...I wonder if there's anyone out there who's up for crossing Good Omens with WALL-E.
(No, seriously. I can see awesome potential for celestial and infernal influence and behind-the-scenes tinkering.)
I'm a big fat liar. No chapter two right now...but I am writing more. ^_^
22 April 2009
Chapter 2...
...is not going to be posted until sometime tomorrow, if I'm lucky.
Apologies for the hiatus! I had food poisoning. Again. For an entire week. (That's seriously like the second full week of food poisoning I've had in the past month.)
I'm busily catching up on everything I had to put aside in favor of being sick...chores, errands, and writing too! For some reason I can't concentrate on writing if my house is messy. My cat took full advantage of my weakness and he's scattered everything that was piled up and scatterable. (He tore apart three separate rooms' worth of stuff and tried his best to kill all my houseplants.) But! My cleanup is almost complete.
I feel ready to edit chapter two...which means I can then post it. ^_^ I want to write more on the story too, but I don't think it's a good idea to mix writing and editing. It's like if a guy decides to grow a beard and then decides the best way to accomplish that is to shave it off every couple days. Editing inhibits writing like razors inhibit beard growth. Yes, the beard is still going to grow, but not as long as it could have gotten had it not been shaved.
Righto. Tomorrow (read: technically later today) is the day. I'm going to give it a good hard look, polish it up a bit, and post. For now, I shall go sleep to prepare for this great endeavor.
Apologies for the hiatus! I had food poisoning. Again. For an entire week. (That's seriously like the second full week of food poisoning I've had in the past month.)
I'm busily catching up on everything I had to put aside in favor of being sick...chores, errands, and writing too! For some reason I can't concentrate on writing if my house is messy. My cat took full advantage of my weakness and he's scattered everything that was piled up and scatterable. (He tore apart three separate rooms' worth of stuff and tried his best to kill all my houseplants.) But! My cleanup is almost complete.
I feel ready to edit chapter two...which means I can then post it. ^_^ I want to write more on the story too, but I don't think it's a good idea to mix writing and editing. It's like if a guy decides to grow a beard and then decides the best way to accomplish that is to shave it off every couple days. Editing inhibits writing like razors inhibit beard growth. Yes, the beard is still going to grow, but not as long as it could have gotten had it not been shaved.
Righto. Tomorrow (read: technically later today) is the day. I'm going to give it a good hard look, polish it up a bit, and post. For now, I shall go sleep to prepare for this great endeavor.
13 April 2009
Still a slacker...
It's been two weeks since I've posted on here. In those two weeks I've done almost nothing of writing significance. I've scribbled down a few ideas here and there, but I've made zero progress on any project.
(Honestly the most I've produced was an incomplete set of lyrics and a blasphemous fake chain letter.)
I know I keep taunting everyone with the prospect of reading material...and I'm finally going to stop waffling about it. Before you is the first chapter of the epic fanfic of epicness. It's tentatively titled "Entropy." I'm having a hard time with the title, mostly because I think of the story in long-winded descriptive terms instead. The story has not yet become its title, if that makes any sense.
I've spell-checked it but haven't done anything for the grammar/punctuation/whatever. I've tried to edit for content and coherency, but I haven't gotten anywhere. Maybe later. (I realize this is almost entirely boring summary-type crap. Trust me, it's necessary to the story...for now, mwuhuhahaha. Besides, this is the only chapter like this. I swear there's dialog forever after this!) Enjoy! Drop me a line, if you care to.
It was an unspoken rule not to mention the fact that Sasuke was crazy. True, he’d never been right in the entire time team seven had known him, but he was decidedly worse after receiving Orochimaru‘s tutelage, and killing his brother had been the last straw.
But the ninja were careful not to say anything in front of Naruto or Sakura. Kakashi wondered why this didn’t apply to him. Perhaps because he had been an instructor and not a classmate. Maybe everyone who bitched to him thought Sasuke and he had not been close, despite months of group training and months of one-on-one and that middle-of-the-night intervention that had so miserably failed.
He knew he shouldn’t blame himself entirely. After all, Kakashi had had a few months to try and affect the thinking of years’ worth of obsession in a particularly stubborn and willful not-quite teenager. Even then Sasuke looked like he was only just stopping himself from imploding with hate and anger and despair. He’d been so feral that night, violent and cruel. No, not cruel. But unthinking and uncaring underneath the widespread branches of the tree. If he’d had wings then, no doubt he would have flown off on the wild winds that stripped the leaves off twigs and frothed the water of the river into great sprays.
Kakashi had failed him, no matter that Sasuke was as flat and dead as the moon. He hashed and rehashed the events, thinking that there could have been some we he could have done more. He felt responsibility for everything Sasuke had done after that, could see the lack of his influence so clearly in all the bad, wrong, and downright nonsensical things.
