I don't own Naruto. I wrote this up last night while waiting for NaNoWriMo to start. Thought I'd go ahead and post it up while I was thinking of it. Enjoy.
"What about you, Naruto? Do you know any stories?"
Light flickered across her face in wavering patterns as Sasuke added wood to the fire. There was no telling when Kakashi-sensei would be back, so he might as well tell them a story.
"Sure, Sakura-chan. How about this one? Once upon a time, there was a king, who loved his kingdom more than anything. He even loved it more than his wife or their new baby. But since he loved them quite a lot, they didn't mind him loving the kingdom more.
"One day, a fire-breathing dragon attacked his kingdom. The king tried everything to defeat it. He sent his samurai to fight against it, and when that failed, he went to fight the dragon himself. But the dragon could not be defeated by any normal means.
"When the king could not defeat the dragon, he knew that it could not be killed – it could only be appeased. It would require a sacrifice. A child. The king loved his people, and so was willing to make the sacrifice. But he could not bring himself to ask any of his subjects to give up their children. Instead, mortally wounded, he offered his own baby up to the dragon, and died.
"The dragon looked at the child, and loved it. He could not kill the baby, so instead went away and left the kingdom in peace."
That's not what happened, Kyuubi hissed in the back of his mind.
Hush, Naruto replied. Who's telling this story anyway? Me or you? There was irritated grumbling from the old fox, but he quieted to let Naruto continue.
"The queen soon died of grief at the loss of her husband, and so the baby was left alone. The people of the kingdom chose a new king and returned to their lives. And the old king's child grew, and lived among them.
"In time, the people forgot that the child had been the king's beloved baby, and only remembered that it had been the dragon's sacrifice. And when they looked at the child they began to see, not the lives that had been saved, but the ones that had been lost before the child had been given to the dragon. They began to wonder why the child had survived the dragon when so many others had died.
"They began to whisper that maybe the child was in league with the dragon. Or that the child was the dragon in some way. And so, they grew to hate the child."
Sasuke and Sakura waited a moment to see if he would continue. He didn't.
"What was that?" Sakura muttered disbelievingly. "Aren't things like that supposed to have a happy ending?"
"Dobe," Sasuke huffed. "Even your stories are dead-last."
"Okay, okay. I'll try again." Naruto said with an easygoing smile. "Once upon a time there was a boy who was said to be the strongest samurai in the land. Even though he was still young, he was often called to do the work that grown men couldn't. He didn't particularly like being a samurai, but his father wanted the honor that came with his son being a member of the daimyo's army, and the boy loved has father.
"But the boy loved his little brother more. When he learned that his father planned to attack the daimyo in an attempt to take over his lands, the boy knew he had to act. He knew that despite his father's confidence and pride, there was no chance of his armies defeating the daimyo's. Their family would be punished harshly for the attempt, and it was unlikely that his brother would survive.
"The daimyo's advisors had also learned of the plot, and gave the boy a choice. He could stand with his family, and be cut down with them, or he could stand with the daimyo and live.
"The boy knew that he could not save all of his family, especially not his treasonous father, but he hoped that he at least might save his precious younger brother. And so, he said that he would stand with the daimyo, and when samurai were chosen to kill the boy's family, he volunteered.
"It was a fitting punishment, the advisors said, and would prove the boy's loyalty to the daimyo. And so they agreed.
"The boy knew that he could not spare the majority of his family. If their plotting came to light, they would only be killed later and he would not have the chance then to protect his brother. So though it broke his heart, the boy killed his family, leaving only his brother alive.
"Then the boy raised an alarm so that all the villagers and samurai came running. They saw the dead, and were horrified by the loss. So when they found the one child alive among the carnage, they rallied around him, exclaiming that it was a miracle.
"With the people on his side, the advisors knew that they could not easily get rid of the child. And so, satisfied that his little brother was safe, the boy disappeared and was not seen again for many years."
Sasuke was glaring. He obviously saw some of the parallels with his own life, even if the facts didn't match what he knew at this time.
"That was even worse than the first one," Sakura said, eye twitching in irritation.
"Alright, alright. One more try. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who had to go on a quest to find her heart's desire. The catch was that she had to take two people with her – a prince, who the princess wanted more than anything to make her prince, and the village idiot."
Kyuubi was cackling like mad in the back of his mind.
Sakura interrupted. "I don't see this going any better than the last two." Sasuke crossed his arms, implying agreement. Because he would never actually agree with Sakura for fear she would latch on to him and never let go.
"Fine," Naruto pouted. "You tell one then."
With a longsuffering sigh, Sakura launched into a tale they'd all heard back in the academy on one of their overnight survival exercises. It had clever ninja and dumb samurai and creepy headless ghosts. Sasuke scoffed at how cliché it was, but was obviously enjoying it. Sakura told it well.
Naruto smiled as he watched his teammates. They were so young now. Innocent and carefree in a way they hadn't been the last time he'd seen them.
Well, brat, Kyuubi said. Are you ready to rewrite this story?