Naruto: True Demon

Two years passed beneath silent falling snow.

Zangetsu grew from a silent infant into a small child with white hair falling across bronze skin, pale eyes reflecting everything and revealing nothing. To the clan, he was an unusually quiet boy – obedient, reserved, walking with eerie grace for his age. To his mother, he was gentle and thoughtful, though his eyes often frightened her with their cold, unblinking focus.

By day, he mimicked childish play. He stumbled through the courtyard with a carved wooden halberd too large for his frame, laughing softly when cousins corrected his footwork. He sat beside Yukie during meals, eating in small polite bites, bowing his head when elders spoke to him. Every motion was deliberate – calculated mimicry sculpted to perfection.

But by night, he honed his true self.

In the darkness of his sleeping chamber, he sat cross-legged upon thin futon blankets, spine straight, eyes half-closed. His small hands rested upon his knees as he focused inward, sensing faint flickers of warmth and pressure beneath his navel. It was weak, untrained, like the flickering of dying lantern wicks in winter wind – but it was there.

Chakra.

He refined it silently, pushing the flickers into thin threads, then thicker cords, weaving circulation paths through his small body hour by hour. Pain burned behind his eyes each night as blood vessels strained against unnatural exertion, but he endured it with silent detachment.

During early dawn before training drills, he would sneak from his mother's futon, bare feet whispering across tatami mats. His small form slipped through darkened hallways into the clan library – a low-roofed stone building with paper-screen windows frosted from within by the ancestral seals keeping the clan compound cold year-round.

By dim lantern light, he unrolled scrolls upon low cedar desks, small fingers tracing kanji with precise focus. He read each name, each date, each political boundary and clan history with perfect retention:

The Land of Fire: ruled by the Fire Daimyo from Kyoukoku Castle, with Konoha as its hidden shinobi power.

The Land of Water: mist-shrouded islands, governed by the Water Daimyo, enforced by Kirigakure's bloodline hunters.

The Land of Lightning: vast mountain ranges under the Thunder Daimyo, guarded by Kumogakure's ruthless raiders.

The Land of Wind: desert plains and shifting dunes under the Wind Daimyo, relying on Sunagakure's puppet legions for protection.

The Land of Earth: rocky valleys and hidden mines ruled by the Earth Daimyo, with Iwagakure's stone armies standing against all invasions.

He studied maps depicting the Five Great Nations, ink brush outlines showing mountains, forests, rivers, and trade routes winding like veins across parchment skin.

He read about the First and Second Shinobi Wars, pages describing thousands dead in Hidden Rain's valleys, the rise of Hanzō the Salamander, and the Hatake White Fang cutting down enemy platoons with a single swing.

He read about Konoha's founding clans – Senju, Uchiha, Hyuuga – and their roles in shaping the village's rise to dominance. Each scroll etched more fragments into his mind's unbroken tapestry.

Geography, political structures, clan histories, military strengths…a chessboard of kingdoms, each piece waiting to be moved or sacrificed.

His eyes flicked to old ink brush portraits of daimyos past, their faces stern beneath ceremonial crowns.

Power without force is illusion. Force without purpose is waste. Both must serve will.

A faint creak echoed in the hallway beyond the library door. He rolled up the scroll in silence, sliding it back into the shelf before stepping away, small feet whispering against stone as he slipped back into darkness.

Moonlight still lingered along the stone walkways when Zangetsu returned to his mother's sleeping chamber. Yukie slept curled beneath thick blankets, her breathing deep and rhythmic. He stepped softly to his cradle futon and sat down cross-legged, closing his eyes for a moment to catalogue every scroll fragment read that night.

He heard footsteps outside in the courtyard – heavy, deliberate, each step evenly spaced despite the crunch of frost beneath iron-soled boots.

His father.

The sliding door opened without a sound despite its old warped frame. Hyouki entered, towering form casting long shadows across the tatami mats. His braided black hair was tied back in a warrior's knot, frost clinging to the demon tattoo winding across his throat. Pale blue eyes fixed upon Zangetsu, narrowing slightly as he noted the boy's posture.

For a moment, silence reigned between father and son.

Hyouki stepped forward, kneeling down until his massive frame loomed just above Zangetsu's small seated form. His breath steamed faintly in the cold air as he spoke.

"Why are you awake, boy?"

Zangetsu tilted his head upward, white hair shifting across his bronze forehead. He kept his expression blank for a moment longer before allowing his lips to part, shaping his first purposeful words in this world.

"Father…cold."

His voice was soft, quiet, carrying the faint rasp of unpractised speech. He let it tremble slightly, widening his eyes with calculated innocence. Yukie stirred behind them, murmuring his name in her sleep.

Hyouki's gaze flickered – a faint tightening around his eyes, a slow exhale that almost resembled relief or pride. Almost. His massive hand reached out and settled on Zangetsu's small head, cold fingers threading through white hair with careful, measured pressure.

"The world is cold, Zangetsu. Remember that."

Zangetsu nodded silently, lowering his gaze. Internally, his mind whispered with detached amusement.

Emotional fluctuation: narrowed gaze, slight exhale, reduced muscle tension. Pride mixed with approval. Tactical note: reinforce obedient innocence to solidify paternal attachment while maintaining threat deterrence.

Hyouki ruffled his hair once more before standing, his armored form rising like a silent mountain into moonlit shadows. Without another word, he turned and stepped out into the courtyard, frost crunching beneath his boots as he disappeared into dawn's fading darkness.

