Major Pairings: NaruIno, SakuSasu, NaruSaku
Important Characters: Team Seven, Ino, Gaara, Kakuzu, Lee, Shikamaru, Kimimaro, Neji, Kakashi, the Sannin, Maito Gai, Sarutobi, Hanzou
This fic will consist mostly of romance, intrigue, and action, because I find those interesting. Pairings probably won't be locked until the very end but every major pairing I mention will definitely have its share of moments.
I wrote this mainly out of frustration. I'm sick of epic fics with potential that get through exposition and then never go anywhere plot-wise, so this fic will move fast. I won't claim that my ideas are entirely original – I think I've absorbed too much writing for that – but I think I've managed a new spin here and there. I don't claim to know Japanese, and I don't own Naruto.
If you read fanfiction for a warm and fuzzy feeling, you've come to the right place. If that warm and fuzzy feeling happens to come from watching people bleed painfully into the ground, you've also come to the right place.
Oh, and by the way, this is an AU.
"Before the Beginning of years,
There came to the making of man,
Time, with a gift of tears,
Grief, with a cup that ran,
Pleasure, with a pain of leaven,
Summer, with flowers that fell,
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength, without hands to smite,
Love, that endures for a breath,
Night, the shadow of light,
And Death, the shadow of life."
---A. C. SWINBURNE
By the third time, it was easy. He didn't much like stealing, but he didn't like starving, either.
Fresh food was hard to come by in the Pit. In the old days – the ugly days before Kimimaro and Kage Bushin and missions - he used hang out near the disposal chutes, pleading for a scrap, a picking from Above.
The crowd was too big, though, and when they saw his marks they always mobbed him, their eyes crueler than their soft, weak fists and matchstick-thin elbows. Girls were worse, the worst, because they had nails.
One day he had decided to fight back, and it had ended with shrieks and snapping bones, with cold, empty faces and still, accusing eyes. He remembered thinking: this isn't worth it, to eat other people's trash.
There wasn't much dignity in robbery, either, and shinobi had dignity, if nothing else. He had never felt like a shinobi, though. There was brotherhood among the ninjas, but they extended none to him.
He threw himself to the side, careening into an alley, legs working like a bellows.
His lungs were on fire, but he could not stop running. Above, through the endless latticework of spires and clotheslines, the sky was a sullen gray, hissing as it released sheet upon sheet of rain. Intermittent thunderbolts smote the ground with detonation force, and the air cracked and reeked of ozone.
His hand came up, sweeping tawny golden hair out of his eyes. Moisture sluiced down his face, past the feral Caul marks, pattering from his chin onto the concrete below. Through the war drums of his heartbeat he heard footsteps pounding behind him, gaining.
He dared a glance back to his pursuers, five men and one baker sprinting towards him. Nausea overcame him, a dull white emptiness between his eyes. His stomach turned and twisted, hollow and pinching as it growled in hunger.
The world was an anarchy of wet and thunder and chaos. The heavens roiled and flashed, hurling the alley into sharp black shadows, and his breath caught and heaved as he stumbled forward, clutching a sodden package to his chest.
The first thing that struck him was a rock the size of his fist: poorly and feebly thrown, it glanced off his shoulder and clattered to the ground. He gave it no thought, because his vision was starting to sway. Before the thunder pealed again there was a second: a large metal pipe, brittle with rust, that shattered as it caught him in the back of the knee.
Naruto fell, twisting around to protect the package, absorbing the impact with his back. His coat ground against the concrete, friction burns rubbing his skin.
He pulled himself upright and sucked in huge, hungry breaths that seared his throat and tasted like fire. Now, he could not feel his own legs.
The rain fell harder.
Curtains of water eclipsed his vision. There was only a massive, roaring, seething ocean of a world, a sound like waves next to his ear, the thumping of his heart in his throat. Raindrops needled his back as he tottered forward on slick, tightly-laced combat boots.
