Author Note: I'm happy to present the first chapter of this epilogue. It took a long time to write since I want them to be really long. I can say that this chapter is a sort of beginning of this mysterious character that has caught your attention and interest. Since I've just finished this chapter it will take just as long, if not longer for chapter 2 to arrive. I don't have much else to say but for you to enjoy this chapter.
Summary: There is a shadow coming closer to Konoha, a melody is filling the air as he draws closer. Destroyed memories are revived and healed wounds are torn open once again. Old hatred is revived and newfound bliss is forgotten. On the brink of insanity once again a battle between future and past starts. The frail pair of hands that hold onto each other are being pried apart by the unforgettable melody that killed them once before. The nightmare didn't end, it never will.
Pairing: None. I will have the same standards as the first story, don't argue against me and say you want a specific couple because you won't get what you want in this fiction.
Read, Enjoy and Review. It's the same as I've always put it.
Genre: Mystery, angst, dark, supernatural, shounen, tragedy and much more
Ranting: T, but I would like to say T+ since I feel better with that setting on this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
translations: nee-chan affectionate form of sister.
The
Bloody Dream... Never Ended
Written
by Monkan
Chapter 1
The sound of laughter filled the hospital garden. Under a tree sat Naruto with a group of people around him, they were all other patients in the hospital and after a long time they had finally dared to come close to him. First no one wanted to be near him because of the destruction he brought to Konoha and because of who he was.
Now it had been one and a half year since he was admitted to the hospital unconscious. He had only learned the basics of writing and reading but he was picking up speech at a much faster rate, still he was like a little child. The nurses liked him because he was nice and sweet, he held nothing of his old resentment or hate. All of his memories before where gone, nothing remained in his mind from before one and a half year ago.
Now he was well liked among everyone in the hospital, with a few exceptions. In some way it must be true when they say that hate never truly dies.
Naruto on the other way was ignorant to their hatred. He couldn't understand why they didn't like him.
They were laughing at something funny when he sensed the approach of someone else. He looked up and around and when he saw the pink haired girl heading his way he lifted his arm and waved happily at her. She wore a blue Chinese dress with white stripes on the edges and a few character sewed over her heart. They said; "To protect and cherish." Her short hair was cut even shorter than when she first cut of her long hair. It made her look more matured as it was longer in her neck than around her face.
"Sakura-san, good morning." his voice was cheerful and Sakura liked it better than the bitter one that dripped venom when it said her name. Even if it was that same voice and she knew the old Naruto would never return. She was happy because of it, she knew she was selfish because she wished this but she don't ever want to see Naruto fall into the world of anger and hatred. She didn't want to see that side of him again. She didn't want to lose her friend one more time. It was indeed selfish after what she had done to Naruto but she couldn't help it.
"Naruto, I have cookies for you." she said lightly.
Imagination ears could be spotted on Naruto's head when he heard that and he bounced from the ground and ran over to Sakura.
"Thank ya', Sakura-san. You are the best." and without much hesitation Naruto gave Sakura a big hug to show her how happy he was. There was no malice or anger when he saw her. There was no trace of the Naruto that couldn't even stand her existence.
She gave him the cookies and he danced back to the others where he shared with the others. She chatted with them a little but then she had to go on a mission. She took her farewell all too soon in the groups eyes but she pardoned herself and promised to come by with new yummy cookies for them.
As she walked away from them and their laughter grow more distant and the wind picked up around her, her expression changed into a serious one. Nothing was like it had been in the past.
"I will do what ever I can to protect this place. I won't let anything destroy him again."
No one was there to hear her words except for the wind and it was a silent oath she made with herself as she walked down the path that would lead her to the world outside the hospital.
Behind her, an imagination image of Naruto looked after her. He stood behind his double that was eating cookies with the others. His red eyes shifted from her to the opposite direction. They could hear it again, that melody.
-.-.-.-.-.-
'If you really speak the truth...'
He was getting closer to Konoha. In another hour he would be there. The trip had been boring and he was longing to have some fun. For three hours now he had been followed by spies. They weren't really a threat and they didn't get in his way so he had let them be. Or more precise, he let them live a little longer.
