What horrors do his crimson eyes behold? These are the unfathomable depths of Uchiha Itachi.
I don't own Naruto nor do I profit from these writings in any way.
"Speaking"
"Thinking"
"Demon"
Hirahira
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excerpt
You, who read this, know that I am a failure and a disgrace. A dishonest, dishonorable man, born from a drunk, drug crazed whore and one of any of her numerous clients. One of whom I learned, would eventually beat her to death shortly after I was born. My name is Inuki, a fitting name for someone who was abandoned to be ripped apart and eaten by wild dogs. That those selfsame dogs were more interested in rutting than filling their mangy bellies was simply a matter of bad timing. The fact that the yelping of the dogs had drawn the attention of my future sensei to my predicament was simply coincidence. That a few seconds before discovering my bug bitten body my drunk master had been urinating on my head, now that was fate, and probably a portend of the future.
Know where you came from, remember it and never forget. The moment that you do will be the moment that you lose yourself. I began at the bottom and no matter how high I rose in station I never forgot that fact. My old teacher used to say that the nature of the world was to crush the weak under foot, but the nature of the weak was to snap at the heels of their masters the second they turned their back. Whether this was a lesson in treachery or about the nature of men, my master's teachings were clear. The world was a terrible place for the weak and those who stand above should always be wary of those below, the weak did not stay weak forever, not if they wished to live, they only waited for the most opportune moment to bear their fangs and hobble you.
That was the first rule of my life, the primary tenet of my formative years. The Kouga ninja clan took in the weak and made them stronger and those that remained weak did not survive. The chaos of the First Secret World War was recounted to me in the hushed whispers and tormented dreams of my elders. I was born into an era of peace and for a time people did nothing but try to believe it would last. It did not, but for that span of twenty years there was no war, when war was all that people knew. The ways of the clans was changing, alliances were being built, nations were born and in that uncertain time of refugee caravans and roaming rogue ninja, I was born to parents delirious with freedom from the fear of death and terrified of the uncertainty of a changing world.
My time on this earth is growing short, the aches in my lungs are growing stronger and the medicinal smoke that I inhale is no longer able to blunt the agony of my disease. This is not a confession, I don't believe in forgiveness, or the after-life or the gods for that matter. I believe in death, a slow, painful, ignominious death, preferably inflicted on my enemies in a manner that in no way can be traced back to me. It is exactly the type of death that I deserve for there is no greater honor, for a ninja to have died with his passing going un-remarked.
I need not be remembered with honor as my actions will speak for themselves. I'll leave you to worry about just what the hell it was that I did, thinking about it is just making me smile as my final hour approaches. What I will talk about is the series of events that lead to what my colleagues would later call The Great Betrayal and the death of a noble clan of Tatami.
-Kouga Ninpochou, Kouga no Inuki
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Waterfall Country One day before Xiaou Wu Long joins film set.
The HiraHira Hotel was situated in one of the few resorts towns of any note in Waterfall Country. The land itself was primarily a tourist and lumber based industry. The country consisted of large tracts of forest and untamed land divided by several streams and white water rapids originating from the mountains to the north. The most well known features of the country were the large waterfalls that gave the small nation its name. As far a Xiao Wu Long was concerned he in the middle of the Boonies.
Oh the women were nice in a puckish sort of way with thin bodies and pixie-like breasts but then he had glimpsed examples of what they would look like in their later years and morbidly obese was a kind description. They were good for a nightly distraction but he was careful not to become too deeply involved with any one girl. Besides he was more of a breast man, he liked them soft and round, perky but just a little pendulous. Nipples the size of his thumb was his joy and he loved the thought of cleavage deep enough for him to bury his head in it and just inhale the scent of feminine flesh.
His eyes wondered over to the well endowed blond that had just stood up and turned to the exit to the bar. His eyes roamed over her fit body. She had huge breasts maybe D or E-cups that jutted out of her chest and swayed slightly as she walked. She couldn't have been older than eighteen and looked as if a light push would knock her off balance. She didn't seem frail, her breasts were just that huge. One of the girls sitting at his booth giggled into his ear and he started at the noise. By the time he turned back to look for his blond Amazon all he saw was some scrawny kid, carrying a tiny pink pig hurrying out the door.
"Shit."
Feigned tiredness and ignoring the concern of his manager Yue-san as well as the disappointed sounds coming from his former conquest-to-be, the wiry twenty year old man rushed out of the door but no matter how he questioned the staff at the hotel he couldn't find the woman. Weary, he made his way to his room and sank into his bead after ordering a flask of warm sake to be sent to him in the morning. It would be one of the last times that he'd get the chance to drink like this without his manager getting on his case.
After all they were meeting with the film crew tomorrow…And going there.
