Primitus
Hi friends. Well, this chapter is a lot more subtle than the previous. The title is a really old word, which means 'At first; in the beginning; originally; and to begin with.' It refers to someone in this chapter. next update is December 15.
Naruto opened his eyes. After adjusting to the darkness, the blond stared up at the dirt ceiling.
He was underground and felt strangely comfortable and at peace with himself. Hearing a clunking noise, he looked to his right.
There was the old woman he'd seen before he fell asleep. Her back was turned to him and she was making something upon her small stove.
When she turned to Naruto with a pot in hand, she did not look at his face. In a swift motion, she dipped a soft cloth into the pot of green liquid.
When she placed it upon Naruto's stomach, he unwillingly let out a deep moan. She was putting pressure on his stomach, which should have hurt like hell, but the liquid made him want to sleep again.
Without looking she smiled and rub harder. Naruto watched in amazement as the cuts on his stomach disappeared.
"Liquid comes from land of abandonment. Heals instantly in ancient times."
He supposed she was talking about the green healing liquid. "It feels nice. I suppose you can't tell me where you found it."
"I make this very long time ago. Born next to me through extinct plants." The woman moved away and grabbed a cup.
She held the wooden utensil to Naruto's lips and lifted his head. "Drink" She commanded softly.
Naruto looked at the old wooden cup and it's brown liquid inside. Without pause, he drank.
The blond almost sputtered the liquid up. It tasted like dirt and he could barely contain it. However, to be polite he bitterly swallowed the liquid.
The old dark woman laughed quietly and drank some too, making an amused disgusted face.
"Bad for taste will become good for health."
Naruto smiled. "What does the liquid do?"
She rubbed her sagged chin and Naruto briefly wondered how old the woman was. She looked extremely old with her slow walk, quiet eyes, and odd speech.
"Liquid heals wounds faster and give more strength."
Naruto laid down again. He figured the woman was nice, even if she were powerful.
She had no chakra signature whatsoever, but Naruto knew the woman was undoubtedly powerful.
Even while she stood old, the blond could tell by the strife in her slow walk, by the determination in her dark eyes, and by the wiseness of her speech, the woman was a force.
How so, he didn't know.
Looking around, the blond once again took in his surroundings. They both stood in a single underground home.
Two beds, a small stove, and large buckets of fresh water.
"What do you eat?" Naruto questioned as he saw no food storage.
She closed her eyes and pat her lips. "The mouth had met nothing in years. Tea and veggie."
Mismatched eyes widened. "You haven't eaten anything in years? But, you need food to live."
"Only earth water." She reasoned.
"Have you always been like this? Have you always lived here underground? Where do you come from?"
There were so many questions the woman could answer. Naruto couldn't fathom the reason of her powerful existence he felt.
"Children and I come from ground. I come from ground long long long time before and children come from me. But, now children are gone."
Naruto watched the satisfied look in her eyes, but there was sadness. "All but a single."
He raised a brow. "What happened to them? The children, I mean.."
The woman looked down and lifted Naruto's leg, the one that had been twisted and was not yet healed, only to wrap it twice again.
"Keep bandage to heal. Everybody someday dies."
Naruto lay surprised at the phrase. For he'd heard it before. Weeks after Naruto was molested and the family began meetings.
Weeks before the clan was massacred.
However, he didn't understand. If the woman's children were now dead due to oldness of 'someday dying,' how was she still alive and able to live on her own?
"I mean no harm, but how are you still alive after your children have died?"
She smiled sadly. "I come from place of rest to find girl of womb."
Even if her speech was confusing, Naruto liked it. It gave him a sense of ancient times. As if her were in those times.
She was speaking of her daughter, the girl of womb.
The old woman continued. "Girl has been taken from mother and made weapon by humans." She waved her hands drastically, as if this were her first time telling her tales.
"Fruit, fruit, fruit." Then she smiled sadly at Naruto. "Human….those of your kind do not realize that slow can go."
And the world froze for him. His eyes grew even wider and he stared in shock. It had been millions of years.
This couldn't be her….standing before him in all her might. He knew she was powerful, but he didn't know she was this powerful.
If she wanted, the woman could destroy both Naruto and Hikari's monster in a single wift of her hand. This was a God before him and she stood humble.
Abruptly, the old woman stood and went to a dresser. She pulled a photograph from the drawer and shoved it into Naruto's grasp.
