Kusagawa Mikaboshi hated his name. The mere fact that his parents had named him after a god of evil made him feel extremely bitter about it. No matter where he went people kept judging him by his name and in the end, he gave up trying to make an honest living after getting a job under the shipping merchant Gato.
So here he was acting as the supervisor of a group of hired muscle used to keep a firm grip on the nation of Nami no Kuni. Unlike most of Gato's thugs he was actually trusted, mainly because of his gratitude towards the first person to give him a job, of course he was incredibly loyal to his boss and never once took advantage of that trust.
Right now however he was simply being forced to evacuate his bladder in the forest surrounding his groups camp, he would have to remember to ask Gato if he was prepared to buy them some portable toilets later.
Suddenly a rustling in a nearby bush caught his attention, causing him to close his pants and move towards the shrub, cautious of what could be lurking in it, he still had nasty images of one guy under his care doing something similar only to get his… precious part bitten by a poisonous snake, the man's screams of agony still haunted his nightmares… especially from after they cut it off in an attempt to stop the poison spreading.
Pulling out his sword, the man started using it to push the bush open to see what was causing the movement, letting out a breath he didn't even know he had been holding upon seeing a small white rabbit… then it turned around and his eyes widened in shock upon seeing the blood covering its neck which in itself was bent at an unnatural angle, though the most haunting part of the picture was the eyes, the misty white that covered it and showed it was either blind or dead.
Just as he opened his mouth to scream, he found a hand clasped over it as he felt something bite his neck, four extremely sharp fangs effortlessly puncturing his skin before he began to feel light headed.
His mind moved at a thousand miles a second as fear overtook his senses, his legs starting to thrash out as his hands tried to pry the hand keeping his voice from reaching his minions from his mouth with no success despite his desperate struggles.
It took several minutes before the man finally felt the last of his life leave his body, knowing that he would be nothing more than a corpse when whatever was latched onto him was finished.
XXX XXX XXX
Naruto almost felt sick as he removed his fangs from his first human victim and lifted 'Bunny' back onto his shoulder. The only thing stopping him from actually feeling sick was knowing of the atrocities his victim had sanctioned, happily allowing his men to murder, rape and pillage anyone that wasn't under Gato's protection.
Knowing that Gato hired thugs not only to enforce his 'law' but let them do as they pleased to those that broke it made the blond feel even more enraged at the monster that ran the country through trade and terror.
He had to admit he was appreciating that he had decided to wait for nightfall before striking, as it stood he was capable of keeping his hood and mask down, meaning he wouldn't have to worry about getting 'sunburnt' if his hood fell down in the middle of a fight… plus he could keep his fangs ready to bite his victims and 'convert' them.
He was also happy that his first human meal appeared to have allowed his skin to completely regenerate, leaving him completely unscathed from his earlier roasting.
Quickly jumping up to a branch Naruto looked down to see his newest corpse starting to stand, the only indication that it was even dead being the bite marks at the side of his neck, the paleness of his skin and the glazing his eyes were gaining.
Deciding to start his plan, Naruto opened a mental link with the corpse and gave it an order, one that it immediately began to follow as it walked back towards the camp in a relatively human looking walk, the true beauty of the newly dead, that they didn't have rotting parts to compensate for, of course 'Bunny' was different because he had a broken neck which screwed with the nervous signals and therefore interfered with its movement.
Calmly watching from his branch with 'Bunny' on his shoulder, Naruto witnessed one of the many bandits in the camp comment on how long the guy had been taking a piss, growing slightly nervous when he received no answer.
The bandits began to grow restless as their boss kept walking towards them in a slightly unnatural manner that despite looking mostly normal, just didn't seem right.
Just as the group prepared their weapons, ready for nearly anything, Mikaboshi sprung forwards and with a loud crunch, used his jaws to break a bandits neck and tear a large chunk of flesh out of him in the process.
Immediately the large group of bandits started to panic as they witnessed one of their own literally eat a piece of another comrade, their panic was only increased by the white rabbit that flew out of the trees and proceeded to tear at another's throat.
Naruto knew that he shouldn't have any problems setting his ghouls on these monsters, from what Mikaboshi's memories told him, most of these men had tortured and raped men, women and children, he knew that these people were not worthy of the life they currently possessed and that his ghouls would take it from them for him.
However, witnessing the victims of his minions rise and start joining in on the wholesale slaughter, he began to feel sick, watching people have chunks of flesh ripped from them under his orders. It didn't help his stomach that most of the thugs died slow deaths, emitting screams of the upmost agony as they lay bleeding out, or even as they were being eaten alive.
Seeing such carnage unleashed under his command made the boy shudder in revulsion, though he knew that he couldn't undo what he had done and that there were still several more camps that he needed to wipe out before Gato learned of this camps destruction.
XXX XXX XXX
"Kakashi-sensei… are you sure it's alright to let Naruto run around attacking Gato on his own?" Sakura asked, a combination of curiosity and concern lacing her voice as she wondered what her blond teammate would do if he got in over his head.
"I wouldn't worry too much, I'm sure if anything goes wrong Naruto can just be dead," Kakashi said calmly, earning several raised eyebrows from the other occupants of the room, fortunately Inari was missing so they didn't have to worry about him annoying them about Gato being invincible… again.
"What do you mean 'be dead'? Don't you care what happens to him?" Tsunami asked with a certain level of concern in her voice, obviously not understanding exactly what the Jōnin meant.
"Well, it's not really appropriate to say he could just 'play dead' like some people do… because unlike them he already is dead," the cycloptic Jōnin stated calmly, causing several looks of realisation to spread on everyone's faces.
"Okay… but why do I get this strange feeling that everything will go to hell later?" the young pinkette asked earning a shrug off the older ninja as he began to wonder how many 'zombies' Naruto would have by the end of the mission, if they were lucky he would have less than fifty, anymore would bring about even more problems when they finally returned to Konoha and they would already have enough trouble simply trying to explain the boys new state of being and (hopefully) small number of zombie slaves.
"Well, we've got an early start tomorrow, we'd better get some rest while we can, so let's just put Naruto out of our minds and go to bed 'kay?" the silver haired ninja stated lazily as he began to wonder if the blond would be getting tired right now… unlike them he didn't have a light to help keep him awake.
XXX XXX XXX
Naruto couldn't stop himself from gagging as he looked over the remains of the camp. Despite most of the thugs being turned into ghouls by his original ghouls, there were some that hadn't been turned… namely because there wasn't enough of them left to raise from the dead.
If he had the capacity to throw up at the scene he would've, to think that his first scene of death was not only this extreme but also caused by him. That was the truly disturbing part of the scene, that it had been created on his orders… and that he would see it again soon.
He knew he wasn't cold but he couldn't stop himself from wrapping his arms around himself and shivering, this scene was the physical proof that he wasn't human anymore.
Turning away from the camp, he proceeded to follow the memories he had absorbed from the commander and take his new army to wipe out his next target.
"Sssooo gloomy aren't you? Seriously, you'll do a lot better if you just learned to enjoy the carnage," came the now all too familiar call of the Kyūbi in a voice that made it clear it had thoroughly enjoyed the show.
"Shut up, I'm not a psychopath like you," the blue eyed blond responded with anger clear in his tone, hell, out of all the people that he could've listened to for moral support it just had to be the bijū, "then again… Kakashi-sensei? Are you awake?"
"Yeah… we all are," came a subdued tone from the Jōnin's mind as the blond proceeded to connect the entire team telepathically, "need a shoulder to lean on after your first kill?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it that simple," the blond said with a shudder as he remembered the scene he had created.
"Hahaha! Damn right! That was so bloody I wish I could roll in it!"
"Shut up rabbit," came a demand from Sasuke that made everyone connected giggle a little.
"I'M NOT A FUCKING RABBIT YOU RETARDED UCHIHA!" the red eyed bijū shouted in outrage at the raven haired avenger.
"Whatever bunny," the fox's anger could be felt clearly through the mental link the group shared and only made the humans laugh harder at the chakra constructs expense, "so, what happened? You can show us can't you?"
"Wait! I don't know if I can handle that sort of image yet!" Sakura made her concerns clear over the link only to receive an unconcerned reply from her sensei.
"Given that Naruto is your teammate, you will have to get used to his abilities sooner or later so it is better to get it out of the way now so it doesn't get to you when you see it first hand," Sakura couldn't fault his logic and made it clear that the blond should inflict his memories on her as well.
The young blond could easily feel the horror that filled Sakura's mind at the images she was receiving, however he was surprised to feel very little from his other two teammates… as if they had seen worse.
"I can definitely see why you are so shook up over this, it is a truly horrible situation for someone unused to death to see themselves creating," the one eyed Jōnin stated calmly.
"I've seen worse," Sasuke admitted, shocking both the other genin before he pushed the memories of his clans massacre into their minds, "I know it is a lot cleaner but the real difference is the person committing the deed."
"You mean the fact that Naruto feels guilty about what he did?" the pink haired genin decided to ask, earning a simple yes from the dark eyed boy.
"Itachi killed our entire family for no reason and felt nothing… Naruto ordered the death of those thugs to save a country and feels nothing but guilt, I think it's safe to say that he isn't a real monster," Naruto had to admit, hearing those words from the one person he always aimed towards made him feel better than anything else ever had.
The entire team immediately felt the boys mood rise, though only Kakashi really understood why, the others just put it down to the words themselves.
"Thanks guys… I feel much better now," the whiskered vampire told them with gratitude clear in his mental tone.
"We know, we can feel how you're feeling," Sakura admitted to the blond who simply smiled at the knowledge that despite everything, his teammates truly did care for him.
"Anyway, I'll see you guys sooner or later," the blond said, earning a trio of farewells in response to him before he closed two of the mental links, "hey Kakashi-sensei."
"Naruto, I thought everything had been sorted out?" the Jōnin thought back to the blond.
"Yeah, I was just wondering where Tsunami-san is right now," Naruto told the older man.
"She's bathing right now, why?"
XXX XXX XXX
Sasuke and Sakura couldn't stop confusion from appearing on their faces as they watched their sensei stare off into the distance while a small red stain began to appear where the tip of his nose was hidden by his mask.
"Um… Kakashi-sensei? Is something wrong?" Sakura asked the silver haired man.
"No, everything is just perfect," the older ninja said in a tone that crept the young girl out while Sasuke simply figured out exactly what was going on.
"Hey Sakura, can you please get me a glass of water?" the raven haired Uchiha asked the girl who immediately shot out of the chair she was in and headed to the kitchen, "Kakashi-sensei… can you ask Naruto to let me watch too?"
XXX XXX XXX
Naruto had to admit, it was annoying having to travel at the same speed as his ghouls, a trip that should've taken no longer than twenty minutes had taken him nearly four hours.
Though he did feel a lot better, especially after finding out that Tsunami still 'played' with herself with thoughts of Kaiza while bathing… that had been a really good show in his opinion, both Sasuke and Kakashi agreed with him as well.
It did annoy him though that his lack of flowing blood made a certain appendage he possessed completely useless.
Shaking his head clear of those thoughts, he took to the trees as he began to near the second camp that night. Judging by the speed he was able to move at with the ghouls this would be the last camp he could destroy before the night was up, though he would be able to get most of the way to the third one before the sun rose for the day.
If only he didn't have to slow down for the ghouls like this… the blond proceeded to face palm at that thought, why the hell did he need the ghouls to attack a camp anyway? He could easily just make more when he got there.
Though he would still have to supervise them just in case there were innocents among the camps, he had learned through Mikaboshi's memories that the camps tended to keep women of all ages captive to keep the 'men' amused. It made him sick, the thought that these people would force women to have sex with them… some even forcing girls as young as ten to perform such acts.
He may peek on women whenever he got the chance but he would never force them to 'pleasure' him against their will… if they were willing then he wouldn't say no (well as long as he could fit his arms around them and they weren't sagging that is) but that was a completely different situation.
