Prince Naruto - Chapter V (Patreon)

Chapter V - The Prince the World needs.

"Azula… please stop sulking."

"I am not sulking!"

His sister’s heart had broken into a thousand pieces the moment he told her he was leaving for the frontlines. He had expected her to turn into a furious tigerdillo and yell at him for leaving without telling her earlier. However, Azula had maintained a perfect nonchalant face as if his departure was not going to affect her, but Naruto knew better. She was hurt, and he could not leave her like that. Which is why he had asked her to help him pack for his trip, knowing full well she would accept just to spend as much time as she could with him. Naruto knew he had to help her accept the change in her life no matter how hard it was. He stopped packing his clothes and locked his thirteen year old sister in a hug.

"Let me go." She weakly demanded as she struggled to break free.

"Never." Her brother whispered to her ear. "I will never let you go Azula, you’re my most precious person in the world."

Those words broke the Princess’ defenses, she returned his hug and held him with all she had.

"Then why are you leaving?" She asked as tears were running down her cheeks. "You don’t need to go to the frontlines! We have plenty of soldiers for that! They don’t need you! I do…"

Her confession ripped a warm smile from her brother’s face, he gently rubbed her back.

"There are two reasons why I am leaving; first, because it is my duty. I have completed my training and our citizens as much as our soldiers are holding many expectations regarding my bending, I must turn those expectations into hope, and contribute to the war effort to finally put an end to this war. I cannot remain hidden in the Palace while others die for glory, I have to take my responsibilities."

Azula breathed in disdain, she did not invalidate his argument, but she could not find in herself to care about what others would think of her brother.

"The second reason is you."

Now the Princess felt a thunderbolt explode inside her skull.

"What!?" She nearly screeched. "What do you mean me!? What have I done!?"

"Nothing, little sister." He spoke gently as he released her. "The reason why I have to leave is because your entire life currently revolves around me, no matter how much I love you and how much you love me, this is not healthy. This is not living, I don’t want you clinging to my shoulder for the rest of your days. I want you to build your own life, and in order for you to do that, you need to focus on yourself, not me. And I know you will never do that if I am around."

Azula was at a loss of words, her entire body was shaking and she had started hyperventilating. It took her a minute to realize that she was terrified.

"I-I don’t want to be alone." She whispered as she was trying hard to get a hold of herself.

"Neither do I." Naruto answered as he gently rubbed her cheek. "But I believe this a necessary step for both our growths. You have your training to complete, and since I’ll be gone, Father will give you far more responsibilities than before. And when you’ll finally be ready, you’ll receive your first mission and your life-changing journey will truly begin. Next time you and I will meet, we’ll be different people, but I’ll never stop loving you, little sister. And I honestly cannot wait to see you all grown up and to listen to the tales of your adventures. Make sure you have plenty to tell me."

Azula let out a long sigh to calm herself and locked her brother in another hug. She was still afraid, but she know understood her brother’s point.

"Zula? Do you remember what I told you all those years ago? About loved ones?"

Of course she remembered. She could never forget one of her brother’s lesson.

"People become strong when they have loved ones to protect" She recited to the letter.

Naruto smiled.

"When we’re apart, little sister, I hope you’ll find people to love and protect with everything you have. For if you do, you will become strong, believe it."

Now it was Azula’s turn to smile, yet she felt a bitter taste in her mouth. For years she had wanted Naruto to be this person that she would protect until the last drop of her blood. But her brother was far more powerful than her, and he would die a million death for her. She couldn’t be her brother’s protector no matter how hard she trained, she needed to find real power elsewhere, and in order to do that, she needed to focus on herself. She sighed, in the end, Naruto had been right once again.

"I love you, Ruru." She whispered as she felt her damn tears come back.

She widened her eyes when she felt her brother’s tears slip on her neck.

"I love you too, Zula. I’ll miss you terribly."

"You’d better write." She warned with a happy smile hidden in Naruto’s shoulder.

"I will."

(-)(-)(-)

Naruto had not wanted a whole parade for his departure. Time was against him, he needed to join the frontlines as soon as possible. Azula was the only one to see him depart. However, the Princess was perplexed when he told her he would depart in the gardens, she had expected him to leave by the harbor.

"How are you going to reach the frontlines on time?" She asked him as he put on his backpack.

Naruto let out a mischievous smile.

"I’ll fly of course."

Azula frowned, and almost jumped back in shock when she saw crimson flames erupt from her brothers feet.

"Love you Zula!" He screamed as he took off and disappeared into the night.

The Princess stayed petrified for a minute before she closed her fists and a competitive smile appeared on her face.

"I swear to Agni, I’ll catch up to you. No matter how hard it will be, I WILL catch up."

