Chapter 1: Humble Beginnings
By: DragoonMen
'Human Thinking''
"Human Speaking"
Technique/Jutsu Use
'Bijū/Non-Human Thinking'
"Bijū/Non-Human Speaking"
Published: 23/Jul/2020
Pre-Chakra Era Arc
27 Years Before the Chakra Event (BCE)
8 Years Before Ōtsutsuki Arrival to Earth
Chapter 1
—Land Of That—
Kōbe Vale Region
Deep within a valley in the northwestern frontier inside the country of Ka no Kuni (Land of That). Divided by a sole river, surrounded by lush forests on the north flank and overlooked by a small range of mountains on the western side, lies the proud Village of Kōbe.
This recent but sturdy settlement has only seen his third generation of inhabitants in its sixty three years of recorded history since its foundation. The people that settled this area half a century ago would say that the village was in the ass end of their nation. However, the decent and hard-working folk that lived in this vale loved the harmony and solitude that this land had elicited in their lives.
Kōbe's population was mostly integrated by farmers, miners, and a handful of artisans and merchants. The terrain within the valley was fertile thanks to the brook which divided the valley and town in half. The nearby mountains, most rich in stone and iron ores, gave the locals plenty of chances to make a decent profit out of its bountiful resources if they worked hard for it.
So yeah, life was good for the local Kōbe community.
OoOoOoO
Village of Kōbe
Walking down the main road of the town was a teen wearing a white simple sleeveless shirt, white pants, and brown sandals to complement his feet. The robe showing off his impressive developed arms for someone of his age. All clothing was handmade, something ordinary for anyone born in this era.
The young man who has only seen his fourteenth spring a fortnight ago was hauling an averaged sized bag full of rice on his right shoulder. The bag softly brushed his dark hair combed in a mohawk style and donned in a simple ponytail. Carefully, he avoided a small crowd of children that rushed past his lonesome self, threatening to make him drop his cargo. The group of kids disappearing in between some alleys assembled by the houses and huts that littered the main streets.
'Probably playing tag or something kids these days come up with' He thought with a smirk and continued his march.
He finally let an audible yet satisfied sigh when he realized he has reached his destination that was the market square.
Tossing the bag casually on the side road as not to obstruct transit, he flexed his aching muscles. Jigen started inspecting all of the stalls in his peripheral vision. Looking particularly for a certain vendor.
"Jigen-kun, here!" A loud voice that he had come to deal during his short life in a rather begrudging way called, or better yet, yelled at him. Maneuvering through the mass of people he saw a mop of purple hair moving straight towards him.
'There goes my peace and quiet' He thought hoping that ignoring her she would go away but it didn't happen.
"Hey, don't be mean! I am right here dummy." She said after slippering in the crowd and reaching his position.
"Ohayo, Suki-san." He respectfully greeted her. Ever since he was born, Jigen was considered by his peers to be a stoic, get-to-the-point, and a serious type of person.
His posture and way to carry himself wherever he went could be mistaken to that of an aristocrat or a noble. Sadly for him, he was a commoner. Just as everyone else here. He just didn't do small talk but for the bond he shared with her, he will endure.
"Good morning, Jigen-kun." The girl now named Suki say to him. "How are you doing?" She asked with a soft voice.
"Fine. You?" Quick as that he responded to her. He grabbed the sack of the precious white cereal and leaned it on his right shoulder and started walking after spotting his target; the butcher stall.
"Good too, thanks for asking." She smiled at him and started to follow him.
"What about your family?" She said after getting to his left side and keeping his pace.
"My mother is good however my father not so much as you may know already." He said with a serious face as always but if you look closely you could see a tint of sadness when he finished his statement. Either way, he never slowed down or faltered in his step.
"Oh sorry to hear that." She said with concern. "Hope ol' Hachiro gets well soon enough." She said with a smirk on her face after saying the name of Jigen's old man. She was way too optimistic for his liking.
"Count you on that." A smirk mirroring hers cross his face. "Father is too stubborn to leave this world behind, he will get through it as he had done before." He then looked down on her. "What about your mother?" He asked by courtesy since she did the same with him. He is always careful not to bring her father up.
Suki's dad had died when a bandit group raided the town two winters before. The men defended the town while the women hid in their houses but sadly Mr. Matsumoto was one of the casualties. He was close to his own father and —by extension— his family.
"She is tending the livestock you know." She paused for a moment but only a moment. "Hey, you just had your name day some days ago, didn't you?" Jigen merely nodded in affirmation.
