A quick prelude, an author's note to tell you what you are about to read. This is not a Naruto...
Born in Darkness [World of Darkness x Naruto]
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A quick prelude, an author's note to tell you what you are about to read. This is not a Naruto story with ninja villages and magical chakra wizards. This is effectively speaking a story I am writing because I wanted to try something different. The characters may be familiar Naruto stuff. The genre is still generally shonen (with major aesthetic differences to Naruto's canon) but the setting is the World of Darkness.
Also Fem!Sasuke, because I write what I want. I can't control this wild muse!
TL;DR: Don't like don't read. I'll take criticism on every facet of the story except for it's concept, which I'm already aware is polarizing.
--
Born in Darkness
--
I saw his lips moving, but I couldn't hear any words. The whole world had turned silent and a rippling numbness reached all of my limbs, making it difficult to believe anything was real. My vision began to blur along the edges and for a moment I thought I might have been waking up… but then I felt them. I felt water droplets land on my face, I felt them roll across my cheeks and I could do nothing but focus on that feeling from the moment they reached me to the moment they got lost in my hair or ran off my neck.
Tears, coming from his eyes. His mouth did not merely try to form words, but deformed into desperate shouts.
I tried to reach up to him, the left hand I lifted off of my chest was stained red and blood dripped from my fingers. Suddenly his tears meant a lot more, his desperation as his hands carefully grabbed hold of my shoulders, his silent shouts that I couldn't hear but the meaning became evident.
'Don't die,' he was screaming. 'Please don't die.'
I brushed my bloodied hand against his cheek, even as I choked on my own blood. Even as my shaky hand missed and briefly brushed against his long, red mess of hair that framed his face like a wild lion's mane. Even as my arm lost all feeling I pushed on until my fingers touched him, because I had to leave him with something.
I had to repay the immeasurable kindness of crying for me, for valuing my life I had to remind him that what I felt for him was love. I had to leave him without a shred of doubt, to remind him that I wasn't manipulating him, that I had no ulterior motives, that for once in both our lives it wasn't some big lie. That amidst everything else in the world, the bond we shared was the only thing truly real.
It was my last chance to do something for him, my last chance to say something to him.
"Kurama…"
--
I opened my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom, disrupted only by the thin strips of sunlight light leaking through my blinds. My left hand was outstretched and I slowly pulled it back towards my center and gently massaged the muscles over my heart through the thin cotton of my tank top. Short, vivid, but it was just another dream. Almost unfairly it was a still a dream compared to the nightmares I normally endured, both in sleep and reality.
With the exception of a few like it, it was the only dream, admittedly a recurring one, I had in the last nine years.
"Kurama…" Just whispering his name again sent a chill down my spine. It was the punctuation of that and others, always that name came up, always from my mouth, no matter how short the dream. Whatever back corner of my mind created him did a very good job of elevating my heart rate and making me feel sorry for a fictional redhead.
In the end it didn't matter, pleasant or painful a dream was just a dream. There was no point in dwelling on the fantasy of dying in the arms of a pretty man, especially when that wasn't even a fantasy I wanted to come to pass anyway. Unless it was… well… I suppose my subconscious was saying horrible things about me again.
Fuck you too psyche. I am not getting therapy. I don't care if you keep giving me romantic suicide fantasies.
I forced myself to move on, breaking the train of thought by rolling out of bed, only to find I did so at an odd angle and went crashing to the floor in a heap along with the blanket that had gotten a little too tangled in my legs. If any of my classmates saw me like that they would probably laugh. Dignified Satsuki, elegant Satsuki, perfect Satsuki. Reduced to a pitiful state of sleepy stumbling and demonic bed-head.
Already a mess and in the privacy of my own room, I allowed myself to yawn, and pushed myself to standing upright. I decided to take a few moments to stretch and straighten out my hair and tank top before venturing outside my room. I may not have particularly cared about other people's opinions of me, but I would be damned if I didn't at least look perfect. Especially when it wasn't that hard to do so.
I opened the door to my room, but just before I stepped out of the door I heard the talking. "Look I'm just saying, your DPS build would be better if you didn't splash into all the talents that let you troll people." My so called guardian's voice was unmistakable.
Uchiha Obito. He was technically family. Technically the only family I had left, in that unique way only the son of the second son of my great grandfather's third daughter could be. I believe the technical term was as simple as Second Cousin, but he urged me to keep it simple and call him Uncle.
I did neither.
"Mmhm…" The deep hum of acknowledgement was not my so called guardian.
All of a sudden it felt a little drafty out there, perhaps pants were in order. It wasn't like I'd be embarrassed necessarily, I didn't have anything to be ashamed of. In fact quite the opposite, I felt I had a lot going for me in terms of looks. There was just a tipping point between being confident and being an exhibitionist, a line I divided clearly in my mind and walking around in front of a stranger wearing only my underwear was firmly on the wrong side of it.
"You don't actually care, do you?" Obito snarled. "You're the worst kind of MMO player."
I sifted through my dresser drawer for pants that I didn't wear as everyday clothes, old, unfashionable, or designed to be pajamas. Things that would make me decent but didn't require me to get properly dressed. A pair of loose shorts that were too boyish for taste would suit fine.
Pants sorted, I finally left my room and rounded the corner to the apartment's tiny dining, kitchen, and living area. I saw Obito standing in the kitchen preparing a pot of coffee while chatting with who I could only assume was his friend.
"In my defense it is hilarious." The man argued. He sat in a slouch at the table, a light novel held open in one hand as he read through it while having his conversation. He had unusually grayed hair for a man his age, though his exact age was difficult to figure under the medical mask he wore over half his face.
"You probably spawncamp and slaughter level ones with your level eighty, don't you?" Obito huffed. He turned my way and smiled, which he almost always made look a bit more vicious than he intended. Understandable considering he was missing his right eye and it was scarred over in a particularly menacing manner. Lost it in some kind of... mall cop accident. He didn't like to talk about it, and knowing him, it was probably super embarrassing. "Well now, you're up early."
