Carmilla!

Disclaimer: Naruto and all its characters are Kishimoto's legal property. I'm not making any money off this story; however, all the Original Characters, Original Plot-lines, and Original Themes are my own.

Rating: Written for mature readers due to content that involves Violence, Sex, and Language.

Warning: Morbid content.

The Reapers-Part I

AN: The story is going through a quick editing process; hence, I'm re-posting the chapters one by one. It helps me keep track of them as, due to the story's peculiar length and my busy days, it's difficult to ascertain as to which chapter I edited last.

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Another streak of blood diluted and sailed away. Carmilla—out in the storm, she saw herself in the mould of a great warrior: one with a great big cloak billowing at the back, trimmed winter furs, and a sturdy hand on the giant sword's ornamented pommel, who stood before a great valley whose waters shone in the effulgent light.

Wind, brush of silk, crossed her face, lifted her long hair, and swirled through tall grass, which after battle was all soggy and sodden—dappled red with a congealing liquid that smelt awful.

A light rain outlined her girl-ish form underneath the thin garments: she had wiry muscles, strong but thin arms, a young face set in a serious frown. She meant business when she had set her heart on the rebels to free the lands from the Young Deity that was but a bud . . . one that had yet not blossomed.

It was still dusk, and a transparent mist's tinge had long since darkened to lead by her feet. She stood on low grounds, beneath the shadows of tall peaks that hid another forest behind their smooth façades.

She jumped and landed beyond this stream's yawning waters, sight set on the High Mountains, Sacred Twins, that shut out the world beyond. The hallowed land, Carmilla (with fruits succulent and airs sweet), beyond was bordered by a stripe of lush verdure and streams shivered along the sides of the lovely edifice, which, as some believers claimed, appeared in a strange hue to the monks' eyes.

There, believers made an obeisance before their benevolent Lord, still ripening deep inside a pearlescent substance. He had alighted upon their mountains, and when he exuded a colour so sweet, every light was inferior in brilliance; and when the light shone in their eyes, they had set their foreheads to the grounds in adoration—cast their souls at the shores of his divinity.

Yet trouble was afoot, always; and deities were made by spilling blood of Men, good men. Naruto was lost, killed by this man to become Kami! Her sister had been driven to the last verges of sanity. The world went silent and chakra flowed in obedience, like his devout monks, to conjoin at a single spot inside his treacherous body, which still awaited a divine metamorphosis to set it free from its morals coils.

So Konoha Men plotted in silence, lest their hopes for glory would bewilder change. They wanted good men and better women to halt the germinating Lord, coveted by his monks, nuns, too; someone who possessed a keen sight, a steady foot on the precipice's brink, and a heart that burnt with courage—that was all her Leaf needed.

Now, she ran, eastbound to reach the border in time. The deity had granted his monks with chakra strong. They were . . . impossible to defeat, to put down; she was all that was left of her platoon of foolhardy men and women. Swords fell, spears went through, and without a whisper they went down. At least, their deaths had been quick . . .

Beside her, chakra-trails galloped toward the mountains upon air as though dove's plumes. He had been gathering it all up for the last five years, and during this course of change, she grew from a young 'un to a budding woman. How time stood still, unchanged—how things changed, never still. Sakura had wept at the foot of Naruto's grave. He died, a faint smile on his face, a prayer on the lips that told of his love for the boy who was a brother in another life: the young Uchiha had not celebrated his victory.

That was what her father told her; but he, too, went away and never returned. The monks got him or the . . . Reapers. No one knew. He . . . never returned; so she said her farewells at the river and lit a paper lantern, with his name, on the water. Glowing, it floated away—to somewhere—whilst it bore his name.

An emotion sparked in her eyes, and she crossed the distance with the ferocity of her vision. There, just beneath the bowing trees' refuge, lay the dead men. He had got them here, too! She halted, eyes transfixed to the tall ones. They stood over her, and she felt mocked!

"Uchiha Sasuke . . . " she whispered, and her eyes lit-up, spirits burning in Yomi's lost fires. It was not a foreign emotion she experienced; it was anger, a raw rage that went in deep and slow. The aching hurt never went away . . . she had seen many of her men fall in these past few years.

Liberation. Revolution. Absolution. He had spoken the words and swore by his brother's grave. Sakura had told her in hysterics. She did not know what to believe—who to believe. They were all mad, hope-less, future-less.

Men told tales of him, and his brother, an evil seed that devoured them all like a Reaper. He came to them in the dark, spilt blood, blest none—a terrible fate to befall the young, who died upon the blade, some still suckled teat when he got to them.

"Hanabi, you're too young—stay and hide with me!" Hinata had whispered.

And, may Kami set her father's soul free, he died with a purpose in heart, and he had died fighting. It was a son's duty to avenge his father; but Hiashi had no son. They said that Hanabi was as good as any, and she was! A sparkle of fire in the night sky, she would do what her brother would have done.

And so she had taken up the sword, gird up her loins for battle, for she would strike at his heart, liberate the chakra, end him before he rose out of his shell to reign over them all.

She stopped, watched as lights fled from the peaks to gather in his breast. Darkness descended: Reapers' murmurs rose into the air. They had come out in search of prey, and they struck quick and soundless. Wind crossed her face, and she looked back at the advancing darkness one last time before she ran off towards the dipping sun . . .

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