Disclaimer: I, RisenInfection, own nothing within that you may recognise. All elements of this story taken from the anime/manga, game, book, etc. are owned by their respective creators, producers, developers, and so on. I am not making a profit or monetary gain. This is solely for entertainment and fun.

Author's Note: Yeah I know, 'You're doing another story? Why?' Well, easy. Cause I freakin' can! Besides The Demon's Blade, the original, was becoming dull and confusing for me. So, read this and tell me what you think. Thanks!

The Devil's Blade
An epic reimagining of The Demon's Blade

By RisenInfection

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Blood. It is the substance that sustains life. It is what lets us live, what lets us be who we are. But to me that means nothing. Natural death is fine but dishonorable to my kind. The only true way to die is by the blade of another. You're only a coward and a fool to die by your own.

For years, I was surrounded by blood, by the smell of copper, by the taste of metallic liquid. It was all that I ever knew, all that made me who I was and who I am. And it will never change. I thought I was a god then, surrounded by the blood of those who would clamber to take my life and my title. I was a fool, a delusional, psychotic fool whose only love was watching as the life left the poor bastards who challenged me.

But that was before I held her. It was before she came into my hand and changed me. The change, you ask? Some may say that it was for the worst, but I say, it was only for the better. You wouldn't, I know, if you knew what I had to do to gain her, to earn her, like some kind of animal. It matters not anymore, it's in the past, and I only have eyes for the now.

Blood. It is that which is most sacred to the human race. It is that which I now crave to spill, until the day I am cut down by another's sword. Will that day be soon, will it... be you...

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Act I
The Devil Swordsman
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Chapter 1
Innocence; That Which is Lost
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Sunlight, turned grey by the clouds that threatened to rain, shone down upon a barren valley devoid of any life. Where once a coursing river ran swiftly, was now a shallow gorge that ran into a giant, ash white tree that seemed to have been dead for centuries. A soft breeze blew through the valley, dead, fragile twigs and leaves sweeping with the draft as it blew towards the north. It was a scene of dead peacefulness, a scene of morbid calm. That peacefulness, that calm, was broken as the sound of metal clashing against metal rang out through the sunken land.

A young man with long dark hair tied into a ponytail skidded to a stop, a nondescript katana held in a close middle guard, a strong wind ruffling his green and grey kimono and hakama, respectively. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, the man continued to stare at his opponent across from him. Smirking smugly, the man relaxed his stance and straightened, his sword held loosely in his right hand. "Hahahaha! So this is the supposed 'Oomizu no Majin', eh? Some devil you are, you barely knocked me away. I thought you could kill without even drawing your blade."

Opposite the bold young man, a tall man wearing black and a mask stood near the great dead tree, impassive to his enemy's taunts. A long, elegant nodachi was held in his right hand, the meter long blade nearly touching the grey earth beneath the man. He only stared at smug young man through his black, canine-like mask.

The dark haired samurai clicked his tongue. "Not even going to respond. Bah! I didn't know you were such a fool." He sighed, rubbing the side of his head with his left hand. "Well, whatever, I guess it doesn't matter. I'll just take your life and title from you while your corpse is cooling after I kill you with my Multi-body technique.

"'Multi-body'?" the masked man repeated in a soft but gravelly voice as another slow breeze ruffled his black hakama and cloak, the loose ends of a blood-red obi waving in the wind.

"Yeah," the dark haired samurai's smirk turned into a sinister grin. "I mastered the Multi-body technique under Master Iiedo Daiki, the creator of the technique, before I killed him. I'd teach you myself, but, seeing as you'll be buried in this valley, I won't waste my time." Stepping into an inside guard, the young man prepared launch himself.

"Tell me your name."

The dark haired man hesitated for a moment, a look of surprise written on his face before he grinned maniacally. "Sure, why not. It's only polite, after all. The name's Kazumizu Hajime. There's no need for you to tell me yours, I already know it, hell the whole samurai world does, Devil of the Flood, Uzumaki Naruto!"