(-)(-)(-)

Half a thousand fire nation soldiers were on the ground, at the foot of the hill from which they had been bombarded by rocks. The attack had happened around midnight, the earth benders had attacked them during dinner and used the lights of their torches to hide in the dark and crush them while they were stuck trying to guess where the enemy was. After half an hour of slaughtering, they had been either too exhausted or too injured to keep fighting, therefore, their commander had surrendered to General Fong in order to spare as many of his men as possible. But that had ended up being a terrible mistake.

Indeed, General Fong was not in a merciful mood, and after the soldiers of the Fire Nation had all been captured and bounded by handcuffs made of stone, he had proceeded to execute them one by one in front of their commander, despite the numerous pleas that rang to his ears.

"Why are you doing this!?" Commander Huo roared in fury as he was watching his men were being crushed by a giant boulder. "We surrendered to you! There is no need for such cruelty!"

"You call this cruelty? I call it justice!" Fong replied as he motioned for his men to keep going with the executions. "You have invaded our homes, murdered our fathers and brothers, raped our women and imprisoned our soldiers! We’re doing nothing that you haven’t done before!"

"My men have committed no warcrimes! They’re all fresh recruits, green boys who had never seen a battle before! They’re innocents!"

"Then they will pay for the crimes of their brothers and fathers!" Fong replied as he looked at a young Fire Nation soldier who could not have been older than sixteen, being crushed by a boulder already half-covered in blood. His screams had been music to the old General’s ears.

"You will pay for this! Fong!" The Commander roared in fury. "The Fire Nation is coming for you! Your head will feed the worms!"

"Perhaps," Fong replied with an arrogant smile. "But none of your green boys will be alive to see it."

Huo clenched his teeth as he was watching the horrified young boys and girls crying and screaming at the fate of their comrades. Fong had ordered for the female soldiers not to be executed, the Commander knew exactly what the bearded General had in mind when he had ordered that. He would never forget the feeling of helplessness that was going through him.

And neither would he forget the light that illuminated his darkest moment.

It all happened in a second, right when a new recruit was about to be thrown into the mass grave to be crushed. The whole perimeter had suddenly brightened when a crimson light had shone above their heads blinding each and every person preset, except for the one that had created it.

Huo heard Fong barking orders and demanding what was going on. What none of the Earth benders had realized, was that the Fire Nation soldiers got used to the light a lot faster than them, and as they all blinked to see where that light had came from, all the firebenders in the battalion suddenly felt their inner fire burn stronger than it had ever did.

Hum was finally able to spot the source of the light; a red ord, crimson like blood, that was floating thirty feet over their heads.

Before he could try to wonder what that thing was, he heard a noise he’d never heard before, and Earth Kingdom soldiers’ heads rolled on the ground as a man descended from the sky to stand in the middle of the awestruck recruits that had been soiling their pants one minute earlier.

Huo was able to identify the newcomer thanks to his unusual hair-color, hope was suddenly filling his heart as his soldiers murmured his name.

"Prince Naruto."

« Our Prince came to save us."

Fong widened his

Naruto dropped his backpack on the ground, and crossed General Fong’s stare. The bearded Earth bender had paralyzed himself when he’d heard the Fire Nation soldiers pronounce the name of his new enemy. What he had in front of his eyes was not the arrogant boy he had expected when he’d heard his name for the first time, what he had in front of him was a monster, with beastly crimson eyes filled with fury and clenched fangs that looked as sharp as daggers.

"Feel the warmth of my fire, seize your weapons, and fight." Naruto said coldly as a red flame appeared in each of his hands. "FIGHT!"

A gigantic wave of fire erupted from the Fire Nation Prince and burnt alive half a hundred EK soldiers that had been surrounding the new recruits. Those new recruits had abandoned fear for rage, and thanks to the warmth of their Prince’s little sun, their freed themselves from their cuffs and charged at the Earth benders, roaring as one. Commander Huo himself broke free and threw the biggest fireball he had ever conjured to Fong’s face. The EK General screamed in agony as he clutched his burnt face, trying to extinguish his burning beard.

The Earth Benders retaliated by throwing the most massive rocks at their disposal. Naruto destroyed all of their projectiles before they reached his compatriots, and covered in a wave of flames the benders that were on the top of the Hill. His victims tumbled down the side of the hill screaming, their bodies turning black as coal.

Fong felt one of his soldiers grabbing him by the shoulders before he fell into unconsciousness, Huo tried to catch up to him but half a dozen earth benders stood between him and his prey, forcing him to fight them while the EK General was dragged away. Huo roared in anger as he remembered the screams of his young recruits and attacked them with all the power his Prince had given him.