He did not see the third one.
He didn't know how they could have sighted him when the rain was filling the roofs and overflowing, great cascades of brackish black water crashing down from five hundred feet above, surging and soaking and sweeping everything away. He collapsed as the cinderblock struck the back of his head and then there was only red, which faded to black.
He remembered the Cauls.
His father had no name, no face, and no honor, for he had sired Naruto on a whore. Uzumaki Kushina could not work the last few months of her pregnancy, for no clients wanted a pregnant woman. Sometimes she hated her son for driving her into poverty, and sometimes she held him desperately because she had nothing else.
The Land of Fire was a metropolis that spanned hundreds of miles on every side, a city-state of over 750 million built on crimes and commerce. Colossal towers of curving wood and acrylic paint and shining steel rose hundreds of feet upwards, spiderwebbed by walkways and charka lifts, and ten million solar panels harnessed the light of the sun.
It was an unimaginably massive human hive, teeming and stratified. On the highest tiers were the pleasure domes and crystal gardens of the nobility, those few shinobi clans blessed with Bloodline Limits. Below them lay a menagerie of specialists, professionals, commoners and chakra spinners, the refuse of lesser clans and the highest of merchant lords.
Far, far below was the human abattoir of the Pit.
Two things powered the Land of Fire. The first were its fields upon fields of solar arrays, bolted anywhere they could be fit. The second were its Cauls, sixteen thousand spread in a spiral throughout its streets.
In this world, Chakra was power, and there were no better tools for Chakra extraction than the Cauls. The kinjitsu that created them were a jealously hoarded secret, and even in the Land of Fire, very few knew how exactly they worked.
Uzumaki Naruto was one of those few. He had spent two years of his life inside one.
The human body has eight inner gates that regulate Chakra production and expenditure. Opening even the first Gate multiplies a person's muscle strength and speed by five. Releasing the last grants power far beyond that of the mightiest shinobi, with lethal consequences.
Normally, people were not talented enough to open even the First. The Cauls forced a body to open all eight. Through a combination of advanced charka manipulation and constant mutation, beings trapped inside one could sustain such a state for nearly two years.
The Land of Fire harvested enough energy per day to destroy the world twenty times over.
People didn't survive the Cauls. Most died within a month, blackened husks of broken, papery flesh that crumpled from the ejection tubes like ash after a fire. Naruto understood why.
He remembered his mother, clutching him with painful fingers, remembered her face go slack as they launched a kunai into her breast, remembered their rough burlap gloves and bloodless eyes.
He had been thrust inside a circular obsidian tube. For a few moments, there was nothing, and then the air had begun to glow, red and orange, had begun to smell of burning meat and choking smoke. He had gagged, pounding at the walls, eyes watering.
He had been four.
After that, he could not move, because a snake of flame was undulating in his gut, seizing upwards in a frothing, unstoppable boil. It tore from his throat and covered his body and began to burn, and he had tried to scream, had really tried, but the agony was unspeakable, a thousand molten knives dragged over every inch of his body, his eyes lava crucibles, his veins sharp magma.
Force ripped through him and his body felt like a splitting dam, and above the harvesters hissed and below his skin began to blacken. First taste went, then touch, and finally vision, his eyes seeing only infinite, painful white.
There was no sleep, no respite, no outside. His world had been reduced to a single cauldron-hot point of brilliant pain and he had slammed unfeeling palms against his cell, sobbing and bleeding, howling and burning…
Two years.
He awoke, shivering, teeth grinding against each other, and everywhere he felt grimy and wet and sick. The rain had stopped.
The package of bread lay on his right, ruined, ruptured by water from above. He tried to move his arms, but couldn't. Itchy knots of wire cut into his wrists, and he winced as a dull, throbbing headache overtook him.
"Look. He's come to."
They loomed above him, five very wet men and one very wet baker. He stared at them with sullen eyes and fought the knots again.