The masked man, identified as Naruto, only stared, his stance and posture never changing. He didn't even seem fazed by the young man's exclamation.

The light shining down upon the damned valley grew darker, a bolt of lightning cracked kilometers to the east of the two swordsman followed closely by a roar of thunder.

Hajime's eyes shifted from left to right, looking for something to set off the famous swordsmen. Satisfied the masked man wasn't going to attack first, he launched himself at his opponent as a droplet of rain hit the ground. A battle cry rolled out of his throat as he closed in on his prey, his sword ready to strike, and his eyes entirely focused upon the 'Devil's own.

The last thing that Kazumizu Hajime would ever see were the red eyes of his killer set alight by a flash of lightning.

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Time/Place Unknown
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He raised his sword quickly, blocking as another crashed into his. Pushing the opposing blade away from himself, he dashed forward raising his blade over his head and slashed down trying to bisect his opponent, but only left a deep cut in the earth.

He spun to the left and swung his blade up, crashing his blade into his opponents own. The force of the blows blasted him and his opponent off their feet and to the ground. Gripping his blade tightly, he sunk it into the ground and rose quickly, using the blade for leverage. Pulling it out, he spun the sword in his right hand before stepping into a middle guard, ready to attack once more. He eyed his opponent, sizing him up and waiting, like a predator stalking its prey.

"Naruto, that is enough for today," a blue haired man said calmly from the side of the practice platform the two samurai in training were on.

He, Naruto, relaxed his stance and sheathed his katana before bowing to his opponent in respect. He stepped off the platform and up to the blue haired man, bowing his head as he did so.

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The Valley of the Damned
The Day After the Rainstorm
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Uzumaki Naruto stood outside the dead tree, eyes as red as blood staring at another swordsman who came upon his valley. His long cloak was swept up as a light wind passed through the vale, the long bandages that kept his mask attached to his face waving in the zephyr with his unruly blond hair.

Just as the wind settled, the swordsman across from him flew forward, a giant claymore raised above his head. Naruto brought his nodachi up in a hanging guard with one hand and blocked the bald man's initial strike. Tensing the muscles in his right arm, the blond shoved the other man back with such force that the man had to stumble to regain his footing. Pressing his advantage, Naruto dashed forward and to the right as the bald man brought his blade down once more in a severing blow, but only managed to cut the earth.

Naruto stabbed forward, aiming for the man's head, but was parried as the bald swordsman swung his blade like a club. Spinning with the momentum of the parry, the masked man lashed out with his long sword and slashed the bald man's legs, severing his calf muscles. The man fell to his knees, his claymore stabbed into the ground to keep his body from collapsing.

Swinging his sword in a lazy circle, Naruto stepped up to the bald man, the edge of his nodachi coming to rest upon the back of the swordsman neck. "You fought well," the blond swordsman spoke, "but you relied too heavily upon your own strength and didn't trust your blade to guide you. Instead, you swung it as if it were a bludegeon or a mace."

"Fuck off and die, you monster," the bald man spoke with distaste.

Naruto's eyes hardened beneath his mask at the comment. "You first." He raised his blade.

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Again, Naruto stood outside of the great dead tree, his sword sheathed and on his back, and his arms crossed in front of his chest. His eyes stared at the ashen wood of the dead plant. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head and sighed. It was time. Time to leave this forsaken place he had made his home.

How many years had it been again? How many years since that fateful night?

He turned, his cloak sweeping with him. He began to walk away. The answer to the question was one too many. It was time for him to reenter the world, not as an obstacle for master swordsman looking for a new challenge, but as the legend he was.

A murder of crows that had made the tree their home cawed as they flew into the air. Clouds of dark grey began to spiral around the dead valley, blotting out the sun's light and threatened to pour down upon the hapless earth. In the distance wolves and hyenas could be heard howling and laughing, respectively, as Naruto exited the Valley of the Damned, behind him and the tree, almost a thousand mounds with swords stabbed into them marked the graves of every swordsman who ever fought against the Thousand Man Slayer.

