Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Prologue
~ O ~
Minato stands at the edge of a cliff with an infant cradled in his arms. He holds it carefully but pays its cries no attention as he stares numbly at what is coming towards him from out of the horizon. The Kyuubi's fearsome maw is pointed straight at him, yet it is not him the beast is coming for. It comes for the village of helpless civilians and grossly outmatched shinobi who will soon be crushed underfoot unless the young Hokage can follow through with his wretched plan.
As the Kyuubi slinks onward, it leaves a miasmic trail of crimson in the air; the foulest of chakra. The transparent residue is whipped chaotically in all directions by the epic movement of the beast's nine tornado-like tails. The moon casts its light through the chakra and imbues the land in a malevolent red.
Minato holds the crying child closer as he peers over the edge of the cliff. He silently ponders how the darkness below beckons like the mouth of a hungry beast god. He's not too far off; a great beast will be satiated soon, but not the obvious one looming on the horizon.
"Minato!" shouts a woman's voice.
He turns his back to the oncoming Kyuubi and faces the only creature in this world he dreads more than it.
"Hello, Kushina," he says with sad warmth.
Her beautiful face is curled into an expression of the deepest rage and sorrow imaginable. Standing on uneasy feet, she carries herself reasonably well despite clearly having been in intensive care until mere minutes ago. This is evidenced by the frayed hospital gown she wears and the severed intravenous tube dangling from her arm.
She extends both hands, "Give Naruto to me. We'll leave and you'll never have to see us again."
Minato shakes his head, "I'd like that more than anything but it's not possible at this point."
She snarls, "How could you do it, Minato? How could you look me in the eye so many times and lie to me? I really don't know who I should hate more: you for lying or myself for being weak and stupid enough to believe you."
"I didn't do it for the fun of it!" he nearly yells and causes baby Naruto to cry louder.
Hearing her son cry sets something off inside her and from up out of her back erupt dozens of bladed black chains that slither and sway though the air like eels. The chains are of an unknown alloy and possess jagged accents that would leave cruel wounds on human flesh. In contrast, at the head of each chain is a thin diamond-shaped blade capable of delivering a swift, clean stab.
And all of them are pointed at Minato like angry cobras ready to strike.
"No, but you did get some fun out of it. Am I right, you son of a bitch?"
Minato doesn't answer and Naruto's cries quieten down as if the child were only upset by his father's voice.
Kushina continues her verbal assault, "You don't have to answer that; the fact that even Jiraiya turned his back on you says it all. Just clear one more thing up for me and try to be honest unless honesty is too much for you to handle. How long have you known in advance that the Kyuubi would attack Konoha? How long ago did you first learn of the prophecy?"
He thinks carefully on what he should say; there's no way that telling the truth can diffuse this situation. Then he remembers the fact that he'll be dead soon; whether he tells the truth or not won't change that. However, he can't abide the thought of being a despicable liar up to his last breath.
"A year," he finally admits.
Kushina gasps and tears begin to well up in the corners of her violet eyes.
She knew the truth, but actually hearing him admit it still rips her world out from under her. The last few years with him had been the brightest of her life since she was a little girl. Before she had been orphaned and left alone to grow into a hardened rogue. Then he found her and gave her something to live for beyond mere survival: Naruto. But now she knows that her son exists for no other reason than to be a sacrifice to save that damned village.
Despite the high emotions flowing between his parents, Naruto coos contentedly with absolutely no notion of the fate that is in store for him.
Now pushed far enough, Kushina crosses the final threshold and the sorrow in her eyes is replaced with cold intent. Her chains sway malevolently in the air like the tails of The Kyuubi which is mere minutes away. Minato creates a kage bunshin, which he gently hands his son to. He draws a kunai and steps forward to meet his beloved in the most painful battle of their tragically short lives.
All the while their son sleeps as if being right at home in the middle of all this chaos.
Naruto: The Darkest of Heroes
Chapter One
Nine years and some months later, Naruto snaps awake after nearly dozing off in class again. Looking around, he sees that the instructor's unimpressive lecture is having the same effect on many other students. He lightly smacks his face and sits back in his seat now wide-awake. The classroom is well populated with students, yet Naruto is given a wide berth with almost a whole section of the room to himself.
