A/N - Hello everyone! I know, I know... I said I wasn't going to make any other fan fiction, but I've been doing this for years and I CAN'T HELP IT lol! It's a very true hobby of mine and i'm always coming up with these amazing ideas that I just need to jot down.
Anyway, This is the start of my new book. It is an alternate timeline from my other book: Light In You, and is served as a very dark side story, hence the name: Darkness In You. If you haven't read Light In You and Heart In You first, I suggest you catch up with those first before reading this story. Otherwise there's a high chance you'll be confused.

This is based off the Road To Ninja universe. Be warned that this is a rather violent, angsty, depressing kind of book. Many mature themes will be active throughout the course of this story. Read at your own cost.

Please consider commenting and voting and enjoy :)

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Chapter 1: Before The Fall

"OH NO, IT'S HIM!" A man hollered at the top of his lungs as his eyes quivered at the sight before him. "THE MASKED MAN!"

"He's here to kill us all!" A woman gasped before picking up her child and running to save them both.

All around, their small village was caught aflame as buildings were burning down and numerous amounts of corpses laid wasted in the area throughout. Black smoke clouded the skies and prevented many from breathing in the oxygen they needed. People were screaming in terror and doing whatever means necessary to rescue themselves and those whom they cared for. Ninja were being slaughtered in their efforts to subdue their attacker.

"Why are you doing this?!" They would demand for answers. "How can you be so cruel as to do something like this?! Why must you hurt us when we've done nothing to you?!"

Their questions would always be responded with very vague answers and their blood would always be sprayed regardless of anything they would say or do. Their cries were never heard and especially not their begs for mercy.

Dropping one shinobi by his collar, the individual inflicting all the chaos stood in a pool of blood with his victims all blanketing around his feet — their blood smeared onto his dark blue-grey robe that had grey lining and a fur collar. His white kitsune mask had been splattered also.

Kicking some bodies away in order to make a path for himself, the killer made his way, taking slow and long strides as he sauntered forward. Fire embers danced all around him, adding more volume to his already frightening appearance. Blood dripped from the kunai he was wielding in his right hand and the remaining villagers trembled upon witnessing just how useless their strategies and attacks were against the guy.

"I-It's no use..." One dropped his weapon and fell to his knees and lost all hope. "He's too... He's too powerful..."

Feeling the exact same way, the others followed suit, having given up on their lives and the village itself as it was continually being destroyed by a masked beast too.

"I'm glad you've all realized none of you stand a chance," The attacker spoke with such coldness and darkness in his tone. "Now say your prayers."

"ARGHHHHHHH!" They all groaned as each would be slain one by one at an alarming rate — their blood gushing out of their severe wounds.

With their bodies having gone limp, the masked person bowed his head, muttering something to himself as another man appeared behind him wearing that of an orange mask with only one side of it having a hole to see out from.

"This village is no longer of our concern, on to the next," His voice was equally as menacing.

"How long?" The attacker responded without having turned around to look over his shoulder. "How long till you deliver up on your promise?"

"Patience, my friend... she will only be back in your arms if you do as I say. I will keep my word... my business with you is not over quite yet though. There is much more I require from you... Menma Uzumaki."

A couple years prior...

"Well, how about a date?" Nia Umino leaned forward with her hands on Menma's bed as the blonde shinobi was sitting on it as well with his back to the wall.

She was a normal citizen of the Leaf, having been raised there her entire life. Though she enrolled in the academy when she was younger, not too long after graduating from it, she decided that sort of lifestyle wasn't meant for her and she eventually winded up taking a job at Ichiraku where she'd get her pay in that form.

Menma glanced up at her before returning his cerulean blue eyes to a shinobi magazine he was looking through and didn't respond as he just flipped to the next page.

Nia pouted and lightly shook his foot.

"Oh, come on... please? It'll be really fun, I promise."

Menma sighed. "You never give up, do you?"

"Ehh?!" The girl stood up and pumped her fist. "Of course not! This girl is gonna win your heart one way or another. I refuse to back down. I love you, Menma."

"You've been confessing your love like that since we were kids. Give it a rest already, would ya?"

"No way... I can't just do that. I truly mean what I say when I tell you that. I'll never have anyone else in my heart besides you."

Menma set the magazine down and kept his knee bent with an arm resting atop of it.

"Man, you're still cheesy even after all these years," He sweatdropped. "I thought you'd get over it by the time we were teens... We're almost grown now, Nia..."

"Well, what does that tell ya?" The girl beamed a smile and crossed her arms. "My love stays strong and true."

"I'd say you're more obsessive..."

"Ugh! Excuse me?!"

"You heard what I said."

Nia just chuckled before grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the ninja to which he just smacked away.