In the picture, she looks younger, maybe in her mid thirties. He eyes were shining and bright and she hugged a teenage girl close.
The teenage girl, with her grey features, stood smiling, her head resting on the older woman's stomach.
Naruto looked to the old woman before him and then back to the teenage girl on the picture who looked nothing like her. However, the similarities did not matter.
What mattered was this:
That teenage girl on the photograph was none other then the infamous Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. Meaning that….
He looked up in amazement. "Chi?" He questioned in a whisper.
In confirmation, the woman smiled sadly and touched Kaguya's face on the picture. "Everything is forgetfulness."
She pointed to herself then to Naruto.
"Help fix you. Fix pain and hurtfulness. You, brother to all, child of mine, bring back my girl."
She pointed to the picture, her bony fingers touching Kaguya's face. Bring back little girl so both can rest, please."
Naruto said nothing in pure shock.
And two factors were clear:
Chi, the first woman alive, was still here and knew everything about the world.
And Kaguya Ōtsutsuki was the monster the world made her….literally. She was evil as the legends told, but she was unwilling.
This information could change the world as he knew it.
"Mommy?" Chi looked over at her youngest daughter and chose not to ponder on why the girl still called her that name.
In fact, they all did. Since their time on earth. Her oldest, Abebe, who was nearing 25 years in earth, still played around and called her mommy as well. She figured, they did not develop.
They hardly aged; one earth year was a minute to them.
She figured saying 'mommy' was their haven for anything. She had lived only 25 years from the ground before her oldest was born, meaning she depended on them too.
"Yes, Kaguya?" She called, not turning around. The family had been traveling for some time now. Chi was doing so to get further away from the humans who'd been popping up and starting what they called wars.
When the children asked, she simply said they were too young to understand, although they had been there before the humans.
She told them a war was on and they understood little else.
If the humans saw what they were, they would fear them. And forbid if Chi had to kill humans to keep her own safe. But, everything on this earth was hers.
She was the one that gave other plants the power to be…..her. She created her own abominations.
Was it not herself who had planted and cut her hand to make those plants humans?
Where do they come from, her family, she always wondered. Where did Chi herself come from?
She came from the soil, the slugs and slime and roots and twigs. She was a weed, plucked out herself, and uprooted alongside bareness. She was from everywhere; the ditches and sloughs, untended and spindly. She erupts and becomes valleys and mountains.
She grew where they could not see, and flourished where they could not hear.
She was the silent territory. She was the world and she knew she birthed it. What had guided her? Some higher being? As she had more and more children, she forgot.
Everything was forgetfulness nowadays.
She birthed the world, but she could not save it. It was now beyond her control.
"Yes, Kaguya?" She asked once again to the highly advanced 12 year old.
"Big sister Uma is hanging on the branch." The girl nearly screamed.
Chi ceased her movements and turned around slowly. She stared into the eyes of her boisterous 18 year old and then to her twelve fingers wrapped around a branch.
Uma had always been the more 'odd' of the family. She constantly tricked her siblings and disobeyed orders because she believed it was funny. Still a good child she was however.
Chi lifted a finger and her lips formed into a thin line. "Uma Adebowale, get onto the ground this instant."
The dark child did nothing except look to the ground and shake her head rapidly.
Chi placed her hands upon her hips. "And why?"
"I'm scared, mommy."
Before Chi could reassure Uma, the other's began to pester their sister.
Mira pointed her pale finger toward her twin and laughed. "Haha. Uma's scared of heights."
And Takao pointed too. "Uma just jump."
"Enough, you two. Now since you all want to speak, help your sister down." Chi commanded softly, but the two still went to help.
While they were busy helping Uma down, Chi watched from her periphery as Kaguya ran away forward a bit, pointing to the sky.
"Mommy, look at the parachute!"
Her head snapped up and her eyes locked onto the small wooden box coming down to earth, hooked onto a sort of balloon.
"Oh no" she whispered. Without thinking, Chi placed a protective barrier around her children.
She knew she would not live to see them grow, but she knew that as long as they stayed together, they'd be safe.
A few seconds later, there was a sudden white flash, brighter than a bolt of lightning. She had no idea what could have exploded, but she had seen it in before wars. It was as if the entire sky was swallowed up.
A moment later, she was hurled sideways by a blast. It was a sensation of floating tranquillity in a cool whiteness high above earth.
When she regained consciousness, Chi slumped forward in a sitting position. There was moisture and intolerable heat, blood, a mountain debris. She was still holding onto the barrier, so her children were safe.
