Poison of the Heart
A story about how Naruto
copies the style of jyuuken, to deadly effect. Now he is a killer, who
continues on in hopes of redeeming himself. In hopes of atoning for his
accidental crime. NaruHina. Dark. One-shot.
N.B. This one-shot is based
on the lengthy (and harsh sad face) critique of ‘The Deadliest Poison’, from
ArmorOfGeddon. He had quite a number of good objections to the story, and
suggestions on how to improve it. Thus, ‘Poison of the Heart’, a more realistic
view of what would happen in this case. The first bit of the story is exactly
the same as ‘The Deadliest Poison’, until the end of the fight, or thereabouts.
Thank you to ArmorOfGeddon
for your helpful review.
Naruto growled as he stood
up through the pain. His entire body ached after Neji’s last attack. Stupid
jyuuken, sealing off his chakra.
But then Naruto smiled. Just
his chakra. He formed as simple seal to help him concentrate and began
to draw power from the seal.
Neji scoffed, thinking that
Naruto was futilely trying to draw up his own chakra. “I’ve sealed it off,
Naruto. You won’t be able to use chakra for at least a few hours. Give up. It
was not your fate to win this fight.”
Naruto just grinned and
pulled a little harder. Pop, pop, popopopopopopop. Kyuubi’s chakra
forced its way out of the sealed tenketsu, quickly wrapping the blonde in a
thin red mist before it faded out of sight.
Naruto smirked and dropped
into his normal fighting stance, one that he had made on his own so long ago,
when he figured out that the Academy instructors were not helping him at all.
Neji frowned. It should not
have been possible to unseal chakra so quickly. How on earth had Naruto done
so, and what was this strange red chakra?
The Hyuuga prodigy fell
into his jyuuken stance, gathered his chakra, and attacked again. This time,
it would be 128 palms, and then Naruto would be finished.
As Neji rocketed forward,
Naruto had a sudden idea. Why not try a little Jyuuken himself? Of course, he
didn’t have the skill to see tenketsu, so he’d just be guessing… Naruto decided
it didn’t matter. With Kyuubi’s seemingly infinite chakra at his disposal, he
could just make up for his lack of skill with pure power.
Neji almost tripped when he
saw Naruto change into a fairly good imitation of the jyuuken stance. What was
that idiot thinking, mocking the Hyuuga like that?
But as Neji approached, he
realized that Naruto truly intended to fight like that. He saw the strange red
chakra gathering in the blonde’s hands, ready to strike. Man, that was a lot of
chakra.
But Neji had speed and
skill. He deftly dodged Naruto’s first clumsy attempt at jyuuken and tap a
tenketsu on the idiot’s chest. Pop. Almost instantly it unsealed itself
in a flicker of red chakra.
Neji was confused for just
a moment, but that moment was long enough for Naruto to strike. Imitating
Neji’s last attack, Naruto struck Neji in about the same place the white-eyed
boy had hit him. Naruto had no idea if he had gotten a tenketsu, but just to be
safe, he shoved a huge amount of chakra into the attack.
Neji flew back several
dozen feet, and landed in a heap, clutching his chest. If the Hyuuga had been
the kind to curse, the air would have been filled with obscenities. As it was,
he merely curled into the fetal position, and pulled his head back. His mouth
stretched open in a silent scream.
Pain. So much pain. Even
though the attack had missed the tenketsu by a good quarter-inch, which, in
normal jyuuken, was a complete whiff, Naruto had pushed so much chakra into the
attack that it didn’t matter. Much of it had gotten to the tenketsu anyway,
sealing it in some new, incredibly painful manner.
And it only got worse. Instead
of fading away as the shock wore off, the agony intensified, as if the chakra
were burning him from inside. Steeling himself against the pain, Neji stood up
and took his jyuuken stance again, shaking slightly.
The white-eyed boy rushed
forward, now much more careful to avoid getting hit. He hit several tenketsu in
less than a second, easily avoiding Naruto’s slow reactive attacks. But the
tenketsu wouldn’t stay closed. By the time that Neji had gotten to 32 strikes,
every tenketsu he’d hit in the 16-set and before was already open again. The
same with 64, and with 128.
By the time Neji leapt
away, winded after the exertion, and wincing at the continually growing pain,
all of Naruto’s tenketsu were completely open, as if nothing had happened.
Naruto sprang forward to
attack, looking like a slower, blonde version of Neji. The Hyuuga dodged and
dodged, growing slower because of the pain, even as Naruto sped up as he really
got into it. Red chakra flew past the white-eyed boy with every failed attack.
