Disclaimer: Not writing for a profit, nor do I own characters or ideas native to the Naruto world.
This story is a joint project between myself and SerasCain. Basically I write my part, and send to him for editing and adding his bits, before reading over the final result. This is a Naruto/Ino story AU. While it is the canon Naruto world, this prologue should give a pretty good idea on what is different history wise. Characters will be in character personallity-wise, according to how we'd see them at this stage of their lives given their altered history. You will have a better understanding of what that will be in the coming chapters.
Other than that, if you have questions, feel free to ask! We both apologize for the long delay in getting this out, as distractions abound! The next chapter will (hopefully) be out real soon. In the meantime, this may set the scene and backstory. Don't worry, I'm keeping Seras under threat of a rusty spork - and he's also in the process of updating his own story.
And directly from SerasCain:
Hi hi, sorry I take so long with these things. Very troublesome, ya? Anyways, like I've said in my profile, I'm working working still. I hope to get A River Flows in You updated soon, but I'll stop making promises cuz I know I'll get distracted. If this story takes a while to update, I want you guys to know it is entirely Traekor's fault, and not mine whatsoever. MmHmm...Yup...Ok then! Read on!
Lux Lucis in Atrum
By: Traekor and SerasCain
Prologue
It had started off small enough. Almost unnoticeable. Reports of small demonic creatures were occasionally popping up in the countryside. They were quickly squashed and life continued on. No one paid attention when it seemed that the reports continued to multiply. Rumors of hellfire-spawned beings roaming the wilderness began cropping up, and were surreptitiously ignored, passed over, or claimed as ludicrous. People weren't willing to believe such evil could exist, that it could roam on their Earth.
The first waves were devastating. Villages, ill prepared for the onslaught that came tearing through like a biblical storm, reportedly vanished over night. The demons were vicious. Otherworldly abominations that appeared as nothing more than a hellish writhing mass of flesh and carapace. Brutal. Terrifying. The beginning of the end. Those not slaughtered and devoured were carried off, left to be subjected to the unknown aberrations of the scourge. The survivors were left to cower in the darkness, praying for a miracle, hoping against all hope that perhaps the nightmare had passed. Their prayers were answered in the night.
"Move under the cover of darkness", they said. "They can't find us in the night", said others. "Fight from the shadows". If only that was right. But the darkness could cover more than they could see. The night could be more evil than they could imagine. And in the shadows, their prayers could be answered...and their miracle could come, their nightmare ending as they vanished into the night, dragged kicking and screaming away until only silence remained. Too few men escaped the terrors that swept through their lands, only to share their shattered minds as they tried to explain the horrors that befell them to their brethren's disbelieving ears.
The wind kicked up, a small whirlwind of sand and debris gliding across the barren wasteland as the sun beat down on the harsh landscape. The tiny storm continued to drift, passing into the looming shadows of a towering mountain before quietly dissipating - the mountains it had wandered near casting its silhouette over the land. The silence in the area masked the unnaturalness of the wasteland, the only sounds being the breeze passing over the peaks of the terrain. Far below the craggy rocks, the decaying ruins of a once lively city lay, lost to the destruction and mire that was inflicted upon it. On the mountainside facing the former capital, the solemn and daunting visage of three men overlooked the area. The faces of the first three Hokage's would remain there, forever watching the broken landscape that marked the legacy of their once great village, the most prosperous of the five major ninja nations. The decimated husks of buildings outlined the shape of the city, now torn asunder by the unnatural flames and the wind that fueled them. The land itself lay barren, the streets covered in debris and the stray remains of the buildings that survived the mighty floods of water that crashed onto the scene – yet still unable to smother the fires eating away at the city. The earth itself had cracked open and spewed forth the fires of hell, as if to assist the annihilation of the people as they tried to escape. The cracked carvings of the three great men, hailed for protecting and defending this village of grandeur, looked on – forever unable to see the ruined antiquities that only a handful of survivors can now remember.
It wasn't always like this. Over a decade ago, one could not be able to predict anything of the sort happening. At one point of history, this village was regarded as the pinnacle of ninja power - the victors of the great ninja war. The Fire Country was a prosperous nation - located in the prime area to capitalize on both land and sea, it was able to dominate many trade routes and had ready access to a plethora of neighboring countries. Many villages and cities dotted the temperate land. The substantial populace and the security offered by the superior Leaf shinobi of the nation supported the intricate economy, and poverty and famines were at an all time low despite the recent ravages of war. The citizens of the nation were a hardy people, perhaps arrogantly so, and with their land they persevered – ready to face each new challenge with vigor and conviction.
