Of Demon Hunters and Shinigamis
By The Obsidian Blade
Chapter two-the act of artificial creation and questions
The Grunts attacked relentlessly and carelessly. He reached for Grace and started to unleash a volley of needles at the upcoming onslaught of stupid grunts. They fell one by one as needles pierced their flesh. The blondes hand twitched for Bliss and with quick succession he unsheathed the blade, slicing the demons that came near. The blade moved with grace and skill as it swept across the field, tracing its path with the blood of its foes. It was a show to behold to any swordsmen watching it. The demons howled in pain as they were sliced, the blade of Bliss slicing deep into their skins.
A demon made a lunge from the side, trying to knock the lone soldier down. The attempt to strike did not go unnoticed by the blonde. He jumped back, the claws of the grunt barely scratching his flesh, drawing a bit of blood. He pointed Grace at the demon and fired. The needles made contact, piercing its skull and sending blood and brain matter everywhere. The grunts were dispatched. Their blood bathed the floor as well as the one who slew them. He sheathed Bliss and put Grace back into its respective holster and sighed. No wonder no one survived; this place was literally crawling with demons. He began to wander why was there so much demon activity here? Sure this was an ideal meeting place and hide out but demons usually never stayed in one place so long, well not the Grunts. The other demons were harder to predict. Their movements were never the same and if it was it did not go without reason.
Naruto continued to walk through the house. It was amazing the building has not even collapsed under its own wait over the years. It looked as if no one tried to take care of the place and just condemned it for some odd reason. It certainly did not have a safe presence around it. The blonde thought of this as usual. He has been in far worse conditions before this and bound to get himself in even more life threatening positions. He opened door after door, never finding anything of real value or interest besides a few Grunts and the occasional Soldier. He opened the last door that was close to the balcony looking over the main room on the floor below. He felt an odd, unholy presence in the room. He did not know why but he could feel something strong beyond that door and it was unnerving him beyond control. He eased it open with a long annoying creek as the hinges protested in the movement. When he opened he pulled out Ominous and looked around with the gun ready to fire at anything that did not belong. The room was starch white and seemed to be in a neat order. Something that struck out due to the condition the rest of the house was in. The dresser was pressed up near the window. The window was closed. The white curtains did little to help keep the light out. The bed was made and seemed to be recently ironed. This was weird. This was the only room in the whole house that was in neat order. He sighed as he took out a camera from his coat pocket and snapped a few shots of the room and walked out.
As soon as he exited the room he got tackled to the bottom floor. He felt the rotting wood railing splintered as he fell. The wooden floor below splintered as well, leading to a lower floor beneath it. The blonde hit the bottom floor with a dull thud. He groaned as pieces of the floor above hit the cold steal floor around him, a few occasionally hitting him
Naruto groaned as he pushed himself up, his hands running along the cold steel floor. He could tell that the floor was made if steel by the hard feel of it. As he got up the florescent lights lit up, one row at a time. They hummed as they came to, illuminating the room. The blonde was amazed at the room. It was huge, probably bigger than the house itself probably. Hell it was probably a little bigger than the property itself. It was like a laboratory from a lot of the overdone scary movies that he bothered to watch. Beakers and test tubes were set all over the place with some kind of substance on it. Giant storage units that were filled with some kind of green fluid that suspended some kind of humanoid creature in them were sprawled everywhere. The room seemed to be mainly built out of stainless steel with the exception of a few glass components. The room was exactly that out of a scary movie.
Naruto searched the room for any sign of the person that tackled him. Seeing none, the blonde sighed as he brought out his camera again to take the pictures of the room. This was really strange, demons of the sort that he encountered here were not known to be this thoughtful and if they were they were brought down with quick secession. There had to be someone controlling them. Who exactly the blonde didn't know and most likely will have the people who are built for this do the research. He strode over to what seemed to be the main computer and moved the mouse to see if it was still on. He was in luck as the screen flickered to life and shown that the person was still logged in as well. He searched his pockets and brought out a flash drive as he searched the computer for any important files. He found a file with the title: ARTIFICIAL CREATION in bold black print under a file icon. The file name itself screamed important. He placed the file into the flash drive and searched for anything else that seemed important. Sadly, there was nothing that seemed of real importance.
Naruto pocketed the flash drive and deleted the file off the computer, trying to throw off anyone's plans if they needed to recover the thing. "You know it is not nice to go snooping where you don't belong, child," he heard behind him. The voice was calm and creepy and had a certain hiss that made it sound like a snake demon. The blond reached for Ominous with his left hand.
"Yeah, well neither is this!" Naruto spun around and quickly planted a bullet into the demons head. The demon fell to the ground with loud, dull thud. The body dissolved to snakes. The snakes slithered away from the spot. The blond was shocked. This was not the power of any Special Striker he has fought or anything for that matter. It was bizarre. Nothing like this happened on a day to day basis. Naruto heard the distortion of the air on his left and used the barrel to block the oncoming strike.
