Author's Note: The chapter people kept guessing about… I hope its enjoyed.
A Demon's Dream
Chapter Twelve: Something Very Bad
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
As a ninja, one must learn to dismiss the intrinsic similarities one has to other humans. As a being that was once human, people lose any value they might have had. But Uzumaki Naruto writes the rules for beings that can't be human, and he still held the idea that people had meaning. Maybe some people needed killing, but death for death's sake was wrong. Uzumaki Naruto believed this.
Naruto and Kyuubi had lost their tenuous grip on their physical bodies when the prince ejected them from Uchuugakure. And so for the moment they hung in the air, mere clouds of sparkling blue and red chakra, knowing what they had to do for the sake of their insanity.
They had to go somewhere specific to do it, but they had no idea where they were. For mortal beings this would be an issue, but they were Uzumaki Naruto, they were vast, infinite perhaps. They became more, the two clouds of chakra shining brighter, until they were two stars that would have been blinding for anyone still sane to see. Then the stars moved, and simply were once more, in two different places. They made bodies and hid their massive energies within themselves, becoming less and less, and then setting out.
Fifteen years ago, the demon fox spent a week bearing down on a village. Then as now, infants sobbed, crying uncontrollably for the entirety of the week, and nothing could be done to console them. They thrashed and cried violently until they wore themselves into exhaustion. Some died. Dogs barked and whined, and many ran from their homes.
The children and the adults were plagued with nightmares, assaulting images of horror that drove sleep from many, and brought delight to a few. Like fifteen years ago, ninja and civilian alike were lured by a siren call, driven by an irresistible urge to return to the hell their home was becoming.
During the week, there was less and less activity, next to no movement. Like being paralyzed with killing intent. But unlike fifteen years ago, the being approaching gave no sign of itself, it swung no tails, did not make tidal waves or send mountains crashing down. And yet Forces beyond understanding of living things knew that the destruction this time would be worse. It would be total and complete, terrible and devastating, and those Forces weren't being quiet about what they knew.
Amid the drudgery of the average people and the glee of a select few, there were the handful who stared with blind, unblinking eyes. They knew what was coming, and they knew it was a bad thing. The handful of sensitives told people that Something Very Bad would happen, and believed it with all their hearts, but they couldn't leave their village, because Forces wanted them to stay, and enjoy the show.
And on the second day the storm started. Lightning and thunder crashed in the sky, and heavy black clouds sent the village into perpetual night. The night fueled exhaustion, the dreams darkened the skies ever more, the darkness made the rains hammer away the will to do anything but sit inside.
Thus, it was considered a mercy to the handful of people who knew it would happen. Minds too burned up with the impending doom, and the knowledge they could save no one, not even themselves. Relief swept over them when the apocalypse finally came.
The end of their world was the stuff of nightmares, but not the nightmares they'd suffered. Kyuubi and Naruto stood at opposite edges of the village, and let their grips on the bodies break as they willed themselves to become more, and more still. Stunning lines of crimson and azure flecked with shining lights swarmed around the whole of the village, rising into a twisting, two lined spiral that domed in and enclosed their reality.
And finally freed of the eternal night and the horrors in their sleep, the villagers woke to terrifying reality, they screamed and ran from the shining light that drew ever closer, slowly consuming what was in its way. But no matter the direction they ran, the dome drew ever closer towards them, slow, inexorable, inescapable. The presences in the energies called out to the population, speaking with voices that held no malice and no hate. And while they spoke the energies halted their maelstrom of death.
"You, who sit now so frightened. So feeble. You know us, though you do not remember it. We are Beings now, no more mere humans to be looked upon my mortal fools. We bear no ill will to you, and would just as soon have left you to be…"
A part of the crowd called out "Then why! Why do this?"
"We do this, because we must." Blue and red began to swirl closer, it touched a living limb, and the thing attached to it could no more move that it would in death. The swirls drew ever closer and a fool ninja tried to trade places with an object outside the barrier, the Beings paused and sent their chakra into the ninja, whom they had plucked from the unreality of his jump. The chakra burned into his body, scouring away what was once his own system, and Demon chakra supplanted it, the body saturated with vile energies and the body could no longer assert that it was as real as the Beings, and disappeared like any construct made of chakra would.
And then they moved again, until a voice called out. "At least tell us who is going to kill us!" Again this made the two stop. The red glowed and the harsh voice spoke. "I am Kyuubi." It said, a clear invitation for the other to speak. The blue glowed and the ethereal, wispy voice spoke. "I am Naruto."
They spoke together, resuming their advance. "We have been questioning who and what we are. We are salvation and damnation to life that does not live. We are that what changes the game to be played. We are a solution. And a new series of problems, for us and everyone else." They took a moment as their destruction continued, things disappearing into the cloud and not emerging. "We are reluctantly the same. And you will serve our differences. For as mighty as we are like this, when we are unrestrained we are vast, we contain mysteries. Fish." Kyuubi gave his conclusion.
The top of the dome sparked and burned, impossibly thin lines of chakra stretched down and snatched up a man, purple energy quickly consuming him as he spoke in another voice. "WE DO THIS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO NEED. YOU DIE SO THAT SOMETHING NEW AND WONDERFUL CAN BE, REJOICE IN THAT. AND MORE THAN ANYTHING, WHAT WE ARE AND WHY WE DO THIS IS UZUMAKI NARUTO." The body glowed more fiercely and the wall of death closed in, ignoring the screams and pathetic cries for mercy.
And then the storm was over, and the village was totally intact, all the life once there lay where it fell. Chakra coils stripped of all their burning life, their once human chakra and souls having been drained into the infernal mass that destroyed them. Their minds, their very personalities and beliefs were wiped away, scoured and removed to be never recovered.
The corpses of animals, babes, men and women and children lay still, the demon-fire that had overwhelmed them still making its ominous glow from their corpses. Of the fires, and the two men touched by the chakra intentionally, there was no sign. As if they had never been.
Dawn broke for the first time in a week, and no human eye could look upon it to be thankful for the relent. Forces beyond understanding, who had watched the moment eagerly, now sat to wait out the repercussions, and looked upon another village where dreams and nightmares waxed potent and common.
The Forces considered, for the merest of moments, that perhaps there was more that would happen than they believed, or had wished for.
No one saw Kyuubi or Naruto after that, but if one looked hard enough, they might see a man walking, dumbly through the forest, the purple light that bathed him seeming the only thing about him that lived. His eyes, dead, his mouth moved but made no sounds, and where he went. And all around him the horrible presence of Something Very Bad whispered in a small, frightened voice 'what have I done?'
End A Demon's Dream Chapter Twelve: Something Very Bad
Author Note: It's a short chapter, and my writing was different in it I think. But I always get Simon Green-ish when I feel like being epic and important. Fish. Read, review, please? Oh, and no I won't tell you what they did.
THE APOCOLYPSE! Whao… that chapter just shorted out my mind. I mean… wow. It was like everything I knew and thought was just shredded to pieces. Hehehehe FISH
- Most likely stated by my beta.