And in flash of lightning and a roll of thunder, the Devil of the Flood was gone from the graveyard he had made and maintained personally for almost six years and reentered the world he had tried to run from since the night he slaughtered a whole nation on his own.

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Time/Place Unknown
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He pressed his advantage against his blue haired master, dashing forward and attacking with a sweeping slash of his blade, but was too slow as his sensei jump over the attack, stabbing forward with his own blade, the black steel slicing into his collar bone, almost severing the joint before the blue haired man removed the blade, blood dripping from the nodachi sword.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain as he brought his sword to bear, blocking an overhead strike then parrying a horizontal slash to the right. Dashing forward again, he quickly moved to the right, dodging another stab that would've killed him. He slashed towards his right, scoring a hit on his former sensei, the edge of his blade slicing through flesh, muscle, and tissue. He finished his slash arc on one knee, his sword painting the floor and walls of the dojo with his master's blood.

The blue haired man dropped to one knee as he tried to ebb the flow of blood with his hand. He looked over to him, his best student. "Why? Why would you do this, Naruto?"

He stood, his blond hair matted to his head with sweat and blood. "Because, you have something I want."

The blue haired man's eyes widened before he looked down upon his sword. "This," he asked bringing the sword up, "this is what you want?"

"Yes."

The man snarled at him. "I won't let you. She belongs to me. If you want her, you'll have to kill me." The blue haired man stood up and fell into a tight back guard.

"So be it, Master Akira," he spoke, stepping into a back guard as well.

For only a second, the moon, its light as red as blood, was shrouded by black clouds, the sound of footsteps and metal slicing flesh rung through the heavy air. And then the clouds moved, the ominous moonlight shining once more.

"Why, big brother?"

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Time/Place Unknown
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Two men, both wearing ninja uniforms, stepped through a blue drape and into a small eatery. Both looked around, scouting out for any possible threats to their lives. All they found was an elderly couple enjoying a cup of hot tea, four young women eating an afternoon snack and gossiping about something or other, and a blond haired man in black eating a late lunch.

The men sat at a table and waited patiently to be waited on. After ordering some tea and couple plates of pork and dumplings, one of the men looked back over at the blond man as his partner leered at the young women, and noticed something he hadn't before as the man's had been facing them: the man had on a black mask that look sort of like a staring fox. Kicking his partner in the shin under the table, he motioned his head over to the masked man when he gained the attention of his friend.

The leering ninja tapped his fingers on the table as he faced his partner. Keep an eye on him

The other barely nodded. Their orders arrived just as they got resituated and relaxed. The young waitress gulped as she noticed the two shinobi were looking at the masked man in the corner. "Please, sirs, be wary of that man."

"Hmm? Why's that?" The ninja to first notice the man asked.

The girl looked around in vain to make sure no one was listening. She whispered, "An old man, a samurai by the look of him, had been peacefully eating here not an hour ago. That man over there had stepped in and the old man seemed to recognize him. He calmly walked up to him and challenged him to a duel. The man had accepted, and they had stepped outside. Not a moment later, that masked man stepped back in, alone."

Both ninja's eyes widened. While the man may be a samurai or possibly a ronin, which wasn't cause for much danger in a world populated by shinobi, one who could beat, no, kill, an obvious master of the bladed arts was a cause of some concern.

Gulping, they decided to leave the man alone unless made to fight him. It wouldn't be very good for their village if they died while off duty.

Almost half an hour later, the man in the black mask was still sitting at his table, calmly sipping on a cup of tea. The ninja were still very hesitant to leave the eatery, thinking only the worst could happen. Unfortunately, they were right, the worst did happen.

Five minutes later, a small band of wannabe gangsters stalked into the place and sat unceremoniously down at the table with the young women. The women tried to excuse themselves and leave, but were held down by the men.