Neji couldn’t dodge one
blow, so he blocked it with a hand. Just a slight tap to divert the blow, but
Neji’s hand was instantly engulfed in screaming agony. Perhaps because it was
so small, compared to the amount of chakra in Naruto’s strike, it grew worse at
an accelerated rate. The pain quickly became unbearable, so Neji blocked off
feeling in that hand with a quick jyuuken strike to his own wrist.
But that couldn’t keep him
from noticing that his hand slowly paled, became gray, and then began to turn
black. The darkness began to seep down his arm, causing pain all along the
forearm. The skin there turned deathly pale, and began to fade to gray.
But Neji had no time to
prevent the pain in his arm. He was too busy dodging the furious flurry of
attack that the blonde now unleashed. As his arm worsened, he realized that he
could no longer move it with precision. The pain in his chest was now a
constant, excruciating torment. His breaths became labored as his chest
tightened involuntarily.
Neji turned to the side,
putting his bad arm behind him, since he could no longer move I adequately
enough to avoid getting hit. Neji coughed, tasting blood, and feeling it leak
from his mouth and nose. What was going on? He could vaguely see the chakra
inside him moving, as if with its own will, but he had no time to ponder it.
Naruto got another hit in,
tapping Neji’s stomach. The Hyuuga doubled over in tortured agony, passing out
before he hit the ground.
The announcer declared
Naruto the winner, and medics removed Neji from the field.
Within minutes, the Hyuuga
prodigy was no longer able to breathe. He died shortly after.
Naruto was rather pleased
with himself. Beating last year’s number one genin was no mean feat, and he had
done it without too much difficulty, other than using the fox’s chakra to
reopen his tenketsu.
Turning when someone tapped
him on the shoulder, his stared into the animal mask of one of the ANBU.
“Uzumaki-san, come with
me.”
A little surprised, Naruto
followed quickly. The ANBU walked into the halls underneath the stadium, around
several corners, and stopped outside one of the medical facility’s doors.
Assuming correctly that he
was supposed to go inside, Naruto opened the door and stepped in. Almost
immediately, the sickening stench of burnt and rotting skin, especially strong
to his abnormally powerful sense of smell, hit him with a wave of nausea. Even
more sickening was the figure on the table.
It was Neji. Or, it looked
like it could have been Neji once.
The late Hyuuga branch
member, dressed in only his shorts, lay unmoving on the table. His skin was a
weird gray color, with black splotches on his chest, his stomach, and on one
arm. In the middle of several of the larger spots of black, there were holes in
the skin, which smoked slightly, and was the obvious source of the terrible
odor.
Naruto gasped and fell to
the ground, barely suppressing his urge to gag. What on earth had
happened to Neji?
A man he had not noticed before stepped forward from where he had stood next
to the wall. A tall man with pure white eyes.
“Uzumaki Naruto, you have killed my nephew, Neji.” Naruto gasped and
sputtered for an answer, but the man cut him off. “Your bastardized version of
our clan techniques poisoned him, causing him to die in terrible agony. I don’t
think I need to tell you exactly how you poisoned him.”
When Naruto did not reply, and appeared confused, the tall Hyuuga continued.
“You poisoned him with chakra that you pulled from within yourself. From a
source that is forbidden to mention.”
Naruto eye’s widened in comprehension. The Kyuubi’s chakra was poisonous?
How had Naruto survived all these years with it, if it had killed Neji within
minutes?
His accuser walked out of the door, uttering a soft threat as he left.
“Beware, Uzumaki. I, Hyuuga Hiashi, will take vengeance for this foul
murder.”
Naruto remained on his knees in the room, tears slowly running down his
cheeks. He had killed Neji? A fellow genin? A fellow ninja of Konoha?
Naruto rocked himself back and forth, back and forth. He felt sick, even beyond
the physical illness from the sight and smell of Neji’s rotting corpse, which
still simmered slightly as the demonic chakra continued to eat away the body.
Naruto vision began to tunnel, and his breaths came in shorter and quicker
gasps. But before he could faint, the ground shook and a loud noise shattered
the quiet.
Naruto, unable to think clearly, still managed to rush outside, where a
terrible scene unfolded itself before his very eyes.
Ninja were attacking. Sound and Sand ninja turned on Konoha and struck to
kill. Gigantic snakes crushed the walls of the village and began destroying
everything they could see.
