A/N) Okay, I decided to start a separate story for the remade version. Reasons being that this should satisfy both groups.
If you want to be updated to the remade version follow this story.
For those of you who want to wait until this story reaches the same point in the story as the old version, or at least a similar of development as I can't guarantee all will be same, I'll send out a story notice through the old story when this remade version gets there.
I also changed the title and summary to fit my actual storyline better. It's actually more than just skin and bones this time around so hopefully plot holes are mitigated. :D
Now then, I changed this chapter again… I know, I know…but this chapter just didn't click with me before. For those of you who have read the older version of this chapter, not everything is the same. You don't need to know this if you're a new reader, I'm just trying to prevent confusion for those who have read the older versions. Most of what was rambled to you in this chapter will be dissected and put into later chapters as part of the story.
In this chapter, Sarutobi has been portrayed differently, the Naruto bit isn't in first person(but some of the phrasing might feel personal) and there is an extra part in between. However as the story develops, I ask that you do not cling too tightly to the old historical ramble I had wrote here in the old story.
Disclaimer: I hereby claim that I the author of the fanfic below do not in any shape or form own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Rosario + Vampire and Rosario + Vampire capu2. However the ideas and storyline are mine.
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Chapter 1: Meaningless Meaning
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
― Albert Einstein
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The village was brighter than usual. Flames were raging in cordoned areas and smoke columns were rising high into the sky. Two separate and distinct paths of destruction scarred the village, one pressed with flattened buildings, the other marked by smouldering wood.
Still, it was a good day, as far as the Third Hokage of the Leaf village was concerned. Everything had gone in accordance with his plan.
Even now though, he still questioned the intelligence of the villagers who made up the leaf, just like the many other times he had done so. However he had never once hated the fact. For to him it made his work easier – show them want to want see, let them hear what they want to hear. The same reason why he had half of the civilian council wrapped around his pinkie. Even the shinobi council could be easily manipulated with the correct means and motives. Narrowing his eyes slightly as he notice the subtle presence of his advisors, he was reminded of the irritating fact that they were his greatest pain in the neck when it came to politics within the leaf. Most of the time it was merely a political war between him and them, his half of the council against the half they influenced. His only advantage being that most of the shinobi council usually supported him instead of them, for he himself was a shinobi.
At the moment he had to suppress a smile - Their reaction had been easily predicted, unfortunately for the child in his hands. Reinserting his presence into the village and its political field had been harder compared to this. Heck, he'd probably say the kyubi and the phoenix demon were easier to deal with.
"Konoha, we have faced a deadly foe, a foe that had threatened to destroy us. But we have prevailed, we have won!" His voice reverberated throughout the village as he channelled chakra to his vocal chords and lungs to amplify his voice.
Loud shouts of resonating joy ensued after his exclamation. The people below him cheering as they looked up at him, their leader.
"However, contrary to what many of you think. The demons have not been killed." A wave of murmurs quickly sparked as the cheering died, but the professor had no problems squashing it back down.
"The demonic fire bird is extinguished and the accursed nine-tailed fox has been weakened and trapped in a mortal form with its powers separated from it! However, it cannot be killed lest its true form re-emerge." Sarutobi said warningly.
"Through the work of our beloved leader, our Yondaime Hokage, it is now powerless with its power sealed within our hero here. For the demon though, it is only right for us to exact on the demon the same pain it caused us!" He presented the 'demon' in a cruel grip, with his hands fisted painfully in its blonde hair as it cried. In his other hand he held their 'hero'.
Sarutobi, the third Hokage, had no problems going through with his plan to manipulate so many and doom one to a life of hell, for unlike the new generation of ninja, he still remembered what the ninja's greatest weapon was – it wasn't a flashy attack technique or powerful weapon, it was instead, deception. TO further cement his own beliefs was simple – shinobi and kunoichi were not samurai with honour, ninja can and will do anything to secure success.