Which was why, now, years after Sasuke’s return to Konoha, Kakashi had agreed to take him on again. Sasuke’s homecoming had been no easy thing, though he did, admittedly, come to the village of his own will. It was pure bad luck that he had come to destroy it, but it was the thought that counts, right? He cared enough about it to want it wiped off the face of the planet, at least.
Sasuke brought a precious few helpers along; remnants of Akatsuki and followers of Orochimaru. A score or so of hardened s-ranks, the odd experiment or two, and some less memorable bingo book faces. It was clear to Kakashi that Sasuke had come completely unscrewed by then, attacking an entire village of ninjas with less than thirty. And it showed in his commanding, too. He was too focused on certain goals--i.e. destroying the village--and not focused enough on things like defense…or basic tactics. He didn’t seem to care if his people got taken down, as long as he had more time to cause as much trouble as he could himself. He seemed bent on personally taking out each and every house, building, or wall of mortared stone.
Still, the battle had been long and hard and damaging. A good third of the village had been flattened by enormous battling summons, and most of what remained had been scorched by Sasuke’s hard-won amaterasu. The academy was reduced to rubble. Many good ninja had died, not the least of whom was Tsunade. To be more accurate, she didn’t actually die during the battle. She died some weeks afterward from chakra exhaustion from both the fighting and the healing of battle wounds. She spread herself too thin, became tired and weak. She spent her last few days dictating village business from her bed. (Sakura confessed that, even if Tsunade had not died, she would never have recovered. Tsunade would have been unable to perform anything that needed chakra, which is no good to a Hokage.)
But the battle was long-won and over with. Sasuke had spent some time with Ibiki and the rest of it in prison. Naruto had worked hard that whole time, consolidating power, winning over councilors and heads of clans, and proving himself to be politically astute. He spent a year--or was it two?--as a diplomat, first to Suna and then on an as-needed basis to less friendly countries. Although he lacked a certain diplomatic polish, he was exceptionally good with people. It also didn’t hurt that he had, by then, subsumed all the Kyuubi’s power and could, though he never did, flatten a country with that massive chakra reserve.
A secondary ninja council had taken over governing for a temporary measure while the village rebuilt and took stock and tried to decide who would be Hokage next. Shizune took the lead on it, for a time, before declaring that the hospital needed her more. Ibiki was a second choice, but he declined before they could officially elect him. He much preferred the shadows to the limelight. Danzou stepped in to fill the void…which is how Sasuke made it to prison. There were months of infighting and backstabbing and finally the remaining jounin and ANBU who were not loyal to Danzou banded together and kicked Danzou out of power through perfectly democratic methods. And those same ninja stepped up to the responsibility in a rotational fashion. (The exception was, in fact, Iruka. He got stuck handing out missions the entire time because people seemed to trust that he knew the abilities of everyone on active duty. And it was true and he rather liked the work, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone that in case they decided to switch him to something else. So he bitched and complained and made it sound like really hard work.)
And, when Naruto came back from diplomatic deployment, he did some time on the council rotation. And then he took another turn. And another. And finally everyone agreed that he should become Hokage. The regular council insisted that he have advisors who were, quote, “not biased towards him in such a manner as would cause undue favor to his ideas.” This meant that Kakashi wasn’t allowed anywhere near him, for one. His council appointed advisors were Ebisu, Ibiki, Shizune, and Anko. Naruto agreed that the advisors would assist him with village matters large and small, for a probationary period of six months. If he didn’t manage to run the village into the ground in that time, they would consider allowing him complete autonomy after that.
Ibiki and Anko bailed on him after a week. Apparently, for the first time in his life, Naruto proved that he was competent. Shizune gave up dogging him after a month. Ebisu stuck it out the longest, but this was more for the sake of looking good in front of the council than any real desire to assist or police Naruto. By the time Ebisu quit, Naruto had firmly cemented himself in village politics and no one said anything when he announced, with great aplomb, that Ebisu would be returning to his former duties.
Naruto made public works one of his priorities. He wanted everyone to have a home. He wanted all the buildings repaired, rebuilt, or replaced. Strangely, the last thing that went back up was the Academy. But once everything was done, he set his sights on the prison. It rankled him that, not only did Konoha have a prison in the first place, but his former best friend was there…had been there, actually, for nearly five years. Whoops. Naruto asked Ibiki to look into it, and Ibiki did. Yes, Sasuke was still there. No, he didn’t plan on escaping. No, he wasn’t going to destroy the village anymore. Yes, yes he was still terribly crazy. Dangerously so. Although Ibiki used the terms “unstable” and “likely to harm himself.” Sasuke wasn’t doing worse in prison, but he wasn’t getting better. Ibiki had his doubts that Sasuke ever would, but he did not share them with Naruto.
