PROLOGUE
It was a cloudy day in the city of Konohagakure.
Cloudy to the point where rain was almost an eventuality, and most people were walking around carrying umbrellas or preferring the safer option of driving to work, creating a lot of traffic in the city. It was a week day after all, and rain seemed to be a risk too large for people to take. The constant honking of the cars combined with the tall skyscrapers located on downtown Konoha actually made for quite the stereotypical city-like scenario.
One figure in specific of focus for this very story was a young man, one in his late teens standing in some corner where two of many streets in downtown Konoha connected. He'd gotten there only seconds ago, hoping to cross the street, only for the street sign allowing him to advance suddenly turned from green to red, halting his advance as his path was blocked by a few dozen moving vehicles. His attention was thus set somewhere else, and he turned to look at the grey sky while silently wondering if it would finally give in and make way to the downpour many of the weather forecasts earlier that way had predicted to come that very afternoon. At least, that was what he heard when he was making his way to university.
That's right. Our character in question was studying in the Konoha university, a fifteen minute walk from his small apartment where he'd been living by himself for the last year or so. That was easily told by the uniform he was wearing: black trousers, black suit shoes, a blue overall over a white shirt and a tie. All that accompanied of course by his square trimmed glasses that were neatly positioned above over his nose and covered his dark blue eyes. Another giveaway was the dark blue backpack he carried, one filled with books he'd have to tryingly read through in preparation for his upcoming exams. That alongside the thought of the downpour that might start while he was still making his way back home was enough to make the teen sigh, running a hand along his short, golden blonde hair so he could scratch the back of his head in slight exasperation before his sight turned down from the sky over the still red pedestrian light. How long did it take for that to turn green anyway...?
Adjusting the backpack behind him with a small frown and tapping his right foot against the ground rather impatiently, the teen waited his time to walk while more and more people gathered around him. It took almost a full minute, even if it seemed like a small eternity, but red turned green and people from both sides began walking. The teen though, he wasn't in a rush, he easily crossed the road and went on walking, his mind focusing on something else as he went, some trivial issue such as what exactly he'd be eating for lunch. If he had paid more attention, he might've seen what happened next coming.
In the first few seconds after he crossed the road, nothing happened. He was distracted, obviously, knowing he still had more ten minutes of walking ahead of him until he got home. It was only about half a minute afterwards that it all went down. Without the teen's notice, a girl came walking practically out of nowhere, heading opposite of his direction. Her features were covered by a grey hoodie and her head was hung down, so her features weren't exactly the one thing in focus about her. The teen never saw her coming until a second before she bumped into him. He stumbled back and glanced at her to apologize, but the girl was already moving ahead on a quickened pace with only a small mutter of apology provided. The teen raised an eyebrow and was about to continue on his merry way, but suspicion hit him before he could get too far, and he decided to check, lightly patting the side pocket of his trousers in search of...
...his wallet wasn't there.
He immediately turned around with a small curse under his breath. The girl was already running, and before he realized it, so was he. Desperately so, as a matter of fact. Even with his backpack weighing him slightly, he was obviously the faster one, but the girl was agile. She dribbled through pedestrians surprisingly swiftly, and her focus seemed always to be fixed on what was ahead of her rather than what she'd left behind. Only quick and momentary glances to see if she was still being chased interrupted her nonstop dash. Cries of 'thief' and 'stop' didn't seem to slow her in the slightest, as the teen would soon find out, and neither did it convince anyone to help him out in his endeavor.
Still, despite all that, he could have caught her if it weren't for a simple factor he wasn't expecting to twart him twice that day: a simple pedestrian light located in between two random streets in downtown Konoha. The girl tossed something off to the side and moved her hands inside her hoodie as she crossed the pedestrian line, only for the pedestrian lights to turn red two seconds later. He did try to catch up to the girl, but a series of cars blocked his way before he could do so, prompting another curse from him as he watched the girl, safe on the other side of the street, glance quickly at him for one last time before running off and out of his sight. The one thing he was able to catch about her other than her clothing was a single red eye glancing at his way before she ran off.
Great, was the immediate thought as he stared rather bitterly at the other side of the road, as if this day could get any worse. Normally, such a phrase would be an invite for karma to ban him, but this day was not quite as bad as he imagined it would be. She had tossed something off to the side before crossing the road, after all. A small, hesitant and hopeful glance to the side led to surprise as the teen found his wallet down on the ground, having been tossed aside by his burglar just before she could get out of his reach.