Suki puffed her cheeks at his answers. "By the way, I could sneak you out a new shirt." She seemed a little bit flustered. "As a gift, of course, you know, since you just turned four and ten, we have a surplus of wool this year." She said rather dismissively but she hoped he would say yes.
Of course, he saw right through her act, he was just so damm observant. "Thank you Suki but it is not necessary. Times are tough as they are and we all have to make everything we have count." He said with a half-smile.
But after seeing her eyes moist a little he quickly continued before things went downhill. "But hey, don't get sad." Jigen's lip corners turned a little upwards. "After all, the intention is what counts and what better gift than seeing you and Mrs. Matsumoto doing fine."
After seeing her mood brighten up, he went in for the kill and against all his instincts telling him to no do it, he did it.
"You know I could always take you on your offer of dinner with you and your mother." He said with a fake smile. "After all, I haven't dropped in and said "Hi!" in a while." He finished.
"She would be deligthed." She blushed a little.
'More like you will be deligthed' The thought crossed his mind quickly and then vanished.
Jigen was no idiot. He knew Suki had a crush on him. It was no damm secret that Jigen was one of the "cuties" that lived around this part of well anywhere. He had to acknowledge that he was rather handsome when he looked at himself in the bucket of water that he used every day to rinse his face.
Some girls in the village would discreetly compliment his unique features. He had light skin, a strong jaw, and a diamond-shaped face.
His black irises looked like he had trapped the night sky in them and he had a well-muscled body from all the hard work he did on usual basis on his family farmlands. Not to mention his attitude. It seems like girls really dig the mysterious type of men since the start of time itself.
They finally reached the butcher stall, a wide variety of different meats in display and an old man with a mustache invaded the two teens eyesight.
"Perhaps, but I am rather busy at the moment. What do you say tomorrow afternoon?" The tall male responded.
"Until tomorrow then, ne." She tried to suppress her excitement and strangely she managed to do so. "Don't forget or I will march to your house and drag you by your ear the entire walk." She said aggressively but her happy demeanor betrayed the intimidation she tried —keyword Tried— to inflict upon him.
"I wouldn't dare do such a thing." Bringing his remaining hand in a defensive manner and feigning fear with an equal expression on his face.
"You better..." She pointed her finger at him. "Anyway, I better go and do the shopping, or else mother will have my hide." A deadpanned face adorned her facial features at the idea of her angry mother. "See ya, Ji-kun!" She practically ran off leaving him with a tick mark on his face at being called "Ji-kun".
'Troublesome girl'
He then faced the butcher and dropped the sack of rice on his table. The butcher's tools slightly clanking at the table with the motion.
"Hello, Jigen-san." The butcher salutes the teen warmly.
"Ohayo, Maro-san." The teen spoke. "What can you trade with me for this bad boy over here?" He said pointing to his cargo on the table between the two.
"Well young man, I can give you six and a half kilos of meat for your rice bag." Maro said hoping Jigen wouldn't start haggling the price as most customers do. Sadly for the mustache old man, things didn't seem to go his way this day particularly.
"Come on, ol' Maro, this bag is over twenty kilos heavy, yet you are only giving me less than a third of the weight of my goods in meat." The teen replied in a clearly annoyed way. The butcher was devaluing his product too much. "That is clearly robbery you know." He narrowed his eyes at the aged man.
"Hey brat, life doesn't always go our way..." The old man huffed. "... our Feudal Lord will be sending his taxpayers in a turn of the moon, and I will have to give up one of my finest cows to them. Not to be mean but take the deal or leave." The old man hoped the teen wouldn't walk away. He had attempted to sweeten the deal but it is not like livestock grows in the trees.
Besides, he offered even a little more product than other vendors like him. He knew Hachiro was ill. Everyone started noticing this after Jigen commenced to show up in the town's market alone rather than in the company of his father.
After all, in a small townlet like this, gossip was unavoidable. He wanted to help Jigen's father but he couldn't do anything more than that, he too had a family to maintain.
"Thank you for being reasonable, Maro-san." The lad said in a low tone that sounded everything but thankful to him.
'Son of a bitch, robbing me plain as a day but I have no way out. No other vendor will give me an offer as close to this one' He closed his eyes and exhale. 'Think in Kaa-san and Tou-san' The minor thought while preserving his resentment in check
Jigen quickly grabbed the meat and with the other hand reached for his back. Maro just had to put all of it in there. But that idea was thrown out of the window when he did not felt anything on his back.