The Hill became the theater of a new battle, one that was clearly in favor of the Fire Nation. Naruto exterminated the furthest soldiers while his men were protecting him and repelling any desperate charge to reach their Prince. The battle lasted for less than a dozen minutes, and only ended when the last EK soldier was either dead or gone. But there were no celebrations when the fighting stopped, for all the young boys and girls who had survived it, were now clearly seeing the results of massacre that had happened before their eyes thanks to Naruto’s orb. The Prince looked at what was left of his fellow country boys that had left home for glory and honor and had only found a horrible death. He shook his head, trying not to imagine Azula in their stead, and started picking up what was left of the bodies.

"My Prince!" a female soldier exclaimed in shock. "What are you doing?"

"We cannot leave them like that. We need to burn the bodies. Take care of the injured and take as much time as you need to recover. Your commander and I will gather the bodies for a proper funeral pyre."

Huo simply nodded from where he was standing before he came down to help his Prince, he remained emotionless when he picked up the headless corpse of one of his recruits, Naruto and he exchanged no words during their grim task.

Another soldier, who was surprisingly uninjured, came down to help them. The females who had escaped the gruesome fate of their comrades also came, once the most serious injuries had been treated, the soldiers who were still standing came down to help as well.

After a long hour of work, the funeral pyre was lit by Naruto himself, and the young recruits who had never seen a battle before that night fell on their knees and cried for the loss of their comrades and the horror they had felt during that night. Huo ordered them to rest before he went to speak with their saviour.

"Don’t bow." Naruto said with his eyes still on the pyre. "And don’t thank me either, I should have joined the battlefield months ago. I don’t deserve any thanks."

"You do, my Prince." The commander answered genuinely. "Those soldiers were not your responsibility, but mine, I am the one who failed them. So thank you, none of us would have survived without you."

Naruto simply sighed, he knew the Commander would keep feeling grateful no matter how guilty the blond felt, so it was a lost cause to try to convince him that he was no hero.

"Who ordered such a massacre?"

"General Fong." Huo’s tone was filled with hatred. "I apologize, my Prince. I failed to capture him when you came to save us. I only managed to burn his face."

"Good, he will be easy to identify then. I will burn him alive for what happened today."

"That’s the spirit."

Naruto almost jumped in surprise when Kurama’s voice echoed in his head, he would need a lot of time to get used to this giant furball commentating out of nowhere.

"Still think you can change humanity, kit?"

Naruto shook his head.

"I don’t know if I can do it or not, Kurama. I haven’t even started. I don’t even know what to do. For now, the best I can do is pacify those lands for the benefits of the recent colonies. I will have to kill a lot of people… and force plenty into submission. That part is the easiest, I have no idea how to inspire them to become better though. I don’t even think I am better."

"You do know that if you force them into submission, they’ll just get pissed and try to murder you in your sleep, right? You can’t inspire anyone by committing mass murders. Well… except for your fellow countrymen behind you."

Kurama’s words struck deeper than a dagger and he clenched hi teeth. The fox was right, what kind of message would he send to the colonies if he were to massacre each and every enemy he were to meet? How could he convince the inhabitants of the conquered villages to submit to Fire Nation rule? And even more importantly…

He turned his head to look at the surviving recruits. They had gone through a traumatic experience, they had watched their friends died, the females had almost been raped. It was obvious that from now on they would massacre any Earth kingdom soldier they’d come upon out of fear or rage. And they’d probably abuse any EK citizen that would fall under the domination of the Fire Nation. This was a cycle of hatred, and Naruto had no idea how to break it.

Power alone was far from enough. The Prince of the Fire Nation needed to be more than a symbol of power for his people, he needed to become something else, something more. Something that could inspire people to live together rather that fight each other to the last man. As he looked at the Pyre’s flames, at the faceless and nameless corpses that were burning, he wondered who he was, and who he needed to become to fulfill his dream.

He looked up, and looked at his crimson orb that was still shining in the dark. That small Sun that had given hope to his soldiers and turned the tides of this battle. He brought it back to the palm of his hand, and looked at it once again. His grandfather’s words echoed in his mind:

"The power of the Sun, in the palm of your hand."

The Sun was not bringing death and suffering wherever he went, the Sun brought warmth, comfort and joy. Perhaps his powers were not simply a weapon of mass destruction, perhaps it could be something more… Something that would change people’s mind and be the symbol of a new Era.

Naruto had not slept that night, he had informed Commander Huo that he needed to pacify the rest of the land in order to allow supply units and reinforcement regiments to turn this battlefield into a safe Fire Nation colony. He took off and disappeared into the night, but he never stopped thinking about what he needed to be, or more accurately, what the Entire World needed him to be.