His plan was to turn the phoenix baby into Konoha's greatest weapon and cement Konoha's position as the strongest. His paranoia developed from years and decades as a shinobi had also demanded he had back-up plans; Should the main plan fail or the demon child show signs of not being loyal to Konoha there were less pleasant alternatives.
The orphan who held the kyubi's powers would also be trained but without the hate the phoenix baby would face. Instead, he would be raised the orphan to hate the phoenix baby. Bathed in a live of privilege given to him by the village, it would ensure he would cherish and love the leaf; protecting it at all costs. Just in case his main plan of creating a powerful weapon through pain and controlled kindness failed.
From the minute he had been born, the phoenix child had seals placed onto him. The seals placed on the child enabled to Hokage to restrict the child's powers and knowledge, both human and phoenix. They would enable to Hokage, more specifically the third, to always know the child's location and even kill the child should the demon ever pose a threat to Konoha.
The plan was perfect in a way, every plan was, and it should have guaranteed Konoha a powerful weapon. However in all his life and experience he had, as cunning and clever as he was, he had committed a single mistake which would cause him to fail – He had overlooked the possibility of demons and monsters being anything more than gullible and stupid creatures. After all, Kushina and Minato were both manipulated by him easily enough, he, a human, and them, a phoenix and its deceitful human love. He released a small cruel chuckle. Minato had been nothing but a stupid fool. Powerful, loyal and even evil when he needed to, he was still nothing but a naïve child who fell prey to him the first day the Professor of Shinobi had noticed him. Convincing him to pretend to be the demon's lover was simple - Just some heartfelt words about the Will of Fire propaganda and a few tugs at his heart using the village were all that had been needed. Even easier had been getting Minato to use the Shiki Fuin (Reaper Death Seal) to create his weapon, and to think, ridding the world of his stupid faux successor was so easy he almost broke into giggles while doing it. All he had had to do was somehow leave out the fact about a generous amount of human sacrifices being needed to prevent the reaper from taking its user's life.
Looking through his crystal ball, he laughed. In his musings he had somehow missed the first attempt on the blonde weapon's life. Nonetheless, everything was going according to plan, Sarutobi thought. Leaning back on his chair, he merely had to nudge his head up slightly to get one of his ANBU to help the poor monster. An ANBU member who just happened to had lost her whole family during the attack by the Kyubi and the phoenix mere hours ago, he smirked. Gently sticking his pipe into his mouth, he breathed a soothing breath. Even this simple action made him laugh – The sheer number of fools in his Shinobi forces who didn't think was ludicrous. Just a simple chakra application to form a thin wall on the inside of his lungs; the harmful effects of smoking would never curse him.
Hiruzen eventually wondered, were all sentient creatures like this or was it simply just his luck?
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She should have known…
Just a little more than a year ago they had been the closest of friends.
"Hey Mizore, we're going to finish up the fort later, can you come?" Kumiko and Futuri had been just as cheerful that day.
"Sorry, I can't, my mom wanted to teach me stitching later." Maybe she shouldn't have said no.
Her friends gave her a brief pout but their excited smiles returned within seconds.
"Then we'll save the last one for you." She returned with a nod and an equally thankful smile. They had been building the fort for close to two weeks. It had started off as something else, just a few rudimentary walls to give them an edge in snow ball fights against the other children, but it had slowly grown. Eventually it had become something like a second home to them. They met up and played at least five times a week in the fort as they built it.
Turning back to head home, the normal sounds of them trudging through the snow away had been just like any other day.
Unsurprisingly she had been in a sour mood with her mother later. She'd had put in just as much effort as Kimiko and Futuri and they had planned to finish it this evening. Though, she didn't express more than a small amount of annoyance at her mother, just little enough that it didn't get her in trouble.
However as an hour passed, her frustration kept building. The needle was simply too stubborn. It refused to do what she wanted it to do. After her twelfth failed attempt at copying what her mother said was a basic pattern, and she thought so too later on, she had sliced her failed work into pieces. Literally. She didn't hear her mother's gasp, far too concerned with damning the irritating needle. Glaring at it with pure hate, she inevitably broke it as she her sharp ice claws sliced.
