Harvester of Sorrow

Memo to the readers

This fic, under the current title, is now discontinued. Fret not, dear readers, because I'm re-writing it under the title "Absence of Justice", which should be much better than this story was. However, I am going to at least give you something to read for your trouble. I couldn't work out the date scene, but here's a rough draft of what would've been the next chapter had I finished it and not chosen to re-write it.

Harvester of Sorrow

… "Well, Naruto-kun, what if I want you to, I don't know, take me on a date as payment too?"

For the first time since Larxene had started teaching him thunder-elemental magic about four years ago – and doing it the painful way (for him) at that – Naruto was caught completely off guard. So, for lack of any better ideas, he said: "If it's a night on the town you're looking for, then I shall provide. Tell me what you need, and I'll see that you get it, love."

Naruto finished with an over-exaggerated bow, and was barely able to say the word "love" with a straight face, but he pulled it off – and the look on Xion's face was absolutely priceless. She went red as a tomato and muttered a small "EEP!" before conjuring a Corridor of Darkness around herself and running to whereabouts unknown.

Harvester of Sorrow

Of all the responses Xion could possibly have expected, Naruto calling her "love" and offering her a "night on the town" were not among them. As soon as she realized what she was doing, though, Xion began raging against herself internally. What the hell? I haven't even known this guy for an entire day, and it's like I'm already head-over-heels for him!

Still, she had to admit… while she didn't really know much about Naruto, from his actions and mannerisms, she could figure out some bits and pieces. For one thing, even holding back in a sparring match, he fought to win, and wasn't against using trickery if it made things easier. He wasn't without honor most of the time, but Naruto was still willing and able to fight dirty if he had to. Absentmindedly rubbing her still-somewhat-sore jaw, she remembered how strong he was physically, and also that look in his eyes throughout their fight.

It was the look of a man who would stop at little to achieve his goals, whatever they were. She wouldn't quite say that Naruto was obsessed, and Xion knew she didn't have the full story – or even know what his goals were – , but… maybe he was a bit too focused for his own good.

At the same time, though, she recalled that the instant Naruto had seen her, about to fall from an ill-placed Corridor of Darkness (and probably land face-first, knowing her luck), the Harvester of Sorrow had appeared underneath Xion and caught her, before gently placing her on the ground after making sure she was okay.

Xion knew that there were very few people who could be considered as completely Light or Dark, but most tended to lean one way or another. Naruto, though… she honestly couldn't say if he was a lighter tint of black, or a darker shade of white. He really was a gray area.

Meanwhile, on Hanging Neck Island…

Neo had been looking for potential recruits for his and Naruto's team, but so far every opponent he'd challenged had been too weak for real consideration. He'd fought damn near everyone he could find for the last week, and still no luck.

He was brooding on the roof of the arena when a feminine voice somewhat startled him.

"I hear you're recruiting, kid. Mind if I join you?"

Neo leapt to his feet and spun around, coming face-to-face with a young woman. She looked to be a few years older than he was (biologically speaking), with short blue hair and wearing a dark silver t-shirt and charcoal slacks. (1) And yes, he had to admit that she was quite a looker, too.

But the thing that really caught Neo's attention, though, was the gunmetal gray Keyblade hanging from her hip, which was longer than her arms and had teeth resembling a giant capital "E" (2). In fact, it was so long that were she a few inches shorter, it would have drug along the ground. He asked, "Depends. You know how to use that thing?", indicating her weapon. The woman grinned a bit, as she hefted her Keyblade in both hands, before shifting the weight to her left hand and allowing it to rest against her shoulder as she replied, "Why don't you come over here and find out for yourself, hm?"

Neo's eyes lit up at the prospect of a challenge, and he instantly summoned his weapon, wielding a blood-red double-edged longsword with black veins running along it, through which both warriors could sense a steady pulse of Darkness. With a grin that most would view as predatory, but for Neo was simply of anticipation, he shouted, "Oh HELL YES!" and rushed recklessly at his opponent.

The woman changed her position slightly, and cast a low-level Protect spell to block Neo's first strike, before using both hands to bring down the Key to Justice (3) upon the younger, silver-haired swordsman.