"You're way more rude than when you were younger," She told him in response. "Grumpy too... what happened to that amazing smile you used to have? It was stunning. I fell hard for it."

"Why would I smile? And what's with you doing that so much? Doesn't that hurt your face?"

"I'm a genuinely happy person. I love smiling. The world is a great place to live in. It helps that I have people who calls me their friend and genuinely care for me. I wish you'd think the same."

Menma scoffed.

Grabbing a bag from off a chair, Nia zipped it open and pulled something from out of it before walking over to her crush and extending her arm out to him.

"Maybe this will make you flash those beautiful teeth at me," She blushed as Menma just examined the item in her hand and took it.

"Another love letter, huh?" He gazed at it, flipping it around.

"Mhm," Her blush deepened. "Even if you don't feel the same way for me, I won't quit writing them until my feelings reach out to you."

"You should stop giving these to me. I never have time to read them and you give me way too much of them. It's getting annoying if you ask me."

"I pour my heart out into those things. I... won't give up on trying to win you over nor will I rest from making my love known to you."

"Nia, look at those boxes over there," The blonde pointed to it by his desk as it was flooded with envelopes. "That's the amount of letters you've been giving me since we were like, five. Filled up three huge boxes, ya know?"

Slightly embarrassed, the girl just looked away.

"S-Sorry... can't help it. I'm crazy for you."

"Noooo, I had no idea," The young man replied sarcastically, making the girl giggle.

"You don't gotta be such an ass," She told him before lightly smacking him with yet another pillow. "Besides, your mother seems to take quite a liking to me. She knows I have the skills to make a great wife for you down the road."

"You're friendzoned as far as I'm concerned..."

"Guhhh..." Nia dropped her head and shoulders in defeat. "You're harsh sometimes, you know that?"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door as Menma's mother, Kushina Uzumaki, made her way in the room.

"Menma... next time you're done eating, rinse your bowl off before putting it in the dishwasher. I'm sick of having to keep telling you that."

"...My bad, Mom," He apologized before resuming to read his magazine.

Kushina frowned and rested her hands on her hips before turning to Nia and relaxing her expression.

"Sorry you have to hear all that every time you come over," She apologized. "It amazes me you still pay us a visit."

Nia smiled.

"I've been coming over since I was a toddler... this feels like a second home to me. I wouldn't have it any other way, Mom."

Menma sweatdropped.

"Do you really have to call her that, Nia?"

"I'm the one who told her to refer to me as such." The red-head defended the girl. "After all, she's who you're marrying eventually, right?"

"Pfft, you both can keep dreaming... I'm not interested in dating, let alone marrying anyone."

Kushina crossed her arms and tilted her head.

"Menma... you're getting to be a grown man... don't you... want some female companionship? There are a lot of girls in this village who finds you quite attractive. Especially this one right here," She rested her hand on Nia's shoulder. "She's loved you since you were children. It reminds me of your father and I. Why don't you at least try giving dating a shot, ya know?"

"...Not interested," The guy simply refused, disappointing the two females in the room.

Shaking her head, Kushina gently tugged on Nia's arm.

"Come now... why don't we talk with Minato in the kitchen? He wants to speak with you."

"All right, sure." The two then left the room and made their way into the kitchen where Minato Namikaze would be sitting at a table reading a book.

Hearing the sound of their footsteps, the man glanced up.

"Ahh Nia, good. Why don't you sit here across from me? I'd like to discuss something important with you," He waited for his wife to sit down next to him and the young girl to sit where he had asked her to.

Nia had always found it a bit tough to not get caught up in the man's appearance. He was the type of guy the women in the village swooned over: His shaggy blonde hair, tan skin, dark blue eyes, and nice physique made him a rather handsome male. To add icing on the cake, his personality was kind, calm, and he seemed rather intelligent. He was often described as the perfect guy a girl could ever dream of having. Many women envied Kushina for having such a husband.

Minato set his book down and locked eyes with the dark brown-eyed girl and wore a solemn expression.

"I... wanted to speak to you about possibly having you reconsider becoming a ninja once more," He started. "I know you don't desire having a life revolved around that, but please hear me out... I've recently spoke to Lady Hokage, and well... the village is considerably low on the amount of shinobi protecting it. Because of this, we're more at risk of being in danger if a formidable shinobi or other village were to invade."

"I see..."

"You're a young woman with a lot of potential being wasted. I've heard from a few people that you're quite formidable in the taijutsu department and that you have high potential in developing strong ninjutsu that could aid those residing here."

Nia lowered her eyes then raised them back up to look at the man.