He is a handsome boy with spiked wine-red hair, sharp facial features complemented by the three whisker-marks on each cheek, and slanted blue eyes.
Though isolated by his classmates, he doesn't appear lonely or unhappy about it. In contrast, he sees that the popular clan heir, Sasuke Uchiha, almost revels in the attention lavished on him by his surrounding fan base. Naruto shivers at the thought of having that much attention on him since, in his circumstance, the attention would be of the opposite kind.
The instructor speaks up, "Sasuke, would you please stand and demonstrate how to perform a henge? Preferably of the Hokage?"
The dark-haired boy stands, faces the instructor, runs his hands through the appropriate set of seals and morphs into a near exact likeness of the elderly Hokage. Near exact. Most of the class, especially the girls, gives him wild applause. Nearby sits Sakura Haruno; she gives a more subdued, dignified applause that doesn't overrate the Uchiha's display. Naruto just rolls his eyes at the latest mindless ego-boost.
The instructor sees the redhead's reaction and scowls at the disrespect.
"Naruto, stand up and perform the same henge."
The redhead obliges and almost the entire class gives him their attention, though of the opposite kind. He performs the same set of seals and a poof of white smoke replaces him with a nearer exact likeness of the Hokage. Nearer exact. Yet nobody applauds.
"Very good. You can sit down," says the instructor, covering his disappointment.
Most of the students eyeing him just turn their attention back to the front, except for three. Sakura gives him a quiet look of admiration, before she gets self-conscious and looks away. Sasuke nearly stares in wonder of how he could be bested by the class pariah. Another boy, named Taro, takes in the Uchiha's distress before fixing an angry gaze upon the redhead causing it. Naruto just sighs and sits back down.
"Sorry to disappoint you," he mutters under his breath.
The school day ends and all of the students crowd out of the academy and into the net of waiting parents. Or in the case of Itachi Uchiha, an older brother come to escort his sibling home. All the other guardians, be they parent or otherwise, warmly welcome their charges with open arms. Itachi waits with a cold expression and his arms folded authoritatively across his chest. He does not care to be here. His demeanor doesn't change even when his little brother, Sasuke, emerges from the academy and happily runs up to him. Instead of greeting him, the elder Uchiha lowers his arms, turns, and solemnly walks away with the correct assumption that his brother, his task, will automatically follow. Sasuke does follow while remaining completely ignorant of his beloved brother's indifference towards him.
Sakura exits the academy moments later and is warmly met by her father, a strong elderly man with a sharp moustache and spice-colored hair circling a shiny bald scalp. Both father and daughter walk away side-by-side talking animatedly. Then comes Taro, a large brutish-looking boy who stands near the entrance and just watches the crowd. No adult comes to claim him, but several boys break away from the crowd and group subserviently around him.
"Where is he?" he asks.
One of the boys replies, "We don't know. We looked everywhere in the academy. He must have used a henge and slipped by us."
"Yeah. It figures that the freak would do that. There's only one place he always goes after academy. We can get him there."
"Whoa, wait! Old man Teuchii said he'd beat our asses if we started trouble at his ramen stand again."
Taro glares down on the toady, "Who cares about that? The freak dissed The Uchiha today. You saw that! Are just gonna let that pass?"
Dumbly agreeing with their leader's words, the group of boys eagerly follows as Taro strides angrily out of the academy yard.
Meanwhile, several city blocks away, Naruto walks along the edge of a rooftop three floors above a busy merchant street. The street goes on for several blocks and lining both sides of the street are merchant stalls. The owners loudly plug their harvests to the thick current of civilians; one of them, a woman, looks straight up at Naruto as if expecting him to be walking up there. She glares contemptuously up at him; the people around her see her face and look up at what has her attention. He's gone before they can make out what he is.
Minutes later, he is eating a bowl of ramen at Ichiraku's ramen stand. A man from off the street comes to sit down but stops himself when he recognizes the red-head with the whisker-marks. The tell-tale marks of the 'loathsome Kyuubi-brat', as many would call him. He chooses to keep on walking and find an establishment not tainted by the brat's presence; old-man Teuchii watches him go with a bitter glance.