Naruto was brought out of his reverie when a ninja sprinted towards him at a
blinding speed. Naruto absentmindedly dodged, getting a kunai embedded in his
side for his lack of concentration.
The Sound ninja laughed out loud. “Stupid kid, you should have run when you
had the chance! Now I’m gonna kill you!”
Time stopped for Naruto, and he paused in his reflection on Neji’s death.
The sound-nin was going to kill him. Kill him. By his uniform, he must
be a chuunin or even a jounin. Naruto didn’t have a chance. There was no way he
could defeat him. There was no way he could kill…
There was a way. A way so terrible that Naruto shuddered to think of it. But
this ninja was an enemy, right? It would be okay, right?
Right?
Some darker part of himself, some deep voice within him, assured Naruto that
it would be alright. That this ninja could not be spared. That doing this
horrible, terrifying deed would be alright, in this one case.
The ninja charged, and Naruto twisted out of the way of the potentially
lethal attack, to gently tap the ninja in the back. With that gentle touch, he
delivered a massive injection of the demon’s chakra.
The man yelled in pain, and turned to face Naruto again, his eyes now
squinting in pain. But before he could gather himself to strike again, he began
to cough. His coughing turned into hacking, and he spit out blood and bile as
he began to sicken before Naruto’s very eyes.
Unable to watch anymore, Naruto turned away and listened to the poor man
die, moaning in pain until the very end, several minutes later.
When the man was finally quiet, Naruto came out of his trance. There was
still a battle going on. People he had to help. People he had to protect. But
he was just a genin. There was nothing he could really do for them, unless…
The ominous voice persuaded him that it would be for a good cause, and that
no one would think ill of him for using it on an enemy.
Naruto joined in the carnage, forming clones to surround himself with for
protection. While they couldn’t use the Kyuubi’s chakra like the original, they
could certainly distract his opponents for the real Naruto to get in one hit.
Naruto raced around Konoha, accompanied by army of clones. Tap, and a man
stumbled, unaware that his life was now measured in minutes, not years. Touch,
and the ninja from sand would never go home again. Poke, and the poor
kunouchi’s fate was sealed.
Naruto continued this, unleashing his vile weapon, a terrible poison, upon
the enemy. It was not until he saw Sasuke pursue the strange misshapen sand
ninja into the forest, that Naruto halted his attack. The red-headed sand guy
had Sakura-chan!
Growling in a deeper voice than he normally used, Naruto raced after them,
his clones following close behind. The unfortunate sound ninja who decided to
catch him off guard attacked a nearby clone, which promptly burst into smoke.
The real Naruto slapped him as he passed, transferring some of Kyuubi’s chakra
in the brief contact.
Naruto continued on, leaving Konoha behind him.
Gaara snarled and threw a hand of sand at the blonde, who quickly dodged it
and closed in for a close-range attack.
More sand appeared to bat him away, but Naruto was unfazed. Just one-hit,
right? Just one dose of Kyuubi’s violently caustic, toxic chakra, and that was
the end.
But the sand was so fast, Naruto couldn’t get around it. As the blonde grew
less and less afraid of killing, and more and more afraid of losing, he pulled
up increasingly larger amounts of demon chakra to attack with.
The sand still pushed him away, but not as far, and not as fast. Naruto
flung himself against Gaara’s ultimate defense, again and again, screeching out
louder and more animalistic cries as he continued.
A single scratch along the red-head’s face, melting through the thin layer
of sand, and Naruto smiled triumphantly. But something was different. Gaara
howled and clutched his face, as yellow chakra glowed faintly around the wound.
Gaara’s eyes were open wide, in pain and effort, but he seemed able to stop the
poison.
Naruto growled, a low, angry rumble from deep within his chest. It wasn’t
working. Because of the other demon, or whatever it was? At any rate, the wound
seemed to have distracted it.
Naruto attacked again and again. Another nick. Another grazing blow. Gaara
howled in pain, but the boy’s own demon seemed able to handle the light doses
of the deadly venom of Kyuubi.
But then Naruto, aided by ever-increasing amounts of chakra, and Gaara’s
distraction, and the blonde’s own, building rage, he struck with a solid hit,
pushing much more chakra than seemed necessary into the blow. So much that the
heavy strike to Gaara’s chest sent red chakra blasting out of his back.
But Gaara would not be brought down by the poison, deadly or not. The
strange yellow chakra swirled visibly around the places where he had been hit,
containing the damage, combating the effects.