"Thanks for having so much confidence in my potential, but like I said before... being a ninja... isn't something I have a passion for. I like to live a life of peace where there's no fighting and I can live my life normally. I'm quite sensitive to seeing lives being taken away and having to make the decision of taking others lives away from them even if they are horrible. I don't have the heart for that. That's why I ultimately decided to stray from such an occupation."

"You're right," Minato nodded. "There's no doubt in my mind that you're much too soft-hearted for this sort of thing, but even so... please... we need as much shinobi as possible. You say you want to live in peace, right? In order to maintain that peace, we need a sufficient amount of ninja who'll defend it from being taken away from us all."

"Minato's right, ya know?" Kushina joined in. "However, if you find you just can't put yourself back into that lifestyle, at least do us a favor... your taijutsu skills... it's one of the best in the village. Minato and I both believe Menma could benefit from you helping him improve in that department. So please... will you be willing to help him with that at least?"

"Menma?" The girl's eyes widened a bit. "Isn't he great enough as he is? The guy is a literal genius. Not to mention that's he's way stronger and faster than me."

The Yellow Flash narrowed his eyes. "Yes, overall... but you still have a huge edge over him in terms of taijutsu like we mentioned before. You're very clever in your use of it and rather resourceful. We'd like to have you get him to adopt your style of the hand-to-hand combat, Nia."

"Hmm... well he does wanna be Hokage and in order for him to be that... he's gonna need all the skills he can get pushed to the absolute maximum," The dark-haired girl pondered. "Though I will help protect the village if it were to be ambushed, I still would like to not be sent on missions. As for this whole Menma thing... I think I can teach him my way of taijustu, though I do believe it'd be a lot wiser if you'd ask someone like Guy or even Lee?"

The adults exchanged looks with one another.

"Though they are rather powerful in their own right, they aren't specialized in taijustu as much. If anything, they hardly train," Minato informed her. "I would ask Kakashi since he goes crazy with that sort of thing, but he trains in mostly nin and genjutsu. Nia, you're our best available choice right now. So please, I'm begging... I've already taught Menma all that I could hand down to him as did Kushina. You would be the icing on the cake in this whole thing."

"All right then," The girl placed her hands on the table and stood up with a newfound determination. "You can count on me, Dad."

This only resulted in Minato sweat dropping a bit.

Meanwhile, in the other room, Menma studied the letter in his hand, contemplating whether or not to read it. Though he claimed to have gotten tired of the excessive love letters, it did touch him that someone was always constantly reminding and showing him they cared dearly for him. He claimed he didn't have time to read anymore cards after a certain point, but that was a lie. Each night, he'd read whatever letter it was the girl wrote to him and store it in the boxes he mentioned earlier.

He knew she loved him... in fact, he knew a lot of girls were smitten with him. However, this just didn't matter to him that much. He had other matters to focus on, other tasks to complete, and other goals to achieve. Having a girlfriend just wasn't one of his priorities at the moment.

Despite that, the blonde opened the letter and read anyway. His eyes flickered left and right as the words poured into him. Somehow, the letters had a way of softening him up from his usual self. Somehow, they made him feel warm inside, but... he'd never tell Nia that of course. She'd probably throw a whole party if she were to found out about what he felt while reading some cheesy words on some cheap paper.

"Geez..." He sighed as his cheeks lightly reddened as he finished reading. "She really needs to chill out with these letters... I get it already... You're in love with me."

Placing the paper back in the envelope and tucking it under his pillow, the ninja then mumbled. "But... I think I should keep this one safe... just in case, ya know?"

Elsewhere, a knock came from the front door of the Uzumaki household. Offering to get it, Nia left from the table and proceeded to open the door. When she did however, her collar was clenched and pulled forward aggressively as she was then looking straight into the eyes of a very furious woman.

"You have five seconds to tell me why you're lurking in Menma's house or I'm beating your ass for real this time, Nia," Hinata Hyuga threatened the girl as Nia just laughed and slapped her hand away.

"Someone's jealous... as usual. Face it sweetheart, if anyone has an actual chance with Menma: it's this woman right here," She pointed at herself.

These two, along with Sakura Haruno, were always at odds with one another. They all loved the same person. None of them wanted to see Menma with another woman that wasn't themself instead. Sakura was the child of heroes due to her parents' sacrifice during the attack of the nine-tails many years back and Hinata was regarded as the most beautiful girl in the village, despite her nasty and vicious personality. Nia, on the otherhand, was just the girl who was Menma's closest childhood female friend. That was mainly the only edge she had over the other two.

"Oh please," The scantily dressed Hyuga crossed her arms and rolled her arms. "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror: You're hideous. It's laughable that you of all people, think Menma could ever love you."