Following the resolution of the great shinobi war, an uneasy peace fell across the land. The results of the war were manifold. Countless had died, legends were born, entire towns were razed to smoldering ashes, and the balance of power in the nations had shifted once again. The new diplomatic ceasefire gave the countries time to rebuild their populace, their homes, and for some, their pride. Others would say it gave them time to grow lax, letting their strength wane as the people eased into a ritual of tranquility. It was then that travelers from far off lands began to appear, bringing disturbing whispers of new demonic terrors to the shinobi lands.
The rumors were drowned out by the troubles during the Great War, and afterwards the peace had people dismissing them as foolish tall tales, nothing to be concerned about. And just when the nations had managed to rebuild themselves into a semblance of their former glory - the cataclysm came. Mythical beasts – the bijuu of old – arose from the earth and seas to roam the world once again. They counted nine in total; each bijuu appearing under the guise of a different creature, each with a number of tails roughly gauging its strength ranked against its peers. These mighty beasts were regarded as greater demons, terrifying visages of unimaginable power surrounded by a foul aura of malevolent chakra. Their origin to this day remained a mystery – so many legends and fables surrounding the old tales that it was impossible to tell what was fact and what was fiction. One thing required no explanation however; their rage and destruction needed no parable for the people of the land to comprehend.
Each bijuu was its own creature; each had vastly different abilities and habits. Some were best described as hulking avatars of destruction – aimlessly decimating anyone and everything that was in their path as they roamed about in some form of permanent wanderlust. Others proved more cunning, stalking across the countries as vicious predatory abominations, constantly searching for something to appease their animalistic nature. The worst however were the ones that had shown signs of acute intelligence and even more ruthless sadism, delighting in the terror and havoc that they created while toying with their prey. Using their various traits, they flooded the towns with chaos, only to have its fleeing citizens run into their waiting maws. The few things that all the bijuu managed to share in common were their unfathomable powers, the wanton bloodlust for carnage, and the absolute fear they instilled in the hearts of every living creature.
The Fire country was the first of the five great nations to fall. It was home to what was regarded as the strongest of the ninja hidden villages – Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves. They fought valiantly, standing fast against the assaults of the most powerful of the demonic order. Tooth and nail, they continued to fight with everything they had, desperate to hold of the advances of the damned. But in the end, the outcome was clear - they were all but powerless against the unnatural force of destruction that was the Kyuubi. It was a nefarious and fiendish entity, seemingly made entirely out of a malevolent chakra, taking on the form of a colossal fiery-red fox to ravage and annihilate everything it laid its eyes upon. Its nine tails lay raised behind it, spiraling around in an entrancing ring, each tail at the ready to lash out in elemental fury. The gigantic beast easily dwarfed the city, its enormous fangs bared in a horrifying countenance that petrified the people as its claws struck out with a staggering ferocity, ending the lives of even the swiftest shinobi. Thousands of people were slaughtered immediately when the great kitsune first appeared unexpectedly, its eyes blazing with fury while it started its initial onslaught. The countryside was set ablaze, the formerly verdant fields lighting the sky with the eerie glow of the flames. With a flick of its tail, the oceans rose in titanic waves, crashing down onto the land and washing away the landscape. The wind itself seemed to become a weapon for the demon to wield, sharp as a blade's edge in which to hew mankind into pieces with. When word finally managed to get to Konoha, the shinobi were quick to gather their forces and mobilize in a desperate attempt to repel the bijuu.
Their efforts were promptly proven for naught, and the vitae of many of the most valiant men of the land were ended abruptly. The city was broken – its villagers fodder for the encroaching demons, the buildings reduced to ashes as the survivors fearfully fled the streets. In the end, only a fraction of the village's vast population managed to escape the Kyuubi's wrath. Konoha was left in ruins, a husk of a city never to recover from the devastation, and its remaining people scurried into the now dark and twisted forests of the Fire nation. It was then that they realized the true horrors had yet to befall them. Those rumours that had spread through the village all those months ago, that they all had so easily ignored and dismissed weren't just rumours anymore. From the shadows arose creatures, twisted and grotesque, hell bent on hunting down and feasting on the survivors as they fled from the their homes.