"Not by choice." I groused. "Black please."
Obito pursed his lip. "Coffee's bad for you, you know. It's super addictive."
"Just give me the damn drink." I huffed and took my seat at the table before folding my arms over the table and planting face firmly between them.
"Hmmm." Obito's friend was probably staring at me. I really did not care. "No cream or sugar?"
What a pointless question. "I dislike sweets."
He seemed genuinely taken aback, and I turned my head to peek at his expression over my arm and saw his eyes narrowed at me in a manner that was somewhere between accusatory and actual unnerving enmity. "Obito, I don't want to scare you, but I think your cousin has been replaced by a goblin imposter."
I snorted in spite of my better judgement.
"Not cute at all." He shook his head. "I have never heard of a high school girl who doesn't like sweets. Why… isn't it a staple of high school girls to enjoy strawberry parfaits?"
Obito gestured wildly at him with the coffee pot. "I know right! It's surreal as shit!"
"I'm not an anime character." I rolled my eyes. "Sometimes, girls don't like sweets."
"Chocolate?" The gray haired man stared at me, a pleading look in his eyes.
"Dark chocolate is alright." I begrudgingly admitted, even though it was a long way from my favorites.
He sighed in relief. "Better than nothing. At least we can confirm she is still human."
"Are you two even adults?" I threw up my hands in surrender just as Obito slid me a mug of caffeine.
"Oh right!" Obito finally took his seat across from me and next to his friend. "I've told you about Kakashi, right?" Then gestured to his right. "Here he is in the flesh."
I couldn't help but twist the corner of my mouth into a smirk. "Who is this Kakashi you speak of? I have heard of a Bakakashi, but I alway expected him to be much cooler than this if he was the kind of person that gets you that riled, Obito."
"Mah, she's got you pegged." Kakashi's eyes reflected his mirth.
"Shut up! She just called you a loser just now and disguised it by insulting me!" Obito glared my way, a blatant reinforcement of 'I know what you just did.'
"She just hasn't managed to spot my charm points yet." Kakashi insisted.
"The fact that you even know what a charm point is has lost you a few." I declared flatly before taking a sip of my drink. My eyes wandered to his book, and then to the AO label on the back cover. "The fact that you're reading porn in front of a high school girl has doubled that loss."
"Kakashi reads porn everywhere." Obito snarled.
"I keep telling you, it's a tantric exercise that helps me align my chakras." Kakashi just waved dismissively while his gaze returned to the pages.
"And I keep telling you that you make that shit up just to fuck with me! You're not even using the word tantric right!" Obito called him out, and was actually correct. Tantric was sanskirt for 'woven together' and was a sexual metaphor for transcendental union between body and spirit. Reading porn, while stimulating, was not an application of the concept.
"Sorry, did you say something? I couldn't hear you over how aligned my chakras are right now." Kakashi just turned the page.
Okay, Kakashi got some points back for that dry wit. Not many, but some.
Obito just grumbled something about having his chakras aligned should have increased his level of awareness. Paraphrasing of course, not every word was intelligible, and almost every other word was an utterance of 'bullshit'.
"You said I got up early." I considered. "How early exactly?"
Obito broke from his tirade and nodded. "Ah, only about a half hour or so. Still odd for you though. You sleep like the dead."
And woe be to anyone who wakes the dead.
"Ah." I acknowledged and drank down the last of my coffee while standing up. "I should probably start getting ready for school then."
"Ho?" Kakashi looked up from his book. "Your school have a cute uniform?"
I rolled my eyes and ignored him. He'd find out for himself soon enough anyway.
--
A quick shower was all I really needed, and once my hair was dry I just sort of let it do what it wanted, which naturally was to just fall perfectly into place about my head. It wasn't like it was perfectly straight, in fact it fell about irregularly. It wasn't particularly long either as it stopped about a full inch from my shoulders. It wasn't that it had any one particular quality that made it perfect.
The irregularity of it was just patterned enough to seem deliberate and in some ways it was, as I did dry it carefully so as not to ruin it, but it took me at best five minutes. The length was manageable without being boyish. I liked my hair, a myriad of imperfections that created a sum total of perfect, a very 'me' look. Feminine, a dash of rebellious punk that was amplified by how little effort it took to get the look to work.
I used to take better care of it during middle school. Used to wear it long, and straighten it every day. Then...
Maybe nobody agreed with me. Maybe my classmates thought I looked a little lazy, though they were probably just jealous they had to work twice as hard to get their hair half as good. Maybe the boys thought I was some kind of untouchable delinquent, or maybe it made me look too real and it intimidated them.
It certainly didn't look very moe.
I nearly punched the mirror. Dammit Obito… I would not know a single thing about moe if you weren't such a goddamn otaku.
Anyway. Accessories and makeup was against dress code, not that I would wear anything like that anyway. Well… accessories were fine. I owned my fair share of silver bracelets and a few necklaces. There was one I wore under my school uniform anyway actually, a charm necklace with a my family's old clan crest cut from silver and painted in it's colors.
A little red and white uchiwa fan.
There was not much I had left of my family, little pieces of their legacy. The crest, Obito, and a few business partners and retainers that still called me Ojo-sama in spite of everything.
That and a metric fuck ton of inheritance and insurance money that I didn't give a shit about.
The fact that I didn't want anything to do with it was probably the only reason Obito gave me unrestricted access to it. Useless as it was, I had it, and it was my family's.
Even if it would never help catch their killer.
I clenched my teeth and actually punched the mirror, cracking the glass and cutting my knuckles. "Fuck!" I tried so fucking hard! So hard not to think about it! Worthless! How could I not think about it?!
Everyone died! Everyone I knew, everyone I cared about! Itachi killed everyone and left me alone with some fucker of a cousin I'd never met and…
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned on the sink to start washing the blood off my hand.