"And you expect him to like you with you all looking like a slut and even wearing provocative clothing in front of his parents, but especially his mother? Are you crazy?! Even then, Menma still doesn't like your skanky ass."

"Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful and you were hit with the harshest ugly stick this planet has to offer."

"And yet I'm the one he vows to protect. When it comes to Menma, you got nothing on me. Not only are you a bitch, but you're one craaaaazy bitch."

And with that, Hinata smacked Nia right across the face, only for the girl to immediately tackle the Hyuga to the ground, resulting in the start of a huge brawl.

Hearing the sounds of it, Minato immediately rushed outside and grabbed Nia by the wrist, just as the girl had nearly struck Hinata in the face with her clenched fist.

"Enough!" He scolded the two. "Quit with the fighting! I won't stand for it. Not on my doorstep!"

"F-Forgive me, Mr. Namikaze!" Hinata immediately sprung up and bowed multiple times. "Nia, she... just went wild on me."

"WHAT?! I DIDN'T-"

"Hinata, why are you here?" The blonde just ignored her claim.

The beauty stood up straight.

"I'd like to see Menma," She gushed over wanting to see her crush much to Nia's annoyance.

"Hmm... I don't think I'm too fond of letting you interact with my son after having had saw you start a fight in my front yard, let alone noticing how inappropriately you're dressed right now. Kushina wouldn't approve of that either, I'm sure."

Panicking over having had her crush's father disapprove of her, Hinata thought fast and immediately zipped up her jacket.

In that moment, the guy she wanted to see finally stepped out of his home.

"Nia..." He went over to the girl nonchalantly. "We need to go. Now."

"ON A DATE?!" She gazed at him with hearts in her eyes.

This infuriated Hinata.

"You'll go on a date with her, but not me?! I don't understand, Menma! You and I are in love!"

Nia took this chance to link arms with her crush.

"Sorry, but looks like Menma's finally opened his eyes. I'm more suited to be his future wife. Isn't that right, Menma?"

Gritting her teeth, the Hyuga ran to clasp onto the ninja's other arm.

"Oh hell no!" She growled. "Everyone knows I'm better than you!"

"You think I care about what everyone thinks? It's not about their opinion, it's about Menma's, and I'd say I'm close to getting him to be my boyfriend."

"You're delusional if you really believe that!"

And thus, the girls bickered back and forth as Menma quickly grew annoyed with them yelling in his ear and constantly tugging on his arms.

"Get off me! Both of you!" He demanded as the two immediately did as told.

The blonde dusted himself and took a few steps forward before turning around to face both girls.

"Nia, you're coming with me," He said sternly. "Spar with me!"

Glancing over her shoulder to see Minato give a clear nod, Nia faced her crush once more and grinned.

"All right, I accept your challenge!"

"Not here though," Kushina stepped out of the house and walked down from the steps. "I don't need you two wrecking our home. We're settling this in the training fields."

Minato rested a hand on Hinata's shoulder.

"If you don't mind, will you come back another time?"

Not liking the situation she was in yet wanting to set an ideal image to Menma's parents, she agreed and headed home.

Meanwhile, everyone else would move out in the direction of where the spar was set to take place and in a few short minutes, they were there.

"You sure you're up for this, Menma?" Nia cracked her knuckles. "If this really is just a straight on hand-to-hand combat training lesson, you do realize I have the upper hand, don't you?"

Menma stood across from the girl as a wind subtly blew on the blades of grass around them.

"Mom and Dad says I should improve my taijutsu by sparring with you, though I want to show them you've gotten too rusty to properly help me in this department."

"So, you think I've lost the ability to kick your ass is basically what I'm hearing, right? I've done it as a kid, and I'll do it again right now..."

Menma sneered. "You wanna bet on that?"

Offended by his attitude, Nia only responded, "It's all fun and games until I smack that arrogant smirk off your face, huh? I don't know what the hell's gotten into you lately, Menma, but you can rest assured that I'm gonna humble you – right in front of your parents too. As for that betting situation, you know what I want."

"A date, right?"

"Oh hell yes..."

"Fine," The ninja agreed to it. "But if I win, I want you to assist me on a extremely important task."

"Hm?" The girl raised an eyebrow as she studied the off look in the young man's eyes. "What kind of task?"

"Don't worry about it. Just so you know, if you hold back on me, I automatically win."

"And if you use anything outside of taijutsu, I'm immediately getting my date."

With that, the two would collide head on, beginning their fist fight.

Will Nia finally get the date she's been dying to go on... or will Menma get her to join in on this secret task of his?

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A/N - Welp, that's the end of this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed. Please comment and vote and have a great day ❤️

QOTD:

1. Fave Part?

2. Fave Line?

3. Who do you believe will come out on top? Menma or Nia?