Why hello there my good friends, I am back! I haven't checked with other stories, so I have no idea if the number of people who read this and the number who favorited/followed this story is high, low or normal, but it made me feel great that people enjoyed what I wrote. So I decided to get this new chapter out for all those who liked what they read. I have read the reviews I have received and have taken the advice I got into account. I apologize for how long this chapter took to get out, but I had to take the ACT and studying for that had taken up a lot of my time. Without further ado, here is another chapter of "Perfection".
Chapter 2: Blending in
Naruto awoke inside of a room with stark white walls and the soft sound of beeping filled his ears. Realizing that he was in the hospital, he tried to get up but found that he couldn't because his wrists, ankles and chest were all strapped down to the bed.
'What the… Why am I tied to the bed…?' A look of remembrance then crossed his face, before quickly changing to one of joy and… satisfaction. 'Those villagers, they got what they deserved. They were filthy scum, weak and defenseless prey that needed to be cleaned from this earth, although they tasted amazing…'
Chuckling darkly at his thought, Naruto turned his attention back to the room he was trapped in for the time being.
There was nothing very outstanding about the room that he had been placed in, thought he felt something off about the room, as if someone was watching him. Reaching out for the feeling, he looked towards the area where the feeling was most concentrated. All that appeared to be in that particular corner was a simple potted plant, but upon focusing on the area Naruto saw that the shadow of the plant was slightly distorted, as if it had been changed somehow. It was nearly unnoticeable to anyone not closely inspecting it from a foot away, and yet it stood out to him as clear as any other detail of the room.
'Now that I think of it' thought Naruto 'everything around me seems clearer than it was before…'
And it was true; everything was much more detailed to Naruto now. He could see the tiny cracks in the wall opposite him, hear the conversations of others clearly and the smell of disinfectant from the hospital was almost overwhelming. Underneath that smell, he could barely detect the smell of the thing he sensed watching him earlier. What or whomever it was smelled of metal, blood and a bit of dog.
"Who are you?" Naruto called out to his watcher, staring at the plant. After a moment of silence, the plant started to become distorted and seemed to give way to a man. The man was an ANBU, wearing the standard ANBU equipment with an Inu mask.
"That's interesting… How did you sense me?" Asked Inu
"I felt someone watching me, and I noticed a distortion in the plant's shadow." Naruto said, deciding that if the man hadn't attacked him in his sleep then he was unlikely to attack him now. Though that is not to say that Naruto didn't feel the urge to attack the man, something about him made him seem as though he would be delicious.
Ignoring his urges for now, Naruto tried to move his hands again. With the straps still tight, Naruto again turned to the ANBU, asking "Inu-san, why am I tied down?"
"You should know why, Naruto, especially after what you did to all of those villagers yesterday. We didn't know if you would attack the hospital staff if you woke up…"
Naruto frowned, and then had a thought "Inu-san, why do you seem so calm about what I did yesterday? It's as if you are used to this or something."
Inu gained what seemed to be a hardened feeling about him, but as his face could not be seen it was hard to tell, and said in an explaining, yet somewhat disgusted tone "This sort of thing isn't as rare in the world as you would think, we simply keep the information suppressed to avoid anyone getting… curious…"
At this the Hokage entered the room, seeing the boy and his ANBU staring at one another, the tension growing with each second. Coughing to get their attention, the Hokage turned to Inu "You are dismissed Inu, although I would like to speak to you about the events that happened here after I am finished…" Inu, bowing to the Hokage, vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving merely a few leaves in his place. "Now that we are alone, we have much to speak about Naruto." Spoke the Hokage, sitting on a chair next to Naruto's bed.
"What do you want to talk about, Jiji-chan?" Naruto said, jokingly using his nickname for the Hokage as he shifted to better look towards him.
"Well," said the Hokage "how about we start with why you killed and ate all of those villagers last night." The older man spoke, giving Naruto a concerned gaze.