"Is he the one that survived the Cauls?"
"Looks like it. Demon freak ain't so tough now, is he?"
"Piece of shit. How'd this worm live when my mother only lasted twenty days?"
They jeered and spat. His breathing became faster, and he felt the charcoal stirring in his lungs, the taste of fire in the back of his mouth. He fought it down, eyes slammed shut, and clenched his jaw so hard he felt it would break.
Don't lose it. They caught me. Let them do what they want. Nothing was worse than the Burn and nothing ever will be.
The first kick sent him spiraling into the wall and he heaved up blood as two of his ribs broke.
I'll live. I'll live.
The baker pulled him up by his collar and raised a fist. His head was flung back, spittle flying and an iron tang in his mouth, and starbursts erupted behind his eyes. He slumped down, against the walls, breath hitching and slow.
I'll live.
They got impatient, and now they were thrashing him, throwing him against the bricks, grinding his face into the stagnant pools, kicks to the side, kicks to the head, fists to the gut, driving him into the ground, and his eyes began to mist as they kneed his solar plexus and shattered his arms and threw him across the alley, and then he heaved a sigh of relief because they were finally done.
One palm, facing down, to wench himself up- out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of steel.
They weren't done. Three had pulled out knives, and the baker a long, saw-toothed cleaver, and they were advancing.
I'll live.
He watched as the first jabbed three inches of shocking cold metal into his stomach, and he nearly choked on the pain.
How far are they going to go?
The second one lunged for his eye, aimed to bury the hilt in his socket and drive it into his brain, and Naruto lost it.
The Veil fell across his eyes and his hand came up, catching the blade, nails like starmetal shears, and his fingers tightened and the steel snapped.
When it was over, there were no bodies left. There was only ash that danced in the breeze.
He leaned against the wall and stared at sky and a small, cruel smile slipped across his features.
He had given in, and it had felt good.
---
The air smelled of rubbing alcohol and iron.
"Get her out of the triage, quickly! Kakuzu-shishou needs to see this one." Around her, the room buzzed, filled with scurrying feet and swishing plastic and the insistent beeping of charka monitors. The woman before her was a ruin of broken bones and warped flesh: far beyond her ability to treat. Quickly, she was wheeled away.
The kunoichi shivered, charka stitches cold against her fingertips. This next one, thankfully, only had a compound fracture in her left shin.
Sakura Haruno glanced jadedly at the broken leg. "Jeez, what did you do to yourself?"
Swiping bloody fingers through petal hair, she placed two fingers against the injury, gently probing the wound.
Medical chakra shrouded her palms, and she passed them slowly over the woman's wounds. Her unconscious patient stirred and groaned, sweat-flecked hair tossing side-to-side.
Life as the apprentice of Kakuzu, Master Surgeon, was neither glamorous nor pretty nor fun. Every day, though, Sakura counted her blessings. The Harunos were a mid-tier clan, exceedingly small, and didn't possess any secret techniques. They were lower than the professional clans, like the Akimichi and Aburame, and were little more than worms to the nobility.
Kakuzu, however, consorted with the highest levels of shinobi society, even if he was pathetically stingy and lived far below his means. If she rose to his level, she would be the equal of a Sannin - possibly greater. That was why her parents had pinned all their hopes on her, had scrabbled together ten years of savings to pay the registration fee for his entrance exam.
Really, she was lucky to be this high up, setting bones and healing cuts and drawing poisons. Without her superior charka control and innate talents, she would never have survived the brutal selection exam that her shishou gave only once every four years. She shuddered, pushing the memory away.
Now that she was two years into training, though, she wished for exams as easy as the first. She was tested every hour of every day by the constant influx of patients that the Master Surgeon received.
The woman's head lolled over and loosed a grateful sigh as her bones melded together, and Sakura slumped over with a pert half-smile. Unfortunately, most patients lost their gratitude once they saw her shishou's prices.