Naruto sets down his chopsticks, "If you don't want to lose business, then just say the word and I'll go."
Teuchii just shakes his head as he vigorously cleans an empty bowl, "Relax, Naruto. I've told you before: I don't serve food to undesirables. And idiots are always undesirable."
"I could always put on a henge; they won't know it's me."
"Nah, I like to know who the idiots are for...future reference."
"Jeez, how do you do any business at all if you're so picky about who you serve?"
The old man smiles, "I used to be a shinobi too, Naruto. I still am, in my own way. You could say that I do a lot of culinary shadow-work on the side."
Naruto chuckles at the thought of this humble old man waging a devastating shadow-war on the enemies of konoha with his cooking skills alone.
"Hey, freak!" a boy calls.
That puts a dampener on his mood.
Looking to his right, he sees Taro and his gang of frail lackeys standing a good distance away. There are four of them and they group themselves together to emphasizes their leader's strength and authority. Naruto just rolls his eyes, finishes his bowl and politely pushes it towards Teuchii.
Normally, he goes out of his way to avoid such situations, but not today.
"Have any soy-sauce packets?" he asks.
The old man sighs and passes some to him, "Try not to go overboard with these punks. I don't need their parents putting more boycotts on me."
Naruto pockets the soy-sauce and grabs his school bag off the ground. Throwing it over his shoulder, he walks out into the street and stops ten feet from the bullies. Taro steps out from his posse with a fierce smirk on his wide face.
"Nice of you to come and save us the trouble. You actually have a brain after all. Or do you? It was really stupid how you disrespected the Uchiha in class."
The redhead's expression is empty, bordering on apathetic.
"Really? How did I do that?" he asks flatly.
Taro scoffs, "Don't act innocent. Your henge pissed him off."
"Too bad. You'd think he'd have more important things to be worried about."
The bully's cockiness starts turning to anger, "He's an Uchiha, and they practically own this village. Unlike you, he's going to go on to do great things and doesn't need to get distracted by some clanless piece of shit like you!"
The jab at his background doesn't have the intended effect; instead, he just chuckles.
"You really think he would give a crap about you trying to shake me down for him? What're you, his cheerleader? You have big dreams of being his manservant some day?"
"What did you say?" the heavyset boy flusters.
Never in his limited imagination did he expect to be talked back to like that.
Naruto continues, "Do you honestly think that if you kiss his ass enough that he'll notice a pathetic suck-up like you?"
Taro completely loses it, "You piece of-"
-Naruto lifts and tosses his school-bag at the bully's face. He catches it but leaves himself open to a vicious punch to the testicles. The redhead quickly recovers his bag as Taro crumbles to the ground whimpering and cradling his tender balls.
One of the toadies closes in; Naruto brings out the soy-sauce packets, crushes them, and then throws them in his face. He staggers around trying to rub the horrible stuff from his eyes before the school bag impacts against the side of his head, knocking him off his feet. The redhead faces the last two; one is clearly discouraged and turns to run while the remaining one stands his ground ready to throw down. Naruto just shakes his head at the stupidity on display.
He gestures to the dispatched Taro, "Is he your leader?"
The lone toady nods.
"Do you honestly think you'll do any better than he did?"
He thinks for a moment, releases his fists, and meekly backs away.
Naruto swings his bag over his shoulder, "Good. Now, outside of the academy, you'd be smart to avoid me like the plague..."
After running across the rooftops of several housing blocks, Naruto sets down on the balcony of his apartment and unlocks the screen door. Coming in that way always helps him avoid running into his neighbors. He steps into his apartment which is a simple studio with a modest kitchen, meal table, bathroom, and a queen-sized mattress in the corner.
He tosses his school-bag on his bed and walks to the kitchen to set up the kettle for tea. The floor is a darkly polished hardwood with a large, comfortable yet bland-looking rug covering most of it. The walls are a faint tan color and are covered with dozens of school papers, drawings, and even some shabby-looking movie posters.
One of the posters is not-too-subtly titled 'Fall of the Nine-Tailed Terror!' and features a cartoonish rendition of The Kyuubi baring tooth and claw upon a small but valiant human figure.
