Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other copyrighted material referenced in this fic, instead they belong to their respective owners.
Dust
"They must die, all of them." The tiny solitary figure mumbled as he shambled down the dimly lit boulevard towards the center of the village. To his sides, figures hustled to and fro, ignoring or unaware of the ragged passerby intruding in their path.
Indeed the mysterious person soon made this point relevant when he was cast to the ground when he was shouldered to the ground with a violent shove. Landing on the dirt road with a soft thud and barely audible whimper, the apparent vagrant regarded his assailant with blue red rimmed puffy eyes. Standing in front of him was a beautiful woman, or at least a girl in the throes of womanhood. Soft red hair framed her face from underneath the confines of a rumbled hat and the black kimono she was wearing did little to conceal her supple curves. In her left hand an ornate flute was gripped loosely and her right hovered above a kunai holster attached to thigh.
All this went above the prostrate unknown as his eyes locked onto the holster and his mind burned with unnatural anger. 'Ninja!' He felt the other roar in bestial hunger and as if acting on its own, his body reacted to his anger and lashed out, attempting to bury a foot in the still standing kunochi's stomach. Or at least it tried.
Tayuya looked down in contempt at the pinned child currently groveling at her feet. He was a dirty little thing, more of a shrimp really, obviously suffering from malnutrition and lack of hygiene. Long matted hair covered a large portion of his face and a dirty scarf covered the lower portion of his face from her view but she did manage to make out two icy orbs suspended in a hazy sea of brown. Not all that uncommon in the Hidden Village of the Sound to find specimens such as these, those cast out by their homes, coming to the village that was touted as a home for the outcasts and pariahs, social lepers and political dissidents. Though whether they truly found a new home or merely a new hell was based on their apparent usefulness, as decreed by the supreme master of the place and her immediate superior, the infamous Sannin Orochimaru. Being on the Otokage's personal bodyguard, the sound four, she was aware of the large number of invalids that had migrated to her city and frankly she was disgusted.
Her sandal ground back and forth painfully where it was planted on the boy's chest eliciting another round of pathetic mewling and Tayuya grinned evilly at her victim's pain and discomfort. Time to make good on her position of power and crush this mendicant.
"Hey you shit bag, watch where you're going, you could of hurt someone!" The redhead punctuated her taunting with additional pressure applied downward into the writing form. "Daring to strike a ninja of the Sound, I should have your hands cut off." Hearing this threat the kid increased his panicked squirming to a frantic level and fear inspired tears started to leak out of his eyes. But it was pointless and if anything the grin split her face even further.
Moving slowly, deliberately, her hand unsnapped the leather holster on her thigh and withdrew a single razor sharp kunai. Power was what she lived by, it's what she craved and there was nothing more powerful than the ability to determine another's destiny. While originally she had just planned on scaring the kid, but in the rush of the violence she found herself to elevate her actions.
"Call this a fucking summary punishment, it's not like I ever believed in the fucking judicial system anyways." Tayuya laughed as she transferred her center of mass to one knee, keeping her weight on her target's chest to keep him from getting away. "But consider yourself lucky fag I've got to be somewhere, sawing of your arms would take wayyy to long, even seeing how much of a fucking twig you are." Gathering his dirty locks in her free hand she gave a mighty yank.
Parts of his scalp parted from his head and he finally voiced his pain in the form of a terrified shriek. For the first time the other people on the street finally glanced in the pairs direction, but any hope of reprieve was dashed as the pedestrians noticed the purple bow on the back of Tayuya's kimono and turned back to their business. Nobody wanted to get involved with ninja business and even less with the business of the sound four. Sawing the remaining connected parts of the scalp, she tossed the bloody flap of skin aside. His screams were a sweet symphony to her ears.
Blood poured freely down the side of the boy's face and Tayuya reminded herself to wash up before she met the rest of the group and presented herself to Lord Orochimaru.