Around her, the operating room was still, and she exhaled loudly, leaning against a wall-length mirror. She looked down with mild revulsion. She wore black, silken wrappings from just over her cleavage to halfway down her thighs. Over them were a short red top and identically colored skirt. Now, of course, the whole ensemble was splattered with drying blood.
Why does shishou always send our medical frocks to the cheap cleaners?
Sakura was miserably poor, as she had a miser of a sensei who barely paid her enough to eat. Her poverty was compounded by the fact that the fighting style he was teaching her required copious amounts of charka-infused silk – He had, of course, refused to pay for any of it.
It was too quiet. She looked around, confused. No more…patients?
"Ahem."
Inside, Sakura screamed. She turned around and caught the cyanide eyes of her teacher.
"Yes, Kakuzu-shishou?"
"Sakura, I've closed the operating rooms for now. There's a…special patient here. You may, um, take a break. With pay."
He did not just say that.
She nodded, dumbstruck. "What?"
Reluctantly he placed a hand inside his coat and drew out a stack of bills. "Here. Go do something. Don't come back for at least four hours."
Kami, I always believed in you.
"Hai!" Beaming, she accepted the money and began to head toward her room. Now just to change out of these things…
"Sakura."
"Sensei?"
"Leave now." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "You've got enough money there to buy food and new clothes." At this, he looked slightly pained.
What? He expects me to be seen in PUBLIC wearing these things? They'll think I'm a murderer or something!
She swiveled around and made a beeline for the door, knowing it was pointless to argue. If he thinks he's getting anything back in change, he's got another thing coming...
The sun bit into her eyes as she stalked out of the clinic – how long had it been since she'd been outside? The breeze picked up, and everything around her was slightly damp, suffused with the smell of rain. Too long.
She stretched her arms, lips curving upwards as she flexed tired muscles. Humming quietly, she began to pace down the walkway.
The streets outside Kakuzu's clinic were beautiful, lined by cheerfully-painted shops and residences. Here, three hundred feet above the ground, the sun's heat was diffused by high-altitude winds, so it was always slightly cool. The sun was pristine and the crowds were friendly and the view, as always, was gorgeous. Sighing contentedly she leaned against a railing, looking up towards the spires of glass where, one day, she would reside.
After a while her neck started to hurt, so she turned towards a clothing store and idled for a blissful hour spending her master's money.
Sakura visited a spa, two more clothing stores, and the laundromat, and her healthy pile of bills was reduced to a few hundred ryou. Her stomach was beginning to rumble, so she began looking for a food stand.
Kakuzu never treated her to dinner, so she wasn't really sure where the restaurants were. Fifteen minutes of aimless wandering later, all thought of food fled her mind.
The explosion struck with a thump! that sucked in her eardrums and then the shockwaves barreled into her, fired her backwards. She gasped, sandals skidding on wood, and dropped her bags of clothes. They tumbled away, off the banister and into free-fall, pink and white and red flapping, twirling through the blue…
Her reflexes kicked in, adrenaline surging across her veins, and she pistoned her legs, forced chakra through her feet to steady herself. Kunoichi eyes picked out two figures, darting in the smoke, hazy as spitting steam as they circled each other like hunting birds.
The one on the left was blond, and he moved with sinuous, feline speed, claw-strikes like paint slashed on canvas, all liquid and power, a golden riptide. He blurred like a smear of watercolors, pouncing with lion force.
The other was masked, a tall, jerky, angular man of wiry muscles wielding an enormous zanbato. He was dressed in dapper colors, moss and mist and dirt, and he caught the charge on the flat of his sword, eyes sneering. With deft, snapping movements he forced his opponent back, blade coming high, falling…
There was a sound like a knife through soggy tissue, and she screamed as the massive cleaver caught the blonde on the shoulder and sheared through two feet of flesh. Blood sprayed over the spectators and now she was glad she hadn't eaten because her head was between her knees and she was gagging, breath heavy and fast.