He pours a cup of tea and is about to take the first sip when a gentle knocking at the screen-door distracts him. He looks; standing on the balcony is a tall ANBU operative with wild grey hair shooting up from behind a dog mask. Naruto gestures for him to come in; the operative politely closes the screen-door behind him.
"Hello, Naruto. I suppose you know why I'm here," the masked man says with a friendly yet lethargic tone.
The redhead takes a seat at the table, "Hi, Dog. Yeah, I know why you're here. Something to do with a group of dumbasses who were surprised and angry that I didn't let them kick my ass."
'Dog' nods, "Yeah, real nice kids. You can understand why their parents are so upset."
Naruto takes a sip of his tea, "Then they shouldn't let their kids think it's okay to mess with me. I mean, what did they think was going to happen? I am supposed to be some horrible monster, after all..."
Only nine years old and the boy had already accepted the existence of the beast sealed inside him. 'Dog' sighs as he remembers the day that Naruto had been exposed to the truth. The last day of his short childhood; brought to an end by the ravings of a violent drunk. Bereaved by The Kyuubi's attack and with nothing left to lose. A surprisingly large number of people in Konoha fill that demographic. The operative silently wishes that he had gotten to the boy just a few seconds sooner that day, before the damage was done.
He looks over at a drawing Naruto made a few years ago; done on white paper and depicting a small red figure surrounded by tall, monstrous figures drawn roughly with a black crayon.
"You're right about the idiot parents and their idiot spawn, but I'm still obligated to remind you that can't just level other kids for mouthing off."
Naruto shrugs, "What was I supposed to do, wait until they started throwing punches at me? Do you ANBU allow your enemies to get the first hit in?"
'Dog' shakes his head, "No, but that's totally different in that our enemies are often jounin-level shinobi who we can't take any chances on. For you, it was a bunch of dumb punks who you could easily have ignored or intelligently dissuaded. I know you're capable of that."
"Why should I keep my head down while they get a free pass? Also, shouldn't they be in trouble as well?"
A muffled sigh, "Look, you're not in trouble. You and I are having a friendly chat while other ANBU are visiting the parents of those kids and talking to them on far less friendly terms..."
That pleases the redhead.
"...I just want you to understand that there are smarter ways to handle things. Actions such as yours have consequences, even if those actions are understandable. There's two ways of handling any situation: the easy way and the smart way. Which one of those do you think your fight today falls under?"
Naruto gives the question serious thought and frowns when he arrives at a conclusion he doesn't like; as satisfying as the fight had been, it's not what a smart person would have done.
"We ANBU always have to take the smart way, no matter how frustrating and disappointing it often is. We do terrible, sometimes irredeemable things that most people can't hope to live with. Terrible things that are sadly necessary to this village's survival."
His late master comes to mind and he can't but feel some bitterness.
"Anyway, I'm telling you all this because I know you'll go far. And going far often leads to joining the ANBU."
Naruto nods in understanding, "And an ANBU can't do things the easy way."
Kakashi smiles behind his mask, "Exactly..."
The clock on the stove reads 7:23AM. Naruto sits at his table eating an ample breakfast of bacon and eggs. After finishing, he goes through his typical morning routine; light exercise followed by a shower. His mind is still on the topic of his conversation with 'Dog'. Particularly, the thought of one day becoming an ANBU of Konoha.
The operative was right: the strongest shinobi almost always end up in ANBU. That appeals to the redhead particularly because of the anonymity that the position will grant him. And he must get stronger; it's inevitable both because of the burden he carries and because he can't afford to let himself become weak in a village of people who would be all-to-happy to see him disappear.
But therein lays the problem: if he becomes an ANBU then he'll have to do the dirtiest of the dirty work in service to those very people.
If not for the village, then what is he getting stronger for?
A commotion from outside draws his attention and he steps out onto the balcony. He looks over the railing and sees a steady stream of people all moving excitedly in one direction. He looks in that direction; he is startled to see almost a hundred carrion crows blotting the morning sky.
The sky above the Uchiha district...