"Speaking of which whelp, I have to be going so consider this a fucking parting gift!" She turned her gaze back to the quivering boy's visage thirsting for the fear that she would find there. What she found though shocked her and almost made her lose her balance. Nothing, not even anger was to be found on the child's face, in fact his eyes were closed and he appeared to be unconscious. Seeing this the kunochi's face contorted in anger, enraged that this nobody would dare to fall asleep under her thumb.
"Goddamn it faggot! WAKE UP!" she screamed, jamming the knife into the boy's torso, her anger crashing through her previous restraint. Immediately his body convulsed, eyes snapped open and another scream ripped out of him. Followed by a dribble of blood running out of his mouth, possibly a ruptured lung, maybe a shredded artery.
'Oops, looks like I overdid it a little.' Inner Tayuya spoke sheepishly, getting up off the soon to be dead wastrel lying at her feet, pulling the kunai out as she did so. A ragged whole had appeared on the boys chest, spurting bright red liquid onto the grimy street and staining it a crimson red. Not long now. "Sucks to be you dirt bag, guess you should've watched where you were fucking going. Well see ya later shitstain!"
With a dismissive wave of her hand the psychotic kunochi turned and began to walk away, already her mind drifting away from the incident and turning to other thoughts, particularly how to explain her lateness to her esteemed master. Not that he'd be angry about her actions but it was never wise to keep the man (?) waiting. Not to mention that her clothes were stained red with the blood of that little shi…
Pain like nothing she had ever experienced blossomed in the center of her stomach and she clasped her ruptured navel, grasping the extruding hand in a sick parody of a lovers grasp, trying hysterically to remove the foreign object from her body. She couldn't get a grip however, her blood making the appendage slippery and impossible to hold onto.
"All must die mur dela virgis." A raspy voice issued from behind her and she felt another arm wrap around her waist and pulled her close. "Ashes to ashes, your fate befalls all." Suddenly her arm was pulled tight and forcibly shoved/pulled into her own abdomen.
"Feel your FAILURE!" the voice took on an intense edge to it and Tayuya's spine shivered as fear began to soak its way through her shock riddled mind as her hand explored the warm confines of her shredded viscera. Already her vision was becoming hazy as blood loss and systematic shock began take hold.
One last violent tug and the grip on her hand let her go and she collapsed to the ground, like a puppet devoid of strings. So lost was she that the feeling of vertigo and impact never reached her addled mind and as the light of her soul began to fade she was treated with a vision she would come to ponder for the remainder of her very, very, short life.
She had twisted as she fell, so now she was oriented facing away from her original direction of travel. So it came to be that in her final moments, just before all faded to black, that she witnessed her killer's silhouette hovering above her, bloodied hand hanging loosely to his side. 'Fuck…'
The vagrant stood over the corspe of the kunochi, unaware of the screams and panicked scramblings of the village people in the street, trying to distance themselves for this potential ticking bomb in a hurry. Raising his hand to his mouth, he licked some of the salty fluid off with an unnatural enthusiasm. Then he collapsed.
Jirobo ran across the roof tops, aware of Sakon, Ukon and Kidomaru trailing behind him in a rough triangle formation. They had been dispatched by Lord Orochimaru in search of their erstwhile teammate when she never appeared for their meeting. Not wanted to further anger their unstable master the present members of Sound four had left in a hurry.
"Stupid bitch, probably off somewhere playing that damn flute." The large bodied teen mumbled under his breath.
"It wouldn't be the first time it's happened." Kidomaru growled and for the umpteenth time Jirobo was surprised at his arachnid-like fellow sound ninja's supernatural hearing. "Tayuya doesn't run on anyone's time. One day it's going to kill her…"
"That's if Lord Orochimaru doesn't kill her first." Sakon spoke worriedly. It was a widely known secret that the blue haired ninja had a major crush on his female teammate and had tried to ask her various times to be his girlfriend. Times which she promptly and viciously turned him down.
"That would be the least the whore deserved." Ukon, the more violent of the two twins snarled. He had never liked the redheaded kunochi, probably due to the various dismissals that she had put upon his brothers advances. Not that he would have liked her even if she had reciprocated the feelings but to be truthful it would have been supremely awkward, the ultimate third wheel.
