Okay, Hey there folks. I'm not actually dead, sorry to disappoint. This would be more of a .... fan-fan-fiction than anything else, of a friend of mine's. We did technically write it together, and thus I have semi-rights to it. Since I have little better to do with my time at the moment, I've written a few of these little collections of stories. They're not all done yet, but hopefully one day they'll all be up here. It's really just to help me flesh out the characters and give them more of a backstory.
We'll be going backwards, and ironically, this is the latest story I've written, since I randomly started with Sanbi (yeah wtf). Also, none of these jinchuuriki are actually the newly released official ones that Kishimoto drew, sorry. Anyway, enjoy.
The Nine Tales of Uzumaki Naruto
Ichibi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Gaara was to be very, very afraid.
The guy exuded killing intent by the bucket full! Cool, calm and collected, but with a genuine authority behind every word he spoke. To be perfectly honest, he scared the shit out of him. He was sweating like a pig on fire. Or like Hokage-jiji when he had found his porn collection. And when teal eyes had locked on to blue, the blond had felt like the world had just disappeared from under him. It felt like an eternity had passed in a second of staring at the boy who couldn't be any older than he was, whom he had never met before, but felt so very familiar and yet so very wrong.
It would be a week and a half later that he would recognize where he had seen those eyes before.
One doesn't forget their reflection in the mirror very quickly.
But it would be a whole month later before Naruto would actually get a chance to properly introduce himself.
"Hey, Gaara! Remember me? Haha, of course you do! No-one can forget the great Uzumaki Naruto!" of course, they were on first name terms by now, having beaten the snot out of each other for the whole of two hours the day before. It's not like the sand sibs actually had a proper family name anyway. But when Kankuro and Temari went rigid at the total lack of respect and the proximity of the Konoha Nin, Naruto just sent them a blinding fox grin, before then proceeding to chatter endlessly at Gaara. To his credit, the red head was a little stunned to say the least, so his first reaction was repressed. All he could do was nod and grunt when the conversation, if one could call it that, turned to him for a reaction. It lasted for half an hour, with the older siblings growing more and more amazed at this tiny, weak looking kid's ability to completely suppress the mad demon that was Gaara.
It wasn't until a sheepish looking Kakashi restrained his student and dragged him back to his terrified looking peers, that the Sand Siblings, one and all, were free to actually walk out of the Konoha gates. One within range, Sakura proceeded to clock the blond hard enough to send his face into the pavement, whereas Sasuke merely glared at the red headed jinchuuriki. Gaara, once again shocking his brother and sister to the point of cardiac arrest, simply stared back, nonplussed.
When Gaara finally got back to the Sand village, after not killing a single thing the whole way, walking in total silence while apparently in deep thought, he sat in his room, devoid of anything that would make it seem like a normal person's room, for example a bed, and pulled out a scrunched up piece of paper.
"Uzumaki Naruto, huh..." he said quietly to himself, staring at the address scribbled hastily down.
Well, there was nothing much else to do at night, beyond read.
Killing, as he told Shukaku firmly, which Naruto had encouraged him to do, was completely out of the question from now on. Blocking out the outraged cries of the demon, he picked up his pen and stared at the piece of paper.
It was the beginning of a somewhat macabre, but beautiful friendship.
Or so they would say, on pain of death, because heaven forbid that you even mention that Naruto or Gaara are anything more or less than what they are.
Niibi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Nii Yugito was to stare very long and hard at this very pretty blond girl standing before him.
Naruto's second reaction was that said girl had a very good left hook.
Blinking the stars from his eyes and pondering how they could have appeared during what was obviously the middle of the day, the blond haired jinchuuriki lay flat on his back in his apartment, and began to wonder why such a pretty and strong girl was standing in his doorway, which didn't shut properly after all the times Sakura-chan had kicked it open. When a familiar face peeked around the corner, Naruto knew he had been hit pretty hard.
After all, how could Ero-sennin be standing within ten feet of a girl and not be eying her up?
"Hey kid, I'm going to be busy for a while, so thanks to a few new friends of mine, I've got you a new tutor." he grinned, eyes flickering to the blank faced beauty, then grinning perversely. Ah, so it wasn't the end of the world then. Not long after this revelation sunk in, so did Jiraya's words.
"Wait, what?!" the thirteen year old yelped, leaping to his feet. The girl scowled at him.
"Not good enough for you, shrimpy?" came the cold words. Naruto fumed.
"I'm not a shrimp!" he protested, glaring but still managing to be completely unintimidating. The girl, whom had the most curious blue-grey eyes, slanted like a cat's, raised a delicate eyebrow at him.
"Oh really?" she stepped through the door, proving with this simple action that she was indeed a head taller than Naruto. Blue eyes glared at the taller girl, while his mouth worked to bring out a counter.
"Well, I'll grow one day!" he claimed loudly. He was then bopped on the head hard enough to send him sprawling on the floor again. Jiraya must have chosen this moment to tactfully escape, as the next time Naruto looked up, his white haired teacher was gone. "Hey!" he growled as his assailant drifted gracefully past him. She pushed some old washing from his sofa onto the floor and sat down with the same amount of dignity and poise she had used to give him what would probably be a shiner tomorrow.
"Sure you will, midget," she continued, casting cursory looks round the small apartment, wrinkling her nose at a pile of underwear in the corner. "But before you do that, you need to train, and subsequently get stronger."
"Subse-what?" the blond blinked at he got to his feet for the second time. He shook his head. "Look, I have no idea who you are, but if Ero-sennin says you're good enough to train me, then I guess that's okay." he pouted slightly. "Still, I wish he'd be less busy and actually bother to train me."