After throwing on some light clothing, he takes to the roofs and drops down into an alleyway several blocks from his apartment. He watches the influx of frenzied civilians move through the streets and carefully eavesdrops to find out what the hell is happening. He always has to be particularly careful when tensions are high among the civilians; if they find him then they'll likely make whatever excuse they can to lay the blame, whatever for, on him. He puts his back to the brick wall and sidles up to the mouth of the alley but stays in the shadows. Looking up, he catches fleeting snippets of movement from the shinobi rushing to the Uchiha district.
From the livid street, he hears shouts of 'Murder' and 'All Dead' rise up from the noise of the passing rabble.
Naruto backs into the shadows; his fingers draw across the coarse wall. He surprises himself by actually feeling a small shred of concern for Sasuke, a fellow classmate, but that shred is quickly crushed out by his all-consuming sense of self-preservation. The best thing he can do here is worry about his own skin and leave; the people will be all too happy to blame him for the slaughter of one of Konoha's most beloved clans.
A hand grabs onto his shirt collar, pulls back and throws the small redhead into some garbage cans. He crawls onto his knees; looking back over his shoulder, he sees the silhouette of a man wearing a chuunin vest. A second man drops down and blocks escape out the other end of the alley. Naruto gets to his feet; he looks back and forth between the ominous men.
The first one speaks with a dull voice, "The ANBU who are supposed to guard you are unfortunately pre-occupied with the mess at the Uchiha district..."
Naruto's wide, fearful eyes almost glow in the shade.
The voice drones on, "It's a hell of a mess; all of those slashed and broken bodies. They'll be busy cleaning up the trash all day and won't have any time for you..."
Hands grab hold of Naruto's arms; he struggles helplessly as he is held from behind. These are not the pushover academy students he's used to dealing with; he can't rout them with a few insults and a well-placed punch. He struggles against the arms holding him as the black form of the chuunin blankets his vision.
Then pain explodes in his chest.
He looks down; a white-knuckled hand grasps a kunai embedded in his chest. He feels the cold, solid alloy grate against something soft inside. He feels it tremble. The blade twists with a rubbery squelch; the man pulls it free and stands aside to avoid the spray of blood. Naruto sees the blood; it looks black in contrast to the bright street he stares out onto. The civilians move from the left to the right almost in slow motion.
For once, he wishes he was among them.
The next thing he remembers is being on all fours and staring down into his own blood, which is colored black by the alley shade. The kunai protrudes from his chest. Its owner kneels down, grabs hold of his hair and roughly lifts his head up.
"Look at me," the voice demands.
Naruto struggles to focus on the chuunin's face, which is rendered almost featureless by the shadows covering it. He does see something appear in its center, as if some small light has landed on it. It comes into focus; he gasps painfully as he recognizes it is a single Sharingan eye.
He knows it is a Sharingan; he has seen pictures of it in a textbook about the great bloodlines of Konoha. The black pattern adorning the smooth red iris is quite elaborate but blurs when his vision begins to wane. The man speaks again; his voice is completely devoid of any earthly feeling and almost seems disembodied.
"Not that I care, but the pain will be over soon. Be thankful because you have little to look forward to in this life. I am not saying that just because you are a jinchuuriki; someday soon every man, woman, and child will beg for the merciful oblivion that I am about to send you to. Soon the living will envy the dead. They will envy you. Isn't that a comforting thought?"
The man's words manage to draw Naruto's attention away from his agony. He will be dead soon and free from the village and the pain heaped on him since he was born. Part of him wants it all to be over, but in the end, his instinct for self-preservation wins over.
He is in no position to fight back, but he is in a position to spit a mouthful of blood in the chuunin's face. Naruto grins with bloody teeth; the chuunin's Sharingan eye blazes with rage as the blood further darkens his shadowed face. Then the Sharingan glows brighter and everything slowly fades to dark until that damned eye is all that remains.
Then it too is gone.
Darkness surrounds him, but there is a sky above. It looks almost liquid and consists of lucid shades of red which flow slowly and ominously with the wind. Though bleak, the sky is bright yet fails to bring light to the landscape which is covered in an unnatural darkness. He looks off into the horizon; he can see the dark shapes of diabolical mountains which stand jagged and knife-like against the grim skies.