Zangetsu sat perfectly still for a long moment, feeling the cold left behind by his father's touch seep down through his scalp and spine into his silent, calculating core.

Later that morning, Zangetsu walked with small, silent steps along the inner veranda. His mother sat beneath the veranda's edge, weaving winter cloth with other clan women, their hushed laughter mingling with the soft scrape of loom shuttles.

He wandered purposefully toward the compound's east gate, clutching a small carved wooden halberd in his right hand. Its haft was smooth from generations of child trainees. He did not swing it or play with it like the other toddlers. Instead, he simply walked, each step placed with silent precision despite his small, bare feet upon frost-coated planks.

Two guards stood by the east gate entrance, their dark blue mantles dusted with falling snow. One leaned his halberd against his shoulder while the other shifted restlessly from foot to foot, exhaling thin white clouds of breath into the morning chill.

"Did you hear about the Mist? Their new Mizukage is tightening bloodline hunts again. Refugees keep fleeing into the border forests."

"Hmph. Cowards. Better hunted than killed outright."

"Still…Hatake Sakumo is at the northern outposts again. They say he's holding back Iwa incursions alone with just a squad. That man…White Fang or not…he's a demon in human skin."

"Tch. We have our own demon. Frost Underworld Demon cut down twenty at the last border raid. Shouki Hyouki will keep the Leaf's northern shadows frozen."

The first guard shifted his grip on his halberd, glancing back toward the courtyard where Zangetsu stood watching them silently.

"That his son? Hmph. Creepy eyes."

"Don't say that too loud. Snow demons hear everything."

Their voices fell into awkward silence as Zangetsu turned away, stepping lightly back down the veranda toward his mother's weaving circle.

Internally, his mind whispered with cold clarity.

Mizukage succession confirmed. Bloodline hunts accelerating. Hidden Mist destabilising. Hatake Sakumo active on northern borders. Iwa probing for weakness. The world's pieces shift, each nation testing the other's resolve.

He pictured the Mist's refugees – bloodline clans driven into hiding, hunted like animals by their own village. His mind flickered through possibilities.

Bloodline refugees…scattered, desperate, loyal to any who offer sanctuary. Possible vassals. Useful for genetic harvesting and jutsu research. Kiri's internal purge weakens its outer defenses – prime timing for infiltration and silent asset extraction.

He shifted focus to the guards' mention of Hatake Sakumo.

White Fang…active along Iwa borders. Fear bred from reputation alone. Ideal. Fear is leverage – leverage breeds negotiation or surrender. If he falls soon, morale breaks; if he lives, his shadow covers battlefields I may one day tread.

Then Iwa itself.

Iwagakure probing Fire's northern front…testing for weakness before mass incursion. Opportunity for misdirection. If Mist refugees are seeded along the borders and framed for raids, Iwa's aggression redirects to Water, delaying both while I consolidate power here.

He imagined silent assassins moving through forests, leaving Kiri weapon fragments embedded in Iwa scouts' corpses. He imagined whisper campaigns in border towns, inflaming mutual hatred between the two rival villages while the Leaf remained unaware of the puppet strings.

He pictured his clan's mountain compound standing unassailable amidst that chaos, and himself sitting upon its highest terrace, weaving jutsu forbidden by both gods and men.

Opportunity ripens in chaos. Power solidifies in silence. Their legends will feed my dominion.

He walked calmly to Yukie's side and sat down upon the cold veranda planks, placing the wooden halberd across his lap. His mother smiled down at him, brushing a stray white strand from his eyes, never noticing the silent conquest blooming behind his unblinking stare.

Night returned, silent and deep.

The clan compound lay beneath a cold, cloudless sky, moonlight spilling across tile roofs and frozen courtyards in pale silver sheets. Frost clung to veranda beams and paper screen windows, etching each wooden edge in crystalline whispers.

Inside his sleeping chamber, Zangetsu sat cross-legged upon his futon, wrapped in a thin black sleeping robe. His mother slept nearby, her quiet breathing steady in the darkness, face half-buried in blankets against the cold.

He closed his eyes, his small hands resting upon his knees. Inward, he focused.

He felt the flicker of warmth beneath his navel, faint and fragile, but stronger than months before. He guided it with deliberate precision, pushing threads of chakra through his coils – pathways that burned and ached with unnatural strain, but wove themselves stronger with each passing night.

Chakra…this world's forge. It will temper my dominion into something unbreakable.

His breathing slowed. The world fell silent around him. The faint crackling of ice expanding within roof beams faded until only his pulse remained.

Then he felt it.

A ripple. A flicker at the edges of perception. A shadow reaching into his awareness from beyond – masked forms wreathed in mist and darkness, distant howls echoing across unseen battlegrounds of blood and broken stone. The scent of scorched earth, iron, and frost bit through his mind with sudden clarity.

His Mortal Kombat domain.

It pulsed once, a silent promise from the abyss. The masked shadows did not yet cross into his reality, but their presence trembled just beyond the veil, waiting. Watching.

A faint smile flickered across his lips in the darkness.

Soon…this world will know my domain. Summoning warriors to my side…shaping them…shaping everything…until only my will remains.

His eyes opened, pale and unblinking in the moonlight, reflecting drifting snowflakes beyond the paper screens. Frost gathered along his lashes, glittering like shards of glass.

He remained seated until the horizon paled into dawn grey, chakra circulating in cold, silent perfection.