'Fuck, I forgot the satchel in the house' The thought hit him like a thunderclap. He forgot to bring his way of transporting his newly acquired goods to his dwellings.
'Great, just what I needed...' Bringing up his hand that previously searched for the non-existent satchel, he facepalmed quite loudly.
'Seems like idiocy is the best luxury anyone can afford. You have to pay twice or thrice for it. Well seems like I will have to return again la...' He didn't even finish his inner thinking when a brown satchel was presented to him.
Following the hand that hovered above it, he gazed at Maro's face with a slight grin. "Just return it to me tomorrow. Is that okay with you, young man?"
'After all is the least I can do for your father, boy'
Jigen glared at the man but then quickly look down, regretting his outburst a few moments ago. He took the satchel from Maro's hand and put all the meat inside of it.
"Thank you." He mumbled an apology and with a slightly condescending look. The young lad then turned to leave the market and there of the town.
'You're welcome boy' The elder watched the retreating form of the only son of Hachiro disappear in the crowd.
Then, Maro's brow furrowed and a scowl marred his visage when he recalled what he was thinking before talking with the boy some moments before.
Some traveling merchants arrived in the town not long after sunrise. These people would bring with themselves all kinds of weapons, trinkets, souvenirs, tools, and most important: news. Information from all around the world.
Apparently, if what the boisterous leader of the merchant caravan was anything to go by —or believed— was that there were some rumors that their government had started to put pressure on their neighboring country that is So no Kuni (Land of the Ancestors) by deploying troops all along their shared border.
They argued that the crime rate along the commercial routes between both their nations were rising up, and they needed to safeguard their interest.
'As if highwaymen and bandits could present too much of a threat to our country and the Feudal Lord' He scratched his jaw and mustache trying to think a reason for this notion.
'Of course, is what that man is always doing: looking for a fight' Maro could not find any other justification for what Lord Oda was perpetrating in the Capital.
The land of Ka used to be a small state. Some two hundred or so years ago, the borders of the country were small, if not to say tiny compared to others. The country neighboring itself only with Hi no Kuni (Land of Fire) in the east and Kawa no Kuni (Land of Rivers) in the west. It was a pitiful sight on the map. A country too pathetic to be taken into consideration by others.
However, something changed, the Daimyō at that time started spending more resources on their armed forces and weapon technology and just like that in the span of two centuries, almost like they have been blessed by luck, Ka no Kuni controlled almost all the northern territories of the Elemental Nations.
In fact, the valley that Jigen's grandfather claimed as its own new ancestral home used to belong to Ko no Kuni (Land of This). Jigen's grandfather and all of the first settlers of the village of Kōbe were given land due to them lending their swords in service to their Feudal Lord.
The only downside is that war is costly, and even when a defeated nation is forced to pay tribute to the victorious faction, it isn't enough hence their own citizens would end up paying the other part.
Maro may be an old man, but during his youth, he was once called by his Lord to served as a levy troop when he called on his banners in his campaign against the Savage Tribes of the Wetlands.
These tribes constantly raided their western shores and coastal towns until finally, their Feudal Lord had said enough is enough.
The father of Lord Oda called on his subjects, failing to comply with his call to arms meant a lot of things for commoners like imprisonment, shame being brought to the family, confiscation of said subject private property even lands, and finally public execution for high treason and cowardice.
So, young Maro decided to do the right thing and fulfilled his patriotic duty as a denizen of the land of That.
He was finally conscripted along with several young men of his town after an army envoy led by a high ranking officer and a dozen soldiers, all displaying proudly the three grey rhombuses in a field of black, each with a single black stripe inside them, at last, arrived into Kōbe.
The recruitment lasted only two days. By the third day, Maro found himself gripping the handles of his full backpack tightly on his sides. Looking behind his back one last time to see his family farewell him.
One man per family was required to serve their Lord's call, and Maro would die first rather than let them take his little brother. With newfound determination, he looked forward and began the long march in group to the coastline where several other recruitment envoys would concentrate their levy troops for an intensive course of basic sword combat before retaliating against the savages hordes.
'Those three weeks of training were very uneventful' The man commented in his head.
Three weeks of basic armed combat course went on like the wind, and before Maro knew it, he was already on one of the many ships filled to the brim with soldiers, sailing towards the horizon and into the heart of the territory that the barbarians called home.
