Oto no Yokai: Sound of the Demon

Part 1, Chapter 1

A Demon's Path: The Beginning

"There he is!" "Let's kill the Demon!" "Today's the day the Yondaime's work is finally finished!" The yells and cheers followed the child as he ran, wide-eyed and looking for all the world as if the hounds of hell were on his tail. Thing is, they might as well have been, because the ones after him were no more forgiving or compassionate as them. Teenagers, young men and women, the middle-aged, even the elderly. It seemed as though the entire population of his home village was after him, as he fled desperately. He heard the telltale movements that he had learned from experience told him that it wasn't just civilians, ninja followed him across the rooftops, waiting for a clear angle to hit him from. He saw the open gate up ahead, and ran for it, not realizing that in his primal fear, he had drawn on a sleeping power within him, as his speed increased, the civilians stopping at the gate, but the ninja continuing the pursuit.

The boy was none other than the Bane of Konahagakure, Uzumaki Naruto. Today was his fifth birthday, but it wasn't a cause for celebration, either in his eyes, or the villagers'. Today was the day when, five years earlier, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, had all but destroyed the great village. Only by the sacrifice of their beloved Yondaime Hokage, had the beast been stopped. A big part of the reason he was so beloved by the survivors was because he made that sacrifice. Naruto didn't know why they hated him, maybe it was because since he was born the same day of the attack, they thought the dying beast had become him. But that didn't make sense, so he really had no clue, but on every birthday, most of the civilians and more than half of the ninja of his village would form into a mob and chase him down. But it had never been this bad before, they had always stopped when he ran outside of the village. This time though, the ninja who had lost their families during the attack, lead by a certain Chuunin named Mizuki, were out for the blood of the young boy.

He ran faster than he had ever run before, the odd energy fueling him, allowing him to run harder and longer than ever before. But it wasn't going to be enough. The more than ten full squads closed in for the kill, as a pair of kunai bit deep into the lower part of his legs, slicing muscle, ripping flesh, and even piercing bone. The child curled up, waiting for the end to come, as they descended on him, and the pain began… Blades, fists, feet, anything that could be used to inflict pain was used to batter, slash, and mutilate the young child, whose pitiful cries quickly tore his throat ragged and bloody. He was begging for death by the time the world went dark, and he knew no more.

The blond-haired boy bolted up in from where he lay sleeping, and looked around. The last thing he remembered was an immense pain, and more ninja than he could remember hurting him. As he looked around he saw that he looked like he was in a camp of some kind, and someone was sitting at a fire, with their back to him, and from the look of things, it was nighttime, leaving him to wonder how long he was out, and who this person was. His questions were brought to a screeching halt as he noticed the person get up, and he realized it was a silver-haired, rather androgynous person, maybe 6 or 7 years older than him. The unnamed person turned to him, and smiled warmly, before walking over and sitting down next to him, and beginning to check his bandages, which nearly made him scream before he realized what the person was doing. Once the bandages were checked, the person said in a warm, soft tone, "Hello, I'm Yakushi Kabuto; it's a pleasure to meet you. Me and my sensei found you near-dead a few days ago, and we decided to help you."

Naruto's eyes widened as he heard that this person and their as-of-yet-not-seen sensei had helped him, something no one had done before. He blinked back what felt like tears long enough to say in a choked voice, "Thank you, Kabuto-san. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you." A thought occurred to him, which broke through his normal thoughts, as his curiosity had a tendency to do sometimes, and he said in a curious tone, "Neh, Kabuto-san? This might be a weird question, but you are a guy or a girl?"

Kabuto's mouth dropped open at the extremely blunt question, wondering whether this kid had any manners whatsoever, before giggling lightly, which turned into a full-blown high-pitched laugh as the Kabuto answered in between gales of laughter, "I-I'm, haha, a, ahaha, G-Girl! Ahaha, oh, my ribs!" The now-named female Kabuto recovered from her laughing fit, knowing that the boy would most likely be a bit ashamed of himself, and was proven right as he blushed, squeaking out a "Gomen Kabuto-chan!" The silver-haired girl just smiled and ruffled the young boy's hair, not fazed by the question now that the amusement was passed, saying lightly, "It's nothing Naruto-kun, I get asked that a lot, just not quite so bluntly, hehe. Anyway, I need to check for any internal injuries, so lay back and stay still.