'Back then...'
He wasn't really the one to think about the past since there was no point in regretting what was already done. It was useless and it would change nothing.
'If you were really speaking the truth...'
His golden eyes shimmered in the light that was caste in them. There were a small wind and a few leafs landed before his feet's. He walked on them and they didn't make a sound. There were another strong wind and for the fraction of a second he disappeared before appearing again at the same spot and took the next step on the road just like any other wanderer.
'...why didn't you...?'
He began to mumble a light happy tone as he walked down the road. Behind him, in the bushes laid two corpses on the right side and on the top of a tree about 200 meters away was their comrade. Nailed to the tree by thin threads that were barely visible. Blood didn't pour out from his wounds and his left hand looked like he was supposed to be holding something.
The golden eyed boy threw something up in the air and then catches it.
'How boring!'
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
No one in Konoha was aware of the storm that was approaching. At the same time the Hidden Sand's siblings were visiting Konoha as a part of their mission. All three of them had grown up more during the months that had passed. The most important note was that Gaara was the tallest among them.
While they were walking down the main street of Konoha, Gaara suddenly stopped and looked behind them at where they had come from.
"Something wrong?" Temari asked.
Gaara didn't say anything at first, "I thought I heard a melody!" he answered. "At least the one inside of me thought so."
Kankurou and Temari looked at each other slightly worriedly.
"Maybe you are just tired, Gaara." Kankurou said as an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Something's approaching. A storm." Gaara continued without thinking that by passers around them had stopped and was listening to what he was saying. "The red flowers will fall and chaos will spread one more time here."
Temari took a step closer to Gaara and to her surprise his eyes were glassed over just like he was in a trance but then he snapped out from it.
"What's wrong?" he asked his siblings.
They both shook their heads and said; Nothing.
How could they say that he was saying strange things, but at the same time it made them wonder what he meant by them.
They continued to walk down the street like nothing in particular had happened but Gaara glanced back toward the huge gate one last time. For a moment he had heard something and for that moment shadows had clouded his mind and he had lived through one of the worst childhood memories he had. If it wasn't because he held no feelings toward his past he would had surely lost control for a brief moment.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Onethousand fivehundrad twentythree, onethousand fivehundrad twentyfour, onethousand fivehoundrad twentyfive... onethousand fivehundrad twentysix... He was now counting his steps until he was there and he wasn't finding it very entertaining.
He could see the gates now and he was reaching for his flute inside his coat. It laid there, it's wooden surface was cold and smooth under his fingers. Soon it would play to it's enjoyment. He could feel alive once again.
A wind passed through his hair and he turned his face so it wouldn't fight against it, his hair that normally was hidden under the nape of his coat rose and floated in the air. Strands that reached his shoulder, when it laid down, in the light it changed from dark brown to light blond. It didn't stay in one colour but changed depended on the light.
Before everything began in his life to change, when he still had been an innocent little boy that knew nothing of the hardships of the world and the dark secrets of the people around him, he had been told his hair looked like a mirage. A beautiful illusion that was a rare treasure. That he should treasure it... now he found it nothing more than a burden and a curse.
It was ridiculous; he could no longer see the simple things that others could. Because they were just an existent to him, nothing more or nothing less.
And he was an existent that shouldn't be alive.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The sky was getting dark when the nurse came by and took out Naruto's unfinished lunch.
"Are you sick?" she asked in a worried voice. He had never been one to leave his lunch even remotely to untouched for the past years.
"My stomach hurts, nee-chan." he said as he held his stomach in a childish way.
"I will bring something for you to ease the pain, all right!" she said with a slight smile.
"Thank you, nee-chan."
Naruto sat with his legs folded under him and swayed back and forth.
"It's coming closer!" he said to his other half who sat beside him on the bed.
"I don't like it." the blond Naruto with red eyes said.
"Me neither." the timid Naruto took a hold of his twins hand.
"There's something I can't remember, something important. That's what I don't like."
"That melody gives me the creeps. I'm scared!"
