804A/N: Daaaang that new RWBY episode was a killer. Quite literally! Didn't see those twists coming.
*coughs* Still not feeling well, sorry. Dance of the Dread is coming along nicely, however. Should be able to update it soon. Sunday or Monday.
But until then...
To be clear! This is the expanded version of "Eyes of Fire" from my "Fragments of Remant" aka Grandpa!Naruto.
The result is something terrifying. Hope you're prepared.
In other news...
As my fifteen year anniversary on this site draws near, I find myself reflecting on the little things in life. What was once a lazy pastime meant for me and a few friends really grew and evolved over time. There are days when I look back on the last fifteen years here and I wonder if anyone will remember me; if I made an impact, despite never making a single cent on any of these stories. Some days were happier than others, and some stories I enjoyed writing WAY too much; to the point where I'd stay up all night working on them.
And of course, there are times when I look to the future and wonder what will become of things when I'm gone.
Of course, I try not to dwell on the latter overmuch; I'm still alive and still writing. In an ideal world, I'd like to keep doing so for as long as I can. But old age is catching up to me and these days, the world is filled with so much madness and death. The recent earthquake in Turkey/Syria serves as a terrible example. Even before that, so many friends and fellow writers I once knew are gone, now. Will I still be here in twenty years? Ten? Five? Its a chilling thought. But for now, I'm still here, still writing.
This is a rough draft. Time and feedback will determine if this becomes a story.
In other words...its up to YOU, the reader. Do let me know~!
This idea came to me in a dream. Here we go!
Who is he? In a word? Death. Straight up.
Yup, just used that reference.
"I just love the smell of fear. Why? Simple. Means I'm still doing something right after all these years."
Pick it up. Go on. Or you could run for it. Makes it more for fun for me."
Well? What're you waiting for...?"
~?
Run
Tyrian Callows ran.
He ran and ran and ran, as his lungs burned and his chest ached, flinging himself through the swamp with no heed. Uncaring of the noise he made, seeking only escape. Cold moonlight spilled down upon his bloody back, breath fogging before him as he flung himself forward at a breakneck pace. Run. Run. Run. Had to run. Had to flee. Had to survive. His vision tunneled, focus narrowing down to a singular point, gasping for air. There was nothing else. He stepped into a sinkhole and a boot was sucked down by the bog. He yanked his leg free, tripped, stumbled, and caught himself on his hands and knees.
The pause cost him.
"Tyrian...
A haunting whisper echoed in his ear, heralded by a low whistle, deep and haunting, leaving the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Like a thought he'd half-forgotten but remembered too late. A nameless lullaby from his darkest childhood memory, promising to tuck him down into bed forevermore. He didn't know. He no longer knew. Or perhaps that was the blood-loss talking. Might be the madness. Heee! So very hard to tell at the moment with his heart trying to burst clean out his chest.
He whimpered, scrambled up to his feet and kept running.
It should've been simple! Kill the silver-eyed bitch, slay Summer Rose! She'd been alone, here in Mistral! Weakened! Wounded! Surrounded by Grimm! Ripe for the picking! Lionheart had told him exactly where she would be! Vulnerable! Ripe for the killing
.
..
...until she hadn't been.
Until that thing walked out the mist without a sound.
Until it brandished its twin sickles and started cutting, cutting, cutting...!
Now it was chasing him; the hunter had become the hunted, the turns had tabled. Was that the saying? Tyrian thought it was. He was the one wounded and bleeding, missing both an eye and ear. The Rose would live to see another sunrise. He might not; if he failed to reach his bullhead... Oh, his mistress would be so cross with him for his failure here tonight. How she would beat him, how she would whip him senseless...if he survived. No! He had to survive. Just keep running. He'd was good at that, running. Always had been!
There! He could see his ship up ahead, past the bog! Freedom awaited!
A cackle burst out of him. He was going to make it!
