As the enemy Shinobi fell to the floor the now named Frankenstein reeled in his strings, as he did so he showed that he had a strange arm brace on his wrists, it was odd looking as it had spools of string attached that Naruto didn't notice before.
Looking around the burning settlement Naruto noticed that the loggers and their families were fleeing into the woods, using the distraction caused by Frankenstein to their advantage as they ran away. They didn't even look back as the odd boy in the lab coat waved them off with a large smile on his face.
They seemed just as afraid of him as they were the Shinobi he had just killed, maybe even more.
Naruto stayed on his branch choosing to watch and wait, which paid off as the moment the last of the villagers were out of sight, Frankenstein jumped down from his perch on the burning roof and started whistling as he walked over to the dead and dismembered Shinobi.
The boy was so casual about the whole thing that he even had his hands in his pockets as he whistled, showing nothing but carefree indifference to the massacre he had just caused.
However it was after looking at what was left of the Shinobi that Naruto saw them, all eleven of them floating about two feet off the ground. Souls, but unlike any he had seen before while feeding from the various animals that populated Konoham, animals that were not limited to birds, dogs, foxes and cats.
Each of the soul's orbs were almost completely black except for a few blue spots here and there, and the glowing white centres of the orbs. Thinking back Naruto remembered what You had told him about Souls, he had said that the souls could go to one of two places, they could either go to the Pure world or the Impure world, depending on the purity of the soul.
He had also said that a tainted soul would be obvious, as when a soul is revealed that the darkness cannot be hidden. This meant that these Shinobi must have been very bad to have such black Souls.
Naruto felt the saliva pooling in his mouth at the sight of them, his stomach giving a low growl. It took all his self-restraint to not just jump down there and devour them, so great was the urge that his grip on the tree branch he was perched on started leaving slight indents.
Naruto's eyes flashed from the souls to the other boy in the clearing, who as Naruto watched seemed to have started digging through the different body parts strewn across the clearing. Naruto pulled his bag off his back and dug around until he found his recently finished mask.
He had at least finished carving and painting it, however he still planned to add a few Seals when he had understood and learnt enough not to have it blow up in his face, literally.
The mask was actually in two parts, one part covered the lower half of his face, while the other covered the top half. They were made to look alike a slightly demonic skull, with large teeth and sharp features, though whether it came across that way was debatable, after all he was only ten and was hardly an expert craftsman.
The two parts were separated at the mouth so that he could open it, and curved so it covered the sides of his face; it stopped just at his hairline. Most of the mask was painted black, with the exception of two white lines going down the mask from the top to the bottom, cutting through each of the eyeholes.
Overall it was quite a shoddy job, and definitely looked like it had been done by a child, fortunately though it did its job, it hid his identity.
When he placed the mask on his face Naruto used a bit of his chakra to keep it held in place, leaving only the blue of his eyes visible through the masks eyeholes.
He then made sure his hood was up and covering his hair, after assuring himself that both his features and hair were covered he jumped down from his tree and slowly walking towards where the Souls were floating above the fallen Shinobi's bodies.
His approach was almost like a predatory prowl as he kept low to the ground ready to bolt at any moment, as while the other boy in the clearing had his back turned to him, Naruto had just seen him dispatch a number of trained Shinobi, sure they were probably quite weak, but they were still probably stronger than Naruto currently was.
Being careful not to make a sound, Naruto slowly walked over to the first Soul and reached out for it, coating his hand in his unique chakra as he did so, so that he could grab it.
You had told him that for the more powerful Soul he would need to use a small amount of his chakra to be able to make physical contact with it, the weaker animal souls he had dealt with so far had needed nothing more than the passive chakra he had running through his body for him to pick them up.
You had told him that a more powerful a soul was the more likely it was to try and fight him if he went to take it, and therefore to better exert his control and will he should use chakra. His fingers had just brushed against the first soul orb when he felt something tapping his shoulder.
Turning around his hand going for the sheathed knife at his hip Naruto was completely knocked off balance by what was said next.
"Hey you, which of these do you think look healthier?"
Startled Naruto jumped back turning and facing the boy talking to him his knife out and held in a guard position, not that it turned out to be really necessary. As the boy before him barely blinked at Naruto's actions, instead Naruto found two hands held in front of his face, each of which was holding some kind of organ.
How had he not felt him walking up behind him, he felt anything and everything that was alive, these were the thoughts that were running through Naruto's head as the boy in the lab coat continued to wave his organ filled hands in the blondes face.
Naruto instead of looking at the organs that were still dripping blood instead looked up at the person holding them, his eyes coming to rest on the smiling face of Frankenstein. The boy seemed to care very little for Naruto's sudden appearance, as he instead seemed more concerned with weighing the two organs in his hands.
It was also at this point that Naruto got his first clear view of the boy's eyes behind his glasses, which as he looked closely turned out to be a golden yellow colour.
"It's so hard to find healthy Kidneys you know? Usually they get poisoned with sake or rotten, no use at all. But these don't look too bad do they, no they look quite good actually, I think I will keep them for later. Lungs on the other hand, well you wouldn't believe how many of those I go through.
I'm actually thinking of replacing the ones I'm using at the moment, there getting a little worn out." The boy said casually as he now looked away from Naruto and instead focused on the now identified kidneys in his hands.
Unable to think of anything to say to that statement, Naruto could only watch as the boy walked over to a growing pile of organs and placed the kidneys on top. He also saw another pile made up of limbs next to it, and a final pile which was made up of decapitated heads.
Swallowing his shock as he watched Frankenstein walk over to one of the other bodies in the clearing pulling a scalpel out of his sleeve as he did so, Naruto finally came back to his senses, standing up from his defensive crouch he instead gave the boy a confused look, his knife still in hand but no longer pointed at the boy.
"W-what are you doing?" Naruto said a bit shakily at first before pulling himself together as he overcame his shock.
"Recycling! I rarely get to pick through stuff this fresh, not an ounce of rot or a single worm…these lungs look good enough for now." Was the nonchalant response he received.
Naruto watched as with a hard tug, the clearly insane boy pulled out the lungs from one of the dead Shinobi's chests and held it up as he examined them a cheerful smile on his face all the while.
"…what?" Naruto asked blankly.
"Just one second."
Without another word Frankenstein stood up and took off his baggy lab coat, with his shirt soon following. Naruto could only stare at the multiple scars present on the boy's body, making the boys skin look more patchwork then his clothes.
He also had a pair of bolts sticking out the sides of his neck. However when Frankenstein used the scalpel to cut the stitches along a particularly large scar across his chest, he revealed that it wasn't a scar at all.
It was an unhealed wound of some kind, and Naruto felt his legs give out from under him again when Frankenstein actually shoved his own hand inside the cut. He seemed to be moving it around randomly for about ten seconds, and in all that time all Naruto could think about was the lack of blood.
Finally the boy seemed to find what he was looking, before he did anything else though he looked back to Naruto with a bored expression on his face.
"If your squeamish you might want to look away, this is about to get very graphic very fast."
Before Naruto even had time to blink Frankenstein gave a sharp tug, and slowly pulled out his own lungs. The moment they were free of his chest the boy dropped them and quickly shoved the lungs he had taken from the dead Shinobi into his chest as a replacement, after that he quickly put the other hand in his chest too.
Then much to Naruto's growing shock, he started talking again, his voice now slightly wheezy.
"You know you never really notice how much you breathe until you don't have a pair of lungs, it's very uncomfortable."
...
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