A/N: I return my subjects! For any wondering, YES I have just finished playing Shadow of Mordor and its DLC soooo many times now, and I bloody loved it! However, I wasn't too pleased with a few bits here and there, don't want to give any spoilers, but if you love a good game, then have at it!
And when I saw that there were no Naruto crossovers with it and all the INSANITY that takes places throughout, well, the gears in my mind got to turning. As another note, this IS NOT NOT NOT part of the Not Going Home series, and not to be confused with my soon-to-be-written-fic "Not Today" which chronicles the start the series as a whole. This. Is. A. Totally. Separate. Story. Of the sort I've not dared to write in a long while...
I've drawn some parallels here, but it won't be entirely the same as the game, I can promise you that! XD
And on another note, I'd like to say something else.
So, I've been going over reviews, and an anonymous reviewer said something that really resonated with me. I love to write. But sometimes, I feel that this gift owns me, rather than I, owning it. Its like a beast inside me, this urge to create, but I can't control it very well, which results in a LOT of new stories. So as of last night, and continuing throughout the week, I'm purging stories that won't be continued, or works that no one enjoys anymore.
Let me know which ones you feel should be continued, before its too late! Don't worry, many of the major ones will remain, but anything from 2008-2009 is likely going out the window with all the rest of the trash, never to be seen again. This may seem sudden I know, but I'm only purging the forgotten fics that no one cares for. Fear not, its not going to be immediate, but it WILL happen, I simply wanted to get this out as a forewarning.
This will be of very few new stories I plan to release, god willing. If I have an idea, I plan to make it a damn good one before I just toss it out there, as I devote myself to my other works, soon to number into the hundreds, and potentially dozens as I whittle them down. I need to reassess why I want to write, for the joy of it, and I can't do that by letting you guys down with old, crappy stories I wrote in my early days.
LET THE NEW ERA BEGIN! Now...
...off we go! I proudly present...
...GRAVEWALKER! WARNING! ITS DARK! DON'T LIKE IT, THEN DON'T READ! I sincerely look forward to hearing what ya'll think of this!
""Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."
(One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them."
~?
Banished From Death
Cold.
Is this what death feels like, I wonder?
That eerie, numbing chill creeping up your bones like frostbite. Despair. All my strength, all my power, all of it for naught. I thought I could protect them. My friends. My family. My allies. My VILLAGE. In the end, I failed them all. Do some yet live? I know not? I lay here, in this wet ditch-this pit filled with bodies-my throat cut, and I feel myself slipping away with each passing moment. I don't understand. How did this happen? Why? An evil, vile, wicked betrayal, an alliance with foul beasts from the North...this, I understand.
But I do not know why.
Why would HE do this after all these years? We were friends. Our children competed against one another. He'd turned away from darkness and stepped into the light.
So why...why am I dead at his hand?
"Coupla extra bodies for the pit!"
"Toss 'em in!"
I hear the laughter of men and monsters now, savage and cruel as they cast more into the pit, further burying me in a coffin of death and flesh. I no longer possess the strength to look away. Even the rage isn't enough to sustain me, anymore. Rage is a hell of an anesthetic, but even it can't bring a man back from the grave. But it CAN give you a few extra, precious seconds in this world.
And then I see their bodies.
Three of them.
My wife.
My children.
Gone.
Cut down before my very eyes, like pigs to the slaughter.
My partner, taken, ruined, in such a manner as well.
Ripped away, out of me, from me, by him.
Memories emerge, wilting.
And thus I die.
"NO."
A voice like rolling boulders scraping together snarled in his ear and, mercifully, the world finally went black around him. But only for a moment. Then, something gripped him, an invisible hand hoisting him up out of the sea of bodies even as his concsiousness continued to sink in deeper shadow and flame...
Darkness...
...fading...
...falling...
Uzumaki Naruto, the last Hokage, woke to blackness.
That was his first surprise.
He lay on a cold, marble floor, feeling as if someone had picked him up and slammed him against the wall a few times. Like he'd been shoved through a wall of blades and been stitched back together. He groaned, sitting up in the darkness. In the dim light his hands seemed almost unnaturally bright and he ached, he ached, oh how he ached, his head pounding. He sat up further but that proved to be most unwise; it made his body feel even worse. Confusion dulled the pain to a slight edge as he sat there, blinking.
He held his arm up in front of him. It still shook slightly, and he couldn't make it stop.
Wait.
Why was he here? The last thing he remembered was falling...
Memories came rushing back in a blinding, white wave of agony.
Pain.
Agony.
Blistering.
"DADDY!"
Clamoring upright, he jolted up off the floor.
That, soon proved to be a mistake. His bare feet wailed in protest, screaming the moment he put weight on them, invisible pins and needles stabbing at them. Every footstep, agony. His knees cried out, buckling, unable to support his weight. Groaning he half stumbled, half crawled against the wall, bodily hauling himself into a sitting position. A broken kunai stared down at him and fumbling, he snatched at it. In his daze he didn't see the blood until it was too late.
