"Naruto, are you okay? Wake up! Don't scare your master like that!"
Jiraiya had been training Naruto on how to form the Odama Rasengan when Naruto suddenly collapsed, losing consciousness.
"Naruto! Naruto, wake up!" Jiraiya started lightly slapping his face to bring him around.
Naruto's eyes fluttered open.
Where am I? Am I not dead? Fang Chen thought back to his final moments. He had been hunted for a month by the Alliance of Orthodox Sects. After a bloody battle, he managed to escape, only to die from poison inside a cave.
Fang Chen looked around. He was in a forest. A white-haired man stood over him. Panic flared in Fang Chen's chest; he assumed this man in strange clothes was an enemy from the Alliance. He shoved him away with all his strength.
"Get away from me! you'll never defeat me! I am Fang Chen, the Heavenly Demon! You only attacked because I failed to break through to the Ascension Stage and was wounded. You won't get away with this. I will have my revenge!"
Jiraiya stared at Naruto, shocked. Why was the kid talking so weird? Did he hit his head? "Naruto, what are you talking about? Are you crazy? You're starting to creep me out. And what's with that look? You look like a cornered animal."
Fang Chen reached for his shoulder to draw his blade. "Where is the Heavenly Sword? Old man, give me my sword or I'll kill you!"
"Naruto, if you don't stop this right now, you're going to regret. Enough with the jokes!"
"How dare you speak to the Heavenly Demon like that!" Fang Chen screamed.
Losing his patience, Jiraiya stepped forward and punched him on the head. Fang Chen reached for a kunai he found in a pouch at his waist, intending to teach this mortal a lesson. But before he could move, a massive surge of pain hit his skull. Memories that weren't his flooded his mind. He screamed, dropping to his knees and clutching his head.
Startled, Jiraiya rushed over and lifted him up. "Don't worry, kid. I'm taking you to the hospital right now."
After a few steps, Fang Chen stopped him. "Sorry, Pervy Sage, let me go! I'm fine now. I just haven't slept much. Sorry for how I was acting."Jiraiya sighed in relief. "Kid, are you sure? I think we should go to a hospital and have a doctor check on you.""No, Pervy Sage, I'm alright. Don't worry!"
Jiraiya studied him briefly, then ultimately decided to let him leave
"Ok then. That's enough training for today. Go back to the inn and rest. If you feel sick again, let me know so I can take you to a doctor. You can find me at the hot springs I'm going to do some..caugh. 'research."
"Okay, Pervy Sage."
Once Fang Chen was finally alone, a long, weary sigh escaped his lips. "Six hundred years of effort... gone in an instant. I lost everything my entire Soul Transformation stage cultivation. Those bastards... if they were before me now, I would drink their blood."
He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. "No, it isn't over yet. Not as long as I have this chance at a new life. I will regain my cultivation, break through to the Ascension Stage, and tear open a portal through time and space. I will return, and I will make them regret ever making an enemy of this Demon Venerable."
Fang Chen's expression hardened as he turned his thoughts to his current situation.
"The world I've been reincarnated into is entirely different from the world of cultivation. I've possessed the body of this boy, Naruto. A Jinchuriki... a vessel for a nine-tailed fox beast. He lived a miserable life because of it, hated by the very village he grew up in." He paused, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "Interesting. In a way, this boy and I are the same. We were both rejected by the world."
"But there is a difference," he mused. "This child didn't turn to the darkness. Through sheer will, he made friends and bonds. This child was a fool. Friends? I never needed them in my past life, and I don't need them now. Those who seek 'friends' are weak; they depend on others to mask their own incompetence. This boy had the ambition to become Hokage, the leader of a village bound by the duty to protect. Why? To protect a village of hypocrites? Weaklings who have grown comfortable being shielded by fools called ninja? If a ninja refuses to defend them even once, they will turn on him, erasing years of protection as if it never existed."
"Since I have your body now, I will do things my way. I hate mortals. Their short lives breed nothing but greed and a disgusting search for pleasure."
Fang Chen's mind drifted back to his own childhood. He was raised by his sickly mother in a small, crumbling house. He remembered the day she sent him to buy medicine. When he returned, he found her body lying in the middle of the floor, stripped and cold. She had been strangled to death.
That was the day Fang Chen's heart turned to stone. That was the day he killed for the first time.
He had taken a knife from the kitchen and hunted the bastards who murdered her . He finally found them at a local inn, boasting over jars of alcohol.
"Haha, that bitch resisted until the very last second. We had to kill her before we could even have our fun," one laughed.
"Thinking back, while I was squeezing her throat, she was begging us to stop, saying she had a son! Hahaha!"
Watching from the window, Fang Chen's face went void of emotion, consumed by a black rage. He shattered the glass and lunged. In a few blurred steps, he was behind the first man. He drove the knife into his back with such force it pierced his heart. The second man scrambled for his sword, but the alcohol made his fingers clumsy. Fang Chen ripped the blade from the dead man's back and drove it straight through the next bastard's eye.
At night, he became a fugitive, hunted by disciples of the Tang Sect for killing on their territory. While cornered behind a massive tree, a tall figure in flowing black robes appeared silently behind him.
"Boy, why are you being hunted by these Tang Sect dogs?"
Fang Chen trembled, certain his life was over. "Let me go! I killed those bastards because they murdered my mother!"
The cultivator let out a booming laugh. "Hahaha! Boy, that is the way of this world. The strong trample the weak. I respect that you avenged your mother, but I hate you because you are weak."
Fang Chen's fists tightened. Those words stung worse than any wound.
The cultivator studied him for a long moment, then laughed again."Do you want to be trampled and hunted, or do you want to be the predator atop the mountain, looking down on the world? Tell me: do you want to be strong?"
Fang Chen looked into the man's eyes void of emotion "I want to be strong!!"
The cultivator placed a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. "Brat i like you, I've decided. From today on, you shall be my disciple. Follow me, and you shall become powerful."
Fang Chen with a deadly serious face, he dropped to his knees and bowed. "Please, make me strong. I will serve you for the rest of my life!"
"Hahaha! Very well, brat. We will talk later. First, I must end the lives of these insects. Never forget my name: I am the Heavenly Demon of this generation, Mo Tian."
"Master Mo Tian..." at present Fang Chen whispered to the empty forest. His master had died because his path was blocked, unable to reach the next stage for a thousand years. "I won't betray the trust you placed in me. I will become someone worthy of your legacy. In this life, I will not just be a demon. I will be immortal."