In the evening glow, she had probably appeared rather mystical. Snowy hair, ice cold eyes and shining hands which reflected the sun's rays. Yet, it hadn't mattered.
Why had she been so painfully naïve?
She fell with nothing more than a clipped muffle of pain, teeth biting painfully into her lower lip. A pained glint showed in her eyes, asking…why?
But she dared not vocalise her question. She already knew the answers she would get. Freak of nature, weakling, eyesore, disgrace…
Yet she tried again, only to be shoved back as hard. This time her eyes burned as salty tears formed. All she had wanted was to talk to them again…Kumiko…Futuri… Turning her back on them she ran, away from their taunts and insults.
Even so, she could feel the glares and stares of the villagers around her, locking onto her form as soon as she was seen running. Curiosity and worry turning sharply into callousness or hateful fear.
Amidst it all, she could already feel the power she hated manifesting. Ice formed where her hands were and tresses of her purple hair were replaced by shards of crystals. Her mother had said it was gift she had awakened her powers from such a young age to a degree where she could already pull of a full transformation. She'd do more than beg to differ. For her mother had had forgotten a part of their village's history.
When the villagers had been told of it they were sceptical and wary. After all most yuki-onna only develop a faint control over it when they were young – making small snow balls and freezing water was as far as most went. Even partial transformations where their ice claws formed had never been seen as possible. At least, not for their normal children. In their recorded history there had been only one exception. A yuki-onna whom had had her name erased from all physical records. Said yuki-onna had shown incredible prowess at her age, ten at the time, being able to undergo a partial transformation and having not only the stamina to make large structures, but also the skill to create incredibly precise designs. They had been wowed, especially since all, as they had thought previously, yuki-onna only started to seriously develop their powers around fourteen years of age. They would usually be able to enter a partial transformation by fifteen and a full transformation by seventeen, with more talented ones developed both transformations at most a year earlier.
Hence the villagers had treated her with happy smiles and showered her with deserving praises. She had been such a prodigy after all, not to mention her cheery disposition and warm smiles that had had them smiling the warmest of emotions.
Then the unexpected had happened. Within one night, over three dozen adults and children had been slaughtered. The fashion in which they had been killed was no less than horrible. The worse off had their faces carved into macabre expressions. She was found in the scene of her crime too. Sitting with a crazed expression, surrounded by dead bodies, bathed in red blood and in her partial transformed state. She had managed to take down five more of them before they gave up on trying to subdue her. But as they suddenly switched their lethality, an innocent smile had formed on her cute face. Her attackers had paused, their pause which would prove to be their last mistakes of their lives. Within a second the mad glint of a madwoman had reappeared in her eyes and suddenly, the whole area had sprouted ice spears. Impaling more than another dozen of them. When they had finally made it back to where she had been by cutting through her icy forest of spears, they had found her dead self. A single ice spear impaled her from right between her legs to the tip of her head where it exited and extended for another half metre. Grey matter had hung off the ice spear as her blood trailed down the icy pole.
It had been a dark day for the whole village. Not only had they lost a great deal of members, but they had also been led to believe one painful thing: A yuki-onna developing her power early was terrible, for it caused their minds to become unstable. After all, what else could have probably been her motive? Their child genious had only been ten. Add in how they had found her body, impaled off the ground, a full transformation with her hair having been replaced with ice, and their belief was more than cemented.
So when they had confirmed her powers, their sceptical looks had immediately changed. With her as young as she had been, six years old then, even younger than that of their last prodigious murderer, they had panicked, fearing for their safety on the grounds that she would be mentally unstable. Add in her normally introverted and quiet personality, and they had immediately sent her fearful looks which were quickly overshadowed by hatred. Right in front of both her and her mother, they had demanded her death. Her scared eyes begging them for a chance didn't faze their cold looks in the slightest.
From that moment on, her life in the village had become living hell. Running past the village perimeter she continued to run as far as her legs could keep with her sprint.
