The Golden Stag

ARC 2: the Songs never sung

JOFFREY BARATHEON.
.................
He had written the seals as best as he could remember. Three concentric circles of black scribbles, and then through the center, radial lines of more seals.

In moments Kurama would correct him, telling him how he missed the wording and he would redo it.

He hated this technique.

In the far corner of the dark room, a man sat gagged and tied. He was Rorge, one of the criminals he had captured in the flea bottom, he ran an illegal fighting ring, usually dogs and bears but his men had sussed out that he had men fight in his rings too. He had the man sentenced to death about three weeks ago, that was around the time Robert died, Naruto recalled.

He was glad when he reached Yoren of Night's watch. The man was eager to part with the criminal so he saw that he was allowed to exit the gates without much problem. He wanted Night's watch to prosper, he was well aware of what would come south should they fall.

Rorge seemed to recognize him, struggling against his binds, crying and kicking but Naruto completed his mural of black inky seals with patience.

He took the jar and with a tweezer, he fished out the ear. He placed it on the smaller circle of runes that connected with the larger circle.
"Let your death serve a greater cause." He looked at the man and chains of golden chakra erupted from the ground, lethal and powerful. They wrapped around the man, raised him over the drying runes and seals, and placed him in the center of the bigger circle.

Rorge looked at him in horror and Naruto only sighed.

"Impure world resurrection." He called out as he finished doing the seals.

The torches in the room dimmed, the dark in the corners, the shadows moved on their own, as if with a will inside them. They stretched, like long dark fingers on the hands of an elder god, rising from the abyss itself.

The shadows swallowed the man, twisting around his form, squeezing and bulging, changing his muscles and bones to match the source of it all.

He watched as the ear crumbled to dust and the shadows pulled away.

But a cold chill spread through the room, not like the cold one would feel in the north nor like one you get in a cold bath, no this was different. This chill came from within, a chill he was all too familiar with, the chill at the end of it all, the finality, his ever-present friend.

"I do not think, I did the technique wrong." He said as he waited.

"That you didn't, Naruto, or is it Joffrey now?" The God was tall and lean, his white hair more lustrous and beautiful than any maids, he had ever seen.

"I know gods are given a lot more prevalence in this world than mine, but I do not think what I did would warrant your arrival, Stranger, shinigami, what name do you prefer here?"

"Many names they have given me, me and my siblings," the god laughed as he slowly floated about the room, their pristine form not touching the material at all as if the filth would defy their greatness. "some call me Stranger as you put it, others The Red God, others in their own tongue sing of me but that is of no consequence, is it?" the god turned to face him, their face was something he could not make out, their divinity, true divinity, shielded them from any mortals gaze. "Izanagi yet again took you from my grasp." They sighed. "Ever since your birth she has had this fascination with you that I cannot understand, still in her halls she hosts your wife to hear her speak of you as if she hasn't already seen what you have done, become." the fondness that was in the God's eye disappeared however, "That bitch, she is life and I am death and that is the duality of all existence, without her, I cannot be, else, I'd have squeezed that pretty little throat of hers and ripped her off her divinity."