Looking down, he sees that there is a faint light illuminating the stretch of ground he stands on. The light has no source but clearly casts his shadow onto a ground covered with strange grass. He kneels down and wrenches up a handful of the stuff; the grass is grey with streaks of black and tiny yellow warts. Rather sickly looking, but the blades don't crumble like dried up vegetation when he squeezes them in his palm. They feel firm and flexible. Alive, but like no vegetation he has ever seen or heard of.
He releases them, but a powerful gust of wind catches them up and carries them off.
Then a head-splitting shriek shakes the landscape so hard that the ground beneath his feet shakes. He stares fearfully in the direction of the roar; all he sees are the shadowy mountains which are shaped in ways that make it nearly impossible for them to be standing at all. Then he sees one of them move.
It's shapeless at first and moves across the dark horizon with the silhouettes of the mountains obscuring it. Then a massive tail rises up, and then another and another until nine tails sway against the back-drop of the brine-like sky. The thundering footfalls shake the landscape and he can't tell if the titanic thing is coming through the darkness that engulfs everything except him.
Then an idea comes to mind, he rolls his eyes at not having thought of it sooner.
He makes a handseal and shouts: "Kai...!"
He grits his teeth; nothing has changed. The nightmarish landscape hasn't been wiped away, meaning he's not trapped in a genjutsu. His hands fall to their sides; he closes his eyes and mentally evaluates his life. Now that it's over, he can finally give it a score.
The encroaching footfalls do nothing to distract him from his despair.
He faintly remembers being a toddler and hiding himself from the tall figures with mean faces. He remembers being alone and scared in the hospital. The doctors' faces held neither hate nor warmth, just neutrality. But then there was the old Hokage who would sit by his bed and smoke that clay pipe of his.
The next few years are a blur of bitter faces and backs turning on him, but still there were the beaming smiles of the Hokage and others like old man Teuchii and even 'Dog'. Even though the masked operative's smile was merely implied. Bright highlights of an otherwise bleak picture that gave him hope that things would turn out okay. But now, none of it matters. The soul-shattering picture is finished and framed.
He must be dead, and the punishment handed down to him by the fair and merciful gods is to be forever trapped with the demon that made his short life a living Hell. His despair suddenly gives way to the deepest rage imaginable. Rage at this sick punch line to the cosmic joke that is his life. He was born seemingly to suffer for something beyond his control and now, in death, he's destined for more because the gods haven't had their fill of the comedy.
He snarls and screams defiantly at all creation but is drowned out by the sound of The Kyuubi's approach.
A bright light behind him casts a long shadow; he turns around and stares into a large Sharingan eyeball. It looks like it was plucked from a giant's eye-socket and just floats over the trembling grass like some morbid balloon. The red of the iris glows brighter and out of the pupil comes a black tentacle that moves like a snake and stabs into Naruto's stomach. When he screams, the whole world responds by erupting into chaotic upheaval.
Hurricane winds blast the landscape and fill the air with dust and grit. In the distance The Kyuubi shrieks angrily as if this catastrophe were trying to upstage the great beast. Overhead, the blood-red sky churns faster as giant fragments of the landscape are tossed through the air as easily as confetti.
The tentacle buries itself deep into Naruto's stomach, the boy's hands claw desperately to dislodge it but can't. He falls to his knees as he weakens further; the destruction of the world around him increases its intensity as if some elemental force is angered by what's happening to him. The Kyuubi's shrieks become lost in the chaos; even it is no match for the powers at play in this place.
Naruto feels himself fading as the tentacle poisons the core of his very being. If that bastard and his Sharingan are still after him then he can't be dead and his flesh-and-blood body is still in that alley bleeding out. Mortally wounding him doesn't seem to be enough; the Sharingan is trying to snuff out his very life source. If that happens, will there be anything left of his soul for the oblivion that bastard was talking about? The rage and despair he felt a moment ago disappears as his drive to live comes back stronger than ever. Now that he knows that he isn't dead yet. He knows he must resist, but he has no strength with which to stand against an enemy that wants to destroy every ounce of his existence.
How wrong he is.