For a year already she had suffered their stares and insults. No one in the village would hold a decent conversation with her, the other children her age bullied her and when they adults knew, her bullies were rewarded. Stores refused to allow her in for even basic necessities.
Unceremoniously dropping onto the ground, she flipped herself so she faced the sky. She had stupidly hoped today, her seventh birthday, would be different. She had made her wishful wish as her mother celebrated with her. Thinking about today being different, she had allowed her mask to slip slightly. The small bit of vulnerability she had showed had been enough. Her heart hurt painfully.
Only her mother had stuck by her side, weathering with her through the harsh whispers and demands set for her. Her eyes looked to the sky pensively, as a faint pained smile formed. She loved her mother and she was sure their bond was stronger than most other mother-daughter bonds in the world. She believed her mother wouldn't hesitate to fight the Demon if it meant saving her, and she knew neither would she.
She had spent uncountable hours in her mother's arms, sobbing as a broken wreck. People she thought had been her friends before had quickly turned their backs on her with reinforced callousness. Despite her crying and begging, not a single one had remained her friend. Not to mention how since her powers had been revealed, the only one she could have a decent conversation with was her mother. Her mother didn't give up on her, though she had half-expected her to. The guilt borne from her doubt had worn at her after, and again made her seek the comfort of her mother's arms . She felt pitiful. Ever since then she also ate only at home and for a while only what her mother cooked, before she learned how to make some simple dishes herself.
Although, at this thought her head dropped in humorous dejection - she would rather not eat most of what she tried to cook and she was sure no sane person would. She could really only make one or two edible dishes…the rest, her mother had once aptly described as "WHAT THE HELL?!"
It had been one of the only times she had heard her mother shout much less curse. It wasn't because of the state of the kitchen either, she released a laugh, more likely it had been the results of her cooking - A moving! purple glob with tiny tentacles sticking out of it at odd angles.
Still, it hurt. True she had her mother, and she knew there were probably some less lucky than her. She was fed, taken care off and had a shelter over her head. But with only her mother as her source of social interaction for two years, she couldn't help but yearn for another – A friend perhaps, one at her age. There were just some things a parent couldn't help with.
At the thought her eyes darkened.
"Yeah right." She softly mumbled. Like she would ever get any other friends in the village, she thought sadly as tears brimmed at the edge of her eyes.
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Why? Why did they always do this? Naruto thought. Hugging himself, the shivering boy made himself as small as he could. His tiny arms were shakily wrapped around his skinny legs as he hid in the small enclosed space. He could hear them, their cluttering footsteps as they ran through the wet streets. The thunderous beats of the raindrops as they were stopped by the cardboard above him deafened his hearing. Their shouts made him shiver, their threats made his heart jump and their promises made his blood run cold.
They always did this, no matter how much he smiled, how much he cried or how much he pleaded. On any other day they would give him the cruellest of glares with their cold orbs. Sometimes break a few of his bones and grace him with a few bruises if they were in the mood. But every year, on this day, on his birthday, they were always overtaken by their rage and anger as they sought a way to release their emotions…He was always their relief. To him it had been scary the first few times he witnessed their unexplainable rage towards him, but as each year passed his mind grew number.
As the mob ran past his hiding place he quietly whispered a tune he had heard so many painful times sung for others, but never for him. He had no other way to keep himself somewhat calm.
"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Happy eighth birthday…" It served to make his heart ache painfully, but it helped nonetheless, to remove any thoughts causing him to tremble or possibly whimper.
The only two reasons he always survived their beatings was two he didn't even understand. A ridiculously fast and advanced healing factor and the other he didn't know how to term. Every time he got into a situation where he would more than likely die, he …'woke'…up…so to say. Now it was happening again. He became more aware, his thoughts became clearer and …it was probably the only reason he was thinking all this too.