Soon after the Kyuubi's attack, the rest of humanity would quickly learn of the destruction of the mighty Leaf, and hear the whispers of the bijuu's power. It wasn't long before the remaining great demons to appear and begin their reign of terror on the world. Nations were quick to fall, their cities burned and ravaged, and the surviving populace was reduced to living in constant fear and desperation. They retreated to the forests, caves, and any other natural shelter they could find as they lived like savages, learning to live on instincts. Many survivors of the bijuu attacks escaped only to die in the harsh new environment, unable to cope with the widespread effects of the demon's attacks. Starvation often set in as the once affluent country had lost most of its sources of food, the crops of the fields razed and the wildlife of the forests poisoned and demented, no longer fit for sustenance. Others died by the plague and pestilence that followed in the wake of the cataclysm. And yet as mankind's population continued to dwindle, there were few who were strong enough, who persevered, who had the will to continue fighting and to adapt, even if ever so slowly.
The Earth country, a land of tall craggy mountains and solid rock, was able to use its terrain as a natural defense to aid in creating its stronghold. As a result, the Iwa has been able to continue to escape destruction by its ideal location ensconced within the massive earthen ramparts. The village and its denizens withdrew into their fortifications, isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Few citizens, shinobi or otherwise, have ventured forth out from the mountains since then. The Iwa ninja had abandoned the world to its fate, content to live out their lives in the recesses and bowels of the earth even while their own nation was destroyed around them. Even in present day, the hellspawn and the damned ravaged the borders of the nation, constantly trying to break into the mountain fortresses but always unable to breach the terrain defenses of the shinobi inhabitants.
And despite the destruction that was laid upon the Fire country, they were not the hardest hit. The ocean itself rose against the archipelago that made up the Water Country and her smaller surrounding nations, leveling and completely submerging its many islands. Giant waves crashed into the remaining islands, sweeping its people away to watery graves at the bottom of the sea. It is unknown if there were any notable numbers of survivors from the ocean's wrath. The few remaining islands now stand bereft of all former civilization, with only the smallest lingering traces to show that one of the former five great nations once stood upon them.
Amazingly, not all of the nations declined during the madness. While the Lightning country was assaulted by both the greater and lesser demons, the people of this nation somehow managed to repel the more significant attacks and escaped total annihilation. The bijuu have since avoided that land after the initial attacks, but whatever methods the Kumo used to defend their land, they left unknown to the world. Despite their success in protecting their borders and their nation, the Cloud succumbed to an extreme xenophobia, becoming extremely hostile to all outsiders. For unknown reasons, many kumo-nin began launching organized parties to engage and skirmish the surviving forces of the other nations, and any refugee or traveler not native to the country were killed on sight by the native people.
The deserts of the Wind country could no longer support and shelter the proud sand shinobi. In the weeks following the Kyuubi's appearance, the combined assaults of two warring bijuu laid waste to the Sand Village. It was this land where the bijuu had decided was the perfect spot to battle with each other, leaving those who had managed to flee to witness to the epic battle that shook and reshaped the land. While neither proved victorious in the end, their drawn out mêlée ending in a vicious and begrudging draw, the greater demons didn't leave without a success of sorts – the desert was warped, the sand and air saturated with an infusion of the demonic chakra leftover from their titanic clash. Eventually, the greatest hosts of the demonic beings would come to reside in the dry land and the Wind Country would from then on be known as the Demon Country – the once flat horizon now broken by a monstrous skyline, tall spires littering the land, constructed by the twisted denizens.
As a whole, humanity teeters on the edge of extinction. The majority of the bijuu are still roaming the countries freely, and the occasional attacks are not unheard of in the passing stories of surviving refugees. Fortunately, the bijuu seem to go through periodic hibernations, disappearing during for the course of several years, leaving no word of them to pass by the ears of man. Some have ventured to guess that perhaps one or more of the great beasts were defeated, but these wishful hopes are always eventually crushed by the inevitable next time the gargantuan monstrosities reappear to terrorize the countryside. Of the tailed demons, only the Kyuubi has seemingly completely vanished, never being seen since its initial assault on the Fire country.
Amidst the lands, roving packs of the smaller demons patrol and attack the fleeting settlements that have sprung up. Many humans, even some of the remaining ninja, have abandoned the idea of living in stationary communities altogether, choosing instead to become nomadic. Of these wandering people, many have turned to common banditry – attacking anyone not of their group out of paranoia and to continue their continued survival. For the others who decided to fortify their new communities, small fortresses were erected – the mightiest of these lay near the River Country, marking the front line of humanity's ongoing warfare against the demonic entities of the ex-Wind country. Many smaller villages and refuges still stand, hidden away along cliffs, dense forests, and mountains. In the Fire country, many former Leaf-ninja have become peacekeepers, and little more than common mercenaries, selling their skills to protect the small villages and caravans from lesser demons, brigands, and in rare cases each other. With no superior power governing the remains of humanity, save for the fear of death, the lands devolved into lawlessness, with only local groups of shinobi subjugating their wills, or the wills of their clients to the local populaces.
The Fire country is now home to a scattered and broken people. Little communication exists between the many refuges and villages, yet some hope still remains for the country at the last two vestiges of their might, the fortresses residing on the western and eastern borders of the country. Despite that, the people of the nation are still in a terrible vice. The shinobi from the Cloud continually launch unwarranted attacks toward the northern borders, while the lesser demons send frequent invasion forces past the string of defenses the Leaf had laid out on the southwestern border. Other demons and banditry persist in causing havoc on the inside of the nation, and the populace itself is divided through paranoia inspired by the hard times. Only small traces of the former economy remain, and only in the few refuges of ex-Konoha ninja do moral values and superior ninja training still exist.
Konoha was devastated, and the people broken, yes – but all was not in vain, not without retribution. The Yondaime Hokage – fearfully known throughout the rest of the world as the Yellow Flash of Konoha – leader and champion of the Leaf shinobi during the great war and the time following, matched his power against the terrifying kitsune. Although he was unable to prevent his village's destruction in the end, he was able to give his home a pyrrhic victory. In a last ditch effort, he forfeited his life to triumph over the Kyuubi…
Fifteen years ago…
"Hokage-sama! The evacuation is almost complete." The frantic chunin burst into the staging grounds. "Can nothing stop that monster?"
A tall blonde cradled an infant, as he looked on at the raging battle, standing next to his considerably older colleague. He wore a long flowing white jacket, with blazing emblems of fire on the sleeves and along the bottom lining of his coat. His colleague wore a black body suit adorned with polished silvery metal alloy armor for added protection. Addressing the chunin messenger, the Yondaime Hokage firmly replied, "Good work. You have a family right?" The chunin nodded vigorously, glancing toward the smoke rising in the distance. "Take them to safety. Tell any others you see the official call to retreat has been issued. I will delay the beast. Now go!" He said fiercely. The panicked chunin swallowed, saluting abruptly and darted away.
The elder ninja, known throughout the world as the Professor or God of Shinobi – a ninjutsu specialist with knowledge of nearly every technique in Konoha, set his arm on the blonde's shoulder. "Are you sure your plan will work? What of your son?"
The Yondaime blinked away hot tears, shaking his head. "Kushina passed away minutes ago. I will be placing a terrible curse on Naruto, and he will be forced to bear it until the end of his days, though I wish they may be long and happy. My last hope is that his curse will become his strength, and that with his power he'll be able to lead a happy life."
The Sandaime Hokage blinked owlishly for a moment, completely shocked into silence before he sputtered, "You mean you intend to use him as the vessel?"
"Yes. It is regrettable. But it is the only way I can be sure the seal will be successful. I just hope that one day my son can view this as a gift, as opposed to a curse. I have one last selfish favor to ask of you, old man. Please take Naruto as one of your own. He…he will need someone to look after him." He held aloft the newborn baby, moisture gathering in his cool blue eyes.
Meeting those crystal blue eyes, the elder of the Hokages smiled bitterly at the parting. "Of course… I am sure he will inherit your Will of Fire. Farewell, Minato, farewell."
"Thank you, old man. The preparations are complete!" He performed a rapid set of seals, summoning the great Gamabunta. Creating a kage bunshin with which to hold his son in the necessary array, the Hokage and the mighty frog leaped toward the battle to meet the Kyuubi's ire.
The Sandaime stared toward the distance, the fox was moving ever closer to their position. At last, the strongest ninja Konoha ever produced stood face to face with the greatest of demons. Only Sarutobi witnessed the ending of the last appointed leader of the leaf. Moments later, the bunshin bearing Naruto flashed into existence next to the elderly ninja. "I bid you farewell, as the technique is finishing." He handed the infant to the Sandaime. "Naruto, grow strong!" The bunshin poofed away at the end of his statement.
And so ends the greatest of all ninja the likes of which Konoha has ever seen. Holding the baby securely, the old man jumped up to the treetops, surveying the scene. Where the Kyuubi was standing minutes before was now a sizable mass of ash, slowly disappearing into the wind. His eyes cast upon the ruined valley where the city he had sworn to protect stood just a week before in all its glory. Now only rubble and rent earth lay under the gaze of his two predecessors and his own face carved into the mountain side. Cradling the child, Sarutobi tearfully pushed down his rising despair, and with one last weary glance to the village he loved, departed to find some of the retreating survivors.
Better descriptions of the various breeds of lesser demons will pop up as they are encountered. Sorry, no Ino or Naruto in the prologue! Let us know what you think, and any comments!