One of the ninja were about to stop what was surely about to happen, but was kept down by his friend, who only shook his head then gestured towards the masked man who stood up sharply. The man reached into his coat-like cloak and pulled out a few bills, placing them on his table. He reached down and picked something up. The two ninja could only widen their eyes at what they saw.

"Damn! That thing must be two meters, at least!" One of them whispered as he laid witness to the man's nodachi. The other could only nod at his friend's comment.

The masked man stepped up to the table the gangsters had taken over, his red eyes visible and unblinking as he stopped in front of them. "Leave," he spoke in a soft, gravelly voice that sounded as if it hadn't been used in years.

The men looked up in their righteous anger, the women in obvious hope and relief. One of the men, a bald man with a scruffy goatee and a tattoo of a black tarantula, stood, enraged by the simple word. "What the fuck did you just say, you little shit stain?"

The masked man wasn't even fazed by the man's insult. "I said, 'Leave'," a little more force was put into the word.

"Hahahahahaha! Do you even know who we are, punk?" Another man asked the blond man, this one with dark, balding hair and wearing an expensive kimono. He smiled smugly as the masked man remained impassive. "Thought not. You see, we are the Na-"

"I don't care who you are or who you think you are. Now, you will either leave these young women alone and never come back here or I will kill you and be over with it. I'll leave the choice to you, though I prefer the latter over the former."

"Fine," the rich-looking man practically yelled. "Boys, let's take this outside and show this motherfucker who he's fucking with." That one statement riled the gangsters up and on their boss' command they were up and out of the eatery in a moment. The boss turned at the entrance and addressed the man again. "And when we're done with you, we're gonna burn this whole joint down, think you can fight with that on your conscious, ya fuckin' asshole!" He turned and stepped outside.

The blond man just seemed to ignore the man as he knelt down and addressed the young women. "I'm sorry this happened to you, but I promise, it'll never happen again." He stood and walked towards the entrance.

"Thanks, mister," one of the women spoke. The man nodded and stepped outside. The two shinobi nodded to each other and were gone, the empty dishes and wad of ryou bills the only indication they had even been there.

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Naruto pushed the blue curtain aside as he walked outside, the gang of men already standing in a half-circle, ready for a fight. The blonde's eyes moved from left to right, looking at each and every one of the men, looking for a challenging opponent. The old man from earlier had been a good workout, but was no competition to the blond swordsmen. Naruto narrowed his eyes as he felt two strong presences on the roof of the eatery behind him. He could feel the circulation of the energy the ninja used – chakra, wasn't it? – coursing through the two men's bodies, barely leaking to the surface, as if they were trying to suppress it.

The boss of the gang began to get impatient as the masked man just stared like a retard. "Hey, asshole! Weren't you going to kill us or something? I knew it! You were just all talk and that sword must just be for show, you stupid mother-"

"I won't need my sword to kill all you fools," Naruto interrupted the impatient man as he strapped the chain his sheathe was connected to around his torso, the hilt of his nodachi coming to rest near his right shoulder. "If you all are so impatient, then come, I will dutifully send you to Hell."

The boss snarled angrily. "Bring me his head and his sword, they'll make excellent decorations." The men roared out their war cry and rushed forward, intent on pulverizing the blond man.

The first one to reach Naruto tried to take his head off with a single punch, but was thwarted as his massive fist was slapped away by the blonde's left hand. The man's head snapped back with a sickening crack as Naruto caught him in the chin with a right open-palm strike. Quickly grabbing the man's arm he had knocked away, the blond spun the dead man around and threw the giant corpse into three other men, knocking them to the ground with the deadweight.

Quickly crouching, Naruto ducked under a speedy roundhouse kick. He then sprang up, avoiding a follow-up sweep kick. Landing, the masked man caught a left hook with his right hand and lashed out with a front snap kick to his attacker's chin with his right foot then another with his left. Firmly on the ground, Naruto brought the man in front of his body, a long chain wrapping around the man's throat. Naruto through the man away like a piece of trash and quickly knelt down with his back parallel to the ground, where above him two men stabbed each other in the face, killing the other with a pair of cheap katana.