Neo, however, saw it coming in advance, and was able to roll out of the way, dodging the overhead slash. And after seeing the decent-sized hole in the roof it caused, the Replica whistled before saying, "Forgot to introduce myself earlier. Call me Neo. And your name is…?"

The blue-haired Keyblade Master brought her large weapon to bear in preparation for another attack before replying, "My name… is Aqua." And with that, she rushed once more at her prospective teammate.

Even though she'd been using the Key to Justice for a couple of years (4), she still could only use it somewhat effectively – while Aqua was far from being a pushover, she was by no means as strong as Terra was. Even so, it didn't mean that she couldn't inflict some hefty damage with her mentor's Keyblade, and that's just what she attempted to do.

Neo found himself forced to dodge repeatedly – even though he could tell that Aqua wasn't quite used to such a heavy weapon, she was still a force to be reckoned with, and his Dark-elemental barriers were barely powerful enough to withstand even a horizontal slash: when Aqua hit with overhead strikes, said barriers crumbled after only a second or two.

The Replica leapt high into the air and formed a large cocoon of Dark energy around his entire body, before dive-bombing Aqua as he shouted, "Shadow Rocket!"

Aqua saw it coming, however, and she raised a palm at the reckless fighter while preparing to counter the attack. With a cry of "Firaga!", a great sphere of flame appeared in Aqua's hand, before it shot out towards Neo at amazing speeds, preparing to reduce him to cinders.

Naruto's "second-in-command" was barely able to react in time to keep himself from being incinerated, as managed to perform an Aerial Recovery and convert his kamikaze attack into a Dark-Elemental burst of energy, which, upon collision with Aqua's Firaga spell, produced an enormous explosion.

The dust settled after a few minutes, revealing that Aqua had been knocked on her behind by the blast, but still had her Keyblade out in front of her, while Neo was panting heavily and down on one knee, using his sword to hold himself up. Checking his watch, he noted that they'd been fighting for around five and a half minutes.

Laughing a little, he said, "Hey Aqua, if you still want to join Team Turanox, then you are as of now the third member." Then, after thinking for a few seconds, he amended, "Unless Naruto got some new recruits I don't know about yet."

Neo pushed himself to his feet, and slowly walked over to Aqua, offering her his hand.

The blue-headed Keyblade Master tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, before she smiled and accepted the gesture of kindness.

Upon the Elemental Continent…

Almost the entirety of Konoha was rejoicing the seventh anniversary of the "hellspawn's disappearance" from their midst.

The festivities were in full swing, but there was a certain bar devoid of partiers today. Five people sat around a table, quietly drinking alcoholic beverages of varying strength, and swapping stories about Naruto. These were the people who'd felt that they could identify with him in some way, those who were ashamed of themselves for failing to intervene and stand up for him when he was around to be stood up for.

One of them was a Chunin sensei at the Academy, Iruka Umino. He'd been one of Naruto's teachers, and while he knew that Naruto and the Kyuubi had been entirely different entities, his job as a professor had kept him from getting involved, since most would have interpreted it as playing favorites. Even so, he'd always done everything in his power to make certain that Naruto was given the same level of opportunity as the rest of his students. He took a large gulp of sake before his jaw clenched and he muttered to himself, "For all the damned good it did him…"

Another was Iruka's girlfriend, a Special Jonin by the name of Anko Mitarashi. She, like Naruto, was widely considered as a pariah for something she had no control over, which was the fact that her old sensei was a complete and utter bastard, rotten to the core. While at first, she couldn't have cared less about the Jinchuuriki, hearing about him from Iruka had gotten her interested. He'd told her that the boy was, in his own way, nothing short of genius – not in the same sense as Sasuke Uchiha or Shikamaru Nara, but in that he was impossible to predict, and a master of improvisation. After hearing things like that, she'd done a little research, and found that the kid had been treated horribly by society at large on a daily basis, and had thus taken upon herself the role of "avenging angel": hunting down and killing those that went too far, while giving the young boy a shelter whenever he'd needed it. Veins popping out of her neck in anger, Anko forced herself to calm down with a shot of straight whiskey.

