V I R U S
That boy needs therapy
(I'm gonna kill you)
That boy needs therapy
Can you think of anything else that talks, other than a person?
'The Avalanches'
It was still alive when he found it, and perhaps that was the problem, because if it had been dead he might've granted it nothing more than a passing glance before moving on (the death of something so meagre was easily shrugged off, especially for ninja), but that circumstance was nothing but a wistful conception as his legs involuntarily decided to cease movement and his eyes fixed on the bleeding, struggling, screeching thing at his feet and his lips reared to form an expression that was somewhere between a grimace and a snarl.
Its leg was a tangled, bloody mess; not just from the trap that had ensnared it but also, Naruto noticed, from where the thing had been trying to gnaw it off in a senseless, panicked attempt to escape. He could see the ivory nub of its thighbone protruding through matted fur and chunks of flesh. The grass was slick and crimson beneath its writhing body.
Yet blood did little to turn his stomach nowadays and anyway, it wasn't the injury that held him so captivated; it was its eyes. Deep brown freckled with amber, possibly beautiful once, but now mad with animalistic rage and fear as it bared its teeth – stained with its own blood – and released a series of desperate, angry shrieks that made Naruto's hair stand on end.
It renewed its struggle against the trap and he heard bone crunch and saw the jagged teeth of the trap grate more fur and skin from the bloody mess of its leg. It was beyond mad with fear and pain, and Naruto could easily have released it or put it out of its misery.
But Naruto hated foxes.
He had always hated them, for as long as he could remember, and when he was younger – before the Kyuubi made its presence felt – it was an unreasonable hate that sent sparks of malice pumping through his veins like the cells of a fatal virus.
When he was very, very young, the auburn animals would send him into a wild fit of rage; if ever one were unlucky enough to cross his path he'd be after them in a flash, throwing kunai and rocks and sticks and chasing them until the damn things disappeared into the undergrowth and out of range.
When he found out about the Kyuubi the bursts of inexplicable violence waned like cooling embers, but his hate did not. The little animals reminded him of everything he wasn't and could never be, of the long days of stifling loneliness and the longer nights spent sleepless and pondering what could have been if fate had thrown him down a different path.
Yet Naruto, contrary to popular belief and regular insult, wasn't stupid. He knew the russet mammals of the countryside shouldn't be blamed for his misfortune or the Kyuubi. He knew they were, in the end, just animals. But he couldn't deny his feelings and because of that he found himself walking away from the ensnared animal.
He left the little fox to die from blood loss or madness or from trying to chew its own leg off to escape without a second thought. He continued walking through the undergrowth outside Konoha with his hands in his pockets, face tilted skyward with feigned indifference, and listened to the black hatred whispering little thoughts inside his head, poking and prodding him in the wrong direction.
He remembered those feelings and thoughts from his childhood, especially when he first joined the academy. He influenced their severity now because he knew the culprit and had learned to locate the fox inside the labyrinth of his deepest unconsciousness, and suppress him.
But of course, years before, he had not known this and the occasionally flash of darkness would run riot in his head like rabid dogs tearing apart a carcass.
Sometimes, Naruto had a feeling that the Kyuubi was nothing short of a tumour in his brain; sending bad signals to the rest of his being and creating a cancer that could have - and might still be - the undoing of him.
He recalled the thoughts that used to sift to the front of his consciousness when he was very young. The thoughts that would infest his feelings like maggots in a corpse. The thoughts that, no matter how hard he tried, refused to dissipate and would be so acidic they hurt to think and he thought they were burning him inside out.
Like the time Sasuke had bested him in the friendly kunai competition years gone. He couldn't recall it clearly; it was shrouded in a misty, red haze (a painfully familiar one now) but he remembered Sasuke's kunai hitting the targets consecutively and with all the goddamn precision he could never quite attain, and how the thoughts
(should kill him watch all his blood)
emerged unbidden from a dark place deep within his core. They felt disconnected and resonated through his entire being like
(kill them all with your bare hands rip their throats out with your teeth watch their blood)
the aftershock of an earthquake. And then that darkness would bubble to the surface and begin to froth and spit inside him. The thoughts would ebb away beneath the buzzing in his ears and the pounding of his heart and he would quite literally see red and –
He couldn't remember anything else. Iruka vaguely informed him that he'd attacked Sasuke (his eyes revealed the remnants of his horror when Naruto had sunk his teeth into Sasuke's throat) and that he'd have to do three months detention. Naruto didn't fail to notice the surreptitious glances that shot between the adults like fireworks; the name of the true culprit was on the tips of their tongues and their anxiety and hate sizzled on their skin, hot and burning and contagious.
All those times. All those times and he never wondered where the rage and darkness came. Because Naruto wasn't like the Kyuubi; not one bit. He was a good person who never hurt his friends to appease the darkness in his heart, nor…
…walk on by while an innocent animal lay dying with its own blood smeared on its teeth.
Naruto abruptly turned on his heels and backtracked through the undergrowth, angry with himself for letting even a slice of darkness eclipse his better thinking.
But when he returned the fox was dead, its once-beautiful auburn eyes wide and startled; its luscious coat matted with blood and its leg twisted in the most grotesque angle. It looked pathetic and helpless and had died in the jaws of a manmade device not even meant for foxes before passing on in a cloud of unrelenting pain and confusion that had probably dragged and dragged and could have been ended with a quick, merciful snap of the neck…
Naruto buried his head in his hands and realised he didn't hate foxes quite as much as he'd originally thought.
This fic is testing the water for a more detailed account of Naruto's connection with the nine-tails that will probably be called something along the lines of: 'Not My Hate'. I'm still unsure about the whole thing though, so any feedback on this would be really appreciated. Thank you! :smile: