Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!
"Master... why are we up so early?" Koneko yawned as she walked after Naruto, unable to keep her eyes open all the way at the moment. It was only 2 in the morning, and while as a Devil she could go with little sleep, training had been taking a lot out of her on the regular. She just regained her full chakra supply, and her stamina was now barely at full after the meal she had before sleeping, and the little sleep that she got.
Naruto was silent at first, he just walked in front of her with confidence.
"Your mother, how much do you remember of her?"
"... I don't." Koneko had no memories of her mother or father in the slightest, though from what she heard from Naruto, her father was a horrible person that tried to experiment on her. He learned that from Kuroka apparently, but she doubted even Kuroka would be brave enough to lie to their shared master. "... because I don't have any memories of her, I've never really felt... sad she was gone." Koneko mentioned as she rubbed her arm uncomfortably.
Becoming one with the darkness in her heart and purifying it might have rid her of a lot of her past misery, but it did not erase them. She just moved forward enough that they were no longer walls to stop her from growing stronger.
She was still an insecure teenage girl.
"You were born with the name Shirone Uzumaki, your mother took my last name after leaving my island. Much like how your sister renamed herself Kuroka Uzumaki after she came to accept her mother's failings. Fujimai Uzumaki gave birth to Kuroka Uzumaki and Shirone Uzumaki, but Kuroka tossed aside the Uzumaki name out of spite for her mother... and you just never remembered your last name... though you were later renamed as well." Naruto spoke of her original name. Koneko blinked in surprise when she realized this talk wasn't going the way she was half-way expecting it to go.
Her Master's clan name?
She knew that her sister had taken to calling herself Uzumaki, but she didn't know that Naruto allowed his students to allow their children to inherit the name. She always assumed it was something of a title that was given to students who proved themselves.
"... Why?"
"Most Yokai don't have last names, and I love all my students dearly. I allow them to take my last name, to let them know that even if they failed as my students, that they will always have a place in my family and heart."
"Shirone... no matter what, just remember you will always have family-"
"... So long as your last name is Uzumaki... you will always have a family willing to help you." Koneko spoke under her breath as some old and forgotten words came to her mind. She had lost her mother young enough to not remember her face, but Naruto's words were stirring something up inside of her.
She was remembering a little.
"Koneko Toujou, Rias gave you a fine, wonderful name. You're the first yokai to become my apprentice ya know." Naruto knew what her name meant, and it was a fitting name to be sure. He was a little sad that she didn't come to him with her original name, but he wouldn't fault her.
"Koneko... Uzumaki..."
Naruto smiled at her as he stopped walking when they got to the top of a mountain, and were able to see the entire Gremory territory from it.
"Let me tell you a story, it's not an overly long story, but it's a story I wish to tell you. Forgive me if it sounds like I'm going on, but I like to speak this story now and again, it's an important story. A very important story, one that must not be forgotten by either time or by those who are aware of it.
Human nature is a fickle thing.
Humans hate what they don't understand, and humans fear what they don't understand as well, by nature. Not all humans are this way, those who have experienced hate and fear, and overcome it are what humans should be. Humans that stand above their base instincts.
When a demon assaults a village, humans hate that demon.
When that demon is sealed into a baby, humans hate that baby, because they need something to place their sadness and sorrow onto. It's just how they are, it's both a wonderful and sad thing, the human's ability to foster emotions. Be they emotions of love, or the opposite and in this case, the emotion of hate.
Humans will hate that baby, they will show that baby nothing but hatred, and when they can't hate the baby as it grows up, they will do something worse than hate.
Ignore.
A child, a child who has done nothing wrong but knows nothing but hate and loneliness is starved. I wouldn't say starved in a physical sense, because even physically starving to death would be more merciful than this type of starving. A child growing up with nothing, no love, no hope, and no family will be starved for something else. The love and companionship of others, and not getting it, a child will also grow to hate those who have that, hate those who hurt that child, and hate those who didn't hurt that child. It's the pain of hatred and loneliness that would cause that child to understand suffering, true suffering that can't simply be defeated through mere words.
That suffering could only be defeated through determination.
That child had to grow, try it's hardest in order to prove himself to the world, but more importantly, as the child grew and proved itself, that child would come to understand the things many humans take for granted.
Bonds.
Everyone is born with them, but so many take them for granted until they are gone, but this child who knew no bonds, when given even one, would refuse to ever let go. Now, that child had formed those bonds, and through those bonds that child started to mature and grow, becoming not only stronger, but even more determined to do whatever it takes to protect those bonds.
That child? It was a boy.
That boy never gave up, because giving up and losing those bonds meant going back to that hell of loneliness. After all, humans are a species that need something, they need something more important than food, or water, or even their own lives themselves. Humans need something that gives their life purpose, a purpose that fuels them, allows them to give their feeble existence meaning and become something more than just humans. Having purpose is what changes a human from a human into a person.
The boy found his purpose.
The boy had a dream for a long time, but after forming bonds, the boy finally had a purpose. His purpose wasn't something so mundane as learning new skills or helping others out of the goodness of his heart, because the child who had never once recieved love had so much love of his own to give.
The boy refused to go back to hell, like the demon everyone told him he was.
Now loved, the boy would rather give his own life than allow others to take his friend's lifes and send him back to that lonely hell.
He was a failure.