Sitting across the table was a couple, a Jonin called Hayate Gekko, and his fiancée, Yugao Uzuki of the ANBU Black Ops. Like Anko, they'd first come to realize what Naruto suffered after hearing about him from Iruka, and had sought to protect him as well, though not by Anko's "blood and iron" approach: Hayate and Yugao had tried repeatedly to get Naruto into foster care, but his so-called custodians (orphanage managers) had never been willing to sign the necessary paperwork to finish it, so nothing ever worked out. Hayate and Yugao had also begun guarding Naruto's memory, though not to Anko's extreme.

The fifth man was by far the most conflicted. Kakashi Hatake had recently gotten a haircut, so that it resembled his look when he'd first been promoted to Jonin… when Obito, Rin, and Minato-sensei had all been alive. He remembered how, shortly before the Kyuubi attack, Minato had named Kakashi as Naruto's godfather. However, the cycloptic shinobi never told a soul about it, and had left Naruto on his own, knowing that he (Kakashi) was nowhere near decent parenting material. At the time, he'd sincerely thought that he'd been acting for the best, but now he hated himself for his lack of action. For God's sake, he at least could've tried to make a difference! But no, nothing had changed since that mission on the borders of Iwa: Kakashi still took care of himself before all others. He was a failure.

At that moment, one of the festival-goers outside entered the bar, and, just to be a self-righteous bastard, sat down at the same table as the Naruto sympathizers, in-between Kakashi and Yugao. For about three minutes, he remained silent, just drinking his alcohol and eyeing the other people near him. Then, he said, "Y'know wha'? I 'ear dat some o' fellas was kinda close to dat brat, and even tho' ev'rybody's gotta 'ave somebody, you fellas just didn't really 'ave much brains for da somebody dat you wanted ta 'ave, dat's all. S'a matta o' fack, I reckon dat if you guys'd just known betta who ta fra'er… fra'er… ahfuckittogod, hang out wit, then ya'd be partyin' wit da rest o' us, like normal folks." (5)

The drunkard then shut his mouth, awaiting a response – and as soon as he did, he got one.

Without so much as glancing in the intruder's direction, Kakashi reached out with his left hand and instantly crushed the arrogant fool's windpipe, before unleashing a blast of chakra that almost tore said drunkard's head off.

After another drink, Kakashi asked, "Have I ever told anybody… how much I hate normalcy?"

The bartender had his son drag the bloody and nearly decapitated corpse out of the bar and throw it in the gutter, before cleaning up what little mess had been made, and with strict instructions to treat the entire incident as if it had been a suicide: meaning, nobody saw Kakashi do anything.

There were no further interruptions for the rest of the day.

Harvester of Sorrow

(1): I couldn't properly describe Aqua's clothing, so I simply gave her a new outfit. Besides, she's been in the Realm of Darkness (where Hanging Neck Island is) for ten years, and even though she hasn't aged, she'd still want a change of clothes, I should think.

(2): Remember that Aqua sacrificed her own Keyblade and armor for Xehanort/Terra's body to return to the Realm of Light. Yes, I know that Aqua is the magic expert of the BBS trio, but she still needs a Keyblade for reliable melee attacks. Therefore, I gave her access to the Keyblade handed down to her from Master Eraqus.

(3): I don't know if Eraqus's Keyblade has a canonical name, so I invented one.

(4): From Aqua's point of view, it's only been two or three years, perhaps, even though ten years have passed chronologically. Remember that time flows differently in the Realm of Darkness.

(5): This man is dead drunk, people. Seriously, he's stoned to the bone, it's wondrous that he can even speak at all. For those who can't comprehend the babboon's babbling, here's a translation: "You know what? I hear that some of you people were fond of the brat (Naruto), and while I admit that everyone needs someone in their lives, you fellows simply had a poor choice of comrades. As a matter of fact, I believe that if you had just known better who to fraternize (read: ah, fuck it to God, hang out) with, then you'd be enjoying the festivities along with everyone else."