So Naruto, still as surprising as ever, came up with a plan. He made many diplomatic overtures and promises and called in favors, and in return the prisoners were sent off to various other countries as menial hard labor. They’d be fairly treated: properly clothed and fed, but supervised and, most importantly, they wouldn’t be in prison any more. (For those prisoners who were ninjas, Naruto consulted with Shizune and Sakura and the knowledge of the Kyuubi and found ways to block their chakra. It was hard and cruel, but Naruto couldn’t just let the prisoners loose, even in the supervised work environments, to start causing trouble again. If the former prisoners were ever rehabilitated, the blocks could, in theory, be removed. Naruto wasn’t convinced that time would ever come.)
As soon as the prisoners were taken care of, Naruto gleefully had the prison demolished. He vowed that he would find solutions other than incarceration for future offenders. But this all still left Sasuke. Naruto was convinced that, given more time, Sasuke could recover into some semblance of normalcy. So, briefly, Sasuke went into the hospital. It didn’t help anything and, in fact, Sasuke got a bit worse. More isolated. More withdrawn. More likely to burst out in a fit of anger.
And so Kakashi volunteered. Well, not so much volunteered as gave in to the Hokage’s formal and informal begging. Naruto had given it a lot of thought and decided that Kakashi had a better chance than anyone else. Better chance of what he didn’t say. Survival, probably.
(Honestly the most I've produced was an incomplete set of lyrics and a blasphemous fake chain letter.)
I know I keep taunting everyone with the prospect of reading material...and I'm finally going to stop waffling about it. Before you is the first chapter of the epic fanfic of epicness. It's tentatively titled "Entropy." I'm having a hard time with the title, mostly because I think of the story in long-winded descriptive terms instead. The story has not yet become its title, if that makes any sense.
I've spell-checked it but haven't done anything for the grammar/punctuation/whatever. I've tried to edit for content and coherency, but I haven't gotten anywhere. Maybe later. (I realize this is almost entirely boring summary-type crap. Trust me, it's necessary to the story...for now, mwuhuhahaha. Besides, this is the only chapter like this. I swear there's dialog forever after this!) Enjoy! Drop me a line, if you care to.
________________________________________
It was an unspoken rule not to mention the fact that Sasuke was crazy. True, he’d never been right in the entire time team seven had known him, but he was decidedly worse after receiving Orochimaru‘s tutelage, and killing his brother had been the last straw.
But the ninja were careful not to say anything in front of Naruto or Sakura. Kakashi wondered why this didn’t apply to him. Perhaps because he had been an instructor and not a classmate. Maybe everyone who bitched to him thought Sasuke and he had not been close, despite months of group training and months of one-on-one and that middle-of-the-night intervention that had so miserably failed.
He knew he shouldn’t blame himself entirely. After all, Kakashi had had a few months to try and affect the thinking of years’ worth of obsession in a particularly stubborn and willful not-quite teenager. Even then Sasuke looked like he was only just stopping himself from imploding with hate and anger and despair. He’d been so feral that night, violent and cruel. No, not cruel. But unthinking and uncaring underneath the widespread branches of the tree. If he’d had wings then, no doubt he would have flown off on the wild winds that stripped the leaves off twigs and frothed the water of the river into great sprays.
Kakashi had failed him, no matter that Sasuke was as flat and dead as the moon. He hashed and rehashed the events, thinking that there could have been some we he could have done more. He felt responsibility for everything Sasuke had done after that, could see the lack of his influence so clearly in all the bad, wrong, and downright nonsensical things.
Which was why, now, years after Sasuke’s return to Konoha, Kakashi had agreed to take him on again. Sasuke’s homecoming had been no easy thing, though he did, admittedly, come to the village of his own will. It was pure bad luck that he had come to destroy it, but it was the thought that counts, right? He cared enough about it to want it wiped off the face of the planet, at least.
Sasuke brought a precious few helpers along; remnants of Akatsuki and followers of Orochimaru. A score or so of hardened s-ranks, the odd experiment or two, and some less memorable bingo book faces. It was clear to Kakashi that Sasuke had come completely unscrewed by then, attacking an entire village of ninjas with less than thirty. And it showed in his commanding, too. He was too focused on certain goals--i.e. destroying the village--and not focused enough on things like defense…or basic tactics. He didn’t seem to care if his people got taken down, as long as he had more time to cause as much trouble as he could himself. He seemed bent on personally taking out each and every house, building, or wall of mortared stone.
Still, the battle had been long and hard and damaging. A good third of the village had been flattened by enormous battling summons, and most of what remained had been scorched by Sasuke’s hard-won amaterasu. The academy was reduced to rubble. Many good ninja had died, not the least of whom was Tsunade. To be more accurate, she didn’t actually die during the battle. She died some weeks afterward from chakra exhaustion from both the fighting and the healing of battle wounds. She spread herself too thin, became tired and weak. She spent her last few days dictating village business from her bed. (Sakura confessed that, even if Tsunade had not died, she would never have recovered. Tsunade would have been unable to perform anything that needed chakra, which is no good to a Hokage.)