A bladed black chain shoots up from the ground, stabs through the tentacle, wraps around it, and pulls it out of Naruto's stomach. The boy falls back and inspects his stomach; there's no trace of any damage. He looks up to see the black chain wrestling with the tentacle; he feels some small relief that something here is on his side. The apocalyptic windstorm dies down and allows the debris to return to the landscape. The glow of the Sharingan flares angrily and more tentacles shoot out of its tunnel-like pupil.
More chains erupt from the ground and intercept the tentacles. As they are torn and severed, they bleed a putrid substance from rotten-looking innards. The battle is turned against the Sharingan; the dozens of chains sprouting from the ground quickly overwhelm the tentacles then join together to spear themselves into the centre of that damned eye. Naruto gets to his feet and grins ferociously as he watches the chains rip the Sharingan apart and spill its disgusting vitreous mucus. His relief is cut short when a massive foot sets down nearby and shakes the ground so hard that he nearly topples over.
He turns around and looks up; the black shape of The Kyuubi leans over him and blocks out the sky.
The last thing the chuunin remembers is stepping out of the changing room and bumping into someone. He can't remember the man's face, only his eye: a Sharingan. Then darkness. Now he's sprawled on his back with his hands instinctively covering his right eye which feels like it's been stabbed out. The pain is so great that both his eyes are scrunched shut, he hears the sound of nearby voices and is about to call for help when another sound stops him.
The sound of flesh tearing.
In the background he hears the steady noise of people passing by but it doesn't drown out the grotesque sounds that he can't see. The sounds of agonized whimpering and of flesh and bone being displaced. He begins to panic; what is happening and how did he get here?
He takes his hands away; he can only see out of his left eye. Though his vision is blurry, he can see that blood coats the hand he covered his right eye with. What he can see is dark and distorted; he shakes his head to bring what's happening only a few feet away into focus.
He speaks with genuine fear and confusion, "What's happening? Please tell me how I got-"
-His vision straightens and he sees what's happening with more clarity than he would ever want.
In the air, silhouetted against the bright street outside the far end of the alley, is another chuunin impaled on a massive chain and held up high. He is still alive; he groans pathetically and his arms feebly try to ward off the chain that's skewered through him. The head of the chain brandishes a diamond-shaped blade; it stabs the chuunin somewhere in the chest and quietly ends his suffering.
The chain originates from the shadowed form of a young boy who crouches on the ground like a predator ready to pounce. His malevolently curved eyes glow with the color of simmering embers, the same with the three whisker-marks on each cheek. He knows immediately who the boy is but is no closer to knowing just how or why he has ended up in this alley, seemingly about to die...
Meanwhile, Somewhere in Kusagakure...
In the depths of the Hozukijo's highest security wing sleeps Uzumaki Kushina. Or rather, she's kept in a state of suspended animation within an upright plastic vat filled with water. A light within the tube illuminates her wildly flowing hair which looks vibrant and alive compared to the rest of her body. Her sole means of sustenance comes from the oxygen mask and the dozens of intravenous tubes patched into key areas to help regulate her vital processes. The vat was clearly created to keep its occupant as self-contained as possible for the benefit of those who value their lives and don't want to come any closer to her than absolutely necessary.
Stepping up the security even further are the high-potency explosive tags lining the outside of the vat. Going off all at once would completely disintegrate not only the vat, but the entire wing as well. A risk that the prison personnel gladly accept. She might as well be dead if merely waking-up is big enough a risk to warrant all these mutually destructive countermeasures.
The guards on patrol pass her cell without looking in; they take for granted that there's no change in her condition. After all; she's been here longer than most of them and has always been as animated as the prison stonework. Nobody yet notices the sudden ripples on a surface that has been calm for nine years.
For the first time since her internment in Hozukijo, she begins to squirm and strain weightlessly in her watery prison. Her sickly pale face, empty and dark for years, contorts into an acute expression of agony. Her eyes remain closed and she appears like she is merely having a bad dream, but the sudden lighting of the explosive tags covering the vat say otherwise.
The kanji symbols on all of them glow an equally urgent shade of red as if their designated function is about to be pushed to the breaking point.
~ O ~
End of Chapter