From his memories, every time after he was caught and beaten, he would wake up in a hospital room and the Hokage would be there. His usual self had termed him 'jiji' out of affection, but for some reason, as if something warned him not to, he couldn't bring himself to think of the seemingly kind man in such a way. Things always failed to add up – The old man always said he was the Hokage, the head of the village, yet he was able to fail to stop his abusers each year on the same day from the same people?
But he would never get the chance to think further, as every time without fail he would slowly slip away into sleep again while his usual self emerged.
To make it worse the suspicious old man would always tell him to forgive the villagers, for they were merely misunderstood and instead grieving. How a terrible incident had stuck them all in their sorrow and how he always somehow just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly his usual-self always believed him, despite how the old man would always evade his questions about his parents and his beatings. However his suppressed self always questioned the Hokage's reasoning, but never in front of him. Something in him simply told him not to fully trust the aged man, and compared to the senile man's broken promises that the beatings would stop, he trusted this feeling more.
Snapping himself out of his thoughts, he concentrated on his senses. When the last of their footsteps registered in his ears, He let himself calm. He had managed to lose them…for now…there was still the rest of the day to go.
Timidly, he poked his head out of the box. Sparing quick glances in every direction he noticed no one. A few more suspicious minutes and he slowly crawled out. Immediately he could feel the stings. As the rain fell onto him and dampened his form. He shivered. It wasn't the sting from the impact of the rain drop, no, it was the cold. With each drop that landed on him he got colder, he always hated it, the cold was always more than just unpleasant to him. Wrapping his arms back around himself as another shiver wrecked through his weak body, he quickly but stealthily ran. One of the many abilities he had picked up out of necessity over the years.
Consulting his near-perfect photographic memory available to him only when he was 'awake, he navigated himself to a forest he had found a few months back. His usual clueless-self had found himself lost in those woods while escaping a violent drunkard. In there were giant creatures, freakish and powerful, that had given him countless frights. However he couldn't help but notice the lack of one thing, the lack of people. Those creatures that had frightened him had also done their best to ward off the villagers of Konoha (Leaf village). Over the course of a few weeks, He had secretly hidden some food there whenever he got the chance, whenever he 'woke' up.
His goal now was to make it to his cave. To hopefully hide there until the day ended. Ducking into another alley he evaded a drunkard. A woman who was in her mid-thirties and had pale brown hair. One of his usual abusers. Turning his back he continued to run.
By the time those safe fences came into sight, his legs felt like they were on fire. Ignoring it as best as he could, he easily ducked through the small opening in the fence. From there, it was familiar territory, ironically safe territory. He relaxed.
His complacency soon proved to be a mistake as the sound of something dropping behind him made itself known. Quickly swerving around, he quickly took in her appearance. She wore a chainmail shirt and a large trench coat with a skirt which wasn't very modest. Her eyes were guarded but he could see the sorrow and sorry she leaked. He opened his mouth to ask but never got the chance - Maybe it had been because she already knew what he was going to say.
"Sorry, but it's either you or me and as much as I'm sorry for you, I'll have to do what those old bastards on the council told me to do." Her voice was soaked in pity and her remorse for what she was about to do was all too clear. He could see it as she tried to harden her face and failing. Before the darkness overtook his vision he noticed a lone tear falling from her face.
Why? Was Naruto's last thought as he slipped from the conscious world.
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He felt detached, to him it felt weird yet it felt fine all the same. A faint throbbing echoed in the empty world he was in. However he barely had a moment to understand before he was dragged painfully back to the cruel waking world as a streak of pain came from his thigh. Blinking frantically, he looked around, and before he consciously realised it a feeling of dread had spread within him. They had caught him.
Feeling for the rest of his body, he felt the burn in his arms as they strained to hold him from the pole. Then the painful burning and stretching itch from where his palms were stuck together, by a blade with its broader side facing down, registered. His legs were held off the ground, and apart from the wooden stick sticking awkwardly out of his right thigh. Everything else felt in place…for the moment.
Their loud chanting beat against his ears, as they wielded numerous weapons, from blunt to sharp, long to short and shiny to dull. He wanted to give up, to simply let himself go and forget all that his life had been – pain, misery and suffering. But something in him kept him from doing so.