The boy was a big failure though, and his very first bond, the bond closest to his heart at the time, tried to cut itself off from him. His best friend, who had experienced that same hell as him, tried to willfully return back to that very same hell. The boy, who had vowed to save his friend, did everything in his power to protect his very precious bond.
He failed.
He couldn't protect his bond, and his friend left him, left him to go and get a revenge against the person who had put him into his own hell.
While the boy had known of hatred, he had decided to fight hatred with love.
His best friend, who had known love and later learned of hatred, decided to fight hatred with revenge.
The failure trained and worked, harder than every before, and for years he gained more strength and skill. He refused to allow his failure to stop him, and he vowed to rescue his friend from the hell that he knew so well to be more horrible than anything else. All the while, his own inner darkness kept growing, because no matter how hard a person tried, no human is without their own inner darkness.
He grew stronger, and he saw his best friend again.
He failed to save him, again.
His master, another bond the boy held so dearly to his heart, was killed as well. The boy, who had never truly lost a bond, because he had gone so long without bonds, now understood the desire for revenge. He understood how much the pain of losing somebody to death hurt, and he turned to the darkness in his heart.
He got stronger, and he learned new powers, surpassing even his master, until he came face to face with his master's killer.
He failed.
Another dear friend to the boy sacrificed herself, proclaiming her love for him, and at such a moment her live was also seemingly stripped away from her. He failed to protect her as well, and in his weakness, he allowed the demon to take control of him.
Overcome by hatred, the boy was saved from himself, by the remnants of a bond he didn't know he had.
He defeated his master's killer, he succeeded where he had earlier failed, and he came face to face with the true man behind the killer.
Humans, when offered to hurt those who hurt them, by nature always hurt them.
The boy, who now knew about revenge and the cycle of hatred, gave up his desire for revenge so he could end the cycle. He forgave his master's killer, and he succeeded in changing human nature itself in both himself and the killer. His heart stronger than ever.
He wasn't strong enough, so he trained and trained, and soon enough he even conquered the darkness in his own heart.
He was one of very few humans who had no evil in their hearts, he was a human with no darkness of his own now, a being a pure light. Human in body, but now in soul, so very different than those who came before him. He mastered the demon inside of him, and attained even new powers and abilities, abilities that could turn the tide of a war so easily.
War?
Yes, the boy learned of a war, and just like I said, with his powers he turned the tides of war in the favor of his allies. He fought so many great and powerful foes, he always came out on top, until he didn't and failed once more. But, his bonds had always held strong, and enemies who had been changed by his bonds and his heart, saved the dying boy and helped him attain a greater power than before.
Where is the boy's friend in all of his?
At his side, for now, their destinies were never far apart, even though they fought for different reasons, when they came face to face with even a goddess, they couldn't lose. They won the war together, saving the world and uniting everyone using the boy's pure heart and desire to even the need for revenge.
The boy and his friend came to blows.
Who won?
After failure and failure, you would expect him to fail again, but it finally happened. He won, and more than just a victory, his heart finally truly connected with his friends, and changed him. No longer did he desire revenge, but now he decided to stand by his friend and never stray from his new path of redemption.
The world was saved, and the cycle of hatred broken.
That isn't to say the world was safe though.
More gods came, some from the moon and even some from beyond that, but the boy who had now become a man, never gave up and always stayed true and strong. He was strong now, he was the strongest who had ever lived. So strong that nobody could really match him, other than his best friend, but sometimes man comes face to face against an enemy he can't fight, an enemy that he should never fight. This enemy didn't want to fight the man, so he sent the man to another dimension, because this new enemy was a boy that had come to view the man as his own father. He sent him away, in order to help him, sending the man with his only daughter away to see another day.
That man's name?
I'm sure I mentioned it, but even if I didn't mention it, I'm pretty sure that you can guess who it was.
That man... was me." Naruto told his tale to Koneko, and not once did she speak or interrupt him through even part of his story. She just listened with rapt attention to him, and through it all she just absorbed his life story.
He knew pain that she didn't know, but she was already aware of this.
She understood now what made her Master so strong, so amazing, and so kind. All the pain he had experienced, he had taken it all. Absolutely all of it, and he turned it into strength and kindness for others. He was willing to give his students his name, so that they would always have a family with him and each other.
Koneko had tears in her eyes, and she was smiling.
He had been betrayed and hurt so many times by so many people, but he never gave up on loving others. He saw the best in them, and strived to help them out of their own darkness. He took the hatred onto himself, and turned it into love.
Koneko hugged Naruto from behind.
"Master... thank you for sharing this story with me. I'll grow stronger, I'll become even more kind, and no matter what pain I experience... even if I'm not human, I'll become like you and become a testament to the human spirit you have." Koneko now knew what her goal in life was going to be. She never really had much of a dream or goal, but now it was clear to her.
Her Master had just given her something great.
Her Master was Naruto, the Testament to the Human Spirit.
She would become Koneko, the Inheritor of the Human Spirit.
Chapter End!
Please Leave Me Lots of Nice Long Reviews, But No Flames Please!
Full circle, finally!
That is right, Chapter 1 was THIS chapter.
That Prologue was a peek into the future of the story, told from the perspective of Koneko.
When I said I wanted to "try a different type of opening chapter" I wasn't referring to it being in First Person, I was referring to the fact that you the audience weren't just Readers, you were literally part of the story itself.
In Chapter 1, YOU GUYS the audience, were actually Koneko the entire time, experiencing your most important lesson in the strength of the human spirit.
I'm so happy to finally be able to reveal this.