee sat cooling, next to a camera and several empty film canisters.
His neck had a terrible crick in it from sleeping on his folded arms.
Sasuke stared blindly down at the pictures spread in a messy fan over his desk and waited while his heart calmed and his breathing slowed. Just a dream. Just a dream. Just another fucking daydream…
It took longer for his hand to come down from his eye. When it did, it reached for the tequila and poured another piss-yellow shot for its owner to knock back with a wince. And another. A third.
He choked a little on that one and coughed raggedly. While he wiped his mouth, from outside his glass-plated door there came the sound of footsteps. The knob turned, and the door opened, just a crack. Beyond the crack there was only darkness.
"Uchiha-san?"
He cleared his throat. "Go home, Karin." His voice was hoarse, tone wearier than he's intended.
"Why aren'tyou home?" The door creaked open further, to reveal a sliver of a long fall of red hair and one brown eye that gleamed wetly for a moment in the lamp's glow. Sasuke shuddered, jamming his hands back through his hair.
"I've still got work."
"If you have work, then I do too."
"No. Go home."
Silence.
He said, "Karin." Harsher.
A pause.
"…all right."
The door closed. Her footsteps grew fainter, fainter, before they faded completely.
Sasuke was alone.
The two in the photographs looked up at him guiltily, the man almost apologetic as he straddled the younger woman who was not his wife in a wide hotel bed, clearly visible through the first-story window. People did the most stupid things…
Sasuke stroked the touchpad, and the laptop at his elbow whirred back to life, adding its sickly blue LCD to the lamp's feeble efforts. He sighed, cracked his knuckles in a long stretch behind his back, and, sparing another glance at the blurred face of the man he was going to ruin, began to type.
Somewhere across the city, Naruto swayed while sitting in his boxers on the edge of his bed, a party and the better part of the entire bar specialty list riding queasily in his system. It'd been a hard day. Tomorrow, if some fresh hell didn't rear its ugly head, would be better. Paperwork. Routine. All that good stuff.
He had a business card in his hand, but couldn't remember taking it out. The name and phone number on it were a source of constant pain and irritation for him. They had been for five years.
He turned it around and around in his fingers, staring at it as if trying to derive the secrets of the universe from its faded surface. It was used to this kind of treatment. There was hardly a day that went by that Detective Uzumaki didn't pull it out of his wallet and play with it, rolling it between his fingers, caught between ripping it into tiny pieces and taking it directly to a phone, calling that number, and screaming into the receiver for the rest of his life.
He never did either. He simply put it back in his wallet, and there it rested until the next weak moment.
There was a raised decal of a snake that had since been smoothed flat by the constant rub of fingers. Below that, ink had faded and creases had appeared to the point where all that was decipherable read something like, " asu e U i ha."
That was alright. He knew whose card it was.
Because it is statistically impossible for every resident of a large, multi-million person city to be homicidal, dying, drunk and/or just plain miserable, Public Prosecutor Sakura Haruno was eating cake and ice cream at her mother's 56th birthday party. She had purchased the gift—a tourmaline tennis bracelet with matching earrings—exactly thirty-two minutes before, and while her mother gushed she simply sat and smiled bemusedly with her cast resting comfortably on the tabletop.
Detective Shikamaru Nara was watching the Konohagakure Kunais beat the living crap out of the Shadow Shurikens, and, having yelled himself hoarse, could only croak, "Troublesome," while Detectives Inuzuka, Hyuuga, Yamanaka, and Aburame booed, threw popcorn at the screen, and in one case blushed becomingly. Dr. Chouji Akimichi preferred to eat his popcorn, thank you very much, and patted Hinata on the back sympathetically as the awful performance of their beloved Shurikens turned her face red.
Detective Gaara Sabaku, while mildly drunk, did not feel in the least bit homicidal for once. On a darker balcony of a club that pulsed with neon, people and music, one very intoxicated reveler had tripped and landed on his lips. "Hey," the man purred, languidly wrapping his arms around Gaara's neck, it seemed, for support. "Name's Neji. Wanna?"
Those pale eyes, even when half-lidded and glazed, were positively magnetic. Gaara gave a rather predatory smile and said, "Let's."
And somewhere in the city, a tear of blood leaked out of an eyeless socket as a woman gave one last gurgle, and died.
A/N: Nothing's very clear yet, is it? That's why it's a TEASER… it's supposed to make you want to read more. So? Do you want to? Tell me! First real chapter up soon!
Read? Review!