She could not see, but she could feel. She was not safe. There was a thick dust around that made breathing and seeing difficult.
When she touched her arms, some skin peeled off. She need not worry. It would repair soon.
When she regained sight, the woman gasped. The small parachute had blotted out the sun with its smoke. All the trees around them were flattened and inflamed.
Her trees; they crawled, fled, stumbled like ghosts among the ruins. She could hear a child's voice.
But who, she made sure her children were safe.
"Mommy?" a small hand touched her boiling skin and she gasped. How could they touch her if she were outside the barrier?
Looking down, she first saw the broken arm, and then the writhing body of Kaguya Adebowale, only 12 years old.
Chi did not understand how Kaguya survived the explosion. It could only mean that….
"Ka-Ka-" She hugged the child. "What are you-? How did you get from my barrier?"
She wouldn't dare ask how Kaguya was still alive. She was special. She was alive and that's all that mattered.
All of them were. She could see them a final time before she left earth.
Kaguya let herself be squeezed. "I wasn't in the barrier mommy."
Of course. Chi failed to grab Kaguya back when she ran ahead to point at the parachute.
Before she could question further, a sharp pain connected with Chi's head. She looked to the right of her and pushed Kaguya away.
The humans had found her, with their deadly weapons. With a wave of her hand, Chi went through the five men with little effort.
"You will not hurt my-"
"Mommy!" She turned again, watching as a few men were dragging her daughter away. So far they were.
Another sharp pain in her stomach. In her neck. And then her legs, which now severed her from reaching Kaguya.
She felt pain in her head continuously, and knew it was a trap. They were taking her daughter.
They were going to beat her until she lost strength and until she lost consciousness.
When she did, the barrier broke. She watched as a man dropped something near her head. Perhaps another parachute, and ran off.
Putting her hand up, she could only feel her other children's hands on her burning skin. She watched as the tried moving the second parachute without success. She heard their whimpers.
"Mommy, those humans took Kaguya." Abebe called.
But, she failed to tell them that she made them. She made them and they were all human. The only difference, she was the first of many.
"Mommy, are you okay? Your nose is gone."
A series of new flashes broke out, lifting and spreading the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame rose. Then geysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward.
Chi watched the smoke-rings as they rose; twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment, and belching flame and crackling with lightning the next.
Another Parachute had expanded and Chi knew they were all dead.
She awoke to Takao shaking her. Looking around, she watched as her children cried and cried.
How ironic it was. They sat in a beautiful space as if it were a heaven, but they were crying. The parachute had not messed up their bodies.
"Are we dead, mommy?" Takao asked.
Chi sat up. "Yes and no. We are not fully human, we cannot die. We can only be sent to this place."
Abebe looked all over. "Is it the spirit world?"
"Yes, son."
Uman cried harder. "I want to stay together, but Kaguya isn't here. The humans took her."
At this, Chi frowned and stood. "Stay here. This is nothing in the world that can hurt you."
"Wait. We can leave this place?" Mira asked.
Chi nodded, growing desperate. She had to find Kaguya or she didn't know what'd she do. "We cannot die. We cannot be destroyed. We can only come here to be born again."
She knew it did not make sense to her children, but nothing ever did. Before they could ask anything, she quickly explained. "Anything positive can be imagined into existence here. No trouble, you three. Your sister will be back in no time."
Chi stomped her foot and appeared back on earth in the physical world, where she would spend years searching for her girl.
She did not understand.
Chi crouched down. She spent years looking for her little girl. So many years. How many, she knew.
As of tomorrow, Kaguya would be 30. She had been gone and pursued by her mother for eighteen years.
If she were still alive.
Chi had visited her children in the spirit world every so often, they grew wiser; they grew older; and their sister still had not returned.
Chi herself was giving in to both old age and the world.
She had been through so many wars; so many battles; and deaths; just to find her baby girl. She wanted Kagya there.
She had heard stories about a Rabbit Goddess who attempted to save the human race and more about how that same Goddess became corrupted. Supposedly, the rabbit goddess looked like her little girl.
Chi chose not pursue the myth.
She checked lists of the dead after battles, looking over unclaimed corpses. Her daughter's name was not among the dead.
With a smile, the woman inhaled the earth beneath her. "Kaguya. You will be with me soon. No need to worry."
The woman stood. "Everything is sadness. And lost."
In ancient times, lost meant dead.