CLANG!
The sound of metal hitting metal echoed throughout the large room. The blonde looked at the sword that he was currently holding in place. The sword was a claymore with a gold hilt and a jade placed below the blade. The man holding it seemed powerful. His hair was long and black and tied behind his head so it wouldn't get in the way. His skin was pale and sickly and his eyes were lined with purple eyeliner. His eyes were slanted and held an evil gleam. His clothing seemed to be medieval robes that had a zipper to close and a hood to hide ones face. His face held this smile that sent shivers up Naruto's spine. His sent definitely that of a snake demon's. The odd thing was that snake demons were supposed to be extinct since the beginning of the war.
"Ku, Ku, Ku," the demon laughed out. He kicked away from the blonde soldier. "You are good, better than most soldiers that I have slain." The smile that he held grew even wider as Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Do not be alarmed. I have been watching you for some time now and I have come to offer you a deal. Why not join me?" Naruto's eyes widened at that. Join the freak? What was he, crazy? "Do not dwell upon it now; think about it now for I have a test for you." The snake demon disappeared into the shadows. The room was silent. Naruto waited for something to happen. He sighed as he put back Ominous. Then he heard it.
CRACK!
He spun around only to get knocked by a monster. The creature was about fourteen feet tall. Its skin was like stone. Its horns were gnarly. Its claws were more like talons. Its snout was elongated. Its wings also seemed to be made of stone. Its tail swung and swept the floor below, scratching the floor occasionally. Naruto reached and pulled out Ominous and Fear and stared the thing in its eyes. This was not going to be fun. The creature lunged at Naruto with its claws bared. The blonde dodged right and fired a single shot of Ominous at it. The shot did little to affect the monstrosity as it impacted his rock like skin. The creature backhanded him into a wall, creating a life size dent into the metal. The soldier fell out of the hole and onto his hands and knees. He forced himself to his feet as he heard a roar. The creature created mini earthquakes as it ran. The blonde narrowed his eyes as he watched the thing ran at him. He jumped and kicked off the wall and flipped over the creature, slicing his blade over its back as he did. The stone giant howled in pain because of the combined effort of the blade slicing its skin and the impact of the metal wall.
The blonde landed in a semi-crouched position, staring at the creature as it staggered for balance. He waited for the creature to make the first move. The monstrosity's tail lashed out. The blonde warrior brought up Fear to block the oncoming strike and was knocked back by the force. The creature picked up the blonde before he could even hit the floor.
The monstrosity brought Naruto close to its face and roared. Naruto freed the hand that held Ominous. "You know," he started. "You are way to close in my personal space." BANG. He fired a single round into the creature's left eye. The thing howled in pain as it threw Naruto to the floor. Blood covered its left side of its face as the crimson liquid oozed from the now empty socket. The creature covered its face with its hands to try and ease the pain.
The blonde landed with a dull thump on his back. He groaned in pain as he rolled to his hands and knees, trying to keep his cool and life. What he was not prepared for was to be kicked in the stomach and land over to the other side of the room. The lone soldier crashed through a few of the containment units and a few non important computers. He landed on the other side of the room with many cuts and glass on his body. A few shards of glass that carried over with him crashed around him and cut into his skin. He saw the creature walking at him slowly; almost as if it wanted the lone soldier to know that death was inevitable. He was able to lift his body only to its hand and knees before he dropped again. The cold steel was beginning to warm because of his body heat. He brought himself up again. Black energy pulsated around him and black lightning cackled as well. His finger nails grew to talon like claws and turned black. Leathery wings grew from his back. His skin turned to a sickly pail and his eyes turned as black as the night sky. His hair turned feral as it lengthened and changed colors from blonde to black. An ominous smoke stared to emit from Fear and Ominous as the demonic energy picked up.
The creature finally reached him, not caring about the demonic aura that hung around the room. It slowly raised its right foot and with a load roar it brought it down with the intention of ending the now changed blonde. "Phantom," Naruto muttered in a demonic voice. His body became like that of a ghosts. The foot crashed through his body with out much damage. The black haired demon jumped back and landed on a nearby desk. His body solidified. He smirked. His blood lust was showing vividly. This was going to be fun. The stone juggernaut turned around slowly. Its fangs were bared. It roared before it started to sprint.