What he saw next to it nearly overwhelmed him.
"No."
Naruto jolted upright with a hiss, seeing the body. Recognizing it, in this eerie world of white-washed blue and white. The panic almost consumed his mind, the claws of a great beast ripping at his pscyhe. Without so much as a second thought he dropped to a knee, reaching for the small, tiny body at his feet, cradling her head in his lap. He shook her lightly, but her head only lolled aside on a broken neck.
"No...
Himawari's blank eyes stared back at him from where she lay on the ground, dead and lifeless. The memory came back, and this time, he was helpless to stop it.
"You're going to have to hit harder than that if you want to beat your old man!"
"Hold still!"
"DADDY! HELP!"
His head snapped up, jerking free from the thought as he realized there was a second shape next to Himawari.
"Oh, no. No no no no, God, please...no...
Bolt lay only yards away from his little sister, his fingers gripped tightly around something, knuckles white around a blade. His face frozen in a determined rictus. He'd gone down fighting. Naruto felt the tears come as he held his eldest child, grief replaced by a bitter pang of loss and mourning. Only hours -to him- before, that face had been grinning madly, cackling as he chased him down for painting the Stone Faces. There was no light in those eyes now.
His son's terror washed over Naruto in a sickly afterglow, his last moments laid bare before him.
"Stop, stop! Dad! DAD! Do something!"
Raising his head he felt a shout build up his throat, but all that emerged was an agonizing sob. Was this the afterlife? Purgatory? Hell? Was he doomed to look upon the faces of those he had lost for all eternity, until he finally went mad from grief?
"Am I dead?" he moaned softly, not expecting an answer from the shadows.
A whisper of breath snaked across his ear, eliciting a shudder.
"You are banished from death."
It passed over him before he could glimpse the strange entity, leaving him alone once more.
A flicker of red caught his eye, just a dash of red fur against white, but he saw.
He remembered once more.
His friend, thrusting a hand into him, ripping it free...leaving him to die as he chanted those infernal words...
He found Hinata, next.
She lay sprawled away, far from their children, clutching her stomach, almost cradling the slight bulge, and the child there. Someone had deliberately gored her there, and the sight nearly made him wretch. Still, Naruto couldn't bring himself not to touch her cheek, fingertip caressing that soft face ever so gently. The memory hit him, and this time, he didn't resist. He followed it, chased it down the corridors of his mind, and saw it play out before his eyes, savoring their last moments.
A memory of bringing her flowers, of laughter, kissing her softly, touching her pregnant belly...
...watching that madman thrust the blade into her stomach as others held him, helpless...
Red eyes, filled with tomoe, staring into the heavens as her life bled away.
The Uchiha's voice in his ear.
"I sacrifice this woman in the name of...
With a howl, the blond wrenched himself free, and stood. When next he looked however, Hinata's body was gone. So too, were those of his children. In the end he was left standing, alone, clutching a broken dagger in his hand, gazing at the faded, glowing walls of his prison. Or was it a prison at all? There were no bars, no shackles, he was free to move as he pleased. Despair took him, as he realized he was still alive, that somehow he had escaped death.
"What is this place?!"
"See for yourself."
Naruto whipped around at the stark comment behind him, and his legs nearly gave out.
He was looking at a woman, he realized.
A ghost, no more than that.
Wraith.
The word thrust itself into his mind as he looked at this eerie creature.
Her long, flowing hair almost reminded him of his mothers, but it had been cut boyishly short on the left. No, perhaps that wasn't quite right. It was burned, as though someone had taken a hot poker to that side of her face. The eyes were different. So was the build. She was dressed as though for battle in another time, another distant age. Wearing the light, plated armor seemingly favored by those of the First Shinobi War, she stood before, silent and unmoving. Her cold, empty eyes met his, and she stepped aside, making away for him in the ruins.
Stepping out, he did see.
And what he saw nearly made him weep.
Konoha lay in smoldering ruins leagues below, dark stacks of smoke trailing outward for miles in every direction. Like smog, the thick haze darkened the sky around the village. In the distance, he thought he detected the distant sound of hammers pounding steel. The gate lay in ruins, as though smashed apart by a giant hand, and a seemingly endless flow of those...those things seemed to pour into the place he had once dared to call home.
Those things, with foreign shinobi at their side, marched into his home, defiling it. Anger froze inside him, turning into a nuclear wasteland of rage.
"The village...how long have I been...
"Now do you believe me, ninja?" she rasped.
"What is this?"