Hopefully it wouldn't scar. My hands were nice, I took care not to let them callous even when practicing martial arts. Went as far as to splash Taekwondo for more kicks so I wouldn't have to use them as much.
--
Chapter 1: Powerless
--
The cuts were small, and I covered them with normal unobtrusive bandaids. Neither Obito or Kakashi said anything on the matter. Kakashi did, however, look up from his book at my student uniform. It wasn't anything special, just a black skirt and jacket over a white blouse tied with a red ribbon around the collar.
Nevertheless, Kakashi's response was swift and merciless.
He pulled out his phone quickly and silently, I hastily rose my right hand to cover my face just as the flash struck.
"Nice pose Satsuki-chan." Kakashi praised in a very professional manner and fiddled with his phone further before showing me the picture while his eyes closed in mirth. My attempt to cover my face was a failure, instead my fingers were splayed out to frame my right eye in what could only be considered a pop-idol pose.
Obito took cover in the kitchen muttering. "Oh shit." An appropriate instinct.
"You did not." I hissed.
"It's quite the cute uniform. It suits you. Very professional looking." Then his finger tapped the button that turned it into his wallpaper.
"I am going to murder you. They will never find the body." I knew a guy for that sort of thing after all. Not that I ever actually expected or planned to use it. I just knew the kind of business my father ran before…
"Mah, well, good luck with that." Kakashi stared at the phone for another few moments, his eyes just reflected absolute joy and it only made me angrier.
I lunged for the phone, but he held up up way over my head and even my outstretched arms. When I tried to step on his toes to trip him up he slid his foot out of the way and hooked it around my ankle, with but a soft tug he disguised as a backstep I was sent tumbling over. "Woops! Watch your balance Satsuki-chan! Wouldn't want you to get hurt."
He was good. Really really good.
I clenched my teeth, stood up, and brushed myself off before just stomping past him and out the front door. "Go die."
"So mean. Obito~, your cousin is so mean!" I closed the door behind me and put his antics well out of mind.
--
There were a number of things I just plainly did not deal with. Lost strangers was usually one of them. So when I walked past some bleach-blond delinquent standing around in the middle of the sidewalk holding his map upside down like it'd somehow help him get his bearings I tried so hard to ignore him and move on.
So hard.
So futile.
"Hey! Hey miss! I'm a little lost! Can you give me a hand?!" I pretended to not hear him, pretend I thought he was talking to somebody else. However it was useless, aside from the two of us, the street was eerily empty. "Hey! Don't ignore me just because you're out of my league! I don't care how cute you are! I have rights, ya know!"
I turned and acknowledged him with a glare that channeled all of my morning's frustrations.
He seemed to clam up a bit, before averting his gaze and continuing. "Uh… so… don't like being called cute, huh? T-that's fine. S'cool. You're not really cute anyway, kind of look more like a bitch." It was a sight to behold, watching an idiot almost literally put his own foot in his mouth. "I… I mean a hot bitch. Bitchy hotness." He finally bowed to me and clapped his hands together in prayer. "I'm rambling because I'm intimidated. Please don't kill me."
I couldn't help but sigh. "Idiot, just give me the damn map."
He brightened up immediately and held out the paper. "Really?! Thank you thank you thank you! You're a real lifesaver, ya know!"
"Whatever." I snatched the map away from him while rolling my eyes and skimmed over the area to pinpoint where we were standing. Off in the bottom right corner I noticed a photograph paperclipped on. It looked like a middle aged guy with long white hair dressed in a cheap loose fitting business suit, the jacket was slung over his shoulded and held in place by two fingers, while the shirt was only tucked in halfway.
"Who's this anyway?" He looked like a sleeze, the kind of man a red lights district would cough up. Especially with that goofy smile.
"Hm? Ah! That's my gramps. Sorta anyway. No direct blood relation, but he raised my dad and now he's my godfather, ya know? I'm sorta looking for him." The blond scratched his head awkwardly.
"Family's family, eh?" I muttered and reached into my school bag. "Well… you're around here, so where are you heading? I can draw you a route."
"Really?! That's awesome!" He smiled brightly and slid around to look over my shoulder. "I'm looking for hot springs and public baths. My gramps likes those kinds of places."
I turned up my nose a bit. "Right… why didn't he just give you an address?"
"Well… it's a bit embarrassing to admit he's kind of a shameless vagrant pervert. He'd also probably like beaches and water parks, but I don't think there's any around here, ya know?" Well that certainly made a lot more sense.
There indeed was not. "Right… well, here's a few." I began circling the ones I knew about as well as the ones clearly labeled. Could this idiot even read? I looked over my shoulder and saw him observing with his hands clasped together and a wide sheepish grin on his face. It was almost comically jovial, but equally nervous. Almost over-eager. It made me hesitate, like by marking the map any further I'd be signing my soul away to some kind of wicked spirit.
I drew the route anyway and handed him back the map, it wasn't like such things were real anyway, or that drawing a map would do that even if they were. "Here. Hope you find him."
"Thank you so much!" He grabbed the map back and spun in place happily. "I appreciate it! The name's Uzumaki Naruto by the way, and I never forget my debts, ya know! I'll treat you to ramen sometime!"
I snorted. "Don't bother." It's not like we'd ever see each other again anyway.
Even if he was kind of adorably stupid.
--
Classes are a bore as usual, and lunch was no different. I tended to each lunch on the roof, and more or less everybody left me alone. Other girls avoided it because the wind messed up their hair, and the boys knew better than to try to make me go elsewhere, especially since they couldn't afford to do it by force.
Needless to say I did tend to get a little annoyed when somebody interrupted me in those precious moments where I was well and truly alone in more than just the metaphorical sense.
Nara Shikamaru, however, might as well have been a utilities box for all the intrusiveness he represented on the roof. Half the time he was asleep, the other half he just silently watched the cloud.
