and so the snake fell in love with the slug

8/6/2019 And So the Snake Fell in Love With the Slug

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/and-so-the-snake-fell-in-love-with-the-slug 1/10

Disclaimer: NARUTO © 1999 by Masashi Kishimoto & Shueisha Inc. | Fractured Tales Project © 2010 | 17

Once upon a time, there lived a genius boy who took himself too seriously and an annoying girl who managed to get under his skin. In all the infinite mirror-parallel versions of how their love

came to blossom (or sputter into being), it always seemed like the universe was getting a kick out of their indignities, hijinks, and sheer pigheaded denseness. Be it the karmic justice of being

reincarnated as a slimy invertebrate or the perennial awkwardness of a teen’s first crush, these sweet, waffy, and even side-splitting, stories come together as fractured fairy tales.




A nd so the Snake Fell in L ove with the Slug

A pair of protruding, wet onyx eyes—no, he corrected himself— feelers blearilytried to reacquaint with the surroundings after their owner ate a satisfying amount of mushrooms. Being so sated put him in an odd frame of mind. He fancied being in a formso fantastical, so far removed from his current one. Let no one suggest that perhaps hehad lingered far too long over his meal. Psychedelic effects shouldn’t even be mentioned.

This happened often, his thoughts wandering to the faded and frequent dreamsfilled with clouds of rose strands and mist of emerald stares.

He barely remembered his old, tenuous existence: a young man with assets that Narcissus would have paled at the sight of. But now, the illustrious Uchiha was reducedto this bright, daisy-shaded blob, speckled with black spots across his slippery skin.

He recalled the life of a foolish knight, set on avenging his disgraced andmurdered family on his paramour’s kin. But because he had already been destined to atragic fate, he killed his princess, who sacrificed herself for his redemption. The clincher,of course, was that she violated some rule about cavorting with evil, good-looking traitorsand was therefore condemned.

The gods decided to be merciful, though, and so gave them a second chance.

Now, he had to find Sakura in this… form .

The couple was told that this was their salvation. Heavenly compensations.Karmic justice.

Feh , he snorted.

(Well, it would have been a snort if he still had his perfect, marble-like nose. )

If there was one thing that Sasuke was known for in all of his lives, it was thefact that he was persistent. Sasuke was a consummate overachiever to a fault, willing tosacrifice anything to accomplish a goal he had set his sights into. So even if he only hadhis slimy belly as his foot, he would crawl to the ends of the earth with that single,unworthy foot just to seek her.

Tonight was very pleasant; it was already late spring, and the gales were nonetoo frigid. It was the ideal end for the mating season. Or it would be, rather, if he did findhis long-sought partner. There was no other way. Sasuke had to find his mate or bedoomed with his virtue devoured, stolen the moment he lowered his guard, by thehungry, gaping maws of those vulture-like slug whores.

And he meant that literally.

Well, it was really a hard day to find a pair of green-eyes ( again, not eyes — feelers) from the multitude of slugs in the world. But as he finally arrived at one of theslug mate soiree that he was invited to in this particular tomato garden, the marsh of




yellow slush mesmerized him. There were couples of wriggling masses, entwined greyand gold slush. He passively observed the meeting of bodies, their snug adherence liketwo dollops of batter being twisted together and their subsequent separation like stretchy

mozzarella being forced into portions.He was suddenly snapped out of his fascinated reverie, when a fat slimy creature

(those antenna-like eyes of hers were a glowing, greedy red, ew. ) tapped him with the tipof her tail.

"Hey, pretty slugie," she cooed, her mouth forming sucking noises as she half-stood, showing off her little sharp teeth at him. "Can I chew your banana?"

Before she was even finished talking, he answered her as calmly as possible,"No, you can't." And unlike any other indecent slug, he tried not to spit slime on her face.“Somebody already had my banana.”




However, his quick dismissal was ignored by the disgusting fan slug zombie asshe took a peek at his body.

"But," the shrill spurting noise was almost revolting—almost—since he alsoreceived those specks of gooey slime just as he was closing his mouth. He’s much moreafraid of her germs eating his more developed brain. "I can see your banana !"

There was not even a twitch.

"It must be taken," he answered seriously, watery onyx appendages fixed in thewide expanse of the sky as a few blossoms blew past the horizon, "by my one true love.As my sacrifice, I shall be offering it to her radula if we can't wiggle apart after our

passionate joining. I can bear the shame of being a female, a slug-making machine for allof my life in compensation for my past sins."

"That's impossible," the insignificant life form replied back with more strayooze. "You can't have your one true love. You don't even have a real brain to think thatway."