Naruto launched forward from his crouch as the two cadaver's fell and rolled to the right as another chain slammed into the ground where he had been. Using the momentum from his roll, he ran at another gangster and delivered a flying roundhouse kick to the man's temple and sent him crashing into another man. Landing on his feet, the blond quickly flipped to his left as the chain swept under his feet catching another member of the gang, breaking both his legs with its momentous energy.

Looking up from his crouch, Naruto found the bald man with tarantula tattoo from before grinning smugly as he swung his chain above his head. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto dashed forward, a spray of dirt hitting a man coming up behind him with a morning star in the eyes, causing the man to fall back and lose his grip on his weapon, gravity letting it crush another man's face in with its downward force.

Jumping up, the masked man slammed his foot into an enemy's face and kicked off of him. He used three other men's faces as stepping stones before he dove forward, the bald man's chain passing under him. Naruto's eyes widened a fraction and the world seemed to slow as if time itself was stopping. As the chain was right under him, the blond tucked and rolled upon it like it was a solid surface. He rolled to his feet and dashed forward and sent a strong sweeping kick into the tattooed man's cheek, the man's head turning with a squelching crack until it faced behind the man.

Naruto rolled off the chain and landed on the ground. Standing straight up, time started once more, the fresh corpse he had made flying, crashing and splintering a tree nearby.

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Igazami Hisao wasn't just panicking. He was outright shitting himself. Almost half of his men – a sickening crack and crash sounded out – okay, exactly half of his men had been wiped out by a little fucking samurai, with his fucking hands. Samurai weren't supposed to know how to fight with anything but their fucking swords. It would seem that he had picked a fight with a shinobi. If he only knew just what the hell he was messing with.

"You all bore me," the masked monster spoke in that voice that sent chills up Hisao's spine. The gang leader gulped as a strong wind passed by him. He got real nervous when none of his remaining men moved. Suddenly, the blond man's eyes landed upon Hisao, the rich man's eyes widening when his cheek was splattered with a red, coppery liquid.

Looking around, Hisao found all of his men on the ground, dead and in pieces, lying in pools of their own blood. He shook before turning and trying to make a break for it, but was surprised when he was suddenly lifted into the air, his skull clenched in the taller man's right hand. A spot of wetness appeared on the front of the dead man's expensive kimono as he soiled himself. Hisao didn't care though; all that mattered was the blond man's eyes, which seemed to glow with the red fires of Hell itself and looked prepared to consume his soul as he felt nothing but the fear of God. And at that moment, Igazami Hisao knew he was staring into the eyes of the Devil himself.

The masked monster's eyes narrowed before he tensed his hand, crushing the gang leader's skull. He dropped the corpse and turned away from the death he had left in his wake. A slight breeze blew through the road the small eatery was located and in an instant, the blond murderer was gone without a trace.

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The two shinobi from earlier in the eatery sat, shocked and awed at the fight, no, massacre... the slaughter that they had witnessed. There had to have been ten-fifteen men waiting to kill the 'samurai' and the blonde had literally destroyed the entire gang in only under three minutes.

The first one to notice the masked man faced his partner. "You, know what this means, right?"

The leering man nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know."

The first man sighed. "Lord Hokage is not going to like this one bit."

AN: What's up? You done reading it? Cool! Now I just want to say, especially if you're a former reader of The Demon's Blade, I just got to say, I am sorry and I am not going to make an excuse as to why I am posting a new fic. All I have to say is that I am one of the laziest people on the Earth.

But, my laziness aside, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I tried very hard to make Naruto quiet and powerful, unlike how he was in The Demon's Blade. I think I explained very well what happened in the past as to how he gained his nodachi and why he's feared. I also tried something: a sort of prologue at the beginning of the chapter that should shed some light as to what Naruto is thinking.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'll, hopefully, post Chapter 2 next Friday. Now, while you wait, you can tell me what you thought in a review. Thanks!

Until next time, RisenInfection, out