But now, with the last hit, there was not enough chakra to both defend Gaara
from Naruto’s blows and to stop the poison. Little by little, as Gaara’s demon
was forced to block Naruto’s rapidfire strikes, the poison spread. Slowly at
first, then more quickly as Naruto realized what was happening, and added
clones to the attack.
Soon, Gaara fainted from the pain, and Shukaku emerged, quickly growing
larger than the forest, drawing sand from the desert not so far away. Naruto
snarled, then roared his defiance.
No one could escape Kyuubi’s curse, Naruto vowed. If Neji had to die
for Naruto to discover this power, then Naruto would use this power to help
Konoha as much as he could. Hopefully, this would someday atone for his
terrible crime.
As his resolve set, Naruto unleashed the fury of the demon within. Shukaku
was large, but he was slow. Naruto dodged and danced away from the blows as he
worked his way closer. Suddenly he jumped, and, taking advice from his
instincts, flung as much chakra through the air as he could, in the direction
of the boy on Shukaku’s head.
A large sphere of evil energy, not unlike a fireball of pure red, rocketed
from his hands, straight at Gaara. Also like a real fireball, it quickly
dissipated in the air, but it had not disappeared entirely before it struck
home.
Shukaku howled in torment as he writhed and shrunk and dissolved back into
sand. Soon, Gaara’s gray corpse lay rotting in the sun, black splotches
spreading underneath his dead skin.
Naruto scowled, grateful to have won, but recovering from his anger, he
remembered Neji, and the reason for doing this in the first place.
Gently picking up the unconscious Sakura from where Gaara had left her,
Naruto set his face like stone and made his way back to Konoha. Even if this
power had gotten her back, it could not excuse the way he had discovered it.
Naruto promised himself again, that he would spend his career, and give his
life gladly, to atone for his sin.
Naruto returned from his latest mission, a rather distasteful one, if you
asked him. But Naruto never refused a mission, no matter how cruel, no
matter how difficult, no matter how long. Since Neji was no longer alive, he
would atone for his sin in service to Konoha.
So even though he hated the assassination missions, he never turned them
down. He had done so many now, that he sometimes had trouble remembering why he
had started doing them in the first place. Neji. Right. So often now, Naruto
felt nothing when he killed. No longer did he see Neji’s dead body with every
kill. Only every so often. Once in a very long while.
Slowly, Naruto’s heart hardened into that of a true shinobi.
In his last mission, the client had asked for the target to be killed in a
slow and painful manner. Easily done, especially for Naruto. The less chakra he
used, the more slowly the victim died. And they always died. With the
exception of Gaara, Naruto had never met a person who could survive his demon
jyuuken.
And so Naruto had snuck into the house at night, and found the target, an
aging mob boss, sleeping inside a secret room. With only the slightest prick of
Kyuubi’s energy, Naruto was finished, and dashed away from the house before he
was spotted.
It took several hours for the tiny amount of the world’s deadliest poison to
end his suffering, according to reliable sources.
Once he had reported the success back to Tsunade, Naruto went home, back to
the Hyuuga complex, where Hiashi was waiting for him, as always.
Despite his harsh words that fateful day, so long ago, Hiashi was not a
vindictive man. And seeing Naruto’s heartfelt sorrow and self-loathing over
Neji’s death, he had come to like the young man. But even though he had offered
to let Naruto free of the agreement they had made that day, to atone for Neji’s
death by taking his place in the branch house, and serving the main house
family when not on missions, Naruto always refused.
And so it was that Hiashi had gradually accepted the strange demon container
into his home, more as a family member than a servant. Hiashi was even more
grateful that Naruto had managed to convince Hinata that Neji’s death was not
the result of her weakness when she fought her cousin in the preliminary
matches. Though she was not of sufficient quality to be heir to the Hyuuga
clan, she was still his daughter, and Hiashi was glad that Naruto had helped
ease her feeling of guilt.
Even now, the head of the Hyuuga felt terrible knowing what Naruto must have
gone through that day, accidentally killing a fellow ninja of the leaf, then
having that person’s family swear veangeance…
“You’re back, Naruto.”
“I am, Hyuuga-sama.”
The tall, white-eyed man continued their usual pattern of dialogue, which
happened after every mission. “You don’t have to show so much respect, Naruto.
Hiashi will suffice.”
“If I am to replace Neji, then I must address you with the respect he would
have, Hyuuga-sama.”
The clan leader sighed, knowing that it was futile, as always. “Let’s go
inside, Naruto. Hinata has been anxious for you to return.”
“Of course, Hyuuga-sama.”