Sasuke slithered away, or rather slinked away, from the place with a trail of sludge following him, offended and insulted that though he was gifted with moreintelligence than the usual banana mollusk, he had yet to capture a glimpse of his belovedamidst the decaying landscape. Occupied by his colossal indignation—and the occasional

munching of a stray mushroom or two—Sasuke did not seem to notice that he hadalready crossed the garden and was already on the field of wild cogon.

Suddenly, there was a shrill shriek.

"Shinichi!" screamed a panicking little girl, her short bob swaying as her handswaved at a young boy sitting on the fences and looking uninterestedly at them. "A slug, aslug! Bring out the salt! Faster! It looks like a banana! We can finally see if it reallyhappens!"

Danger.

Sasuke tried to make his body move faster, but he was already panting his singlelung out with the amount of exertion he had utilized the past hour.

He was about to die. The child was already holding a jar of salt when suddenly it

appeared."KYAAA!"

But he was mistaken; it did not appear out of nowhere. It came from his rear.

"CHIAKI-KUUUN!" the child screeched in an alarming volume—he could feelthe loam quake. "SNAAAKE."

Which meant that he was prey, not gastropod-in-distress, to his savior.

"GAAAH.”




And so the brats scampered away, leaving him to a different, not necessarily lessunpleasant, demise.

Sasuke refused to curl up on the damp earth and just accept his pending doom.He thought it would have been better if he died by being rubbed with salt instead. Atleast, the massage would have been good.

The first signs of trepidation overcame him. He continued to ooze slime from his pores in hopes that he wouldn’t be eaten. Knowing that being as slippery as an eel, or sludge, would make it harder for him to be captured did not make him feel better—itwould only make him easier to swallow.

His heart…no, hemolymph —it could not be called a heart if it’s just a bunch of vessels being pumped with the constant twisting of his body—shriveled in vigilance.

He shouldn’t be trembling. He should be facing his death like the soldier heonce was, the brave man he had always been. With effort, he was about to use his powersof turning into a stone as the snake whipped its tail, probably trying to capture him. Well,he was going to survive this. He was a cool slug.

( Really cool. Read: ectothermic. )

But instead of the deadly tail wrapping around his body, it covered him with a pile of earth.

Hn—?

“Ssstay there.” He barely heard the warning as she went, darted away—to acouple of other garden snakes.

Great. He could self-amputate and regenerate his parts should he get caught, butit would still be impossible to survive if they were going to gang-eat him—

“No, go away.” He heard the distinct shushes and hisses, in protest.

The snake was protecting him? But why—?

Now that he could fully assess the creature that stood, or rather, crawled in frontof him, he was astounded with what he saw. The waxing moonlight bathed the reptile inan almost silvery glow, but he had realized that the scales were the lightest shade of coral.

And her slitted eyes were not the usual moss color ( and how did he feel that thiswas a female, a woman...)

“Hi?”

She was here.

"You look..." Her voice was still as angelic as ever, sans her sporadic hissingand spitting, "disgusting."

"How did you—"




"Sasuke," The female serpent snapped a fangy grin. "I was having my twoweek-long beauty sleep. You know what snakes do." She slithered closer to him,encircling him like a distant embrace in welcome. "I remember you used to have Manda,right? It's spring. Mating season. So after I starved myself, I went on a hunt and then...."

"I smelled it …" He couldn’t believe that she reincarnated into one of the most beautiful animals he had ever known. "I could recognize that scent anywhere, of mixed pine and smoke and ah, even when it’s buried under all that unflattering slime. Yellow

doesn't really suit you. Well, maybe orange will do wonders with your complexion."Her unique delectable aroma of cherries and vanillin, assaulted his senses. And

he then started curling up to the creature that he had been waiting for all his life.

He was absolutely pleased when Sakura seemed to be ecstatic in being slathered by his foot. Slithering through the smooth textured skin that belonged to her, he wasabout to put his protruding mouth over the petals of her cloaca when—

BANG!

"Naruto."

There was a dangerous growl that made the astounding nanny of the night look up from the nest of black-haired, green-eyed babes.

"Get," Sasuke snarled, storming into the porch as he clutched the door knob thatwas in danger of being torn off, “out.”

"You party pooper! We're just getting to the good part." He flipped another pageon the thick, leather-bound tome. "This is better than watching those boringdocumentaries that you keep around the house. I had to unglue them from the TV.They’re so addicted to those science—what? Ino goes Wild geographic shows! This isway more—"

"Or I swear in everything that’s holy," Sasuke whipped up the speaker phonefrom the bedside table. There was an unspoken warning that after using the mobile, hewould definitely crack it over Naruto's empty skull, "Sakura will make you go."