That day, however, he sat down next to me, pulled out and lit a cigarette, and sighed heavily.
That was neither normal, nor a good sign.
Shikamaru was more than just somebody I shared the roof with. His father was my personal accountant, and had worked as such for my father before… everything. He was trustworthy, loyal, and simple. He wouldn't steal from me or sell me out so long as I continued to pay him enough to live comfortably, and he continued to make sound investments with my money that earned way more than that.
From my perspective, he was doing it for free.
It was Shikaku's time under my father though that made him almost like family.
Almost.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Well that depends on how you look at it." Shikamaru exhaled a long huff of smoke. "It's certainly troublesome for a certain someone that's paying for my tuition however indirectly."
I scowled. "Do tell…"
"Where to start?" Shikamaru hummed. "Well… your father's old company's been slowly losing more and more employees." Cute metaphor. I'd roll with it. "You already knew that, but turns out they've been mostly getting picked up by a group called the Yamata-gumi. They're getting big… bigger than any small group would reasonably be allowed to get."
"But?" And there was a but.
"Well… your father's loyalists are holding the territory between the Yamata and the Sakin-gumi. Sounds like Rasa's had about enough of that though. My dad says he's already got men scouting out the area and looking to gobble up or push out the last of the Uchiha-kai." Shikamaru sighed. "As I said, troublesome. Mostly for you. My dad doesn't want to lose any fingers over this, so… if things get bad he's going to pack up and leave."
I nodded slowly. "I'm… not going to blame him."
"Listen… I don't intend to get involved in this sort of thing." Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "I plan on going to university, getting a normal degree, get some desk job with a big company, marry some average looking girl, and live out the rest of my days pushing pencils peacefully. That's my plan… but… I doubt I'd be able to live with myself if you got married off to some Yakuza fuckhead just so they could get at your family's money. Consider me your hostage… my dad works better when backed in a corner anyway."
I began sliding down the concrete housing for the stairway until I was laying on my side. "It doesn't matter. No sense in your family getting dragged down with me."
"I don't really know what you want to do with your life." Shikamaru flicked his cigarette and snuffed it with his shoe without standing up. "At this point you only have a few options. You live comfortably below your means, so you could probably donate the money to some kind of company or cause you believe in. You could pay off the Sakin-gumi to leave you alone. Or… you could do what the Uchiha-kai's been wanting you to do for years."
And take up my father's business… become a Yakuza boss. Like that would actually make a difference. I had all the money in the world and it just made me a trophy and a treasure trove. Whoever said money equals power was full of shit.
"Without a leader they'll just keep falling apart. I'd never ask anybody to take that kind of life. It's so troublesome it's not even a question." Shikamaru stood up. "But the way I see it… you need to start thinking about your future, before someone takes it from you."
I clenched my teeth.
Takes it from me…
That was just the way of the world, wasn't it? Everything would be taken from me. My family, my future, my freedom…
"It sucks." I managed to choke out.
Why was I so powerless?
--
AN: Being a mortal sucks.
Decided to go the entire first chapter with the masquerade firmly in place.
Also Fem!Sasuke, because I write what I want. I can't control this wild muse!
TL;DR: Don't like don't read. I'll take criticism on every facet of the story except for it's concept, which I'm already aware is polarizing.
--
Born in Darkness
--
I saw his lips moving, but I couldn't hear any words. The whole world had turned silent and a rippling numbness reached all of my limbs, making it difficult to believe anything was real. My vision began to blur along the edges and for a moment I thought I might have been waking up… but then I felt them. I felt water droplets land on my face, I felt them roll across my cheeks and I could do nothing but focus on that feeling from the moment they reached me to the moment they got lost in my hair or ran off my neck.
Tears, coming from his eyes. His mouth did not merely try to form words, but deformed into desperate shouts.
I tried to reach up to him, the left hand I lifted off of my chest was stained red and blood dripped from my fingers. Suddenly his tears meant a lot more, his desperation as his hands carefully grabbed hold of my shoulders, his silent shouts that I couldn't hear but the meaning became evident.
'Don't die,' he was screaming. 'Please don't die.'
I brushed my bloodied hand against his cheek, even as I choked on my own blood. Even as my shaky hand missed and briefly brushed against his long, red mess of hair that framed his face like a wild lion's mane. Even as my arm lost all feeling I pushed on until my fingers touched him, because I had to leave him with something.
I had to repay the immeasurable kindness of crying for me, for valuing my life I had to remind him that what I felt for him was love. I had to leave him without a shred of doubt, to remind him that I wasn't manipulating him, that I had no ulterior motives, that for once in both our lives it wasn't some big lie. That amidst everything else in the world, the bond we shared was the only thing truly real.
It was my last chance to do something for him, my last chance to say something to him.
"Kurama…"
--
I opened my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom, disrupted only by the thin strips of sunlight light leaking through my blinds. My left hand was outstretched and I slowly pulled it back towards my center and gently massaged the muscles over my heart through the thin cotton of my tank top. Short, vivid, but it was just another dream. Almost unfairly it was a still a dream compared to the nightmares I normally endured, both in sleep and reality.
With the exception of a few like it, it was the only dream, admittedly a recurring one, I had in the last nine years.
"Kurama…" Just whispering his name again sent a chill down my spine. It was the punctuation of that and others, always that name came up, always from my mouth, no matter how short the dream. Whatever back corner of my mind created him did a very good job of elevating my heart rate and making me feel sorry for a fictional redhead.
In the end it didn't matter, pleasant or painful a dream was just a dream. There was no point in dwelling on the fantasy of dying in the arms of a pretty man, especially when that wasn't even a fantasy I wanted to come to pass anyway. Unless it was… well… I suppose my subconscious was saying horrible things about me again.
Fuck you too psyche. I am not getting therapy. I don't care if you keep giving me romantic suicide fantasies.