But the battle was long-won and over with. Sasuke had spent some time with Ibiki and the rest of it in prison. Naruto had worked hard that whole time, consolidating power, winning over councilors and heads of clans, and proving himself to be politically astute. He spent a year--or was it two?--as a diplomat, first to Suna and then on an as-needed basis to less friendly countries. Although he lacked a certain diplomatic polish, he was exceptionally good with people. It also didn’t hurt that he had, by then, subsumed all the Kyuubi’s power and could, though he never did, flatten a country with that massive chakra reserve.
A secondary ninja council had taken over governing for a temporary measure while the village rebuilt and took stock and tried to decide who would be Hokage next. Shizune took the lead on it, for a time, before declaring that the hospital needed her more. Ibiki was a second choice, but he declined before they could officially elect him. He much preferred the shadows to the limelight. Danzou stepped in to fill the void…which is how Sasuke made it to prison. There were months of infighting and backstabbing and finally the remaining jounin and ANBU who were not loyal to Danzou banded together and kicked Danzou out of power through perfectly democratic methods. And those same ninja stepped up to the responsibility in a rotational fashion. (The exception was, in fact, Iruka. He got stuck handing out missions the entire time because people seemed to trust that he knew the abilities of everyone on active duty. And it was true and he rather liked the work, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone that in case they decided to switch him to something else. So he bitched and complained and made it sound like really hard work.)
And, when Naruto came back from diplomatic deployment, he did some time on the council rotation. And then he took another turn. And another. And finally everyone agreed that he should become Hokage. The regular council insisted that he have advisors who were, quote, “not biased towards him in such a manner as would cause undue favor to his ideas.” This meant that Kakashi wasn’t allowed anywhere near him, for one. His council appointed advisors were Ebisu, Ibiki, Shizune, and Anko. Naruto agreed that the advisors would assist him with village matters large and small, for a probationary period of six months. If he didn’t manage to run the village into the ground in that time, they would consider allowing him complete autonomy after that.
Ibiki and Anko bailed on him after a week. Apparently, for the first time in his life, Naruto proved that he was competent. Shizune gave up dogging him after a month. Ebisu stuck it out the longest, but this was more for the sake of looking good in front of the council than any real desire to assist or police Naruto. By the time Ebisu quit, Naruto had firmly cemented himself in village politics and no one said anything when he announced, with great aplomb, that Ebisu would be returning to his former duties.
Naruto made public works one of his priorities. He wanted everyone to have a home. He wanted all the buildings repaired, rebuilt, or replaced. Strangely, the last thing that went back up was the Academy. But once everything was done, he set his sights on the prison. It rankled him that, not only did Konoha have a prison in the first place, but his former best friend was there…had been there, actually, for nearly five years. Whoops. Naruto asked Ibiki to look into it, and Ibiki did. Yes, Sasuke was still there. No, he didn’t plan on escaping. No, he wasn’t going to destroy the village anymore. Yes, yes he was still terribly crazy. Dangerously so. Although Ibiki used the terms “unstable” and “likely to harm himself.” Sasuke wasn’t doing worse in prison, but he wasn’t getting better. Ibiki had his doubts that Sasuke ever would, but he did not share them with Naruto.
So Naruto, still as surprising as ever, came up with a plan. He made many diplomatic overtures and promises and called in favors, and in return the prisoners were sent off to various other countries as menial hard labor. They’d be fairly treated: properly clothed and fed, but supervised and, most importantly, they wouldn’t be in prison any more. (For those prisoners who were ninjas, Naruto consulted with Shizune and Sakura and the knowledge of the Kyuubi and found ways to block their chakra. It was hard and cruel, but Naruto couldn’t just let the prisoners loose, even in the supervised work environments, to start causing trouble again. If the former prisoners were ever rehabilitated, the blocks could, in theory, be removed. Naruto wasn’t convinced that time would ever come.)
As soon as the prisoners were taken care of, Naruto gleefully had the prison demolished. He vowed that he would find solutions other than incarceration for future offenders. But this all still left Sasuke. Naruto was convinced that, given more time, Sasuke could recover into some semblance of normalcy. So, briefly, Sasuke went into the hospital. It didn’t help anything and, in fact, Sasuke got a bit worse. More isolated. More withdrawn. More likely to burst out in a fit of anger.
And so Kakashi volunteered. Well, not so much volunteered as gave in to the Hokage’s formal and informal begging. Naruto had given it a lot of thought and decided that Kakashi had a better chance than anyone else. Better chance of what he didn’t say. Survival, probably.
________________________________________
So. Uhm. Yeah. More posting later? (There's got to be a way to hide large sections of text on here. These chapters look freaking massive as blog posts!)
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
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