"Bedtime, kids!"

There was a chorus of protest from the distraught daughters of the Uchihahousehold: a wailing "WAAAH, DADDY! NOOO, FINISH IT, UNCLE,” a demanding"WE WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM," and a worried "WON'T LADYSNAKE GET STUCK AND SUCKED BY KNIGHTY SLUG? O-OR HE MIGHTEVEN DIE!"

Their father merely glared at the grinning Naruto.

The brief impasse was then followed by a cacophony of sniffles.

The youngest of the cornucopia, who happened to be the only boy, had merely been observing his sisters from a distance under the gleam of his wiry glasses, flipping




what seemed to be a thick tome of colorful images. Sasuke should have paid moreattention to this particular action, but he was still distracted by his female triplets, all of whom were flashing pleading, half-chiding looks at him and their uncle-by-bestfriendship .

Looking a bit lost, Naruto could only watch as the three little girls turned their best pitiful puppy-eyed expressions to full-blast, wordlessly begging Daddy for thestory’s conclusion.

It came with an explosive sigh: "Snake kisses the slug."

The blond hid a growing smirk. He just knew Papa Sasuke could never doanything that would disappoint his lovely girls.

"He turns into a prince. She turns into a princess."

The sly, fox-like grin widened. "And they lived happily ever after," Narutofinished with flourish. "Isn't that nice?"

When Naruto had exhausted reading Sakura's collection of childhood fairytales,the dumb idiot took upon the challenge to be the best storyteller in the world, believe it!Who knew that the dead last could be so creative? They began talking about amphibians,flying ninjas and neon-orange candy villains that would eat you if you didn't brush your teeth. It was a blessing at first, since it kept the children preoccupied while the couple didtheir jobs. But god help him! One day, Sasuke recognized the softly-spoken openingscenes being cited from the latest Icha Icha Beginnings . His tiny lasses were but four.

Even worse, Ita-chan seemed to have soaked up the whole thing with hissponge-like mind and recited the whole damn book at the breakfast table. He was also atthe wonderful age of four that time.

This resulted to Sasuke being left in charge to arrive in their one big-family bedroom at exactly nine p.m. sharp.

"Yes. End of the story." He would not allow their innocent ears to be corrupted by any ear-cringing details. "Go to sleep."

There was a collective cheer, and the girls hopped over the thick coverlet to kissthe now-relieved Papa on his cheeks, who was mentally giving himself a triumphant pat

on the back for solving the dilemma.His son, upon whom Sakura doted often enough to be spoiled, now turned its

attention onto the scenario. Diving under the sheets with his sisters, young Itachi wasvery reserved as his sisters pestered the boy to stop reading and won't Ita-chan sleepalready? They cosseted their charming little brother in their efforts to persuade him.

Taking off the little one’s glasses and closing off his book, Sasuke had thetenacity to repress the urge to run when he caught a glimpse of what his boy was reading:his mother's old pre-med biology text.




"But Dad," Itachi-kun asked with a confident smile, knowing that his parentsknew everything because they always had these intellectual discussions during bedtime,ever since he learned to multiply three digit numbers mentally. ( He was 39 months old then. ) "How can a slug become a prince if he still has both of his genitalia? And if apophallation occurred during their courtship ritual, shouldn’t it have become the

princess?"

Naruto went cross-eyed.

Sasuke swore that he saw blood leaking from the poor idiot's ears. At any rate,he didn’t have time to give the beating his so-called bestfriend deserved. He had to talk very, very fast to save a young and impressionable mind from the mires of moraldestitution.

***

The next day, Sakura just arrived from her graveyard shift, expecting a warm plate of toast, eggs and milk from her darling babies. She never felt tired duringmornings, especially when it was time to spend traditional Saturday morning cartoonswith them.

Lo and behold, her little girls were watching, squeeing often in admiration, a NatGeo Gone Wild episode.

"Ita-chaaan, wanna watch The Miracle of Life ? They remind me of PrincessSlugy!"

"Eeeh! But Slugy is a Prince. Daddy said so!"

"But Ita-chan is a weasel! Uncle said weasels are smart! Smarter than Daddy!Do you want more eggs, Ita-chan?"

"...Yes, please, oneesama."

Sakura glared at Sasuke.

"It's the idiot," he retorted his only and purely valid excuse for not tuning themto Disney Channel.