Jirobo heard all this and rolled his eyes. The romantic endeavors of Sakon never ceased to annoy yet entertain the members of Orochimaru's bodyguard. Not to say Jirobo had never considered getting a little closer with Tayuya but he'd rather stay as far away from the receiving end of the girl's giant doki, so he never tried. Scanning the village streets for any sign of the wandering musician he spied a large group of sound ninja and civilians gathered in the street. Curious, he changed direction and landed on the dirt, aware of the others quickly falling into step behind him.
As they approached, the crowd parted, aware of what their black getup and purple bows meant. Finally reaching the center it took him a moment to figure out what he was looking at and when he finally did his jaw dropped and he heard the collected gasps of Sakon and Kidomaru and the bloodthirsty chuckling of Ukon.
Tayuya lay in a puddle of her own fluid and from the amount of it on the ground it was apparent she was no longer in the land of the living or had been for some time.
'Cause of death, freakin big ass hole in the stomach.' Jirobo thought sarcastically, moving closer to the cadaver. With revulsion he noted that her hand had been actually rammed all the way through her torso, coming out the other end, still holding her uncoiled intestines firmly in her grip.
"Whoa, that's fucked up." Kidomaru managed to stutter out and Jirobo couldn't help but agree, whoever did this was a seriously messed up individual.
"Tayuya!" Sakon cried as he rushed forward to take up his crushes body. However he never reached her, tripping on his way and falling right on his/their face. "What the hell!"
At first Jirobo thought it was a pile of trash that the conjoined twins had tripped over, but on closer it was revealed to be a kid, a small and dirty one at that. Couldn't be any more than 6 years old, but what was he doing lay out on the street near the recently deceased Tayuya. Noting the bloodied bits of scalp missing and the red stained rags he was wearing, maybe he had been a victim of the redhead's killer. However…
"Son of a bitch! He killed her! He killed her! THE FUCKING BASTARD KILLED HER!" Sakon shouted, clawing at the prone kid's body with his bare hands. Seeing that the situation would soon get out of control, Kidomaru moved to restrain the enraged Sakon and after a brief struggle managed to subdue him with all four of his arms.
Jirobo was shocked, to say the least. That this, this kid had managed to kill one of the four, an elite sound ninja to say the least, was shocking if not downright impossible. But it was impossible to doubt the evidence. Talking to some of the ninja in the crowd he managed to piece together what had happened. Not to mention the copious amount of blood on the boy's hand where there was no wound.
Turing back to the struggling Sakon, Jirobo backhanded the smaller ninja across the jaw. "Stop being stupid, we can't kill him, at least not until we report to Orochimaru."
Seeing Sakon nod in agreement he motioned to Kidomaru and the spider-like teen released the twins.
"Alright but after that he's mine!" Sakon menaced rubbing his tender jaw with his hand.
"Okay, let's get out of here, Kidomaru grab Tayuya, I'll get the kid."
"What the fuck, why do I gotta pick up the bitch meat?" Kidomaru complained but nonetheless moved to scoop up the corpse; face screwed in disgust as he gingerly tucked the girls intestine back in her gut.
Jirobo sighed as he scooped up the still unconscious boy and jumped up onto the nearest rooftop. This was going to take a lot of explaining.
"Why have you returned?" The cold sinister voice of the Otokage broke the ominous silence that prevailed in the throne room and sent shivers through the spines of the three ninja who had prostrated themselves in front of the ornately carved throne that dominated the far side of the room.
Jirobo gulped nervously and raised his head a fraction of an inch and risked a glance at his master. Concealed in shadows, the snake Sannin's face was hidden, but judging by his tone he was in an even worse mood. Great.
"My Lord, we've located Tayuya, but…" he was interrupted when the shadowed figure at the end of the hall gave a dismissive grunt.
"Well then where is she? I don't detect the fool's chakra. Is it that you presume to lie to me peasant?" The last part was said with no hint of emotion, but the three ninja could hear the unspoken threat behind it.