Chi was going to give up the search for the day. With a sigh, the woman began walking again.
With each step, she told herself she would not cry. But, it hurt to be strong before everyone. She should have been resting with her other children, but not until they were all together. She supposed she did need them all.
Was Kaguya alone? Afraid? Did she feel betrayed? It had been 18 years.
Seeing a flashing light in the dawned sky, Chi turned in the direction.
"These humans and their wars are never purposeful. They do not realize that slow can go."
She climbed the hill. On that hill, she watched wide eyed as a ten tailed monster was sealed. There were two men near the sealing and Chi supposed they were not human.
They crouched upon the ground exhausted and just as Chi was about to walk down, she jumped to the side.
A large toad from Mount Myoboku, a place she had discovered herself before, ran past yelling, holding a cloth with a blond haired infant in his mouth skillfully.
The baby had bright features and Chi leaned down the side of the hill surprised.
But the battle is not what surprised her. Nor was it the golden child. It was what she saw a glimpse of before the ten tails was sealed.
There was a woman within the body, spinning and looking distressed as if realizing her life had took a turn for the worst. As if she knew she did not belong there.
She was utterly disfigured. Her nose and cheek were almost gone; great wounds covered her face and body. She was nearly bald.
Even then, Chi could understand her look. The grey hair, the grey horns, the grey eyes.
She spun in a cloud of flies and maggots as if she were wretched and doomed.
As Chi stared, the woman within the the beast gave her a frightened gaze and then her own eyes widened. She and Chi stared at one another before the woman let a cry. One Chi had always heard.
"Mommy!"
And then she was gone. Sealed forever. It was her daughter.
Tears pricked at Naruto's eyes as he listened to the story. "What happened?"
"I learn truth." Chi was old now, no fight in her.
Even now, Naruto could see the distance in her eyes when she told the story. When she said Kaguya's name. The sorrowed look. The pitiful as she remembered everything.
"I learn that Kaguya was kidnapped and forced to marry at age 19. She eats the fruit to defend herself, but the fruit cannot defend her. She is betrayed by the last family she knows- two sons of my lineage.
She knows no one will understand and now I cannot have her back. She is sealed forever. Where? I know less."
"What happened to the other children? Abebe, Takao, and Mira?"
"They still rest. Each time I come, they ask for their sister, not giving up hope. I still search here. I still search for little girl."
"And now, hope of ancient times has come to me. I have willed you here."
"Me?"
"Yes. The child within the blanket when my daughter was sealed. Are you not of her flesh? Not of her blood?"
"I'm her great great grandson."
"You are mine too." Chi chided softly. "For I have birthed Kaguya, who has birthed Hogarama, who has birthed the Senju, the Uchiha, and the Uzumaki. I have birthed the world. Colors that are mine and not mine."
"So we are more alike than we are unalike." Naruto concluded in a soft whisper. He began to cough hazardly and Chi tapped his stomach softly.
"Take more than a year to heal, for you. Stay here and protection from me is all you need. I can heal you in no time."
Naruto considered for a moment. He did need to rest and he figured Konoha was not looking for him as of now.
He could learn from Chi. She was billions of years old. She knew more about the world then anyone and Naruto needed to learn. He needed to heal in both mind and body.
Nodding, the boy struggled to sit up. "I will remain with you for a year, Chi-baa-chan."
With her staff, she hit him back down. "Rest easy now. Name of you?"
"Naruto. Naruto Namikaze." he groaned out, rubbing his chest.
"Ah. So you are with lineage to the sun and therefore the sun's abomination."
"It's my quest to defeat him." Naruto defended, missing Chi's small smile. "I have many quests."
Chi nodded. "Of course. Defeat great great grandfather; save all tailed beasts; learn more of the world to save it; avoid monstrosity."
He stared wide eyed. "How'd you….?"
"Only a God can know all." She sat. "Rest easy and remember that slow can go. For we have a year ahead of us."
Naruto sighed and closed his eyes. Feeling a soft pressure on his forehead, he opened his to find Chi with her hand resting upon his head.
She looked sad, but she was smiling. "You have killed before I found you. I sense hate and I sense fear."
Naruto opened his mouth but said nothing.
"Do not fear yourself child. Do not hate yourself. I am a monster too. I created half of you. I created the wars. But that is not why I am a monster. I am a monster because I can do things no other can. I love me. You will too.
I must teach you to not hate the monster within you. If you destroy that monster, you cannot defeat your great great grandfather. It takes a monster to destroy one."