Still hesitant, he slowly approached and knelt down to reclaim his lost item before opening the wallet to find a confirmation for his better suspicions: all his money was gone. Not that he had that much money in his wallet anyway. Only around four hundred Ryo total. Still a loss, but nothing devastating. What was important though was still there. Credit cards, documents...and even the picture.
That's right, the picture. The teen reached out and fished off his wallet an old looking picture, that being a picture of a young boy, obviously himself, accompanied by two adults who were very obviously his parents. The woman after all had the same blue eyes as the boy, as well as the same blonde hair. The man, on the other hand, had brown hair and green eyes, but the square trimmed glasses he wore were almost identical to the boy's, and facial features such as his smaller nose, sharp chin and narrow eyes all fit in the boy's face. They all looked very happy, as if celebrating some special occasion. The teen turned around the photo and, on its back, was written a simple phrase in cursive handwriting, obviously a woman's if the care put into it was to be judged.
Koryu's eleventh birthday.
The teen, Koryu, let out a small smile at reading the sentence his mother had left behind on the back of the photo just a year before both her and his father were taken from him. He quickly shook it off however with a shake of his head. It was never good to dwell in the past, after all.
"Well..." Koryu murmured under his breath while returning the picture to the wallet as he got back on his feet and, soon thereafter, returning the wallet to his pocket, "At least I still have this..."
And so, he set off, making his way back to his apartment, this time more attentive to his surroundings. Thus we have Koryu, an eighteen year old student and a key player in the story soon to unravel. In the end however, he's still only one of the two sides in the metaphorical coin we have before us.
As Koryu walked, he would only pay minor attention to a teen of similar age to his that walked past him before returning his attention to what was ahead of him. The teen in question was a bit taller than Koryu himself, with light skin and black messy hair reaching his neck length alongside light brown eyes and fairly handsome facial features. What did call up the blonde's very momentary attention however was the boy's attire. It was in principle the same as his own, with the black trousers and the suit shoes. He however looked a lot more casual with the way he dressed other than that. wearing a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up past his elbows and a dark blue necktie loosely tied up and hanging around his throat. He also carried a backpack, colored dark brown, slung over his right shoulder rather lazily instead of being carried around properly.
Barely had the boy walked past Koryu did he stop as he noticed the momentary stop in traffic before him. Even if the pedestrian light was red, there was still a chance for him to cross. He glanced at both sides and ran off through the pedestrian lane. A car drove at high speed just a few feet behind him just as he was reaching the other side, earning him a honk and a few curse words from the driver. He huffed at this while glaring at the car's direction before continuing making his way forward. A small tag on the hanging handle of his beaten looking backpack had the 'Akira' name cursively handwritten on it, giving our new character of focus a name to be addressed by.
He still had twenty minutes before the start of his classes, so he could at least take a leisurely pace when making his way towards the campus. This boy, contrary to Koryu, had decided to study not at morning, but after lunch, mainly because his lazy ass refused to be productive before midday. Soon enough, he'd reach the campus. Now, the Konohagakure Public University campus was a large old white building that attempted to replicate modern design, but didn't exactly succeed. It had a large concrete courtyard that most students would hang out on while waiting for their classes, which took part inside of the building, obviously. It had been there for as long as any of the students there could remember, and it had gone through multiple restorations throughout the years. At the moment, it was receiving an expansion on the form of another newer building connecting to it built on the eastern section of the campus, coincidentally where Akira was walking past as he made his way back to his classes.
As he went, some people who he somewhat knew greeted him, to which Akira only replied by nodding politely, but not much beyond that. Despite not seeming like that much of a sociable fellow, most people seemed to respect him enough. The exception came when someone walked past him. Someone who Akira didn't quite recognize. It was obviously a guy, fair skin, about five foot six, but his green hoodie, a scarf covering the lower half of his face and sunglasses prevented Akira from getting more from what seemed like a by, a bit younger than him, other than that plus the large black backpack he happened to be carrying. Not to mention his lowered head. Akira didn't waste much time on the figure regardless of how shady he looked though, and he quickly moved on. Whatever was up with that kid, it wasn't his problem...