Red eyes looked outside the window and his grip on his twin brother's hand started to tighten.
"I'm here," he said. "As long as I'm here you don't have to worry about anything."
Naruto smiled broadly in response. "Always stay with me!"
A knock on the door disturbed them and they both looked happy when Hinata and Akamaru stuck their heads in.
"Hi, Naruto. Wanna go out for a bit?" Kiba asked with a sly smirk.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You are so beautiful. Just like a mirage!"
A hand reached out to run through a few strands of light brown hair. The girl was amazed at it's smoothness and laughed a little. Eyes followed her relaxed.
"Did you think over what I asked you yesterday?"
He nodded slightly and with a smile that made her relax.
"So you give us your blessing." her face broke out in a big smile. "Thank you so much."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The guards looked at the pass and at the man who stood before him. The man had light blond hair and was about in his late twenties. He didn't carry any head protector that the guard could see. Without troubling the visitor any further he gave him his approval and let him inside Konoha.
The man took a step forward and after another he was inside the gates of Konoha. He walked on without looking back and the other guard watched after him and in the moment it took for the guard to blink the stranger was gone. There weren't so many people around at the moment so they should had still been able to see him. But he was nowhere in sight.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You know you can always come to me if anything happens. Even if I get married that doesn't mean I won't still be your friend."
The mouth on a face that couldn't be seen smiled.
"Don't look so sad. It's not like it's the end of the world!"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
On the roof of the house that faced Konoha's the man watched as Naruto walked outside with the company of five other people and one animal. He grasped for something in his pocket and brought out a flute. At the same time he began to sing on a song in a husky voice. The weren't many words but the melody in it still remained and wasn't lost.
On the other side of Konoha where the sand siblings were at the moment. Gaara stood suddenly up and caused the chair he sat on to be thrown over. Both his siblings looked at him startled as well as every by passer.
"Gaara, what's wrong!"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Fire was burning and it was getting closer. A boy laid in the grass, the wind was cold and enjoyable. Footsteps over grass that covered the dark soil beneath it made his ears perk up and he looked up and was shocked when he saw how towns people came, armed with various weapons and fire.
His heart stopped dead in his chest when he saw something or rather someone carrying something that was stained by red. The red colour dripped and stained the woman's dress as she and the others came closer. He got up on his feet's and was about to ask what was going on when the girl he once knew screamed;
"You killed him!"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He was getting nervous, it wasn't like anyone else but his twin brother could see him but there were something that made him nervous. He looked around to see what was affecting him so much. He wasn't a easily scared person but when something told him there was something wrong he didn't tend to ignore that feeling.
It was just then that his ears picked up the song they had been hearing for the past couple of days. His blue eyed twin looked around too, he had heard it too. Strangely it wasn't a song or languish that they recognized but somehow they understood the words.
"Born from the darkness
Wander along the path where no flowers grows
In this world where you belong
You meet a person who ask you
Do you remember me?"
Their hearts was beginning to beat faster and they looked around. The panic was coming fast and their breaths came in swallow gasps.
"What's wrong?" Kiba asked with Akamaru on his head. The others looked at Naruto as if he had grown a second head.
"Don't you hear it?"
"Hear what?" Kiba asked in a flat voice.
"That song! Can't you hear it?"
The others looked among themselves and listened carefully. "We don't hear anything, Naruto-kun." said Hinata.
Naruto began to panic when the song began to have a double meaning, he was hearing other words under those of the lyric.
"It's time to go home/The time to awaken from the sleep
The sleeping one that carries a cross/ Thy shall remember thy pain and sorrow
There's nothing you wanna say/Remember who you were
The river will lead you there/Break of the chains that restrains ones mind
The sun will come/Awaken now, my long lost friend"
All of a sudden another Naruto was appearing next to him. People around was beginning to worry of what was happening because they didn't know what was coming. The new Naruto held his hands against his ears and had his eyes shut tight just like his twin image.
At the other side of Konoha Gaara had a similar reaction only he was muttering something about the others getting away from him.