His desperation and want to simply give up increased tremendously as one of his eye sockets was slowly invaded by a blunt hollow metal pole which was cruelly twisted without mercy. Yet, he couldn't as something in him held him back, telling him he couldn't give up, and wouldn't want to give up.
Yet he knew that the worse was yet to come, for it wasn't the first time he had been tortured so. He had regrown more eyes than the number of years he had been alive. As serrated knife was agonisingly dragged slowly across his body he didn't scream. His teeth holding onto his lips till they bled red.
He had been through such pain enough times to know there was nothing he could do to stop the pain. The most he could was distract himself from it. So, he thought. He thought of a better day as another knife was brutally sent into his gut. Twisted in brutal circles it didn't do more than shake his imaginary thoughts briefly. He could still see, still hear, still feel, but it helped nonetheless.
Suddenly he found himself back in the world as his sole working eye noted a circle of ninja, clad in Konoha ANBU's grey and black uniform form around him.
Had the old-man Hokage actually been truthful at this time? Had he really been trying to protect him? Naruto asked in shock.
The mob around him took a hesitant step back as they feared the presence of these ninja, elite ninja who answered only to the Hokage. They thought the ninja were here to save the monster brat and arrest them, but despite his initial hopeful thoughts, his lone eye hardened as something within him screamed; Lies!.
It wasn't a surprise to him when all of them turned to face him and their hands formed familiar gestures. The cheering from the mob was reignited as they witnessed their ninja cleanse their village of demon filth, namely…the child in the centre of them. A child who had a ruined eye socket, an almost spilling torso and red life caked all over his body.
They sped through hand-seals in tandem and when they stopped, they all stopped in perfect synchrony and verbatim.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu(Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)!" shouted the squad of ANBU in unison. The only other sound matching the roar of growing flames were the mob's loud shouts for his demise.
Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and waited, and all too soon he felt the heat from the flames brush him as the rain did nothing to diminish the balls of fire. Sizzling sounds made themselves known as his clothes started to burn, he was sure he would follow soon.
He was sure that he was already engulfed, with flames already having embraced him, but to his shock and wary relief, he never felt the pain. Maybe he had been killed instantaneously? Was he already dead? Is this how being dead feels like? He mentally asked himself.
His vision was white and his body felt weightless. He merely let himself drift in the void of nothingness.
Suddenly a feeling made itself known, it spread from his skin inwards. A feeling of warmth, of power, of safety spread through his body. As it flooded his body his senses heightened as his mind became sharper. However sharp pains from his damaged eye, his neck, from above his heart and from the majority of this torso screamed bloody murder to his senses. Before he knew it a scream of agony had been ripped out of his throat pass his stubborn lips. It felt as though something was being forcefully undone, as though something which had never been supposed to be locked was finally free. Within seconds the pain was gone, and the warm feeling returned.
He could feel his body and his very mind changing. His thoughts and his personality started to adjust and oddly enough, it felt right. In his mind he witnessed as his 'usual-happy-go-lucky-self' fade away. In its place a black-greyish orb which sparkled and attracted his hand. Reaching out with one hand, He didn't understand why he had suddenly embraced it with his whole being. It pulsed a few short times before it started to sink into him. The whole time he could feel changes erupt all over his body as knowledge of so many things and memories of so many blank areas in his life were given to him. A faint click sound echoed in his mind and all of a sudden it felt like he had just released everything and, it felt right. His veins burned like liquid fire as power emerged from deep within his being, he felt it pulse and morph as it was released. He felt a power, his own power, push and struggle. He let it push, he let it flow unhindered. It forced itself outward and the last thing that his ears heard was the mixed screams of countless people before a single completing sensation overtook him…
The large pulse of power erupted, extending to the ends of the Elemental Nations and beyond into other dimensions which had even the smallest inkling of a link to this one.
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A/N) This chapter is finished and hopefully I'll see you at the end :).
