Fading Scars

Another big thanks for reading such a long fic. These are just a few author’s notes that my co-author and I felt needed to be said, now that this story is finally over. As a warning, if you are a hard-core Naruto cannon fan, you may find some of this difficult to swallow. Please keep in mind that these are just opinions.

Fading Scars
Author’s Notes:

My co-author and I started off enjoying the Naruto series, but we stopped after the chuunin exam for many reasons. Chiefly, it was because of some glaring plot holes in the story lines, and because of several issues that should have been addressed and never were. This fic was started not only just for the fun of getting some of our favorite characters together, but to address some of those issues. I’d like to make a quick mention of those issues, hopefully so our audience can see what we were trying to accomplish.

First and foremost was our annoyance with Konoha. There is a certain apathy in the country that is absolutely appalling and is never mentioned. First, concerning Naruto himself, is that he is the bearer of a huge burden, and no one does anything to help make his life easier. He has no family, and because of the adults of the village, no friends. In the least, he should have been adopted by someone. The idea that he wasn’t suggests some real cold-hearted people live in Konoha. They’re lucky that Naruto doesn’t just go “screw you guys” and get out of there for the way he’s been treated.

Second related to Konoha is Sasuke and the destruction of his whole family. It’s a traumatizing enough event for anyone. But not only does it seem that the ninjas of Konoha did nothing to try and get revenge for their death, they do nothing for Sasuke. Even if Itachi is the uber ninja of the world, something should have been done. And Sasuke, like Naruto, should have been taken in by another family, especially since he doesn’t have the same fear surrounding him that the other does. He’s been left alone for years with nothing but revenge to focus on. If he’d had family and friends, he probably wouldn’t have been so quick to turn to Orochimaru for help.

Third is Neji. Personally, I find what’s been done to him is the most horrendous thing in the series. The Hyuga’s are slavers, and not just that, but slavers of their own family. It’s sick. Yet the Hokage and all the others of the village seem to think nothing of a man who brands children with a curse that could kill them with barely a thought. Even more sickening is that I hear Neji comes to accept his “place,” and that is just too hard to believe.

In this fic, we wanted to present some of the “illness” that seems to be in Konoha, and to some degree fight it, if only a little. We wanted Naruto, Sasuke, and Neji to find ways out of the trap of the village, to fight for themselves despite the press of the country.

Another annoyance came from the so-called “teachers” in Konoha. Though Kakashi’s test to accept his students revolved completely around teamwork, he spends absolutely no time after that trying to train his three to work together. Guy like-wise does the same with Lee, Ten-Ten, and Neji. Kakashi even alienates his students from each other by favoring Sasuke during the exams, and setting them up to compete against each other. Any time Sasuke and Naruto do manage to work together, they come up with the plan themselves, no help from Kakashi. For this reason we had Naruto come up with his own team, and work with them and Shikamaru to find a way to combine their skills to get a job done--namely, Orochimaru. And Guy giving the power of life and death to a 13 year old? He favors Lee horribly and pretty much tells him it’s okay to die for pride--at 13! There is very little that shows he actually tried to help Neji at all, let alone care in any way that the boy is just going to grow up to be a slave to his uncle and cousin. Only Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji learned to work together, out of all the pairs in the series.

When we created Stone country, namely we were trying to make a sort of antithesis of Konoha. We wanted to show the flaws of the Fire country’s methods, leadership, and treatment of its citizens.

And finally, of course, we wanted our favorite pairs to get together in as realistic a way as possible. Though I know most fans in this area of Naruto fandom are big slash buffs, we hope that the little Gaara and Hinata interludes were appreciated. :-D


Again, thank you all so much for reading such a long fic. All your great comments and complements have been appreciated!

--Shuukitty--