Starting to sweat, the big boned teen lowered his head again and squeezed his eyes in fear.
"No my lord I would never dream of it. We did find Tayuya, but she was dead when we arrived." He managed to stutter out.
Taking the cue Kidomaru rose and retreated to the corner of the room and returned dragging the girls corspe in two hands and the now hog tied mysterious kid into the center of the room. After he was done he returned to his previous position.
"Why are you annoying me with this information? I care not for the ingrate girl's demise."
"But Lord Orochimaru…"
"Silence." He didn't need to raise his voice, the huge spike of killer intent he released was more than enough to cut off any objections his minions might have had. "Now get this trash out of my sight and leave my presence."
"Yes Lord Orochimaru, at once." Jirobo moved to secure the bound boy as Kidomaru moved to secure the body. Unfortunately at this moment the ragged pile of rags began to move and then struggle as their tied prisoner tried to wriggle out of his bonds.
Orochimaru watched with disinterest as one of his "elite" bodyguard tried to subdue the strange boy that he had brought with them into the throne room. Somehow the bound child had managed to free one of his arms and was currently scratching, biting and clawing for all he was worth. Which was apparently enough in this case to momentarily elude further capture.
It didn't bother the snake that one of ninja had been killed an unforeseen variable that was easy enough to correct. He had droves of willing follower that desired the power that the curse mark entailed and even if most of the applicants didn't survive, there would always be one. Yes his plans would continue unaffected, his goals and revenge would still be achieved.
The sickening crack of bones snapping brought his focus back to the struggle taking place to his front. Apparently Jirobo had misjudged his own strength in handling the captive and the boy's head hung at a rather unnatural angle, his neck obviously broken.
Orochimaru sighed as the fat ninja held out the body and bashfully shrugged his shoulders.
"Oops."
Though they couldn't see it the Sannin rubbed his borrowed chin wearily, he was beginning to become annoyed with their continued presence. After all he was a busy man. Kabuto Yakushi had recently returned from Konaha with a report on the Sannin's former village and was waiting for a one on one meeting with his esteemed master.
He didn't have time for this foolishness. Grating his teeth he prepared to once again express his displeasure, but was interrupted as the impossible once again dared to transpire.
The boy's body had moved, no was moving and writhing within Jirobo's arms, who responded as any sane person would and hastily threw the boy on the ground.
Still not showing any outward sign of surprise, in a true testament to the man's steel resolve, Orochimaru sprung out of throne in a near instantaneous motion and in a blink of an eye picked up the still dazed boy by the neck and examined him with a cruel calculating eye.
"Intriguing."
The vagrant boy sat alone in the dark, confined to a cell on one of the lowest levels of Orochimaru's hidden base. Steel manacles bound his wrists and confined him to the solitary metal bench that was the only furnishing in the tiny room.
Far in the distance he could hear the plaintive cries of the other prisoners, victims of the Snakes vile experiments and crooked justice. They were doomed souls, all of them wasting away in the dark and already he was beginning to feel the despair and hopeless atmosphere the place extruded in droves.
Sniffling his nose, he rubbed his swollen eyes; the dust in this place was really making his allergies act up. At least that's what his mother used to call it, before…
Images of soft flesh meeting and parting before razor sharp kunai, screams ringing through the dark night and a burning hut rushed in from the most remote corners of his psyche. He struggled to beat the memories back and return to ignorance.
Vaguely he felt the other waiting in the eaves, hungry as always, whispering sweet nothings of violence and hate.
"N-no." he eked out unwilling to listen to the pure madness that emanated from his own mind and with a great effort he managed to subdue the lunatic cacophony to a dull buzz.
Momentarily gaining a small reprieve from his constant burden, he took a moment to reevaluate his surroundings, noting the heavily secured iron door and until now unnoticed bucket stashed in the far corner of the room.