Finally, after hours of brooding, Wu Long closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
In the street below a thin dark haired girl carrying a tiny pink pig rushed into a mahjong parlor already dreading the gleeful sounds of greedy laughter that she could hear within.
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Waterfall Country in the forest at night
It was a dream unlike any other that he had ever experienced before. The shinrabanshou bestowed upon him the genetic memory of veteran members of the Uchiha, their knowledge and their experience seen through dreams or visions.
At the moment Itachi could tell right away that there were two things wrong with the dream that he was experiencing. First of all there was no flood of emotions and sensations that he normally experienced during one of his episodes. He did not instantly become the person whose memories he was experiencing but was rather a silent spectator witnessing events in the distant past.
The second thing that was wrong with the dream was that he could tell without knowing how that the person whose eyes he was looking through was not an Uchiha. There was a certain sharpness of clarity that was absent from his vision which he had learned was a natural side effect of possessing an awakened sharingan.
The body he was in didn't have the feel of an Uchiha body, it was powerful, oh yes it was, but a power of a different sort flowed through his veins. This person seemed to be deeply connected with the natural world to the point that the mighty pulse of chakra that signified the world's life could be felt strongly in his bones.
Whatever the reason for it was the dream was strange. The body he had inhabited stood upon a tree branch stretching out over a chasm of darkness, the sky was red tinged by the light of a crimson moon.
"Boy."
A strange menacing voice whispered from somewhere in the darkness below. The scent of rotting flesh wafted up to Itachi accompanied by the sensation of deep inimical fury. Whatever was down there Itachi hoped that his host would have the sense to stay away from it.
"Bo-o-o-y-y-y."
A strange chill began to run down Itachi's metaphorical spine as he realized that no; his host didn't have the sense to avoid the hidden menace. The body stepped off the thick branch and with a lurching sensation dropped into the void.
The darkness below receded a little as if he were carrying a light and Itachi noted that he was now standing upon another thick branch several feet below the first. His host seemed calm but Itachi's mind trembled as he remembered the feeling of falling into a great darkness. Whatever light illuminating the chasm dimmed as the world shivered and a foul hot wind blew upward.
"I… wish boy."
In spite of Itachi's mental protestations his host form in this nightmare world began to progress further and further downward, the branches that they landed on became twisted, mangled and thinner. They reached out into the darkness like strange wasted arms beseeching the oppressive shadows for clemency.
"No."
"No!"
"No! I don't want to be here!"
"I don't want to see this! No!"
"Ohhh, howww I wishhh Boyyyy."
"Please, no!!"
The dissociation between what Itachi felt and did and what he thought and wanted began to fade. With horror he started to realize that he was actually in his own body but that couldn't be right, this was not the body of an Uchiha.
"What was going on?"
"Oh how I wish Boy!"
In the distance far below he could faintly see a thread of pale golden crimson light. Like the lava in a volcano it radiated a tremendous amount of heat and light. He wanted to leave but felt compelled by some siren call to come closer.
"Oh how I wish Boy!"
His palms were sweaty and slipped on the rough bark, there was a strange buzzing in his ears and he began to hear the faint sounds of something below making wet, slurping and sucking noises as well as ripping and tearing sounds. His flesh crawled at the thought of multiple wriggling forms.
"That All Mankind…"
He began to make out a faint outline below but he couldn't make out any details as be approached closer and closer still, his mind numb with horror and his breath coming in sobbing gasps.
"Had just ONE neck."
When Itachi was five, the earliest memories that he could recall were those memories of the scent of death. While too young to fight in the war, the age of academy entry had been lowered to a five years of age minimum during wartime. He remembered the resigned look on his mother's face, the silent apathy of his father and the old dog that used to follow him part of the way to school.
There was an incident of sabotage, an enemy infiltrator had made an attempt on the Hokage's secure library and set off several exploding tags in the civilian areas as a distraction. A girl had shielded him, he never found out if she survived but he remembered how still she was as she lay on the ground blood leaking over her tattooed cheeks.
There was a small pile of people and parts of people who had taken the full brunt of the blast. Itachi had climbed to the top of the pile and looked at the bloody, charred ruin of what was once a children's toy store and he thought, "This is war."
Medic-nin had rushed him away but not before he had seen the corpse of the old dog that had always followed him part of the way to the Academy. It had been impaled by a piece of flying debris and violently disemboweled.
Oddly enough it was the death of that dog that had haunted his dreams and not any of the human casualties. He had nightmares about the animal stalking after him, trailing blood and intestines, weeping yellow pus from suppurating wounds and worms and other insects covering its body instead of fur.