Hinata met them as soon as they entered the house, and, seeing the stony
look in Naruto’s eyes, knew that he had taken another life. It always hurt him,
even if he hid it so well that he didn’t know himself. But Hinata could see it,
and she spent the rest of the evening comforting him, slowly bringing him back
out of the protective shell into which he withdrew before every kill.
When he fell asleep on her shoulder, she did not complain, and she did not
move away. He couldn’t be strong all the time. Right now, she had to be strong
for him.
Blushing as she kissed his forehead, she drifted off to sleep beside him.
Naruto shook with anger as he faced the Akatsuki-nin, Kakazu. This bastard
had been one of Asuma’s killers! Asuma, a Konoha shinobi. Someone that Naruto
had to protect, to keep safe in order to atone for his sin…
Naruto raced forward, ignoring strategy, ignoring the worried shouts from
Sakura and Kakashi.
The ninja from Akatsuki smiled. If this went well, he might even be able to
capture this idiot jinkuurichi in this encounter. True, he didn’t know much
about the demon, Kyuubi, but it seemed pretty obvious that it was a fire demon.
And fire was not a problem.
Not as much of a problem as that one a while ago, an ice demon. Not fun. And
even less fun than that stupid water demon had been.
Kakazu dodged and weaved around the berserk blonde, wondering how he should
go about attacking. It was difficult to get a hit in edgewise, since the boy
attacked so quickly and furiously that his swipes and blows were a blur.
Seeing an opening, Kakazu braced to block one hit so that he could use that
delay in the jinkuurichi’s attacks to strike back.
As the blow connected with his arm, Kakazu realized his mistake. A poison
demon. And since youki was already toxic…
Kakazu missed his opportunity to attack, so stunned by the revelation, and
by the sudden pain that accompanied the rather significant amount of demonic
chakra that had been forced into his arm.
But he was aware enough to spring back out of the way of Naruto’s next
attack. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a kunai in his good hand and cut off the
poisoned arm, letting it fall to the ground with a dull thud.
But now a limb short, he had a more difficult time defending against the
attacks. His balance was off, and that made it difficult to fully concentrate
well.
When it became obvious that he could no longer play around, he prepared to
called out his alter egos, until he suddenly realized why that would be a
terrible idea. Every one of them was connected to him. If any one of them were
hit, the poison would come back to him before his killed the heart outside. And
it was hard to avoid getting hit if he got any larger.
He was so distracted by his revelation, that he didn’t notice when Naruto
exchanged himself with a clone. He failed to realize this until a sharp pain
entered from behind, the sure sign of the demon’s chakra, a horrifying poison,
beginning its lethal work.
Kakazu, disgraced, fled the battle so that his ring would not fall into
enemy hands. When he had gotten several miles away, he died. And revived as he
used another heart.. And died as the still-present poison killed him again.
He died, and died, and
died, and eventually, he stayed dead.
Naruto, knowing that the
man from Akatsuki was finished, was not at all disturbed when he ran away.
Naruto advanced through the
ranks quickly, becoming captain of the ANBU less than two years after becoming
a jounin. Who could turn down the perfect assassin, who could kill with a
single hit?
After a year in that
position, Naruto retired. Hinata knew that he was disappointed. Naruto’s
self-proclaimed goal to become Hokage had never been fulfilled. But she knew
why, and she knew that no amount of persuasion would make him ask for the
position.
Naruto felt unworthy. His
whole life revolved around atoning for his crime, an event so long ago that few
really remembered it, and fewer still ever thought about it.
But for Naruto, it was his
life. His reason to continue. His purpose for existing. And when Hiashi, on his
deathbed, made a single request, he knew that Naruto would not refuse.
Naruto married Hinata
shortly after the quiet funeral, taking the place that could have, and, in
Naruto’s mind, should have been Neji’s. Head of the clan. The elders of
the Hyuuga, so used to him, and knowing that he was as much a Hyuuga as any
born to the name, did not object.
No one was surprised, and
no one dared object, when he named his first son, born with the Byakugan, after
the long-dead prodigy from the branch house clan.
But still, the guilt ate at
Naruto’s heart, for a crime committed unintentionally, long, long ago. It
burned inside him, causing him pain long after the event. Even though everyone
else had forgiven him, he could not forgive himself.
The guilt was a venom
inside him, a poison of the heart.
It wasn’t great, but I hope
you enjoyed it. It turned out different than I’d hoped. Oh well.
Let me know what you thought.
-demonicnargles