"What?" He questioned, almost groaning at his pain, too eager to learn and not realizing the strain he put on himself.
Chi smiled. "The whole universe sum up in Human Being. Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside. Look for your devil in yourself, not in the others. Don't forget that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God."
Naruto nodded. "I must know my Devil to know my God." He repeated. It didn't make sense when he said it, either.
"The world does not need hero. For heros are killed and they do not always win. They realize their mistakes too late. Be a monster, Naruto. The world needs one."
Naruto raised a brow and Chi only smiled.
"You will understand in due time. Slow can go, little one."
Naruto bit his finger, hesitating at first, and opening his mouth then. "What does that mean?" He questioned quietly. "Slow can go. Where'd you get it from?"
Surely there must be a deeper meaning to the famous saying once heard in the book, by Pein, and the one who made it.
Chi smiled. "Never met child who didn't like stories. Red skin, blue skin, yellow skin, black skin, purple skin, any skin."
Naruto nodded. "Don't make sense, does it? All the fuss about skin."
Chi pat his head. "Well, I travel dimensions before I gave birth to my children. This story of Slow can go begins here."
She placed her cup upon the floor and began marching it slowly. "Long time ago, people of a dimension die. Not this place, other place. I visit often."
Naruto nodded in understanding, noting that Chi did not conjure the saying while on earth, but in another dimension of other people.
She continued. "Long time ago, these people were dying. All of them. Starvation. Disease. Hurtfulness. But, there were few left. The few who survived set out to find a new home. One single man went to search for place. Chi was witness, she saw.
A good place with lots of food and healthy air. Know where that is?"
She waited for Naruto to speak and the blond shook his head. "Where?"
"I tell you." She spoke. Slowly, she drug the cup across the floor. "It took long time to get to new place. But he knew it when he saw it. This here."
Chi pointed to a space where the cup landed and Naruto assumed the path was the unknown man's journey.
"Right here. So man goes all the way back to his people." She drags the cup back to where she started. "Back past mountains and he tells them 'if you go slow, you can go.'"
Naruto smiled in delight at the historical context, almost clapping his hands a little.
Chi nodded and began to drag the cup again. "Off they go, these few. Some so weak, they must be carried. Took all of them together-how long? Months? A year? But man keeps saying 'if you go slow, you can go.'"
Naruto nodded, very into this story.
"Slow can go. Like a train chugging across the mountains. When these few reach new home, they ask what to call it. They need name for new home."
"What do they call it?"
Chi smiled and stood. "New name in that dimension. Slocan."
"Slocan?" Naruto wondered aloud, partially confused. What did the name have to do with the saying?
Chi laughed. "Say it slowly. Slocan. Slow can. We call it Slocan now. Real name is Slow-Can-Go."
Naruto smiled softly at the wise woman.
I swear Chi is my favorite character. And there you have it friends. Kaguya Otsutsuki is not as evil as we thought. I wanted to have a beginning to everything here.
To clear up confusion, here is what happened. Chi and the children were travelling. While Chi was distracted by the toddlers, she failed to notice a 'parachute' falling to the ground.
To save the children in time, she placed a barrier around them. However, Kaguya was not in the barrier since she had moved ahead trying to show them all the 'parachute' or bomb.
When the men came and took Kaguya, they knocked Chi out, making her lose hold of the barrier. When they had set off, another bomb was dropped and she knew they were all dead.
When she awoke, she was in a spirit realm, she and the children that had been 'killed.' I'll find another word, because they do not die, they can only be sent to the realm and choose whether or not to rebirth themselves.
Chi chose to to find Kaguya, because we all know Chi is not a big fan of the world. However, in the 18 year search, she could not find Kaguya. She dismissed claims of the Rabbit Goddess as Kaguya because she did not want to interfere with the humans.
This is her guilt. Had she known, she may have saved Kaguya sooner. Chi was there during my prologue, watching. She saw Hikari in the blanket and she saw Kaguya be sealed.
Kaguya saw her too.
It was kind of sad, but as I've said, Chi is important to the story. Now Naruto has many tasks; save the tailed beast, find out more about the world, find and save Kaguya, and defeat his grandfather.
And guys, I'm not going to put religion in here really. When I speak of devils and gods, I simply am using a more intense way to say good and evil. We will know more about Chi's prowess later on. She is a God after all.
There is something far more horrible in Naruto's life. It will be there in due time.