Moving closer to the camp under the cover of the branches he focused on the now nearly pitch black area, he had been really quite surprised when he discovered that his eyesight was now better in the dark than the light, though it simply made things so much easier for him to act in the shadows.
Looking around the camp, he located a mere three torch wielding sentries that looked like they were about to fall asleep at any second, seventeen large tents and most importantly, two posts in the middle of the camp with nine women chained to them.
Naruto immediately grit his teeth while his eyes turned red in anger as he saw a fourth thug currently 'using' a young woman that looked to be between the age of eighteen and twenty five. It took all of his self control to stop himself from charging in to kill the man that was treating a woman like some kind of sex toy, realising that if he did so he would simply put all of the captives at risk.
Halting his breathing, the now red eyed vampire proceeded to silently drop from the branch he was perching on before moving like a shadow towards one of the sentries, effortlessly sneaking behind the half awake thug and with a single fluid motion, clamped his hand around the man's mouth and digging his teeth into his victims neck.
Less than a minute passed in silence as he assimilated the guards memories, nearly being driven into a hatred driven rampage at the memories of this creature he was currently drinking the blood of. To think out of everyone possible he had come across one of the three thugs that used children for adult activities.
Immediately deciding that he didn't want to risk anymore memories like that, he pulled out a pair of kunai and with a single well aimed toss, eliminated the other two sentries while leaving the one currently raping a woman alive to face a far worse fate.
Once again moving like a shadow, the sharp fanged boy flowed behind the last of the conscious thugs before hitting him on the back of the neck, instantly knocking the man unconscious and pulling him away from his victim.
Despite removing the man, the blond couldn't stop himself from recoiling at the sight that lay before him… bunny had more life in its eyes than this young woman that was still alive, seeing such a thing made him feel sick to the core, these men pushed innocent civilians to such a state and had no guilt over their actions… he wanted to tear every last one of them limb from limb but first…
"Keh…" the blond barely heard from the woman he was looking at, causing him to read the girls mind, "kill… me… please… someone… anyone… kill… me…"
Hearing her thought s the young genin felt his anger rise even higher as he effortlessly shattered the manacles holding her in place with his bare hands, the noise being enough to wake the other captives that were sleeping uncomfortably.
"Ssh!" the red eyed genin immediately indicated for them to remain silent as they looked at him with fear in their eyes, "I'm going to free you all, anyone strong enough, please carry this woman with you."
"We won't be able to get past the sentries," a slightly older woman said with tears coming from her eyes as she thought about what would happen if they were caught trying to escape.
"There aren't any, I've already killed all but that guy," Naruto told them darkly while pointing towards the man currently lying unconscious behind him.
"W-why haven't you killed him?" a young girl, probably no older than he himself asked, once again fear was the dominant emotion in the captives tone.
"He deserves a fate worse than death," the vampiric genin muttered as he placed his hands around the manacles of the girl he had just answered and with no effort broke the metal like a piece of straw, shocking all the women watching.
It took mere minutes for him to finish freeing the rest of the captives who quickly left the camp in the opposite direction to where he came from.
"Eat all these bastards alive," and with that, hell was unleashed upon the camp.
XXX XXX XXX
"(sniff) little Naru-chan is making me so proud," Kyūbi said in a mocking manner as the blond looked upon the scene.
"Shut up Kyūbi, or I swear I will tear that pathetic mind of yours to shreds," the tone the blond took with the beast made it clear that he wasn't joking, especially given the fact that he had literally torn a thugs mind to shreds in anger during the massacre.
It was strange, before the blond had felt guilty about doing this but this time it was different, not only had he ordered the destruction of this camp but he himself had joined in on the carnage and the difference was clear to him. Mikaboshi refused to watch his men commit such acts but still knew they occurred, however now he had not only seen the act with his own eyes, he had also seen what could happen to the victim first hand and that knowledge alone made the entire slaughter something he didn't want to look away from.
Finally turning away from the scene, he started running towards his next destination… the third camp he would destroy while his ghouls waited in the second… well except for his first ghoul, bunny would of course prove itself useful once again.