What his current captors had in mind for him, he had no idea; indistinctly he recalled something that had happened earlier with a red haired kunochi, pain then the unmistakable copper tang of blood. The big red haired ninja he had fought with in the weird throne room had been wearing the same outfit as the girl before so maybe the two were connected.
So this was his punishment. To be forgotten in some pitch blacken hell hole along with the others of his kind, till the end of time or his life at least.
A sharp clanking noise roused him from his reverie and a beam of light pierced through the dusty gloom of his cage as a rusty tray of something was shoved through a latched trapdoor at the base of the door. He rushed to the portal but was too slow. By the time he reached it the grate was again closed and the light vanquished.
Picking up the tray, that he found to hold some pungent smelling gruel like substance, he jammed his face into the slop. Uncaring of his dignity, pride or some other tangible feeling of self respect he proceeded to devour the rancid food with uncanny fervor.
Wiping his mouth of any remaining gruel residue and licking it off his fingers, he made his way back over to the bench and lay down. There was nothing else to do. Nothing else he could do but to sit and think; to revisit his demons again and again. Alone in the dark.
The child kneeled with his head on the ground in the room he had first visited in this horrid place. Taken from his eternal dark, cleaned and scrubbed and given a new white robe to replace his decrepit clothes, he was manhandled till he stood in the strange throne room.
He was nervous, since he had been taken from his cell no one had spoken a word, except a guttural "Kneel" when he had first entered the chamber. Since then he had been prostrate in the silence, waiting expectantly for what surely would be his ultimate punishment.
Given an amount of time he couldn't begin to comprehend in solitude; he had managed to recall pieces of the events that had led to his current situation. Murder was his crime. Sick perversion to the highest degree, no matter how he justified it to himself, no matter how right, would never be accepted by the dead ninja's fellows. His death would be their answer for his crimes.
Now he was panicking; breathing began to come in ragged sobs. He couldn't die. Not now, not when he hadn't made his dream reality, not while they still lived. In the back of his skull the madness howled its agreement, though more in concern of its own continued ability to cause mayhem than his petty childish goals.
"Come here child." After about thirty tension filled minutes of waiting, a smooth, airy voice broke the silence and he felt himself pulled, no, compelled to obey. Coming to a stop about five meters from the gilded throne he found himself falling to his knees without being told, the amount of KI just too much for his untrained mind to handle.
"Look at me." His body struggled to obey the command and after much effort was able to bring his view to the throne's occupant, whom he recognized as the man who had effortlessly rendered him unconscious the last time they had met. Inside the beast railed once again against the edges of his consciousness, loathing and jealous of the power this man held. "What is your name boy?"
"I-I don't rem-mem-ber." He managed to say, the snake eyes freezing his body like a hunted rabbit. It was true though; it had been so long since anyone had called his name he couldn't recall if he even ever had one. Strangely enough it was really embarrassing, even further depleting his self worth. It took all his willpower to keep his head up through his shame.
"Shh, there is no need for shame my child. We will find you a name, one that is worthy of such a special individual." The man's tone had taken on honeyed tone and the boy could not help but putting his trust in this strange man.
In the depths of those golden eyes he found security and comfort; the two things that had been denied to him for so long. That is, ever since that fateful night that would propel his life into the spiraling abyss of cyclopean depths that his wretched existence had become, the night where childhood innocence and ideals were torn away in an orgy of bloodshed and violence. The night that he had died. The night he experienced his first taste of hell.
"Sweetie, it's time for dinner!" His mother's voice called out through the house's open kitchen window and reached him where he was playing. Wiping his soiled hands on his dirty overalls, he quickly scampered over to the cottage's front door and reaching up to grab the handle, streaked inside.
His father and older sister were already at the table, the dirt and mud from the rice paddies hastily clean in preparation for the evening meal.
"Hey kiddo, your mother tells me you've been getting in trouble with Father Reiko again, is that true?" His father's tanned patriarchal face was serious but he could make out the mischievous sparkle in his eye and the uncontrollable twitch in the corner of his mouth.