That though, was not entirely true, for the hooded boy would take only a couple more steps before he set his bag down and kneeled in front of it zipping it open to reveal the metal apparel hidden in his bag. A shotgun, just barely small enough to fit inside his backpack. Without anyone even giving it notice, he opened the barrel of his weapon and, fishing from his pocket a pair of shotgun shells, slowly inserted them in, his hands twitching as he did so. He was nervous, obviously, but he'd prepared himself for this... So he couldn't back off now.
Firmly gripping the weapon's butt and closing it, the boy rose to his feet and cocked his gun, for the first time gaining the attention of the people around him. It started with a scream of 'he has a gun!', but chaos was quick to spread as people were shouting left and right. He took aim for a moment before firing at a girl, still running away from him. Not having the best aim, the shooter was only able to graze her on the side, but a friend quickly helped her back up as they continued moving in an attempt to get away from him as quickly as possible. The shooter himself, on the other hand, stumbled back a step at the gun's knockback, obviously not used to handling a weapon. He knew, however, that there was still a bullet left on the shotgun, and he quickly switched aim for his next target.
The closest person, just standing there in shock, was Akira, located just behind the boy by a bit over thirty feet superannuating. Realizing the shooter had just switched his attention to him, he quickly moved to the side and leapt behind the closest wall, a shot missing him by only two feet or so as it was fired the moment he leapt. The shooter frowned, not bothering to pursue Akira as, in a rushed pace, he walked off after the other fleeing students.
Akira, meanwhile, had his heart racing on his chest as he ducked behind the incomplete wall of the still under construction sector of the university. It took another shot sounding off in the distance before he realized that the guy was not aiming for him anymore, allowing him to let out the air he didn't know he'd been holding inside of him. Damn it! How had that happened?! A school shooting?! He never expected that to go down when he set off to school not half an hour earlier...well, at least it seemed like he was safe...but...was it right? For him to sigh in relief while other people were getting hurt and possibly even dying? Well...maybe so, but...
No. What was he even thinking? Of course it wasn't.
Narrowing his eyes, Akira looked around and quickly had his eyes fixed on something of use. Not five feet from him was a steel bar, just...laying around. It was part of the construction site, and while Akira had absolutely no idea what it could possibly be used for, he was quick to approach and take it, gripping onto the bar tightly and balancing out its weight with his hand. It was made of reinforcing steel, only 30 inches long...maybe a bit longer. A bit too heavy, but it would do. Hesitation hit him again as he realized just how stupid what he was trying to do really was and just how wrong it could end up going for him, but the feeling was quickly shaken off by another gunshot reaching his ears. So, getting up, he rushed off.
From when Akira had last seen the shooter, he'd moved quite a bit, but was still making his way through the patio at a somewhat leisurely pace while trying to pick up people who hadn't downright abandoned the place yet, choosing instead to just hide and hope for the best. Luckily, the guy had his back turned on him, reloading his shotgun, so Akira was able so sprint for quite a bit, closing the distance almost entirely but being, at the last few yards, forced to hide behind a rock bench as the shooter finished reloading and turned around with his weapon ready, looking for more targets with his shotgun still at hand. Luck was not on his side though, because Akira, despite being so close to him, slipped by unnoticed in his hiding spot, and he quickly turned around, in search for other possible targets. Deeply inhaling, Akira slid the backpack he was carrying down his arm and to his free hand as his grip on the steel bar tightened. He breathed out slowly, calming himself as much as he could before he moved.
Akira leapt over the stone bench and ran straight for the shooter immediately afterwards then, slightly loosening the grip on his backpack's handle then, "HEY!" He called out with a scream, the shooter being caught off guard by that and turned around to face him. Akira would hear him groaning in annoyance underneath the scarf covering the lower half of his face then before raising his shotgun to take aim at him. Instead though, Akira caught him off guard for a second time, tossing his backpack straight at him. Surprised enough, the shooter moved to the side as to instinctively dodge it, but the brief time he needed to do so allowed Akira to close distance, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" He cried out then, swinging the steel bar at the shooter. It connected soundly with the side of his head, leading to him falling to the ground while immediately letting go of the shotgun, which slid right out of his reach on the concrete floor alongside his now broken sunglasses that had been hit right off his face with the blow. Yet, he somehow managed to hold into consciousness.
