Beauty
Longterm/ Multi-chapter / SasuNaru / The Beauty and the Beast Parody
Based off of: both the Disney movie and the original story of The Beauty and the Beast, Naruto and the behaviors/personas of the characters from it, vengence, and learning you want to change and going about it.
Graciously beta-read by Second Storey Stairwell.
There was once a very rich merchant, who had six children, three sons, and three daughters; being a man of sense, he spared no cost for their education, but gave them all kinds of masters. His daughters were extremely handsome, especially the youngest. When she was little, everybody admired her, and called her "La Petit Belle;" so that, as she grew up, she still went by the name of Belle, which made her sisters very jealous--
"What a joke!" cries a voice in the group as the director reads aloud. "This is just the same as Cinderella and Snow White! The girl is prettier than so and so and they're jealous and she's forced to live a humble life and the prince saves her, blah blah blah! Can't we do something more interesting than all of this crap?"
"Shut up! All you ever do is complain!"
"Yeah, can't you just accept what we've got to do in peace?"
"I think I agree with him, though. They are all kind of the same story, just with different types of characters and story lines . . . "
"Troublesome . . . Listen up, if you want to complain, you don't have to participate; you're the ones who auditioned to act in this movie. Besides, this story is different; in this story, the maiden will save the beast instead of the cliché, so keep quiet . . . "
"I like that idea!"
"Tell me about it: girl power!"
"Damn straight!"
"Ugh . . . "
"Whatever, as if a tiny chick like Belle could ever do anything like that! The girls are always defenseless!"
"Why don't you look at your partner there and see what she has to say to that before she punches in the face?"
"But this is different, Sakura-chan, please! It's a fairy tale!"
"He's right! All the girls in these types of stories are itty-bitty things who can't take care of themselves! What is she going to do? Dust and polish the bad guys to death?"
I nod instinctively. Portraying the girls as the weaker role was getting ridiculous; everyone is equal, despite genders having created impossibly high walls. I like D
"Yeah, even he's nodding in agreement! See?"
The usuratonkachi points at me.
"What are you pointing at, usuratonkachi?" I snap, glaring.
"What'd you call me?"
"Uuuuusuratonkachi!"
"Damnit, I'm gonna-- !"
"SHUT UP!"
The group settles and I cross my arms. The usuratonkachi takes a seat at last, glancing at me angrily.
"Troublesome . . . Haven't you all learnt by now that it doesn't take a physical rescue to save someone? Jeez . . ."
I nod to myself and carefully look about me. Nearly everyone is nodding, including the usuratonkachi and the Hyuuga kid and several people I'd not expected to understand as much.
"Then shut up, or we'll never get to the actual filming of this movie. Anyway . . ."
The youngest, as she was handsomer, was also better than her sisters . . .
I lean back in my chair, as uncomfortable as it is, and consider the part I've been given . . . The beast: the character with the fault, who must learn his lesson and allow himself to be changed for the better. So foolish. People are who they wish to be, and if they don't want to change, then there's little to do. So often I can feel those about me trying to change me, wishing me to change... to want to change. I spared their village, but only on the account of my brother, and yet that is not enough for them. Why should I change? I've lived prosperously the way I am, and, besides, what good would it do if I were different? Kakashi says I'm vengeful, and he was quite right, but I've gotten my revenge, even if not everyone knows it, even if not everyone has noticed Danzou's absence: do they assume that I will strike again? There's extremely little that I would kill for now . . .
"Sasuke . . . psst, teme . . . "
Someone touches my knee and shakes me softly from the depths of thought.
"Sasuke . . . your script . . . " I look to Naruto, who's holding out a packet of paper. He's smiling, and I nearly dare to smile back as he drops my script in my lap. "What, were you sleeping?"
Nay, several gentlemen would have married her, though they knew she had not a penny . . .
"Hmph . . . " I look down at my script and back up at his soft smile. Despite his usual bickering with me, he's seemed to have stashed away a soft side that I've seen only in glimpses, and even fewer times has it been directed towards me; I suppose it's all due to my absence. He must have truly missed me. I spare him a few words. "Just thinking."
"Do but see our youngest sister," said they, one to the other, "what a poor, stupid, mean-spirited creature she is, to be contented with such an unhappy, dismal situation . . . "
He smiles his typical smile and turns back to face Shikamaru as he reads.
I watch him, his eyebrows furrowing as he struggles to understand the seventeenth century translation, so unlike his own spoken word.