I forced myself to move on, breaking the train of thought by rolling out of bed, only to find I did so at an odd angle and went crashing to the floor in a heap along with the blanket that had gotten a little too tangled in my legs. If any of my classmates saw me like that they would probably laugh. Dignified Satsuki, elegant Satsuki, perfect Satsuki. Reduced to a pitiful state of sleepy stumbling and demonic bed-head.
Already a mess and in the privacy of my own room, I allowed myself to yawn, and pushed myself to standing upright. I decided to take a few moments to stretch and straighten out my hair and tank top before venturing outside my room. I may not have particularly cared about other people's opinions of me, but I would be damned if I didn't at least look perfect. Especially when it wasn't that hard to do so.
I opened the door to my room, but just before I stepped out of the door I heard the talking. "Look I'm just saying, your DPS build would be better if you didn't splash into all the talents that let you troll people." My so called guardian's voice was unmistakable.
Uchiha Obito. He was technically family. Technically the only family I had left, in that unique way only the son of the second son of my great grandfather's third daughter could be. I believe the technical term was as simple as Second Cousin, but he urged me to keep it simple and call him Uncle.
I did neither.
"Mmhm…" The deep hum of acknowledgement was not my so called guardian.
All of a sudden it felt a little drafty out there, perhaps pants were in order. It wasn't like I'd be embarrassed necessarily, I didn't have anything to be ashamed of. In fact quite the opposite, I felt I had a lot going for me in terms of looks. There was just a tipping point between being confident and being an exhibitionist, a line I divided clearly in my mind and walking around in front of a stranger wearing only my underwear was firmly on the wrong side of it.
"You don't actually care, do you?" Obito snarled. "You're the worst kind of MMO player."
I sifted through my dresser drawer for pants that I didn't wear as everyday clothes, old, unfashionable, or designed to be pajamas. Things that would make me decent but didn't require me to get properly dressed. A pair of loose shorts that were too boyish for taste would suit fine.
Pants sorted, I finally left my room and rounded the corner to the apartment's tiny dining, kitchen, and living area. I saw Obito standing in the kitchen preparing a pot of coffee while chatting with who I could only assume was his friend.
"In my defense it is hilarious." The man argued. He sat in a slouch at the table, a light novel held open in one hand as he read through it while having his conversation. He had unusually grayed hair for a man his age, though his exact age was difficult to figure under the medical mask he wore over half his face.
"You probably spawncamp and slaughter level ones with your level eighty, don't you?" Obito huffed. He turned my way and smiled, which he almost always made look a bit more vicious than he intended. Understandable considering he was missing his right eye and it was scarred over in a particularly menacing manner. Lost it in some kind of... mall cop accident. He didn't like to talk about it, and knowing him, it was probably super embarrassing. "Well now, you're up early."
"Not by choice." I groused. "Black please."
Obito pursed his lip. "Coffee's bad for you, you know. It's super addictive."
"Just give me the damn drink." I huffed and took my seat at the table before folding my arms over the table and planting face firmly between them.
"Hmmm." Obito's friend was probably staring at me. I really did not care. "No cream or sugar?"
What a pointless question. "I dislike sweets."
He seemed genuinely taken aback, and I turned my head to peek at his expression over my arm and saw his eyes narrowed at me in a manner that was somewhere between accusatory and actual unnerving enmity. "Obito, I don't want to scare you, but I think your cousin has been replaced by a goblin imposter."
I snorted in spite of my better judgement.
"Not cute at all." He shook his head. "I have never heard of a high school girl who doesn't like sweets. Why… isn't it a staple of high school girls to enjoy strawberry parfaits?"
Obito gestured wildly at him with the coffee pot. "I know right! It's surreal as shit!"
"I'm not an anime character." I rolled my eyes. "Sometimes, girls don't like sweets."
"Chocolate?" The gray haired man stared at me, a pleading look in his eyes.
"Dark chocolate is alright." I begrudgingly admitted, even though it was a long way from my favorites.
He sighed in relief. "Better than nothing. At least we can confirm she is still human."
"Are you two even adults?" I threw up my hands in surrender just as Obito slid me a mug of caffeine.
"Oh right!" Obito finally took his seat across from me and next to his friend. "I've told you about Kakashi, right?" Then gestured to his right. "Here he is in the flesh."
I couldn't help but twist the corner of my mouth into a smirk. "Who is this Kakashi you speak of? I have heard of a Bakakashi, but I alway expected him to be much cooler than this if he was the kind of person that gets you that riled, Obito."
"Mah, she's got you pegged." Kakashi's eyes reflected his mirth.
"Shut up! She just called you a loser just now and disguised it by insulting me!" Obito glared my way, a blatant reinforcement of 'I know what you just did.'
"She just hasn't managed to spot my charm points yet." Kakashi insisted.
"The fact that you even know what a charm point is has lost you a few." I declared flatly before taking a sip of my drink. My eyes wandered to his book, and then to the AO label on the back cover. "The fact that you're reading porn in front of a high school girl has doubled that loss."
"Kakashi reads porn everywhere." Obito snarled.
"I keep telling you, it's a tantric exercise that helps me align my chakras." Kakashi just waved dismissively while his gaze returned to the pages.
"And I keep telling you that you make that shit up just to fuck with me! You're not even using the word tantric right!" Obito called him out, and was actually correct. Tantric was sanskirt for 'woven together' and was a sexual metaphor for transcendental union between body and spirit. Reading porn, while stimulating, was not an application of the concept.
"Sorry, did you say something? I couldn't hear you over how aligned my chakras are right now." Kakashi just turned the page.
Okay, Kakashi got some points back for that dry wit. Not many, but some.
Obito just grumbled something about having his chakras aligned should have increased his level of awareness. Paraphrasing of course, not every word was intelligible, and almost every other word was an utterance of 'bullshit'.
"You said I got up early." I considered. "How early exactly?"