Naruto growled at this question, and yelled "WHY WOULD I DO THAT YOU SAY! WELL MAYBE IT WAS BECAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO KILL ME!" Naruto glared at the Hokage with his fists clenched and trembling.
The Hokage looked a bit shocked at this. He knew that the villagers were mean towards Naruto, and that some beatings had occurred on his last birthday when he was caught up in a meeting with a Suna delegate to discuss a renewed peace treaty, but he never thought the civilians would go so far as to try to kill the boy. "I… I guess that explains killing them, but why would you go so far as to eat them?"
Naruto gained a cruel smile "Why did I eat them? Well, it was because I was hungry." While saying this, Naruto gained a glint in his eye. Sarutobi recognized this glint as one seen in the eyes of those that had gone insane, or were at least close to it.
The Hokage only looked somewhat surprised, expecting this answer due to what Naruto had said to him yesterday before he had passed out, but nevertheless still somewhat disturbed by those words being spoken in the voice of a seemingly "innocent" child. "Well Naruto, while I don't approve of what you did to their bodies, I can see that killing them was an act of self defense, and since cannibalism is technically not illegal, you will not be punished for your actions."
Cannibalism, though highly frowned upon in most places, was not illegal in any of the elemental nations other than Kusagakure, due to the numerous tribes of people that practiced it living scattered around the nations.
While the Hokage was somewhat disturbed that his surrogate grandson had taken up that particular eating habit and showed no intention of stopping, he would respect the child's wishes, if only to attempt to make up for the suffering that Naruto had experienced earlier in his life due to his foolish trust in the people of the village.
"Very well then Naruto," Spoke Sarutobi in a sorrowful tone "I will not stop you from pursuing this particular… Habit… but I must make it clear to you that you are not to attack any civilians in any situation other than self defense." The stern gaze that was held over him told Naruto everything he needed to know, if he were to ever attack a civilian of the village than the consequences would be dire.
"I understand jiji." Spoke Naruto quietly "I won't attack anyone in the village, but if I am attacked again like I was today I will defend myself by whatever means I see fit…" Gazing into Naruto's determined eyes, Sarutobi could only pity those who were foolish enough to attack the boy.
Time Skip: Naruto Age 8
Naruto walked down the road in silence, head downward and walking towards the shinobi academy. A couple of months ago he had made clear to his grandfather his desire to become a shinobi. Sarutobi had allowed it, on the condition that he not kill or maim any of the students, no matter what they did to him. Naruto had of course agreed, the children at the academy wouldn't have enough meat on them to make a full meal out of, unlike his other meals. Bandits were rather weak and somewhat tasteless, but there were almost always a lot of them there to make up for it.
That was another development in these two years; Sarutobi had started allowing Naruto to take "missions" outside of the village to sate his… tastes. Nothing that he thought would be too difficult for the boy, mostly things like eradicating bandit camps that would have been given to a more experienced genin team or perhaps one or two chunin.
Very quickly after the events of two years ago, Sarutobi had realized that Naruto refused to eat anything but human flesh. When asked why, Naruto simply shrugged and said "Compared to it, all the other kinds of food taste bland and unsatisfying." whilst he munched on a finger that he had managed to save in his pocket.
In order to keep the boy fed, Sarutobi at first started giving him the bodies of criminals to eat. This worked for a while, until he realized just how much Naruto could eat. He eventually started running out of inmates to supply the boy with. (After all, not many would be crazy enough to commit much crime in the center of the most powerful shinobi village)
It was ironically Mizuki, a chunin that absolutely despised Naruto that gave him the solution to his problem. One day, while he was aiding in handing out missions, he commented "There seem to be a large amount of requests for killing off bandits lately, there seems to be no end to them." He said as he straightened his stack of papers
The Hokage overheard this and began thinking 'Yes, there really seems to be no way to get rid of them all, they just keep coming no matter how many we kill off… Wait a minute, this gives me an idea.' He took a deep smoke from his pipe and said "Thank you Mizuki, you have just given me an idea; it will take care of both this bandit problem and another problem of mine…"
Mizuki looked confused at this, asking "What is this problem I've somehow helped solve?" The old Hokage merely chuckled "Nothing that you need concern yourself with my boy, nothing you need concern yourself with…" The next day the mission center noticed a decrease in the amount of missions involving bandits decreased, but they all assumed it was just the bandits finally getting smart and leaving the area.