"It wasn't my fault! Ricki said 'ol baldy was givin away those apples! Me an him didn't know he'd come at us with that stick uv his!" he explained, trying his best to put on his puppy dog look and naivety to the test.
"Oh?" his father's eyebrow tweaked and the frequency of the twitches in the corner of his mouth began to increase. Obviously he was having a good time with this. "And what about the bucket of paint?"
Here it goes, the moment of truth. "What bucket of paint da? I don't have no paint!"
"I know you don't son, Father Reiko has it now, though I doubt it's in the way he would like it." His father broke at this point and began to chuckle, laughing at the expense of the tiny hamlet's resident holy man. He had been confronted by the enraged priest on his way back in from the fields and the man had not had time to clean the bright red paint from his vestments. That he was angry it was obvious and the priest had used some very crass and rather surprising choice of words to relate what had occurred. "I hope you and Ricki don't mind but since ya' two have had so much experience with painting I promised your help to the Father in helping paint the temple."
"But, but Dad!" the prospect of painting the entire village chapel did not appeal much to the youngster.
"Or if you would rather we can just take this out back and take care of this right now." The not so empty threat of a whipping was more than enough to make the kid back down.
"Er, painting sounds like fun Dad, I'll go get Ricki and we'll do it tommorrow!" a big faux grin split his face and as the family seated itself at the table, he thanked the gods he didn't have to face the switch.
"Wow, Mom this looks great!" his older sister exclaimed and he agreed, it did look good. Fresh vegetables from the garden, paired with rice balls, flatbread and a side a beef roasted to perfection. Indeed just from the smell wafting off of it, he mouth had begun to water and he slowly attempted to maneuver his hand next to the meat.
'Almost there…' With a meaty thunk, his mother's hand raced down and slapped his away.
"Honey, you know better than to eat before everyone's been served! And look at your hands, filthy! Have you been playing in the dirt again?" his mother's admonishment caused him to hold his head in shame and she noticed this. "Sweetie why don't you go to the kitchen and clean up? We'll wait for you, hurry up!"
Anxious to get to the food and relieved he wasn't in any trouble, the boy scrambled up out of his seat and into the kitchen. Positioning himself over the wash bucket he took the scrub brush and began to get the dirt and grime off his hands and face. His clothes he would have to wash later, but for right now at least he'd look good enough to meet his mother's demands. Grabbing a towel from off the rack and dried his hands with it.
Though he might grumble about his parent's strict nature, there was no doubt that they loved him and he loved them. He and his sister were lucky indeed, while they didn't live exactly the most luxurious life, they were lucky to have such a loving home. Truly nothing could go wrong.
Curse fickle fate and devious designs of demons, the wish of childhood optimism took that moment to slit its own throat.
As he was walking back to the table the front door to the cottage exploded inward, a fiery cataclysm sending chunks of door flying through the air like deadly shrapnel. Smoke billowed through in through the jagged opening and the family picked themselves warily off the ground where they had been thrown. The table was smashed nearly in half and the remains of a once sumptuous feast lay shredded and burned all around the room.
"Dimitri, what was that!" his mother screamed to his father and the large man dazedly shook his head and stumbled to his feet.
"I don't know Helen, I'm going to find out." Watching his father stalk bravely towards the still smoldering door frame, stopping by the fireplace on the way and grabbing his old sword from where it hung above the mantle. Drawing it from it the dusty scabbard he hefted it with relative ease and posted at the door. With a quick look he poked his head out and scanned the front yard, it was getting dark and he had to squint just to make out the details. Seeing nothing he turned back to his cowering family and gave a reassuring smile, more for the sake of the kids than from actually being at ease.
"Helen take the kids out the back, I'll foll-erk!" his father's wind pipe was crushed by a Snake masked woman and instantly, the door was crowded with four masked figures in black and gray armored suits, that rushed into the cottage and took up positions around the room.
His sister, forced to watch their father so brutally murdered in front of her, let out an ear piercing scream, which prompted one of the ninja to unsheathe a black ninjato from his back and brutally slice her across the chest. After a few heartrending moments she gave a horrible gurgling death rattle and lay still.