Smoke billowed around him and ahead of, cutting off the path ahead. Too late, Tyrian glimpsed the hooded figure of a man lurking within; broad of shoulder whiskered cheeks dimpled in a selfsame smile. His lips pursed in a whistle. Paused, now, to consider him. "Leaving so soon? The party's just getting started."
"Who are you?!"
Rather than respond, his assailant smiled, stepped backwards into the mist and vanished before his very eyes. The sound of his footsteps faded soon thereafter. Soon enough the whistling went with it. All that remained in his wake was the silence. Terrible, dreadful silence. A moment passed. Another, now. Another. Still no sign of him. Where was he? Where had he gone? Twisting left to right in the haze only left him all the more disoriented.
Tyrian raged at it. "Show yourself!"
"..."
Panic set in. He laid about himself with his knives and tail, to no avail. Only mist met him.
"Where are you?!" he howled! "WHERE?!"
A tan finger tapped his shoulder.
He whirled, knives flashing.
"Slow."
A sharp rebuke, then a hooked sickle swept out of the mist to rake across his solar plexus, tearing a bloody line across his bare stomach. He cried out and slashed back, only to meet more mist. Steel cut through smiling shadows and failed to find the flesh he sought.
"Sloppy."
He keened as a bloody sickle whistled out of the fog, cutting deep into his cheek. His tail stabbed out after it.
"SAD."
An effortless parry sent him reeling. It was too much. Tyrian flew into a frenzy, hissing and kicking and spitting. This time his knives met steel. Red eyes gleamed at him in the mist, stark and slitted like some great beast. He glimpsed pearly white teeth in the gloom, bared in a savage smile, while his own petrified golden orbs stared back at him within the hooked crescents.
"My turn, now."
His fearsome foe flicked a fist and those twin sickles curled inward, becoming paired punching instruments, ones that smashed into his chest and battered him backward in a storm of blows. It didn't stop there. A kick caught him in the ribs as another twist planted the hilts of the sickles together. Gears whirred and clicked as their hilts elongated before his very eyes, creating a wickedly hooked staff that he twirled once between his hands, sweeping in before he could react.
It cut up, snared his tail just below the stinger and sheered it clean off.
Tyrian fell to a knee and curled inward on himself, clutching his wound. "No more...! Please...!"
His foe ignored the plea for mercy. An open palm rocked out of the smoke and closed around his throat, choking him. He grasped at it furiously, to no avail. Their grip was ironclad. It lifted him clean off his feet. An amused face bearing whiskered cheeks emerged from the haze. His pursuer lifted their head and removed the cowl, revealing steely blue eyes and tawny blond hair streaked silver in places. The rest of his body followed soon thereafter, hoisting him high. A flick of the wrist send him crashing down down to the ground. Cold fingers tightened around his throat.
Still smiling, he squeezed his face, idly thumbing a terrified tear from his cheek.
Cold lips brushed his ears. "You're not living up to the legend, scorpion."
A lazy toss flung him away. The mist closed in again.
"Coward! Stop hiding!"
"I'm not hiding. I've been watching you for the last year now, Tyrian." a boot caught his ribs, sending black spots bursting before his eyes. Steel clashed against his hands, ripping through his weapons, shattering them an taking his left hand besides. "I'm right here." another kick wrenched a gasp from him and sent him skidding across the ground like a flung stone. "I've always been right here."
Get up. He had to get up. Salem could grow him another hand. Another tail. He just had to get up and ruuu-ack?!
"I was there to witness all your deeds." A boot stomped down on the back of his head, grinding his bloody visage into the dirt. "Every crime. Every atrocity. I walked in your wake, repairing the damage you did. I wanted to see if you would stop. If you had some semblance of humanity left in that black, festering pit you call a heart." another stomp forced his face into a swampy puddle. "You didn't."
frantic bubbles welled up as he thrashed and struggled, the words muffled beneath the water.