Maro closed his eyes and shivered. Memories that he had long ago buried resurfaced again, and a whimper so quiet that you would have to strain your ears to hear it escaped his lips.
'Death, so much death...'
The savages truly live up to their name and reputation, using underhanded tactics, hit and run strikes, and employing the jungle like a freaking weapon against them. So Maro, for the first time in his life got a feeling that he had never felt before so strongly in his short existence. The fear of dying.
But even against his own self-preservation instincts and those of his brother-at-arms, they carried on, against the corpses, the dying, the fire, the savages, and whatever Kami tossed at them.
"Not one step back!" The words of his officer in charge rang through his mind. Even to these days, he had never forgotten about it.
Those also were the last words he heard of his superior commander before an arrow pierced the officer's head and eye. The final assault of the Main Island was truly a horrific affair. A thousand voices. Men hell-bent on killing one another roared in the white sand. Tainting the pure white sand of red. Blood red.
The waves turning a deep crimson trying to wash it away. The combatants on either side not giving any advantage over the other. The battle lasting from sunrise to sundown.
By the end of the day, it was a pyrrhic victory. One so costly that it could hardly be called a success for the people of Ka. He was wounded on the chest during the assault. Thankfully his chest plate managed to keep the tip of the arrow from puncturing his lungs. All he had now was only a superficial wound. A scar. A reminder for eternity.
In the aftermath of the fighting, after everyone boarded some of the ships and burned the other ones that would be left behind to crisps, leaving them non-functioning to the adversaries.
'Not enough people to man all the boats' Maro knew this was the motive they did it when they sailed back. All of the men were eager to get away from that island and the hell they encountered in there. They had not completely won the battle but only managed to make the enemies rout back into the jungle. An uneasy stalemate.
He finally allowed his mind and body to loosen up when he leaned against the wooden plank in the boat. Counting himself among the lucky folk that would get to see their family again from the ones that were lying dead on the beach soil. Opening his eyes and taking one last look at the still red sand that made up the battleground location that some men have even started calling "The Battle of Red Bay" if the whispers he heard were right. He just had one last thought on his head.
'War is a bloody affair...'
Maro rubbed his bald head. Probably a migraine for recounting such memories. Whatever little knowledge about politics and economy he had was enough to do his own judgments.
It was no big secret that when a state starts to slightly increase the tax to their citizens is for a particular reason.
It could mean two things: either the country is in a need of resources to improve their own infrastructure and in so doing the lifestyle of their people or stockpiling their resources to wage a long conflict. And for Maro, he sure as hell knew one thing, the land of That wasn't the type of country that looked for the betterment of their people.
He prayed to Buddha that what he has listened to was a lie. Lord Matsuo of the land of So was a man to not be taken lightly. His nation may not be as big as Ka no Kuni but he was a damm good strategist and tactician, not to mention a leader loved by his people. He wondered if Matsuo's teenage son, a lad by the name of Tenji was anything like his father.
'Perhaps but we will see soo...' The wild line of thoughts was broken by an older woman seeking to trade with him.
Maro was fast to comply and attended the woman kindly like all his customers. He just hoped that the peaceful life that their village has maintained until now would stand unshaken in the troubling times to come. Sadly for Maro, today things didn't seem to go his way. If he only knew what lies ahead.
End of Chapter
AN: This is my first story ever so please tell me what do you think. I think that Inmortal! Naruto fics are awesome. I kind of was inspired by stories such as A Brother by The Rigth Stop and so many other that sadly didn't get an end.
And what better way than using a canon character that is really an inmortal. Kind of.
But as you may see this a Jigen centric fic. And yes it will follow into Naruto timeline and even Boruto in another story.
I will tell you that some events may divert from cannon but I will try to stay true to the original timeline. And don't worry I did a study on Jigen and his background so don't worry, just filling the missing spaces
If you feel I am to slowburn, pardon me but I want you readers to get a context of the era and such tiny details such as objects, events, social organization, history and geography are important parts of the story.
Also Jigen in this story won't be a good nor bad guy, morality is a special subject and Jigen will do what man gotta do. Look after himself and what is the best for him. Sorry but thats human nature. Period.
Also forgive any gramatical errors, English is not my native tongue but I like to practice and what better way than this fanfic :D
Before I leave, for your info guys, I am a soldier so updates can be sporadic or they can be produced in rapid succesion. I will try to finish this fic and if I dont then it means I was probably killed in combat so stay tuned.
DragoonMen