Obito broke from his tirade and nodded. "Ah, only about a half hour or so. Still odd for you though. You sleep like the dead."
And woe be to anyone who wakes the dead.
"Ah." I acknowledged and drank down the last of my coffee while standing up. "I should probably start getting ready for school then."
"Ho?" Kakashi looked up from his book. "Your school have a cute uniform?"
I rolled my eyes and ignored him. He'd find out for himself soon enough anyway.
--
A quick shower was all I really needed, and once my hair was dry I just sort of let it do what it wanted, which naturally was to just fall perfectly into place about my head. It wasn't like it was perfectly straight, in fact it fell about irregularly. It wasn't particularly long either as it stopped about a full inch from my shoulders. It wasn't that it had any one particular quality that made it perfect.
The irregularity of it was just patterned enough to seem deliberate and in some ways it was, as I did dry it carefully so as not to ruin it, but it took me at best five minutes. The length was manageable without being boyish. I liked my hair, a myriad of imperfections that created a sum total of perfect, a very 'me' look. Feminine, a dash of rebellious punk that was amplified by how little effort it took to get the look to work.
I used to take better care of it during middle school. Used to wear it long, and straighten it every day. Then...
Maybe nobody agreed with me. Maybe my classmates thought I looked a little lazy, though they were probably just jealous they had to work twice as hard to get their hair half as good. Maybe the boys thought I was some kind of untouchable delinquent, or maybe it made me look too real and it intimidated them.
It certainly didn't look very moe.
I nearly punched the mirror. Dammit Obito… I would not know a single thing about moe if you weren't such a goddamn otaku.
Anyway. Accessories and makeup was against dress code, not that I would wear anything like that anyway. Well… accessories were fine. I owned my fair share of silver bracelets and a few necklaces. There was one I wore under my school uniform anyway actually, a charm necklace with a my family's old clan crest cut from silver and painted in it's colors.
A little red and white uchiwa fan.
There was not much I had left of my family, little pieces of their legacy. The crest, Obito, and a few business partners and retainers that still called me Ojo-sama in spite of everything.
That and a metric fuck ton of inheritance and insurance money that I didn't give a shit about.
The fact that I didn't want anything to do with it was probably the only reason Obito gave me unrestricted access to it. Useless as it was, I had it, and it was my family's.
Even if it would never help catch their killer.
I clenched my teeth and actually punched the mirror, cracking the glass and cutting my knuckles. "Fuck!" I tried so fucking hard! So hard not to think about it! Worthless! How could I not think about it?!
Everyone died! Everyone I knew, everyone I cared about! Itachi killed everyone and left me alone with some fucker of a cousin I'd never met and…
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned on the sink to start washing the blood off my hand.
Hopefully it wouldn't scar. My hands were nice, I took care not to let them callous even when practicing martial arts. Went as far as to splash Taekwondo for more kicks so I wouldn't have to use them as much.
--
Chapter 1: Powerless
--
The cuts were small, and I covered them with normal unobtrusive bandaids. Neither Obito or Kakashi said anything on the matter. Kakashi did, however, look up from his book at my student uniform. It wasn't anything special, just a black skirt and jacket over a white blouse tied with a red ribbon around the collar.
Nevertheless, Kakashi's response was swift and merciless.
He pulled out his phone quickly and silently, I hastily rose my right hand to cover my face just as the flash struck.
"Nice pose Satsuki-chan." Kakashi praised in a very professional manner and fiddled with his phone further before showing me the picture while his eyes closed in mirth. My attempt to cover my face was a failure, instead my fingers were splayed out to frame my right eye in what could only be considered a pop-idol pose.
Obito took cover in the kitchen muttering. "Oh shit." An appropriate instinct.
"You did not." I hissed.
"It's quite the cute uniform. It suits you. Very professional looking." Then his finger tapped the button that turned it into his wallpaper.
"I am going to murder you. They will never find the body." I knew a guy for that sort of thing after all. Not that I ever actually expected or planned to use it. I just knew the kind of business my father ran before…
"Mah, well, good luck with that." Kakashi stared at the phone for another few moments, his eyes just reflected absolute joy and it only made me angrier.
I lunged for the phone, but he held up up way over my head and even my outstretched arms. When I tried to step on his toes to trip him up he slid his foot out of the way and hooked it around my ankle, with but a soft tug he disguised as a backstep I was sent tumbling over. "Woops! Watch your balance Satsuki-chan! Wouldn't want you to get hurt."
He was good. Really really good.
I clenched my teeth, stood up, and brushed myself off before just stomping past him and out the front door. "Go die."
"So mean. Obito~, your cousin is so mean!" I closed the door behind me and put his antics well out of mind.
--
There were a number of things I just plainly did not deal with. Lost strangers was usually one of them. So when I walked past some bleach-blond delinquent standing around in the middle of the sidewalk holding his map upside down like it'd somehow help him get his bearings I tried so hard to ignore him and move on.
So hard.
So futile.
"Hey! Hey miss! I'm a little lost! Can you give me a hand?!" I pretended to not hear him, pretend I thought he was talking to somebody else. However it was useless, aside from the two of us, the street was eerily empty. "Hey! Don't ignore me just because you're out of my league! I don't care how cute you are! I have rights, ya know!"
I turned and acknowledged him with a glare that channeled all of my morning's frustrations.
He seemed to clam up a bit, before averting his gaze and continuing. "Uh… so… don't like being called cute, huh? T-that's fine. S'cool. You're not really cute anyway, kind of look more like a bitch." It was a sight to behold, watching an idiot almost literally put his own foot in his mouth. "I… I mean a hot bitch. Bitchy hotness." He finally bowed to me and clapped his hands together in prayer. "I'm rambling because I'm intimidated. Please don't kill me."
I couldn't help but sigh. "Idiot, just give me the damn map."
He brightened up immediately and held out the paper. "Really?! Thank you thank you thank you! You're a real lifesaver, ya know!"
