Fallen Grace: A Naruto Fanfiction (Book 2, vol. 1)

Chapter 61: Appetizer {1}

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POV: Third Person

Many Years Ago...

A man cloaked in a purple cloak clad his body as he walked forward with a dominating presence. Beside him, located at his waist, was a blade sheathed in a black material.

"Good morning, Shikisha-sama." There were people, spreading about, their backs facing the olden doors of wood before bowing their heads in respect.

Shikisha smiled, his face darting from one end to the other, a gentle look on his face as he walked by them so gracefully.

The clan members and members of Nobu stopped bowing, their eyes landing on a peculiar existence that was tailing their grand and great lord.

A kid.

A girl that was thin, and her body nothing more than a skeletal carcass, than a live body that had a human soul attached to it. They did not speak, only casting a pitiful glance at the tiny, midnight blue-haired girl as she walked in a nervous wreck.

"Your name is Aoi? Correct?" Shikisha stopped walking, his feet no longer making the noises that it had made before. She nodded, looking at the supposed lord of the clan that was more prestigious and grand-worthy than a pile of real gold.

Such a thing existing...

Even the leprechaun that stood right next to the pot of gold would no longer cast its gaze at the brilliant shine that the gold emitted.

In fact, the leprechaun would only have his eyes stuck, glued to the existence of the Tokugawa Clan. They were people associated with hundreds of layering history upon one another.

Their existence, and their meaning--it would completely captivate the leprechaun, and any other person that sought the luster of great fortune. Yet, people like them, lusting for great fortune, and for people who sought with envy--

they all had a single expectation, a single truth. A truth that blocked them from lusting for the fortune up ahead, awaiting them seemingly.

They did not belong there.

They were not welcome there.

The rainbow would not lead them to greater glory.

Because there was only great misfortune that lies right ahead of the pot of gold. 

Aoi continued to trail along, seeing the magnificent interior of the estate that belonged to a clan and organization that was praised and sought to be in. She did not know what it meant, nor did she know what the word she was feeling was.

It was an unexplainable feeling that she had once her eyes laid on everything that existed, twisting. Her mind raced, thinking something along the lines of:

Why couldn't I have this?

She was jealous, envious of the materialistic items that shined with a dazzling luster. It had been so long since she had felt the coziness, the warmth of a nice home.

The noise of the TV, and the cooked meals that her mother had made her--she missed it all. 

That food, that warmth, that coziness... they were something that she no longer had, that feeling of safety becoming disintegrated ashes that lacked any meaning.