Prologue Part #3:

Bersangu's Betrayal

As time worked its changing magic upon the newborn village, its powers also set into motion its own near-destruction. The village grew as next generations were born and the economy of the village flourished. What was once so desolate and bleak began to flourish into a thriving community. Under the democratic command of the seven Kages, order and law were instructed as a new breed of ninja began to develop whose skills would soon be needed.

The Muzen-Kage of the Village Hidden in the Mist was not to be deterred from his wanting of Haraka's death. To add kindling to the fire, he had branded all of the deserters as traitors; the seven shinobi, rogue ninja. He sat in his misty village watching as the ones he hated became more prosperous, wealthier than himself and he did not like it.

It took ten years for the Muzen-Kage to rebuild his village and numbers of ninja. In desperation for needed troops, he bestowed high-ranking positions to younger and younger ninja. He even went as far as to make the Academy Students murder a fellow classmate in order to prepare then for their advanced missions. The Kage's impatience shorted as he urged his village to grow faster and gain a over-powering hand in the delicate balance between both villages. It was no secret why his actions mimicked times of struggle; the seven Kages of Yorizaru knew he planned to attack.

The two villages were in complicated positions. The Hidden Mist Village had been decimated by Haraka's attack and by the exodus of half its villagers. The Hidden Shadow Village was just on its feet and still in the beginning phases of unity and construction. Both villages needed time to rebuild and plan; the first ten years was what gave then that opportunity.

It was the Muzen-Kage's hunter ninja that struck first; it being their job to assassinate rogue ninja. Normally, these ninja would have only been skilled enough to be Jounin's, but the Kage's desperate choices had appointed them lofty positions for which they did not deserve. Their skill lack the essence it needed; their numbers too few and their chakra untrained to slay trained shinobi, let alone Kages.

The first attacks failed, but to Muzen-Kage's immense surprise, his foes did not retaliate. Five years passed during this routine of attack and wait. Every ninja the Muzen-Kage threw at Yorizaru was wasted; they Kage's were too powerful to be taken down by mere Jounin. Frustrated beyond reason, the Kage calmed himself into a forced patience.

Meanwhile the baby boy Haraka had been imprisoned inside grew to adulthood. He had been named by the seven Kages, Bersangu, and was fifteen years old at the time. Despite his tender age, Bersangu was more determined than most to prove his worthiness to the village. His existence was either ignored or shunned by the village, some blaming him as the cause of the war, others thinking he was the living personification of the demon within his body. Proving his usefulness and skill, Bersangu had climbed through the ninja ranks with speed, fueled by his wanting to do well. He was considered a man of honor, justice, and compassion within his team.

But time's ravaging hands began to un-work what had been so wantonly wrought by the villagers; peace. The solemn face of time foresaw a second disaster, this one looming in the Shadow Village's future. A massacre, not unlike the one that had landed them in the forest in the first place, even.

Muzen-Kage had built up enough troops; he felt secure in sending several ninja teams into the forest and having the rest remain and hold down the fort, so to speak. His five-year hiatus from fighting Yorizaru had paid off; he finally had let some ninja live long enough to pass for shinobi. This time things would be different.

It was on the outer perimeter that it happened, about a quarter-mile from Yorizaru. There, in a small clearing, the battle took place. Close to twenty shinobi and Jounin fought to save their village, Bersangu included, while the thirty trained assassins fought to kill the teams and murder the Kage's. It was an intense, epic battle, to say the absolute very least.

No one remembers exactly what happened during the battle except from one point on. Somehow, in the midst of the clash, the seal binding Haraka inside Bersangu cracked down its center. The effect was immediate; Haraka's unfathomable power symbiotically merged itself into the body, chakra, and mind of Bersangu.

It is said that the battle stopped as a cold chill frosted the spines of the gathered ninja. Every head turned to Bersangu.

Before everyone's eyes the boy's entire being began to rapidly contort. His black hair and forearms lengthened, his pale skin drew taunt over his muscle and bone, and his veins pulsed off of his skin in animalistic fury. They watched awestruck as the fingertips of Bersangu sharpened into nails, his teeth into fangs, and his pupils into slits. His hunched body shook with spasms as his eyes, once friendly and encouraging, ran red as blood.

Haraka

Only two ninja escape the clearing alive, one from each village, and each with the same intent, warning of the return of the demon! It took less than a minute for Bersangu to reach the Village Hidden in Shadow. The messenger had not had enough time to warn the Kages, Bersangu was already inside the gates.

Haraka's demanding bloodlust, unappeased for close to fifteen years, had been loosed to do as it pleased. Bersangu began to slaughter, to kill the very people who had given up their homes, their lives for him. He fell upon the villagers with maniacal laughter, gleefully murdering those he so wanted to impress.

Before the monster Bersangu could massacre the entire village, the Kage's devised a plan. They were all extremely reluctant to do so; disrespecting the dead was an omen for a bad future, but they had no choice. They had become fed up with the merciless atrocities performed by the demon and were sick of it. Tonight Haraka would die for good; the lifetime to spare had run out.

They, combining their power like before, trapped Bersangu that night. In an overly reluctant act, they performed the only heard of ritual for killing a demon.

Unwillingly, they drained the many bodies Bersangu had skewered of blood into a giant vat. Then before the watching eyes of the villagers they drowned Haraka, Bersangu, in the blood of the innocents he had sworn to protect, to honor, and trust. In front of the villagers, they watched as Bersangu's demonic existence ended. Gurgling in the blood of innocence, he drowned in what he had lusted for.

Because no one could see it from within the Village Hidden in Shadow, the Hidden Mist Village still tells tales of the night every star in the sky blinked out. Only the moon was left hanging ominously in the sky, alone. The night that a bone-frigid chill crept up and down the backs of all the villagers, raising the hairs on their heads. The night the moon mourned alone in the sky for it's child of shadow, lost to the world.

The night Haraka, the Demon of Shadow, died over one hundred years ago.

Despite the horrid scene that occurred that night, some still tell of the glorious gift given to them by the gods; a baby boy rescued from the womb of its mother just before Bersangu's wound he had inflicted upon her ended her life. The woman Velrichi, a locale florist, named the child, Nosi, as her last gift to the world.

Moments later she passed away to join her many friends that had been taken by the one she had loved so much.

And there you go; the prologue is complete! I really hope you readers out there have enjoyed it, and if not, thanks for pretending you did! I'm appreciative regardless.

Hoping you like the twist, Rasha