"Whatever." I snatched the map away from him while rolling my eyes and skimmed over the area to pinpoint where we were standing. Off in the bottom right corner I noticed a photograph paperclipped on. It looked like a middle aged guy with long white hair dressed in a cheap loose fitting business suit, the jacket was slung over his shoulded and held in place by two fingers, while the shirt was only tucked in halfway.
"Who's this anyway?" He looked like a sleeze, the kind of man a red lights district would cough up. Especially with that goofy smile.
"Hm? Ah! That's my gramps. Sorta anyway. No direct blood relation, but he raised my dad and now he's my godfather, ya know? I'm sorta looking for him." The blond scratched his head awkwardly.
"Family's family, eh?" I muttered and reached into my school bag. "Well… you're around here, so where are you heading? I can draw you a route."
"Really?! That's awesome!" He smiled brightly and slid around to look over my shoulder. "I'm looking for hot springs and public baths. My gramps likes those kinds of places."
I turned up my nose a bit. "Right… why didn't he just give you an address?"
"Well… it's a bit embarrassing to admit he's kind of a shameless vagrant pervert. He'd also probably like beaches and water parks, but I don't think there's any around here, ya know?" Well that certainly made a lot more sense.
There indeed was not. "Right… well, here's a few." I began circling the ones I knew about as well as the ones clearly labeled. Could this idiot even read? I looked over my shoulder and saw him observing with his hands clasped together and a wide sheepish grin on his face. It was almost comically jovial, but equally nervous. Almost over-eager. It made me hesitate, like by marking the map any further I'd be signing my soul away to some kind of wicked spirit.
I drew the route anyway and handed him back the map, it wasn't like such things were real anyway, or that drawing a map would do that even if they were. "Here. Hope you find him."
"Thank you so much!" He grabbed the map back and spun in place happily. "I appreciate it! The name's Uzumaki Naruto by the way, and I never forget my debts, ya know! I'll treat you to ramen sometime!"
I snorted. "Don't bother." It's not like we'd ever see each other again anyway.
Even if he was kind of adorably stupid.
--
Classes are a bore as usual, and lunch was no different. I tended to each lunch on the roof, and more or less everybody left me alone. Other girls avoided it because the wind messed up their hair, and the boys knew better than to try to make me go elsewhere, especially since they couldn't afford to do it by force.
Needless to say I did tend to get a little annoyed when somebody interrupted me in those precious moments where I was well and truly alone in more than just the metaphorical sense.
Nara Shikamaru, however, might as well have been a utilities box for all the intrusiveness he represented on the roof. Half the time he was asleep, the other half he just silently watched the cloud.
That day, however, he sat down next to me, pulled out and lit a cigarette, and sighed heavily.
That was neither normal, nor a good sign.
Shikamaru was more than just somebody I shared the roof with. His father was my personal accountant, and had worked as such for my father before… everything. He was trustworthy, loyal, and simple. He wouldn't steal from me or sell me out so long as I continued to pay him enough to live comfortably, and he continued to make sound investments with my money that earned way more than that.
From my perspective, he was doing it for free.
It was Shikaku's time under my father though that made him almost like family.
Almost.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Well that depends on how you look at it." Shikamaru exhaled a long huff of smoke. "It's certainly troublesome for a certain someone that's paying for my tuition however indirectly."
I scowled. "Do tell…"
"Where to start?" Shikamaru hummed. "Well… your father's old company's been slowly losing more and more employees." Cute metaphor. I'd roll with it. "You already knew that, but turns out they've been mostly getting picked up by a group called the Yamata-gumi. They're getting big… bigger than any small group would reasonably be allowed to get."
"But?" And there was a but.
"Well… your father's loyalists are holding the territory between the Yamata and the Sakin-gumi. Sounds like Rasa's had about enough of that though. My dad says he's already got men scouting out the area and looking to gobble up or push out the last of the Uchiha-kai." Shikamaru sighed. "As I said, troublesome. Mostly for you. My dad doesn't want to lose any fingers over this, so… if things get bad he's going to pack up and leave."
I nodded slowly. "I'm… not going to blame him."
"Listen… I don't intend to get involved in this sort of thing." Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "I plan on going to university, getting a normal degree, get some desk job with a big company, marry some average looking girl, and live out the rest of my days pushing pencils peacefully. That's my plan… but… I doubt I'd be able to live with myself if you got married off to some Yakuza fuckhead just so they could get at your family's money. Consider me your hostage… my dad works better when backed in a corner anyway."
I began sliding down the concrete housing for the stairway until I was laying on my side. "It doesn't matter. No sense in your family getting dragged down with me."
"I don't really know what you want to do with your life." Shikamaru flicked his cigarette and snuffed it with his shoe without standing up. "At this point you only have a few options. You live comfortably below your means, so you could probably donate the money to some kind of company or cause you believe in. You could pay off the Sakin-gumi to leave you alone. Or… you could do what the Uchiha-kai's been wanting you to do for years."
And take up my father's business… become a Yakuza boss. Like that would actually make a difference. I had all the money in the world and it just made me a trophy and a treasure trove. Whoever said money equals power was full of shit.
"Without a leader they'll just keep falling apart. I'd never ask anybody to take that kind of life. It's so troublesome it's not even a question." Shikamaru stood up. "But the way I see it… you need to start thinking about your future, before someone takes it from you."
I clenched my teeth.
Takes it from me…
That was just the way of the world, wasn't it? Everything would be taken from me. My family, my future, my freedom…
"It sucks." I managed to choke out.
Why was I so powerless?
--
AN: Being a mortal sucks.
Decided to go the entire first chapter with the masquerade firmly in place.
That's amusingly vague. Is that "not sure if want" or "not what I expected" or...?
Knight-Radiant
Recovering Rageaholic
Very interesting so far. 
I'm looking forward to see where you'll go with this.