And because it was tradition, Sakura only gave him a critical eye, pecked a soft

kiss on his left twitching brow, and proceeded to save her children from becoming geniusspawns ( like a certain disreputable relative she would not name. )

"Who wants to watch UP ?”

“Mama!”

***

“We need a new babysitter,” Sasuke told his wife gravely.

“Naruto’s doing fine,” she said dismissively. She was concentrating on thedocumentary on rainforest carnivores, which was incidentally on Animal Planet , after UP




finished playing. “Besides, who was the cheapskate who bullied his best friend into thisunpaid sideline stint?”

Sasuke wasn’t happy about being reminded, actually.

“I’m almost done with my residency, so. . . Anyway, what’s with the kids’newfound obsession on slugs?”

Sakura thought he might have blinked. Maybe.

“Who knows how things catch their attention these days,” he answered coolly.“Wormholes and M-string theories. . . Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner. . . ”

“Those were Ita-chan’s interests last month, dear. Come to think of it, it’salways his interests that catch on.”

“ Final Fantasy IX and . . . Kuja’s codpiece.” There was a hint of nausea in her husband’s mutter. “Your children are monsters.”

She could distinctly remember the cries of, DADDY~ WEAR THEM TO PROTECT THE FAMILY JEWELS! KYAAN~, but she tried not to laugh for his dignity’ssake. “I believe, they get it from your side of the family,” she said primly. “Besides,whose brother was it that introduced RPG & FPS to a triplet of eight-year old girls?”

“Remind me not to invite niisan till they’re at least thirty years old. Can youimagine once they’re in puberty?”

But Sakura didn’t get a chance to answer the strange query, as she wasdistracted by a faint sniffle behind her.

“What’s wrong, darling?” Immediately, the pink-haired doctor turned her attention to her youngest child.

Itachi had fallen asleep once the credits started rolling but was now standing beside her, clutching a blanket. “Did you have a bad dream?”

The sniffles turned to a full-blown wail as the little prodigy buried his face onhis mother’s chest. Sakura turned to her husband with a puzzled look, who merely shook his head once.

“Ita-chan?”

“D-D- Daddy . . .”

She sighed. “What did Daddy do this time?”

Sasuke gave her a dirty look. She waved him away imperceptibly.

“W-What if M-Mama’s c-c-cloaca was too s-strong? And D-Daddy—Daddy’llautotomize like P-P-Prince Sluggy and… and… WON’T HE BECOME A PRINCESSTOO?”




Sakura’s expression was bewildered now. It always gave her a turn whenever her baby was actually acting and talking his age—sprinkled lightly with the usualhifalutin words like meningococcemia prophylaxis or Milankovitch cycles.

“Cloaca?” she repeated. “Autotomize? What on earth—”

“Mama!” the boy sounded urgent now. “I lied, mama! I don’t want a baby brother, I really don’t. I want Daddy to stay as Daddy. I want Daddy! I don’t wantanother Mama! There is only one Mama!”

“W—”

“I saw Daddy kissing Mama,” Itachi accused.

“But you see that all the—”

“I saw Mama chewing on Daddy’s earlobe!”

“. . .”

“It starts like that , doesn’t it?” the boy demanded angrily. “Then, then, likePrince Slugy and Princess Snake, you’ll cover each other with slime and goo and—and— you’ll be biting and nudging each other and—and— put your heads together and—and— twist around like corkscrew and—and—lie around for hours and hours on end!”

“Uchiha Itachi, you stop it this instant!” his father thundered. “You’re upsettingyour mother—”

“AND AT THE END!” Ita-chan continued stubbornly. “And at the end, if-if D-Daddy’s retractor muscle isn’t strong enough to pull away, and Mama’s teeth catcheshim—WE WON’T HAVE A DADDY ANYMORE ! NOOO, DADDY! I love Daddy! Ilove Prince Slugy! Huuuh…”

The said Daddy was rendered speechless. His proud little boy was hugging himof his own accord? True, the little bugger was also sniveling all over his favorite dressshirt, never mind that he just compared his own parents’ activities. . . to hermaphroditic

banana slugs, but awww . . . what a cute kid.

Mommy, meanwhile, was busy putting two and two together.

“N-NARUTO! Where is that bastard? I am going to GUT him! WHAT THEHELL HAVE YOU BEEN TEACHING MY CHILD?”

Somewhere else, a certain Uzumaki Naruto was about to click on a YouTubevideo entitled: banana slugs — autoapophallation , unaware of the extensive therapy hewould need to undergo the next following months.

B efore H e Cheats

and so the snake fell in love with the slug

Documents