It was one thing to treat injuries already inflicted. It was quite another to witness the butchery firsthand.
She fought down the reflex and forced her head back up, but it was already over.
With six inches of sword protruding from his back, the blonde raised a hand and – were those claws? – casually pawed his foe's face off. The massive weapon slid out of his body and clanged against the street, and people were beginning to close in now, like hapless moths, swarming the site of the carnage.
Medic instincts kicked in and she hop-stumbled forward, pushing the bystanders away, unwrapping the bandages around her arm, though it really was hopeless, hopeless, he had lost too much blood, there was really no way he could still be standing.
Now that Sakura had made her way closer, she got a clearer view of him: he looked almost her age. She was careless, fixated on saving the boy. She hadn't noticed the subtle twitching in the faceless man's arms, the blind fury in his remaining eye. She didn't see the blade as it arced around for one final slice, didn't even see that she had placed herself square in its path.
There was a breeze and then the blond was beside her, fall of golden hair tickling her nose, and she sneezed once before she saw that the murderous edge had bitten deep into the shinobi's other arm. Before she could react, he emitted a low, humming growl and soccer kicked the swordsman in the head. There was a crack! like splitting wood and the sword slipped from the man's lifeless grip and she could breathe again.
His head turned to look at her. She saw predator eyes: deep, furious, the color of blood against the moon, and now she couldn't move, couldn't lift a finger- was she blushing?
She was sure she'd seen him before…blonde hair, red eyes, six talon scars on his cheeks…
They recognized him before she did and, as one, the mob surged over and plucked her from her spot. They pushed the Demon from the Cauls over the edge of the walkway before he turned on them and slaughtered them all.
When Sakura went back to the clinic that night, she ignored Kakuzu's irate whining, forgot to take off her (freshly bloodstained) clothes, and fell promptly into bed.
"Kimimaro! Kimimaro!"
Rustling, steel banging against plaster. White flecks rained down on his hair, and he shook them free.
"Oy! Kimimaro, where'd you go?"
The room was small, clumsily painted white-green walls, iron gridwork against light-flooded windows. There were a few tables scattered around it, and a slew of posters pasted on the walls. It smelled slightly of mildew, slightly of tea, and heavily of ramen.
Naruto grumbled to himself, turning around to lock the door. "Where is he?"
A shuffling noise, cloth across skin. When Naruto turned around, he saw his grey-clothed roommate standing in the doorframe to the kitchen, one arm raised against the wall.
Kaguya Kimimaro's carmine-lined eyes widened, then narrowed. "Naruto, you're nearly sixteen hours late- Kami, what happened?"
The boy in question was splattered with ochre blots of dried blood, crusted crimson staining his huge mane of waist-length hair, splotches of it all over his vibrant orange overcoat and black t-shirt. His hands up to his forearms with drenched in the stuff, and deep red crescents had gotten under his fingernails. His clothes were torn, a long gash running vertical down his chest.
That didn't bother Kimimaro so much. He had seen his fair share of slaughter in nineteen years. He hadn't, however, seen a Naruto with red eyes before, hadn't seen the Caul-marks so present and savage against his face, hadn't seen saber-like canines elongated and framing a hungry grin.
A shrug. "I'm not going to run anymore. I killed Zabuza."
Naruto had stopped grinning, was looking him straight in the eye.
Momichi Zabuza? That was too much. The worst part was, Kimimaro didn't doubt it for a second.
"Naruto, Zabuza's the Jounin-oyabun (Boss) of this sector. Do you have any idea-"
"Yes. It's just the beginning. Kimimaro, we're going to bring this city to its knees."
This wasn't like Naruto. Had he finally snapped? If so...
"Six men tried to kill me. They weren't the first. This city has wanted me dead since the moment I broke free. I'm not supposed to be alive.