Naruto spread out his wings and took off into the air with a great flap. The giant crashed into the desk. The metal crunched and folded under the force of the stone creature. It seemed to look around for the newly changed Naruto before it found him in the air. The dark haired demon smirked before talking in a demonic voice. "Come and get me you stone idiot." The beast roared before extending its wings. It crouched slightly before taking off. The pale demon flew into meet the monster in the air. They clashed. Sparks flew from their clash. They kept clashing over and over again, both trying to best the opponent. It was an amazing show. Finally both just hovered in place as Naruto quickly readied Ominous for a shot. He had the gun positioned as the monstrosity of stone lashed out and started to fly at him. He smirked before he pulled the trigger. The bullet had demonic energy surrounding it as a shock wave of energy pulsated out of the barrel. The demonic metal slug hit the monstrosity head on. It fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. Blood pooled on the floor. Brain matter escaped from the skull.
An unimaginable pain spiked through Naruto's body as he reverted back to normal. His hands shot up to his head as he withered in pain. His wings slowly retracted back into his back. His skin darkened to its normal colour. His hair reverted back to blond. Is nails turned back to normal. Once the process was finished he fell to his hands and knees. He panted a little as he tried to keep conscious. His effort went in vain as he fell to the ground unconscious.
The snake demon came back from the shadows with a creepy smirk plastered to his face. "You did well Naruto-kun," he said. He began licking his lips. "Let's just see how you do against the real test. Ku, Ku, Ku." He left without evidence that he was ever even there. This was a war he was going to win.
Naruto groaned as he sat up. He looked around the room to see where he was. The paint was starch white and everything was easily visible. The IV machines made an annoying sound as the beeped. This was definitely not his room nor was this the mansion. "They really should know that I like to keep the room dark," he muttered to himself.
"Then how could we see the injuries you may have suffered?" he heard an aged voice from the side. He turned to look at the owner of the voice and saw two people. The first was and aged man in a black suit. His hair was fading and already grayed and his eyes shown so much wisdom and experience that they seemed like wells of information over the years. The other was a lady with large breasts and long blonde hair. She wore a doctor's gown as she looked at him with an angry look. A diamond like symbol was on her forehead.
"You know that you could have gotten yourself killed from using your demon form!" she yelled in rage. Her anger was like an aura that surrounded her.
"Now, now Tsunade-chan, he did complete the mission after all," the old man said in a calm voice. The blonde lady now known as Tsunade turned to the old man.
"How could you just say that about my son Sarutobi-sama!" she yelled. It was true; she took him in as her own. Ever since he joined the League she has adopted him. The reason why was because he acted so much like the loved ones she lost to a demon raid on her house. To the populace she lost them in a fire but she knew what really happened. She served as the head medic, knowing more about demonic toxins than anyone else. "He was almost killed! And you! You know how badly your demon form affects your body yet you keep transforming like this every time something gets tough. You really are trying to kill yourself aren't you?"
"Relax Kaa-san," the blonde said. He really hated this at times but it was a good feeling to know that someone cared for you, no matter who you are. "It's not like I didn't know the consequences of my own actions and besides, I'm still alive. Now is there a reason to why are you here old man?" Sarutobi shook his head at the teens disrespect before talking.
"Yes there is," he started off. His voice was serious. "When we came to get you we found you in a lab. We also found the monster you fought. I am pretty sure you know that it was a stone demon. You really are lucky to survive that thing. I should not warn you that they are in a class all by themselves. Now is there anything else that came into play while you were there?"
The blond sighed before he told them about the man that he saw. The way he acted and how he sounded so cryptic. There shock was evident as he described his features. When the blonde was finished describing the man Sarutobi looked down and shook his head. "We will keep an eye out for this snake demon. In the mean time I want you to take this week off and rest. Your body may be healed but what happens if another occurrence like this happens again and Tsunade does not know where you are. You are not Super Man mind you." He left the room for Tsunade and Naruto to talk.
She looked at him and sighed. "You could have gotten yourself killed in that fight. Why do you have to take the suicide missions any way?" she asked in concern. 'Why doesn't he just retire? He certainly has done enough missions.'
He stared at the bed as if it was the thing that held the answer for her question.
The younger blonde looked at the older women before answering. "Because there is still too much I could do for this war." His answer was something that struck a chord in her.
"BUT YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH ALREADY! HELL! YOU HAVE DONE MORE MISSIONS IN YOUR TERM HERE THAN ANYONE ELSE HAS DONE THAT HAS BEEN IN THE LEAGUE TWICE AS LONG AS YOU!" she yelled. "You really should quit before you end up dead. I really can never go through that experience again." Tears streamed her face as she finished her short speech. He reached around her and pulled her into tight hug. He whispered word into her such as 'I will not die' or 'I will never leave you'. When her crying has gone to a low sniffle he pulled back and started to speak.
"I will survive this Kaa-san, no matter what I have to do. I. Will. Survive."
A/N Well, there's the second chapter. Thank you guys for reading this, or those who chose to read this. Still, this is one of my first stories and I will not give this one up with out good reason. For now, good by and to those who don't review, I will send my mutant teddy bear army to give you hugs and kisses until you review.