"I say again, you are banished from death." the specter reiterated grimly, a glimmer of irritation flitting across her face. "Cast adrift between the realms of light and dark. A curse binds us together within the walls of your very soul." A glinting, ethereal hand waved, tongues of white flame like tiny little moths, trailing away from her fingertips. As he looked on, those wisps turned to shadows. "Darkness has awoken from its slumber within this land and found its way across the shore. You believe this to be the first victim? Your village?" she scoffed. "It is merely the most recent."
It made a twisted sort of sense, really.
Village after village had gone dark, leaving many to wonder at their fate, but it had never been a pressing concern until recently. Any messengers or scouts sent out never returned. Suna had vanished only days before, and now, it seemed Konoha had fallen to the same fate of the sand. Now, Naruto found himself wishing he'd been more thorough. If they'd just been prepared...!
"You speak of darkness as if you know it, creature." he protested. "That's impossible. I know. We defeated her. Kaguya. She can't be responsible for this."
The wraith blinked.
"I know not of whom you speak, but this is evil is older than the world itself. It has already taken much of your strength from you. You would be dead, if not for me." Naruto longed to lash out at this stern, stoic woman, but he knew doing so wouldn't bring his family back. Only one thing would, and that eye was presently resting in a certain man's skull. Rinnegan. He'd pluck that eye right out of that bastard's head and use it to bring his family back!
"If what you say is true, then how do we break this curse?"
"We find the one who cast it on us." the woman snarled. "Your friend, now corrupted by darkness most foul. The Last Uchiha."
"And how are we going to do that. Powerless, remember?"
For a moment, just a moment, he thought he saw that grim rictus of a face curl into a smile.
"You are not without skill...or gifts."
He followed her gaze, glancing at the mark on his hand. The cut, where, during their battle, he'd caught the avenger's blade and snapped it in half. It was still with him, somehow, thrust into the sash of his belt in spite or perhaps as a final parting gift from a friend-turned-enemy. He didn't know. All that mattered was the weapon. A tool. A means to strike back at those who had done this to his village.
Like the mark and dagger, it glowed an eerie iridescent blue, pulsating in its whiteness.
Power.
He could feel it within this mark, thrumming through his body like a fierce, wild thing. It didn't matter if his chakra coils were torn to pieces, this seemed to have replaced it, revitalized him. Somehow, he was still alive, still able to fight. And while he yet lived, he would have vengeance and recompense for what had been dome to him! All because of this strange, ghostly woman he didn't know...
"What are you?"
The wraith seemed to consider that for a long, painful moment before answering him.
"I am a whisper. I am a shadow. A ghost. What all living things fear the most." came the hoarse reply, sounding slightly lost as she finished. "I do not know how to explain. When you died, I was drawn to you. Beyond that, I know nothing. Not even my own name."
Doubt creased his face.
"And what purpose do you have in aiding me?"
"Someone called to me, and I answered. When I woke I was called to you. Your fate is as much yours as my own."
Together, they turned their gaze on the ruins of what had once been the Leaf.
Naruto growled, drawing his broken blade.
"Then let us begin."
A single step carried them off the ledge and sent both man and wraith plummeting into the Shadows of Konoha...
A/N: WHAT A LOVELY DAY INDEED! Ah, sorry. Just couldn't help myself. What kind of chaos and bloodshed can Naruto get up to here? Ohhhh, quite a bit. Don't believe me? BEHOLD THE PREVIEW. THAR BE TWO THIS TIME!
(Preview(S))
The Wraith's head jerked in the direction of their fallen foe, wrenching them away from the huddled form of the woman they'd just delivered from harm.
"Go to him." she instructed firmly.
Naruto did.
And as he did, he felt the power roar up the length of his arm, consuming his entire body. By the time he'd reached their unfortunate victim the Wraith was fully in control of his-their?- body, hands twitching away from the bow at her back. Howling, she seized the enemy's skull, forcing them to a knee.
"SUFFER ME NOW!"
Their prey writhed wildly in their grasp, but the Wraith's grip was absolute. Undeniable. Green eyes like jade coals bored into their unwilling victim.
"What do you know of the Uchiha?!" when no response was immediately forthcoming, she snarled, "What do you know of Sauron's Right Hand?!"
The creature gurgled wetly as a blazing brand scorched its skull.
"I...
"SPEAK, WORM!"
"Just be sure you're there to take his place."
Konohamaru glanced at the corpse the Gravewalker had just butchered, then back to the fading form of his friend stomping into the mists. In hindsight he really shouldn't have opened his mouth, but curiosity compelled him to do so, regardless of the fact. Naruto...this Naruto was frightening. As if he were a completely different person...was he losing his mind, somehow?
"Uh, but he's not dead, yet."
Naruto didn't stop walking, but his snarl echoed after him.
"I'm going to kill him!"
"R-Right...good luck with that, boss!"
AND THE INSANITY CONTINUES! So, in the Immortal Words of Atlas, Review, Would You Kindly?
R&R~! =D