Seeing this his mother let a soul rending screech and threw herself at the white haired ninja with a dog mask on, who had just moments ago nonchalantly murdered her daughter. Meanwhile another of the masked ninja, this one female; with a cat face and purple hair, dumped a big heavy looking sack on the remains of the table and untied; it pulling out what appeared to be a rather heavy set man with a burlap concealing his face.
At this time, dog face had his mother pinned up against the wall; knife held in his free hand in a relaxed lazy manner.
"Yo, come on Lady, let's stop fighting. Why don't we get to know each other seeing as your single." He said in a lazy yet lewd sounding voice, his kunai cutting a shallow cut across her bust, exposing her plain undergarments.
"Inu you pig!" the purple haired Neko said disgustedly then pointed to the bound man who the boy recognized as the local feudal lord, whom he had seen at a spring time festival a few years ago "We need to take care of this and get going."
"Eh, I guess you're right" nonchalantly he ran his knife across his mother throat, red spurts of blood coming out in thick gushes "Sorry Miss, but maybe it's for the best, yeah? I never did like girls with kids." As she slid down the ground, he plowed his sandal into her face, mangling her nose and shredding her right eye. He gave a lighthearted laugh "Ah, oh my bad, Lady-chan!"
Horrified the boy tried to scream, but found he was too scared to make a sound and instead tried to squeeze further back into the corner where he was trying to hide.
At this point another of the masked ninja this one with a face of a weasel, approached the bound man who was laid out on the table and removed the gag that had been stuffed into his mouth.
"Who are you? What are you doing?" the fat man began to stutter; "Don't you know who I am?"
"Of course I know who you are, you're a dead man walking." The Dog snickered at his own joke and motioned for Weasel to finish the fat-ass. Weasel moved silently, a shadow flitting through the room in a flash and drew a thin killing knife from his belt. Seeing this, the so called noble began to plead for his life, promising power, money, women or titles for his continued existence.
But his pleas fell on deaf ears and the silent killer swiftly jammed his knife into his victim's heart, thus ending his so called important existence with no more difficulty than he had ended the lives of the simple peasants living in this house.
"Good job, Itachi-kun, Kakashi-kun, now let's cleans up and get back to the village before we get stuck here for the night." The final unidentified ninja said with a disturbingly sweet female voice. Her mask was a stylized serpent, fangs bared in preparation to strike.
"But Anko-chan, don't you want to spend the night alone all alone, just the four of us. I'm sure Yugao-san wouldn't mind spending some time with the great Uchiha." The dog, now identified as Kakashi, wrapped his arms suggestively around the snake girl from behind.
"Yeah, very romantic, what with the bodies and all." the other purple haired woman, Yugao, snorted, gesturing to the carnage all around them.
"We should leave this place." The weasel broke with a sad dark voice. "We must return to Konaha as soon as possible."
"Hmm, for once the Uchiha is right, let's go." With that, Kakashi released his hold on the pretty kunochi and escorted her to the door waiting to move until his teammate went ahead of him.
In the darkened corner the boy gave a shiver of relief, it appears he had gone undetected. Now the survivor guilt began to hit home and in his distress he made a fatal mistake. Shifting his weight, his boots accidently scraped against the ground and made the tiniest scrik. It was enough.
In the blink of an eye, the white haired devil was in front of him, and through the mask eyeholes he could see strangely that one eye was covered with by a strip of white cloth, giving the man the look of a cyclops.
"Yo, kid." The white haired man gave a kind of eye smile and a peace sign. "I guess it's just not your day." The other hand shot forward at ridiculous speed and planted a hidden kunai into the boy's stomach. Twisting the throwing knife cruelly in the boy's body, the ninja reached up and removed his mask, revealing a wickedly handsome face, marred only in its perfection by a large horizontal scar running down from the top of his right eye to the bottom of his cheek. Even more disturbing, while the left eye was a normal blue the right was a strange reddish color with a freakish ring and three tomoes.