I would hear them say that revenge is still revenge, no matter what you're killing for, but only the heartless would pass up the chance at revenge for Naruto, for not a soul has a reason to harm him. And what blame could they put on me? What ill could they speak if they knew that he were all I would ever kill for?
I step outside my room and lean over the railing, peering into the setting sun. The flowers below yawn and stretch as they finally begin to pull up their covers for the night. Birds land in trees and on the roofs of the towers around me, stepping carefully into their homes. My servants put away their gardening tools and head for their quarters. All is quite as it was the days before.
Still, a strange uneasiness comes towards me in a rush, and I immediately remember my brother. I wonder vaguely if his spirit has returned to me and if such is the reason for my queer feelings, but never have I believed in ghosts, and the thought of such a foolish existence flees from me without having to call it of. Ridiculous things do not often linger within my mind for an extended period of time; I try to keep such from corrupting my future plans so I might stay on my destined path.
The door leading into the hall opens and my closest servant speaks.
"Your Highness, all troops are at the ready at your signal," Kakashi says
I turn to him as I begin to remove my shirt.
"Very well," I say, seating myself on my bed to undress.
"You know, I still feel this is not the right course of action, Sasuke," says Kakashi, removing my battle attire from the wardrobe and setting it on the bed. "Revenge has never, in all of time, been the answer to sadness and frustration."
"A shame it is that you must disagree, for I look upon you with great respect." I stand and allow him to slip my shirt onto my arms.
"Most who respect others wish to receive their respect in return, am I correct?" he says to me as he buttons my shirt.
"Quite."
"Then perhaps you would consider rethinking this attack if I told you that all respect I have for you will be lost if you go through with this?"
I pull on my pants as Kakashi retrieves my chainmail.
"Even the most delightful of whims will come second to my goals."
"I'm sorry to hear that your mind will not be redirected," he says, lifting the chain mail over my head. "Ah yes, I near forgot to mention: A guest has come on quite short notice."
"Guests are a rarity to this castle ever since my family was murdered. A guest, or a trespasser?"
"She was found picking your roses and was immediately taken to the dungeon."
I tense. Not in my entire lifetime have I ever had a love for material items, and envy and greed are not sins I commit, but we speak not of stealing roses, but picking forth the soul of my very dear and murdered mother straight from her garden. Never would she pick them nor let them die, and in her place, I care for them as if they were my mother on her death bed.
I shake Kakashi away as he attempts to slip me into my boots, and I leave the room without finishing my dressing.
"Bring me to her!" I order, storming through the halls. "Bring me to her and let me give an example to the villagers of what happens when you wrong a heart!" In passing a suit of armour on decor in the hall, I take hold of an axe and hurry to the dungeons.
"Sire!" another of my closer servants, Iruka, calls to me, rushing to my side. "We found a woman-- "
"Picking my mother's roses!" I roar, quickening my pace. "She will not live to see what damage she has done to me!"
"Sasuke," Kakashi says, touching my arm as I reach the dungeons, "she meant no harm . . . "
"It is not her intention, but the harm that she has done that will cost her, her life!"
And when I find her, she appears neither provoked nor frightened in the least, but looking quite comfortable.
"You!" I point the axe at her. "Prepare yourself, for you will pay for your stupidity and greediness!"
"For taking these, sir?" she says calmly, pulling the yellow roses that my mother loved so dearly from the depths of her velvet cloak. "Why, they are mere roses. I gather them to bring to my dying mother. You see, she's quite fond of roses, and since all of hers have died away in her illness . . . "
"They are my mother's roses, and nothing less! Do not speak as if the damage you've done is so little!"
She smiles and I grip my axe, reaching for the cell's key. "You are mistaken, sir. Your mother is deceased, therefore, they are very much yours."
"They are all I've left of her and you wrongfully attempted to steel them!" I unlock the cell door and pull the woman forth, for she is neither large nor strong, but near the equivalence of a girl's doll.
"But sir," she says softly, still smiling even as I raise my axe, "you mother is here."
I look to the roses in her hand and then to her eyes that go forever on with a deep blackness. "She is not," I growl.
"She is," she says, and she places a glass hand on my heart. "She lives as strong as she did the day she was born, and she lives here."
"She was murdered, and in but a moment's time will those who killed her pay for the pain they've cost me!"
The woman smiles and looks to me wisely, even as I bring my axe down and through her skull, locks of her hair falling to the stone floor as she passes away and lands with a soft thud in the hay, leaving behind her a splattered trail of blood.