I'm looking forward to see where you'll go with this.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Which World of Darkness? There are some major differences, especially given that this is set in Japan.
Old World.
Thanks. I like to put in as many of those things as I can. The closer you look the more things stay the same in spite of all the differences.
Fun fact too, it's actually a bit of a social obligation in Japan to wear a medical mask if you're sick and have a cough. Helps cut down on the spread of diseases in the densely packed cities. So not only does Kakashi wear that thing everywhere, nobody calls him on it until they spend enough time around him to wonder why he's wearing it if he doesn't have a cough.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Oh ew that means the Kindred and all the other eastern wank in oWoD is around.
Also Satsuki better keep her head down or the 'crats will airstrike her. XD
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
It's not like secret chi wielding Ninja orders don't already exist in Old World of Darkness. Believe it
For all it's merits and flaws, Old World holds a special place in my heart from my time playing it. Also as mentioned in my description, I intend to maintain a degree of the original feel and genre of Naruto in this story in spite of the crossover while being as faithful as I can to WoD's source material, so some "Eastern Wank" is actually useful to that end.
Air Strikes are also reserved for things they can theoretically come up with an excuse to run an air strike for. Dropping bombs in the middle of a Japanese city is usually a no go barring mass panic or an act of war.
*pic*
It's not like secret chi wielding Ninja orders don't already exist in Old World of Darkness. Believe it
This is both true and not true at the same time. The existence of ninja in the World of Darkness does not necessarily make my statement invalid even if they are chi wizards. (Besides, most of them are undead anyway and I decided not to use that many Kuei-Jin in this story.) lol
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Shih demon-hunter-chi-ninjas really aren't undead or wizards
That and Yukie was darn hilarious in Bloodlines.
(Also not particularly relevant in your delightful story)
Shih demon-hunter-chi-ninjas really aren't undead or wizards
That and Yukie was darn hilarious in Bloodlines.
(Also not particularly relevant in your delightful story)
Then Shih are closer to chinese warrior monks than ninja, plus they're kind of magical hobos and don't have villages.
But yeah, hilarity is important for maintaining levity, even if the humor is a bit dark.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Terrorists.
When was the last time you heard of an air strike in a first world country for any reason?
Terrorists performing an air strike in the middle of Tokyo just raises way too many questions that the Technocracy is starting to not be powerful enough to handle. According to Mage 20th, social media's explosion into prominence kind of caught them off guard and remains a vessel for free thought and self expression on the internet that I can only assume is virulently protected by the Virtual Adepts and Society of Ether.
Terrorist attacks without someone to point the finger at won't fly. That's a military strike no matter how you slice it.
I kind of feel like the Technocracy itself is wanked more than the Eastern Kindred and Hengeyokai by the fans.
Besides, why do an air strike to take down one mage when you have a HIT Marks to hunt them down covertly. That's like resorting to the nuclear option first. Yes you have it, but it's really not your first choice or even your best choice. (Also, Iteration X has other things in Japan to help deal with supernaturals.)
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
I dunno, when was the last time you heard about martial art practitioners who can punch someone's soul out?
Obviously it's striking at terrorists.
And yes, of course it's not the immediate option, but I'm assuming that all of these splats are going to be Not-Shit enough to at least deal with the first HIT Mark teams to predicate this response in the first place.I dunno, when was the last time you heard about martial art practitioners who can punch someone's soul out?
/QUOTE]
Would the public actually believe you if this was the stated reason for the airstrike?
Ah the oWoD. How I love/hate you.
Fond memories of a 10 year long mega-crossover campaign that had influences from EVERY faction, that lived through edition changes and everything.
We broke the secret wall so bad that had Exalted been out the GM would likely have used that to explain the madness.
Shame the first campaign didn't continue, my Boggan was days away from releasing a karma bomb that would have given every one, EVERY ONE who was connected to the world(Soul, mind, body, dream) their karmic balance. ...which admittedly would have been one of the 'end times' settings where Humanity basically kicked everyone out, but so be it.
Not that I had let the GM know what I was planning, but it's not MY fault that he didn't see the potential of the power I had.
Or TL;DR version? Watching this thread. ;P
Fond memories of a 10 year long mega-crossover campaign that had influences from EVERY faction, that lived through edition changes and everything.
We broke the secret wall so bad that had Exalted been out the GM would likely have used that to explain the madness.
Shame the first campaign didn't continue, my Boggan was days away from releasing a karma bomb that would have given every one, EVERY ONE who was connected to the world(Soul, mind, body, dream) their karmic balance. ...which admittedly would have been one of the 'end times' settings where Humanity basically kicked everyone out, but so be it.
Not that I had let the GM know what I was planning, but it's not MY fault that he didn't see the potential of the power I had.
Or TL;DR version? Watching this thread. ;P
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Busted quote there.
But if they're not hearing anything about the former, why are you assuming they're hearing anything about the latter?
You're having an airstrike done in a populated city and no one is going to be sleeping through that. It'd be on all the news channels and plastered all across the internet before the day is even over. If it was in a war torn country like Iraq or some isolated African country then they could probably sweep it under the rug, but Japan is an entirely different matter.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
You are making assumptions about the World of Darkness theoretically based on your experience in this world that I don't think hold. The World of Darkness is not Earth, it is shittier and drearier.
This is offtopic, at any rate. I'm just looking forward to seeing what Satsuki ends up as (please not a Vampire)
- Location
- Canada
on that note, I'm almost certain that its canon oWoD that the Technocrats Nuked the entirety of the middle-east and then started world war three to hide the fact that it was them
So, yeah, nothing they haven't done before.
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Why do I need to make assumptions when I have the authors word to back me up? Airstrikes are quite frankly ineffcient consider that they want secrecy and have better methods available unless things have truly gone fubar like with the Ravnos antediluvian.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
I wasn't aware that the author was an infallible source of information on the World of Darkness. (And this is why it's offtopic.)