"I'm tired of smiling at those who hate me. I'm tired of begging for scraps of missions. I'm tired of the stares, the spitting, the way we never get service in tea-houses. I'm tired of hiding. But you know what I'm most tired of? Just taking it all with a stupid grin on my face! I survived the Cauls for this?
"Why do we let them do this to us, Kimimaro? Anything is better than this. For the last ten years, this city has made war on us. It's time to fight back."
Inside, Kimimaro allowed himself a smile. The boy was on the right track. Just a little more prodding...
"What are you talking about, Naruto?"
"I'm talking about our lives, and how they suck!" Veins bundled and twisted across the back of the blonde's hand and five tarnished silver claws grew from his fingers.
"Look at this! My hand. We don't have to put up with people that get in our way. That's not the way the Pit works! If we want a right, we take it. And we can. We're strong enough."
The Kaguya turned and stepped into the kitchen. "Have a seat, Naruto."
Naruto sighed as the chair scraped across the linoleum. He opened his mouth to speak, but the older man cut him off.
"Your choices are your own, but if you want to do this you must be sure. I can see why you're frustrated with the shinobi around here – you get only the most difficult of the lowest-paying missions. But-"
"And that's not all! Kimimaro, you're not getting missions either, because of me! That's exactly why I killed-"
"Let me finish, Naruto. You don't need to convince me. You know I'll support you in anything you do. But if you want a revolution, it's not going to be as easy as killing a few dozen shinobi."
"People don't understand when we tell them things. We have to show them! We'll do what the Sannin did. We'll kill so many of them they'll have to acknowledge us!"
A bird twittered outside. Kimimaro's small 'garden' – a row of plants in a rectangular trough next to an open window – waved gently in the breeze. The air smelled damp and succulent, and the grey-haired man leaned back in his chair and sighed.
"I'll be blunt. You're not strong enough. Neither am I."
"But-"
"I was nobility once. I know how powerful Hanzou is. The Hokage is the linchpin of shinobi society, but he's not irreplaceable. You'd have to take out the Sannin, the Five Houses, and the Censor as well. If you continue randomly killing people, you'll attract attention from at least one of them very quickly - and that will be the end."
"So what are you saying?"
"Zabuza was corrupt. The Censors had him slated for execution anyway. We may be able to talk your way out of that problem. In the future, though, we must be subtle. We cannot hope to topple everything from down here. I, for obvious reasons, cannot show my face in high society.You've got to get close to the shinobi and infiltrate their highest echelons...the next Jounin-oyabun they sent to this sector will probably be more impartial, given Zabuza's fate. If you can prove your worth to him, that will be a start."
"Great!"
"Not really. The bureaucracy doesn't really remember that the Pit exists. It'll probably be a few years before they get around to sending someone. This is actually...a good thing."
Naruto stared at him, confused. Before he could talk, Kimimaro held up a hand.
His eyes closed as he turned himself inward, and then a slender drill of bone extended from his palm.
"We have time to train. First impressions are important. You are strong, Naruto, but not skilled. There is a difference."
Kaguya smiled.
"In the ten years since I found you, I've never shown you any of my techniques. From now on you won't need to battle the training dummies or pick off thugs from the Bleed. The next time you spar, I shall be your opponent. Growing…hurts."
That night, Kimimaro gazed at the moon. The world was bathed in silver, and streaks of soft light cast long shadows in the silent kitchen.
Gratitude welled up in his heart, for the vessel was pliant and easily controlled - he had not even thought to question how Kimimaro had instantly created such a comprehensive plan. After a decade of cultivation, Uzumaki Naruto was ready to realize his fate.
"Orochimaru-sama...I hope you are ready."
Next Chapter - Two years later: Sasuke, Ino, Kakashi, ramen, training, and explosions. More background on this strange new AU I've cooked up and much more gratuitous violence.You're on the edge of your seat. Believe it.
A/N: Wow, this was the hardest-written chapter of my life. Dies
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