Without even thinking, the shooter reached out for something inside his hoodie's pocket then, struggling to get back up as he pointed a handgun at Akira, who in turn responded with a kick at the weapon. While the shooter's grip on his gun was tighter this time around, it was still forced off aim alongside with his arms by Akira's hit, and he ended up missing his shot entirely. Before the shooter could do anything else, he felt the steel bar being thrusted at his chest, pushing him down on the ground and knocking the air right off him. And before the boy could even register what had happened though, Akira had tossed the steel bar aside and was atop his chest to prevent him from getting back up, one hand holding onto the arm where his hand still gripped onto his handgun while the other one rose again and again, only to be brought down every time with a punch at the shooter's face every time. He was being mercilessly beaten up by this stranger, and even with his free arm trying to defend against the punches, there wasn't much he could do. Finally, after almost a full minute of just being punched over and over, he was forced to release his grip on the handgun, which was when Akira slapped it off his hand, sending it sliding it off his reach in similar fashion to the Shotgun. Finally, he finished out by grabbing onto both the boy's arms and pinning him down on the ground, stopping him from making any significant movement as he lightly panted, glaring with dark brown eyes at what moments ago had seemed like an unstoppable killer, but now was just recoiling with clear fear in his tear-filled bright green eyes at Akira's merciless nature.
"You two, freeze!" A gruff voice announced behind them, with Akira pausing as he guessed this was exactly what he'd been waiting for. Slowly rising with his hands behind his head, he glanced at the man. Sure enough, it was Konoha's Shinobi force. For a moment of explanation, the Shinobi Force was the specialized mixture of police force and military present in the Elemental Nation's five main countries' capitals. The name and concept were entirely based on the old mythology of chakra present in the Elemental Nations. It was the same reason each of the political leaders of Wind, Water, Earth, Lightning and Fire were known as Kage, or even the reason behind the name of these capitals. It was a big part of their society despite being just old stories passed down for as long as anyone could remember.
Anyhow, the two Shinobi, both the guy pointing a gun at him and his closely following friend, were from what Akira was quickly able to tell, Genin. They did after all have the bronze colored badge strapped to their forearm accompanying their black uniform, but he didn't expect anything higher than a Genin to appear there anyway. He silently watched as one of them properly subdued and handcuffed the shooter before dragging him off. As soon as he was out of sight, the guy behind him, a brown haired man in his mid to late thirties, spoke, "Now then, what were you doing there?"
Akira couldn't help but frown at the question. Wasn't it obvious? They'd arrived with him beating that guy up to a pulp, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what he was doing. So, he responded adequately, "The right thing, if you ask me..."
The only change Akira could notice in the Shinobi's face from that statement was a brief narrowing of his eyes, as if he'd come to a conclusion regarding the type of person he was dealing with, "The right thing, as you so blatantly put it, could've gotten you killed. You should've waited for us to get here."
"And let that maniac kill more people?" Akira snarked humorlessly, "I'd rather just be arrested here and now."
Despite his obvious disrespect, the Shinobi couldn't help but smirk, "...ah, who am I kidding? I'm not going to arrest you kid, don't worry about it. As a Shinobi, I know I should reprimand you for this, tell you that the best would have been to wait...but honestly? As a man, I think that was one of the bravest things I have ever seen. Thanks to you, there were only a couple people injured and no deaths."
Akira was surprised to see the sudden change of tone, even when his unchanging expression allowed him to maintain his composure, "Thank you...sir."
The man smiled, "Please, call me Hisao." He said, extending a greeting hand to the young man, who stared at it for a silently, awkward moment before reaching out and hesitantly shaking it.
"Akira Yotami." At that, the man raised an eyebrow.
"Yotami, huh?" Hisao inquired, "Hm...where did I hear that name before...?"
"Somewhere else, probably." Akira replied with a mental sigh, not wanting to explain the whole deal with his family's business and where the man knew that name from, "Anyway..." He crossed his arms, turning his head left towards where he knew from sound how the whole commotion was happening. People were gathering, sirens were blaring, "What will happen to that guy?"
The man's smile disappeared then, replaced by a small frown as he let out a sigh, "Well...right now its too early to know, but if my suspicions are right...he'll Probably just end up being released on charge of some mental health issue or another and put under the care of a psychiatrist or something of the sort."
Akira narrowed his eyes slightly, "That...doesn't seem like proper punishment. He could've killed someone back there."
"But he didn't," Hisao said, "And you wouldn't believe how big a difference that makes in the eyes of the law. They'd rather put their trust on someone to fix the kid and risk having him try this whole shooting thing again rather than arresting him. I understand the his mental condition, but that shouldn't place him above the law."