Memories, he was being attacked by his own memories. They tried to submit him under them. They wanted him to be reminded of his pain and sorrow. The other self inside of him was beginning to awaken and he was losing control over it. He could see it as well as feel it. The edge of his sanity that was coming closer for each second. It was right in front of him and he couldn't control himself from jumping over the edge.
It was a battle over his own will to resist and at the same moment he fell over the border he desperately had clanged to he knew deep down that he never had a chance to escape this in the first place.
The monster inside of him was roaring and when he opened his own mouth to scream it was overlapped by his demon. It was a roar that brought fear to Konoha.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He was watching silently now, he knew that at any moment it would all begin again. Nothing could save this village this time. Unless that person came but that was highly unlikely since that person was already dead.
-.-.-.-.-.-
The boy laid on the grass that was stained by his blood. He had been countless beaten and humiliated by those who attacked him. They accused him of something that he hadn't done and no one believed him. They called him names, hated him, feared him and cursed his existence.
What had his short life been about? Had it all been a lie? Had they never cared for him in the first place? Then what was his life for?
Blood flowed out from his wounds, the soft sound of the song of the earth echoed in his ears. It was trying to comfort him, but it couldn't rescue him. For he was just a being that lived on it, not a part of this earth that he loved so much.
They were standing over him again, but he didn't have the strength to run anymore.
The girl stood with tears flowing down her face. She held a big knife in her hand. "How could you do it? What had he ever done to you? You're not even human, you're a monster! You're the DEVIL!"
No matter how much it hurt, he didn't cry. It was strange, normally when someone is hurt they cry. Everyone cried for different reasons, the girl cursing him cried from something, then why didn't he cry? Why couldn't he cry?
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The golden eyes didn't change as they could clearly see the scenes of his memories. He hadn't cried then and he still hadn't cried. But back then he hadn't known who he really was, now was different.
His hand rose with the flute and brought it to his lips.
Now he knew who he was.
Without giving the past any more thought he let the tones from the flute out clearly. The tones of memories and destruction.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Naruto screamed as he clutched his head and threw it back. His chakra was beginning to seep out and it was linked to his twin image. The Naruto who had just appeared just a few moments ago took a step back, lowered his hands and upped body before rising fast and let out a roar unlike that of a human being, but the roar of a beast. His eyes were wide open and they blazed deep red, more red than blood and fire. They had a life of their own.
Naruto's hair began to turn a deep colour of red. His teeth changed to a fang and his nails grew into claws. His chakra began to change colour from blue to red. The red chakra grew and the colour got brighter until it looked like fire.
Fear and panic broke out all around Naruto. Most of them ran away from there and others alerted the rest of Konoha. When more and more high ranking shinobis arrived at the place they stared in fear at what was happening. Mostly the same thing happened on the other side of Konoha where Gaara was.
Both of their abnormal chakra was going wild. They were losing their grip of their own consciousness'. They were abused by their memories of pain, sorrows, hatred, despise and anger.
Sand from below the street forced it's way up around Gaara and hovered in the air. It twisted and changed shape without time to spare.
The now identical twins were beginning to come around. The assault by his memories had calmed down. One of them began to fade away and turned into red chakra. It lay around Naruto and sank into his skin. The clothes just a little above his butt began to tear and rip as nine fox tails emerged, sweeping through the air and swayed behind him. Naruto's ears began to grow pointy and whiskers grew out on his cheeks.
The chakra calmed itself a little and became more controlled but its presence was clearer to everyone in Konoha. Everyone was reminded of what had happened a few years ago. When Konoha had faced its destruction. Those that were old enough to remember also knew that this was exactly just like that day, when Kyuubi had come. This was no different.
Kyuubi had returned.
To be Continued!
Author Note: Enough suspense for you? I actually didn't know how to end this chapter and I was in a hurry so I don't really know where this ending came from. I've finished planning the other archives on this story and I'm actually surprised with myself that I did that. I've never had such a plan before, I usually just go with the flow. In a way it's a good thing but I only have the basic plot and I need to devolve everything else, dialogue, situations, scenes and everything else. Send me feedbacks if you want me to hear how much you like this story.