The blond boy nodded and laid back on the bedroll the girl and her sensei had given him, as she held her hands together, a pale green glow enshrouding them as she moved them over his body, checking for any signs of injury that hadn't been taken care of already. Finding none, she allows the glow to fade, saying to the younger child, "You've given us more than a few scares, Naruto-kun. You nearly died more than ten times, it was all we could do to keep you stable. So tell me, how did you get injuries that bad?"

The blonde's eyes fell at that, remembering the vicious mob of ninja, and begins to relate the story quietly, focusing on getting through it quickly and not remembering the pain. Kabuto on the other hand, was getting angrier by the minute. How dare anyone do that to another living being, for any reason! Sure, as a ninja you had to kill, but it didn't mean you had to torture someone just for the sake of doing so. All the more reason to hate Konaha in her eyes, and her shisho would more than likely agree whole-heartedly, even if he would be interested in studying and trying to reproduce the regenerative abilities their blonde guest had shown. She hugged the young boy, pushing him into her chest as she fervently and repeatedly told him that no matter what, she wouldn't let anyone hurt him like that again. The boy hugged her back, nodding, as he said only one thing, "Hai… Arigatou Kabuto-chan…" The two eventually fell asleep on his mat, emotionally exhausted from all that had happened.

Hours later, a man walked slowly into the camp, sitting down next to the fire, and grimacing as he wrapped the wound on his right arm tentatively, not wanting to further damage it. Once that was done, he looked around, and spotted the two laying together on the mat he had provided for the injured boy. A slight smile quirked up one side of his pale face as he sees the boy had recovered, and seemed to have gotten close to the girl he considered the daughter he had never had, although it turned into a frown at the sight of the tears on her face, although the boy she clung desperately to didn't seem to be the source of the trouble. He sighed slightly as he sunk his bloodied longsword into the ground next to him, having decided to track down the blood trail his summons had picked up from where they had found the boy. On finding a large group of ninja from his former village boasting over what they had done to the 'Demon Child' He had realized they had hurt the young child, and when an image of them doing the same to Kabuto had popped into his head, he had attacked them, his snake summons and his Kusanagi ripping into them and through them like a heated katana meeting paper-mache. He had left the village when the Third Hokage had stepped down, only to be replaced by the Yondaime, then officially cut any and all ties when the council took over until a new Hokage could be found, and they immediately began laying laws splitting the power of the old Hokage office almost equally between the council and the Kage, then selected none other than the King of Technique Thieves himself, Fugaku Uchiha, as the new Kage. The other Sannin had also cut ties, but they seemed to be more content to just ignore Konaha then do anything about it, whereas he was trying to find a way to do something. Oh well, maybe the boy might be of some help… He was certainly helping Kabuto, if she was showing real emotions and not hiding behind that damn mask of happiness. Orochimaru Yakushi sighed as he lay down on his own mat, idly making a note to have his daughter check his wound in the morning, as she had learned a fair bit from his old teammate Tsunade during the two months they spent traveling alongside each other.

A/N: Well, This is Kain Doiner here presenting the first chapter of my first fanfic. Please give me some feedback, oh, and this will be a Naru x Harem, with 3 wives, and 2 already chosen by me, so vote in your review for anyone you wanna see. No Konaha people please, aside from Orochimaru being a hell of a lot different and Konaha ending up a hell of a lot worse, most of the alleigences are unchanged, i.e. Kakashi is still a Konaha nin. Gender bending to make the pairing is ok, but no MxM, FxF I can try, but not the other… also, as the final part, these non-Konaha ninja will not be in the pairings:Anyone over 10 years older than Naruto, Temari(overdone),Kin(Plans for that), and Yugito(Plans for that) And the first 5 to vote get double the vote count and a free preview token, which can be cashed at any time for a preview of the next chapter(requires registered account)