I drop the axe and ignore best I can the tears that trail so purposelessly down my cheeks.
"Do not underestimate the sadness of others," I whisper to the woman bitterly, though I know well she can no longer hear. I kneel down at her side and reach for the roses in her hand.
"What . . . ?"
"Sir? Are you alright? You're shaking, perhaps you need to-- "
"They're gone," I hiss, staring at the woman's hand. No longer are there roses-- the most beautiful ever seen-- but a butterfly of red and black that, as I watch, spreads its wings, lifts into flight, and disappears in a clouds of ashes.
"What-- ?"
"Sir, is it--?"
"It's him," though impossible, is all there is to say before he steps forth from the darkness.
I sit at the window and watch carefully as the rest of the world speeds by, for there is not a speed high enough to please their non-stop lives. I watch and wonder if they ever wonder about anything but their own lives.
A golden leaf lands on my mailbox, and I blink, and in that time, he's there, tapping on the glass and pointing towards the door, smiling his usual smile that he offers so warmly to only me.
Of course, I let him in, for it is hard not to let in the one who is the closest to you, even if he's forgotten his keys. As always, he first bows, then kisses me on the forehead, and shuts the door last, which, due to the unnerving cold beyond our porch, would more commonly be done first.
"I'm glad to see you've gained a little colour, Sasuke," he says, pulling off his scarf and hat. "Did you watch the movies I left you?"
I turn into the kitchen and fill up the kettle, trying my hardest to ignore him as he stands behind me, watching.
"Yeah," I say shortly. I always imagine that I've got so much more to say to him, so many words to fill up my sentences and the blank space that sits empty, without my love for him to fill it. But, in the end, I can only bring forth small syllables and common conversation that even a stranger would find distant. "The one with the pirates was good."
He smiles-- though I never know if it's at me or about me-- as I put the kettle on the stove and bring down our mugs and tea bags. "I'm glad. I was hoping that you wouldn't be bored, since Mother is out and all your friends are in school."
"I wasn't."
Carefully, I touch his hand. This is the most intimate I can possibly get with him, despite my love for him, which just bursts at my seems as if it were going to tear me in two.
"Did you say your prayers today?" I ask, only touching him with two fingers only. I can't bring myself to touch him any more than that, for fear that he may touch me back.
He smiles, but it's much sadder than any he's ever shown me. "Sorry, Sasuke. I didn't."
"But what if Dad . . . If we don't pray, he won't go to heaven, right?"
"Sasuke . . . " he says slowly, and, as I dreaded, he reaches towards me, placing his hand on the top of my head. "You know I don't believe in things like that. Father is gone, and where to, I do not know, but if he is headed for an afterlife, I believe he will be the one to determine whether it is good or bad, not us."
"But . . . 'tachi . . . What if we do have to pray? What if . . . he ends up in hell if we don't pray?" I try to ignore the feel of his fingers in my hair.
"Well, I think you and Mother will be plenty to send father to heaven."
The kettle steams and the bubbles tap from the inside, jumping and rushing to get out.
"But if he needs you . . . "
His face becomes stony, as if he were thinking of what I might do if he were to let himself cry, and he puts his hands on my shoulders. Even more so than his touch, his eyes scare me, so wise and sad, without any trace of their youth. But before I can read what is there to be read, he closes them.
"He does not need me, Sasuke, for I was the one who killed him."
And before I can back away, before I can ask him why; why he would lie, why he would tell me, why he would do it, before he can open his eyes, I've reached for his shirt to support myself and fainted away, quite frightened, in his arms.
This is where it begins . . .
I was so inspired to write this that I had to get it off my chest. When I finish Those Weird Feelings No One Ever Gets, I'll finish doing this.
So, let me just inform you that this won't be like a regular story that has multiple chapters, though I know it has been done before. As you see, each of the parts of this preface are all different and nearly unique stories, and-- though some of the character parts will be changed, the story lines will be different, and each setting is its own-- they are all ultimately the same tale at the heart of themselves. So, because there are three stories, each chapter will be a continuation of one of the three stories, and, when I write and post them, you will see the order in which I will be posting them, which is likely to be the same order in which they are presented in this preface, and I will not stray from that order. With all hopes, I'll be able to pull off an ending that ties them all up without one having finished earlier than the others. The epilogue will be similar to the preface. (If this makes no sense, I hope it does eventually.)
I'd appreciate feedback of your opinions on this new story of mine.