Hearing that, Akira's expressions contorted into a grimace. He agreed with the Genin on that part, how was it fair that because of something wrong going on in his head, some random boy was placed above the law itself? He silently groaned at the thought. He could practically hear his older brother saying how childish his thinking was and how he was diminishing a poor kid's mental condition like it was nothing more than a quirk of his part. But his brother was not like him, he had too much faith in the system they were a part of. He thought Konoha, despite obviously being the most violent capital on the Elemental Nations, still had hope. The law would prevail and punish those who went against it, and justice would be served, they'd be sent to prison, rehabilitated and sent back out to act as active members of society...
Akira still had no idea how someone who just so happened to be left an orphan due to one of those "active members of society" not hesitating to pull a trigger could believe in such idealistic bullshit like his brother did.
"...right." The young man said, sounding a lot more dismissive than he intended to be. Its not like he wanted to put down the man though, but the line of thought he'd been put in by Hisao's statement had left a bitter taste on his mouth. This was all just too stressful for him, and right now? Since he was pretty sure he was not going to have any classes today, he just wanted to go back home and rest away this whole thing, "Look, if possible, I'd really like to go back home now. This was...stressful, to say the least, and I feel like I just need to rest it out."
Hisao opened his mouth to say something, probably tell Akira how he needed to stay there for one official reason or another, but he paused, looking around to see if there was any other member of the Shinobi force around. After finding nothing, he discreetly nodded, "I...understand. You can go."
Akira nodded in thanks and began walking off, but before he could get too far, Hisao paused again, another thought going through his head before he called out, "Hey ki-...Akira!" Pausing, the teen turned to face him, "How old are you?"
He raised an eyebrow at the question, but responded still, "Eighteen," Eighteen and nine months actually, he silently corrected himself, but its not like that made any difference.
"...huh. You're right on the age to join the Shinobi force..." Hisao pointed out, and yeah, true enough, you needed to be eighteen or more to join the Shinobi force. But it only took one glance away from the Genin's eyes and at the gun on the his belt for Akira to reassure the decision he'd made long ago.
"I'll think about it." He said, making it obvious by his tone that no, he wasn't. Hisao showed some disappointment at his tone, but didn't try to stop him this time as Akira walked off once again, burying his hands on his pockets as he moved away from the university and looked up at the grey sky, only to be met with a droplet of rain on his cheek. Akira let out a frustrated sigh as he continued walking as rain began falling around him.
........
Somewhere else on the outskirts of Konohagakure a man was staring out of his small temple-like home's window at the rain falling on his considerably sized garden. This man, standing around six feet tall, had spiked dark red hair falling down to his shoulder blades and a lean built barely shown under the black and red kimono he was wearing, "Yukine" He said a moment before the door behind him opened, not even turning to look as a dark haired girl in her mid teens with green eyes wearing casual clothing stepped into the room. By casual clothing, I mean jeans, a closed dark blue jacket and sandals. Before she could speak however, she blinked, realizing the man had beat her to it.
"Yes...?"
"...you took too long." The man groaned grumpily, exposing his animalistic teeth while glancing at her with his crimson slitted pupils, causing the girl, Yukine, to roll her eyes, "I'm starving here, you know...?"
"Oh, please...we both know you don't really need to eat." She pouted, crossing her arms, "Besides, I told you already, its my exams week! I'll be late to my duties now and there."
"Whatever. Just get the dinner ready." He groaned, turning his head back to stare out of the window and at the rain outside.
"But we don't have any-"
"Well, order a pizza, then." The man said, interrupting her.
Yukine once again opened her mouth to say something, but paused, closing it shut and frowning before offering a bow and leaving the room, but not before adding, "As you will...Kurama-sama..."
Author's Notes:
Here we go, time to experiment with my writting and see where it takes me.
Well, this is my attempt at a story,a modern take on a Naruto, thousands of years after the end of a series, with chakra no longer being used, now regarded as part of the Elemental Nations' mythology, something people don't use anymore. How that happened and why the Bijuu, exemplified by Kurama in this chapter, have taken human forms and are blending in with the humans will be explored in later chapters. For now I'm just introducing main players and setting up the world this will all happen in...that is, if the idea is interesting enough to be thought worthy of being explored further. So far, it was well received in theory, but lets see what people think of it when its put to paper.
By the way, 400 ryo = 40 US dollars.
Anywhom, anyone who reads through this, please leave a comment. As an aspiring writer criticism is always welcome.
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