"And then you went after my daughter-in-law." he heard a faint tsking sound as his world turned grey. "You lured a wounded woman into a trap and tried to kill her. But you didn't even notice me. Because madmen laugh in the face of death, right?"
A hand caught him by his ruined tail and hauled him out of it, freeing him from a watery grave.
"But you're not laughing now."
Tyrian clawed his way onto his back and crawled away like a drunken crab, wasted and gasping for air. "You're no Huntsman! You are...
"Plenty of things. the hooded man shouldered those wicked sickle-scythes and pivoted, considering him as one might a stain beneath their boot. "I've been called many names by a great many people. Grandfather, father, uncle, brother, Naruto, to name a few. To you?"
A sickle hooked up under his chin, just shy of his jugular.
"I'm death." he crouched before him, digging the blade deeper. A bead of blood welled up beneath bitter steel. "Straight up. And I've come for you, Tyrian. You, yours, an' all your friends. It seems Tock wasn't enough of a lesson all those years ago." he tutted softly, like a disapproving grandfather. "Now I'll have to make an example of you...
"Death?" Incredulity gave way to fevered, frenzied hope and he dared a laugh. "Ha! My mistress does not fear death. She cannot die!"
"Ya know," A low, throaty chuckle rumbled over his whimper of pain. "I find the idea of immortality absurd. An eternity to live a life without end, to learn and grow as a person, to do some real good in the world...and your "mistress" didn't value any of it. Worse," the whiskered warrior gnashed his teeth. "She wasted it. All that knowledge. All that power. And what did she do?" a sad shake of the head followed, setting his blond bangs swaying to and fro. "She didn't even try to learn. Not once. So I thought to myself if she's stepping up her game again to go after my descendants, why don't I do us both a favor...and start going after her pawns? After all, all's fair in love and war."
Tyrian pushed against the knife. "That's cheating! You fiend-
"Shhh!" a finger pressed against his lips as he cooed softly. "Don't tell."
The sickles crossed against his neck, hooking into his throat. Flicked out. And the world shifted.
.
..
...oh. Oh, dear. Why was he looking up at him himself? That didn't make any sense, unless...aha. So that's how it was.
Tyrian's head tumbled from his bloody shoulders.
The last thing he heard was that whistle.
Darkness slithered in.
A/N: *whistles* Haven't written something this terrifying in awhile.
Last Wish references abound, Hoped you enjoyed 'em! How many grandkids/kids, you ask? The answer is YES.
Its heavily implied that Naruto's everyone's grandfather in this story, aka Nicholas Schnee. Also a stone-cold killer wielding the infamous weapons of Death himself. Strangely enough, it fits when you look into Nicholas' backstory. They're a lot alike.
Aaaand there we go. Hope you enjoyed it.
Soooo? Should this be a story? Yay or nay? Need to hear from you here.
Hoe someone, somewhere, enjoyed this. I just don't know anymore these days.
So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...Review...Would You Kindly?
Hope you enjoy the previews~!
(Previews!)
Summer creaked an eye open. "He's dead, isn't he?"
Her father-in-law didn't answer. He simply kept walking, kept carrying her.
"C'mon, lets get you home. Yang and Ruby are waiting. You promised them you'd come back, didn't you?"
"Mom?!"
"Grampa!"
"Would you join me for dinner, miss Goodwitch?"
...you're persistent. I'll give you that."
"That didn't sound like a no."
Salem opened the box. A severed head stared back at her. Calm. She must be calm.
Wait. There was a note within. She read it. Her eyes flashed. She shrieked and flung Tyrian's head against the nearest wall.
"Maria. Drop the girl. I told you to train her, not break her."
The slender silver-eyes woman sighed. "Yes gramps, sorry gramps...
"Well, duh." Ruby tilted her head. "Killing is what grampa does. He only kills bad people, though. Don't worry!"
Jaune gulped. "That...is not encouraging."
R&R~!