"I just thought I'd let you see the man who freed you of your wretched existence, Kakashi Hatake, the famous Konaha Copy Cat Ninja." he smarmed with a stunning smile "You should be honored."
Returning his mask to his face, the white haired man retreated, pulling the knife out with a sick sucking sound as he left. The boy moaned in agony as the blade came out a different direction than it had went in, causing even more damage and shredding his belly beyond any hope of repair.
As he walked away he looked back and threw his hand up in a lazy salute. "See ya round kid!" With that he joined the others outside and dissapeared into the night.
The boy was left alone then, amid the empty shells that were previously host to his family. They were dead, he was sure of that much. The white waxy skin on his father's terrified face, exposed ribcage of his sister's shredded form and the rosy red stained shirt of his mother would haunt him for the rest of his life. The images of their faces, contorted in death, would warp his being and destroy any hope of normality in his life.
He cried for them then, tears streaming down his cheeks, falling off his face and mixing with the blood seeping through his shirt. He could make out his heartbeat slowly beginning to fade as his time grew short.
His last thought before he accepted sleep was that he would give anything to destroy every last one of those freaks that had sent him to hell.
"Yes Lord Orochimaru." The child bowed his head in reverence to his newly appointed master and mentor. When he had been asked why he didn't die when Jirobo snapped his neck, he replied that he didn't know, it had been that way for as long as he could remember.
"My da always said I was a tough kid, used to say I was the toughest nut he'd ever seen." Orochimaru nodded his head thoughtfully, appearing to show genuine interest in what he had to say.
And when he had been asked if his parents were ninja he had replied that they were not.
"I see." His tone of voice hadn't changed, but the child could tell from his body posture that the snake was disappointed with this. So he changed the subject, using this chance to find out the answer to a question that had been burning in his heart for nearly a year.
"Master, may I ask a question?" he shifted nervously and seeing this, the Snake nodded for him to proceed.
"Thank you Master, I was wondering if you knew of a place called Konaha? I think it's a ninja village."
Orochimaru's face hardened at the mention of his former village and when he spoke his voice dripped with scorn. "Yes, I know of such a place. It is a ninja village, two days east of here, populated by the most evil and disgusting scum in the elemental countries. It is a place of hypocrisy and closed minded ignorance, a place that I hope to one day see cast down and the people thrown out to the demons that they themselves birthed."
The vagrant smiled at hearing this. Now it mattered not what ulterior motives the Snake like Kage harbored, to struggle and crush that hated village was his ultimate goal and he would give anything to achieve it.
"Would you kill this world? Sell your soul? Cull the innocent?" the other's voice queried, sick and twisted with hate and insanity.
"If it brought me my vengeance? Yes, I would do whatever it takes." And the truth was he would, burn the world to ashes, tread on the dust and grind it into oblivion if it gained him what he desired.
In an instant he made his decision. "Lord Orochimaru, I give you my life in exchange for the chance at revenge." The wretched child solemnly swore, placing his hand over his heart in a sign of fealty.
"Yes little one, I can make you strong. So strong that your enemies will never be able to cause harm to you again. If you join us here, become a ninja of the Sound, you will experience power the likes of which you never imagined in your wildest dreams, only as strong as you make yourself." The silken currents behind his words preyed on the unstable mind of the child, guiding and coercing him to the tune of the legendary ninja before him. "But first you need a name, something to express the rebirth of your destiny and the start of a new path."
The vagrant waited expectantly for a few moments as his new sensei thought about a proper title for his newest vassal.
"Dasuto."
'Dust? What kind of name is that?" Dasuto thought, somewhat confused with the peculiar choice. Some of his confusion must have shown on his face however and the Snake Sannin blessed him with a sinister smile.
"As is that which is left in the past, all must fall to dust." Orochimaru spoke cryptically and the newly christened boy felt a shiver of fear make its way down his spine.
At least the other approved.
A/N Hmm, it's been a while since I've been on this site. Don't know if I'll end up updating my other stories, meh probably not (at least for now)