Walking in to his room in the academy, all the talking that had been going on quieted and all eyes turned to him, all of them staring somewhat confused at the new face in the class that had been going on for about a month now. 'Just as I thought, weak children, none of them are even worth the effort of eating, much less killing…' Thought Naruto as he gazed out over the classroom.
Only a few faces really caught his attention: A rather thick boy that might be worth eating simply because of his size, a skinny pineapple haired boy who was busy sleeping, a blond haired twig of a girl that looked like she really needed to eat more often, a boy who had a dog on his head 'He seems a bit hotheaded if the way he is looking at me gives anything away, I wonder if he'll taste spicy…'
The three others that got his attention were a boy wearing a large trench coat that covered almost all of him and had small circular sunglasses covering his eyes, a boy with black hair that looked like the rear end of a duck that seemed to have a bit larger chakra capacity than the rest of the class, and a small white-eyed girl that seemed to try to hide herself in her overly large white coat when she saw him looking at her.
'All in all… only the big one and the one with the large chakra capacity are even worth being considered a snack.' Thought Naruto as he turned his attention to the apparent teacher of the class, a chunin with hair styled somewhat similar to the pineapple haired boy's and a large scar going horizontally across his face slightly below his eyes.
"Ah!" Spoke the teacher "You must be the new student, my name is Iruka and I will be teaching you for your time here at the academy. Now then, how about you introduce yourself to the class and then take that empty seat in the third row."
Turning towards the class, Naruto spoke "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I enjoy training, fighting and food. I dislike those who are weak and anyone who interrupts my meals. My hobbies are training, hunting and sparring. My dream is to be strong." Naruto then took a bow, and began walking towards his seat, when Iruka spoke up "Thank you very much Naruto, I hope you have a good time in this class. Now then, a few simple rules for the classroom are… Naruto, what are you eating?" Iruka said as he noticed an odd looking object sticking out of Naruto's mouth.
Naruto turned to face Iruka "Oh this?" he said, pointing to the object in his mouth. When Iruka nodded, Naruto pulled it out of his mouth and showed it to him "It's just a snack; fingers are always one of the best parts."(1) Iruka flinched back in horror, as while the Hokage had notified him of Naruto's… Eating habits… Iruka had not expected him to be munching on a finger shamelessly in front of the class. Looking around, Iruka noticed that all of the students were showing reactions of fear and disgust, even Shino, the ever stoic member of the Aburame clan, seemed to lean away from the boy and cover his eyes.
The first to regain the use of their voice was surprisingly not Iruka, but a pink haired student that, like the blonde one, was pretty much a twig. Looking at Naruto in horror, she screamed "HOW COULD YOU EAT THAT YOU MONSTER!" Naruto gazed at her, causing her to begin shivering in fear as his cold blue eyes seemed to stare into her soul. After a few moments of silence, the boy replied "I don't understand why you seem so disturbed, it really is tasty. Here, I brought a spare, try it! I promise you'll love it…" Said Naruto as he pulled another nearly identical finger out from his pocket and all but shoved it in the girl's face. With that, the girl finally gave in to her urges… and promptly fell flat on her face, out cold.
End Chapter 2
Well then my friends, I hope you have enjoyed this new chapter! Tell me what you think in the form of a PM or a review if you like. And without further ado I bid you all farewell.
Until the next moonlit night,
Musamura