"I WISH that ALL Mankind had just ONE neck…"
What Itachi saw was the culmination of nightmares, the fruit of horror. Its form could not be fully discerned beneath the writhing mass of roots. Pink roots pierced into the bubbling red mass like worms seeking a meal. Blackened roots with hundreds of charred rootlets erupted out of the struggling, snarling mass like monstrous centipedes. A single glowing red eye with a slit pupil narrowed in fury roared.
"So that I could CRUSH It!!"
In a darkened tent a pair of agitated eyes opened in startled panic searching for the owner of that furious red eye. Forcefully calming himself, Itachi concentrated on slowing his heartbeat, never once realizing that his eyes also had their own crimson hue.
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Land of Tatami/Waterfall Country Border
Ayumu dithered as he walked, mumbling to himself. "Do you understand Michiru?"
"Yes!" an annoyed voice hollowly spoke within his ear.
"Inuki-sama wants you to watch him but to keep your distance; our spies tell us that there will be at least two jounin protecting the Invitator." Ayumu murmured as he bent down to examine a group of mushrooms. They were of a poisonous variety.
"Why not just kill him? I've heard of his 'habits' it shouldn't be too hard for me to get close to the man." Michiru sounded peevish.
Ayumu smirked, "The leaders want the Invitator alive for the first part of their plan, Inuki-sama wants to wait until the boy gets closer to the border of Tatami before making a move. We'll use missing-nins to wear down his defenses and hopefully take out some of those guards. Now that we are aware of him we can always go after him later when he enters Tatami."
Three shadows appear in the trees behind Ayumu as he released a thin wire that was clenched in his jaws. Without looking at them he spoke. "You know what to do."
The shadows vanished into the trees.
Nearly three miles away in the land of Waterfall a thin slip of a figure silently lowered itself onto a tree branch like a spider. Dressed in short black tights and a sleeveless black top covered by a midnight blue haori that was belted closed at the waist by a green rope, the feminine figure maneuvered itself to lightly and soundlessly place a tabi and zori clad foot upon the branch.
"That person is an enemy of Inuki-sama!" She didn't like sitting and watching but it was an order from her Inuki-sensei then she would follow it. Her fingers, wearing dull black rings, twitched and a nearly invisible wire thrummed as it sliced cleanly through the trunk of the tree behind her. The girl's short black hair bobbed in the wind as the trunk of the tree fell past her. "I will kill anyone who stands against him!"
With a determined expression the girls cart-wheeled backward with unnatural slowness seeming to wind something around her foot as she stood suspended in the air for a second until with another gesture a taut wire unraveled from around the fallen tree trunk and in a flash the girl was catapulted into the distance.
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Kouga Naoki sat at her desk with her eyes closed. She had known that this day would come and thanked her ancestors for being alive to do something about it. So many secrets, so many betrayals, lies felt like ashes upon her tongue, and what had she accomplished. Those who were wronged sought vengeance and in turn wronged others in a senseless cycle of violence that she was helpless to stop. Still there was one thing that she could do.
"Send for Inuki." She ordered in a reedy thin voice. It was time for things to come to an end.
Across the Ninja world some dreamed, some plotted and lives moved along courses charted by heavens web. The wings of a butterfly fluttered and destiny shifted.
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AN: It's kinda short but this part of the story is the point of transition where things start to get really interesting I've planned out a story arc that's going to read like a miniature naruto movie. I think that you'll love it. I've been getting a little busy and won't have the time to keep up a heavy pace of frequent posts but readers can at least expect each of my other stories to be updated before the end of the month.
To answer a question, senjutsu in the term given in Naruto for tactical skills such as plotting ambushes, defenses, counter attacks, pursuits, tracking and infiltrations. One must take into account the environment, time, climate, and equipment at one's disposal as well as the type of enemy that is being fought. In my story the basics are taught to genin such as the basic tactics and formations to defend a client, lay a trap, and attack a position. More detailed information is available in the academy and at the Konoha Library but most of the higher level tactics and procedures are taught in person by jounin as such information can be used to predict patterns of operation and would be dangerous in enemy hands. In the Academy this is mainly a theory oriented subject.
As for nawakiri no jutsu well that's the name that I made up for the rope parting skill, students are also taught the basics of manipulating wires and exploding tags during this class.
Generally academy students and Genin gain knowledge from three general sources in this story. Commonly available technique scrolls can be bought in bookstores and learnt at the academy or library. Less commonly available and slightly dangerous low level techniques are taught by chuunin instructors and are in the restricted section of the library. Restricted techniques like bloodline skills and family arts are taught by relatives while the more dangerous mid level skills and tactics are taught by jounin instructors and learnt by chuunin. High level skills are taught as needed to jounin and many are encouraged to develop their own abilities.
Ask more questions it helps give me ideas for the story.TTFN.