Naruto : The System Files

Chapter no.132 Why Can't I View Them As Monsters?

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Naruto twitched, his ears strained to pick up the barest of sound, his eyes reduced to thin lines in the hope it would focus his vision. The blond boy nervously rolled his shoulders and neck, trying to loosen the knot of stress that was locking them uncomfortably.

An exercise in futility.

Escorting a gaggle of exhausted, malnourished civilians back to their rightful country, all the while avoiding curious eyes, was tiring.

The two ANBU teams had reunited quickly after the trash had been disposed of and they had herded the former prisoners toward Fire Country; a long walk had begun.

Naruto hated Rice Country. The absence of any sizeable trees was cruelly slowing their progression, as they couldn't afford to be seen, even by mere peasants. The ANBUs were not supposed to even be here, the civilians of Fire Country had been abducted, and there was no telling how much time it would take for hostile ninjas to discover some of their soldiers were missing.

Rice Country was so desperately flat, with nowhere to hide when escorting untrained people. The blond was quite certain their ragtag convoy had been spotted too many times already.

Naruto twitched again as something moved slightly beyond his field of view, just outside of his focus. The blond whirled around, kunai at the ready, before he frowned in annoyance, his teeth grinding in exasperation. It was the ghost again.

One more reason to hate Rice Country. He had never met any ghost in Konoha and that made the giant, backward rice-field even more despicable in the blond's opinion. Mumbling silently, the boy returned to his watch.

Dog looked at the youngest member of her team twitching and nervously looking around. He had been out of it since the ambush and his two subsequent kills, some four days ago. Dog knew first kills were more often than not hard to swallow and when they were not, it spoke of psychopathic tendencies nobody wanted to deal with.

Certainly, Tiger had taken five minutes to give the usual pick-me-up speech, about how they had done the right thing, how those men, by their actions, had been marked to die. The reality was that, beyond the mission parameters that put the ANBU teams in strict illegality, it was not that easy to slit a man's throat, no matter how guilty he was found to be.

Dog knew full well what Maru was going through. The fact that killing came with the job did not make it particularly easier to deal with it. It wasn't even a moral question; anyone living in a ninja village and raised as a ninja was desensitized to that quickly. The order of the village was both right and good. A death ordered by the village could not be anything bad, only right and good. Hence killing for the village was never bad, only right and good. Those were the ideals carefully cultivated by the Academy.

The problem was much more fundamental in aspect. There was a specific kind of horror to discover how easy it was to rob a man of his life. A disgusting high came with it, the feeling of pure, unadulterated, absolute power over so fickle yet so precious a thing. A temptation, sweet and sickly, to experience it again. A thirst that all ninja had to resist, for giving in would be a betrayal of their village. Only a formal order could unleash it.

Of course, there were also the eyes throwing reproachful glares and the voices mumbling curses. Killing up close was the worst because it was a sure-fire way to have the spiteful ghosts of your victims follow you relentlessly.

For people with heightened senses, it was worse. An Inuzuka could hear the heart of their enemy slowly flutter and stop and Naruto had proven that his hearing was at least on par with the members of Dog's clan.

It was reassuring, in a way, that the young initiate was reacting poorly. It meant he was a functional human. It was nonetheless worrying because they were on a mission, still deep within another country's borders, and possibly chased by ninja of unknown affiliation. Maru could not allow himself the luxury of being distracted yet despite Tiger's numerous reprimands, the boy was still letting his mind wander through uncharted and dangerous territory.

With a single push of her legs, Dog found herself next to the initiate and squeezed his shoulder. The boy started, but relaxed when he saw the dog mask looking at him.

Naruto could feel the worry and the sympathy soothing the frayed edges of his mind, the screams of the ghosts relented for a peaceful moment. Absentmindedly, the blond boy nuzzled the hand clasping his shoulder and allowed himself to doze off for a second, his tumultuous psyche appeased by the contact.

"Don't fall asleep Maru," chided Dog in a low voice.

Naruto grunted and mumbled something the other ANBU could not catch but nodded and stretched, a wave of regret welling violently within him when the dog-masked girl withdrew her gloved hand. It only took a second before the two ghosts came back. The blond boy winced behind his mask and swallowed a painful lump stuck in his throat.

Why can't I just view them the same as I viewed the Humunculus, the Cultists, the Revenants, Baron, Walter?

Why can't I just see them as ... monsters ?

Is it because I never saw those dungeon entities as real? But were they real?

He so wanted to scream at them to leave him alone but he knew Tiger would punish him for a stupid stunt like that. He was not sorry damn it! They were bad people who had just bought free citizens of the Land of Fire like they were slaves and Naruto and his team could not just allow that. The village could not allow that. Yet they had the gall to look at him with those heinous, accusing eyes.

Naruto shook his head and snarled behind his white and red mask. It was their fault for being weak. Their fault for being surprised. Their fault for falling prey to his blade. They had to deal with it and stop glaring at him!

"Maru!"

Naruto nearly fell from the three he was roosted in when the dry, monotonous whip of Tiger's voice hit him.

"Yes, Sensei." The initiate answered with a crisp salute, finding his balance again.

"You, Cat, and La are going to replace Lizard, Hawk, and Mu to guard our back. Get a move on."

"Yes sir."

A quick gesture dismissed Naruto and the boy darted to the end of the train of citizens who were making slow progress through Rice, trying their best to keep to the shadow of rare trees and the anonymity of unused trails. The blond joined with Cat and fell in line behind the older woman when she signaled for him to follow her. Accompanying them was La, one of the Inuzuka dogs.

In less than a minute, the three had sped away from the column of civilians. Naruto felt himself breathe easier. He felt so exposed, following this gaggle of tired men and women incapable of protecting themselves. They were ninja, predators. As ANBU, they were the apex, skulking in the shadows. They were absolutely not shepherds.

Cat signed a short order and the boy created two shadow clones while the older ANBU was content with simpler, earth replicas. The three teams, the originals keeping La with them, darted away from each other. They began establishing a perimeter around the rear of the convoy, keeping the reassuring cover of small copses of trees.