"Yugito." the girl said suddenly. Naruto blinked again.
"Huh?" was his intelligent response.
"Nii Yugito. It's my name." she gave him a pointed look. "You said you didn't know who I was, and I just told you." her eyes traveled to stare out his dirty but large window. "Also, your "ero-sennin" is trying to find ways to keep you safe. If that is more important to him than training you to keep yourself safe... then that is his method." those grey, endless orbs traveled back to him again. "While I respect Jiraya-san as a ninja, I do not agree with his technique for keeping you alive." she got up again, sauntering over to him. She really was taller than him, easily towering over him imposingly. "So, as he has handed your training over to me, we will be doing things my way." she smirked. Naruto felt a chill go down his spine.
"Er... which way is that?" he said, silently proud of not stuttering in his tone, despite the jitters he had suddenly gained. Yugito's grin still widened.
"We make you stronger, so you don't need protecting. We can do this the easy way or the hard way." a dangerous gleam entered her story grey eyes. "Unfortunately for you, we have no time to do the easy way, so off to the hard way we go."
Naruto would later count the days and weeks following as some of the best and worst days of his life post-Sasuke (as he had come to call it). They were the best because he finally began to realize that not ever jinchuuriki's life had to be full of sorrow if they stuck together. They were the worst because Yugito had decided to train him into the ground on the control and usage of his demon, so hard that he'd simply collapse on his bed at the end of the day and, with only one final command to Kyuubi to heal all his fractures and bruises, fall unconscious.
But he wouldn't have traded it for all the ramen the world.
Sanbi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Aoiyama Uotatsu was that he was just like every other little rich kid he had met; a little brat that needed some discipline.
Imi and Yugito introduced the two boys at the brand new headquarters. The catlike girl warned Naruto beforehand that Uotatsu could be very childish, and scowled a little at a memory. Imi had given her partner an upset look, then told Naruto to be nice to him, or she'd beat the crap out of the both of them. This was said with a smile, which Naruto had learned could be more of a sign of danger than any scowl.
All the same, it was all Naruto could do not to strangle the little brat where he stood. The condescending look he was just given was really pissing him off.
But that was probably a bad idea. If one applied the blond haired jinchuuriki's earlier idea that smiles meant people were dangerous, then the woman standing behind Uotatsu was probably the most dangerous person on the planet. Never mind the fact that he had a nagging feeling that he had seen her somewhere before.
"So!" Imi said cheerfully, attempting to ease the tense atmosphere created by the two demon containers staring each other down. "Ameko, Uotatsu, this is Uzumaki Naruto, container of the Kyuubi. Naruto, the tall woman is Ameko, and the boy is Aoiyama Uotatsu, container of the Sanbi. You guys play nice now! I need to go buy more oranges for Shan!" and with that, the dark haired girl stepped through a wall. It always unnerved Naruto when she did that.
"Er, hi." he said into the ensuing silence. Ameko beamed at him all the more, while Uotatsu's eyebrows came closer together, if that was even possible. "So, um, are you staying here in the base or do you guys own a house?" it was the first think he could think of. Thankfully, Ameko was nice enough to save him from his floundering.
"Yep, we'll be staying here. We've been hobos for the past months." at this Uotatsu spluttered, apparently not wanting to lower himself to the level of a homeless person. Naruto inwardly growled. Stuck up little- "Will you be staying here, Naruto-kun?" he tried to ignore the sudden feeling of being punched in the gut at her words. For some reason, and he could not wrack his brain enough to figure out why, when she said his name it... nah, she was nothing like him. Too happy, not pale enough... though the hair...
"Are you staring for a reason, or is your brain not advanced enough for you to blink without thinking about it?" Uotatsu suddenly said, waspishly. Naruto's eye twitched in suppressed irritation. "Ohh, that was close, try again." Naruto shut his eyes and tried to calm the quaking of suppressed rage in his body. "Aw, he's stuck. Poor pathetic thing."
Ameko, to her credit, was very fast; to be able to catch a semi-Kyuubi powered punch aimed for Uotatsu's smug little face took some doing. (A look that soon was replaced by a scowl when Ameko smacked him on the back of the head with her free hand.) Pushing Naruto's fist lightly to the side, she smiled (not that her expression had changed) at both the boys before calmly walking off as though nothing had happened within that short second of time.
"Ow." they both said in unison, sulking and not really listening to Ameko's breezy "wait here" command. Whipping their heads around, they glared at each other, and then stuck their tongues out at the same time.
"Keep those in your mouth if you want to taste your next meal." said Ameko cheerfully as she walked back into the room with a small cucumber. Both boys quickly sucked their tongues back in, Uotatsu huffily trailing out of the room after her and the cucumber.
Naruto would hide a smile. At least the brat wasn't alone.
Yonbi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Eichi was that he had actually done the impossible. Twice.
Firstly, he had found someone older than Hokage-jiji had been. Naruto had NEVER met anyone older than Hokage-jiji, sans several demons. It seemed impossible. You just didn't get any older than Hokage-jiji was.
Secondly, he had found someone more perverse than Jiraya, Kakashi-sensei and Ebisu-the-Closet-Pervert.
Combined.
It really did take a lot to turn Naruto's face red these days, having being raised around so much vulgarity. But the innuendos that Eichi was spouting would have probably killed any other person due to blood loss from the nose. Naruto thanked his rarely lucky stars that he had become vaguely immune to such things. Over his period of time with Jiraya, he had been exposed to many things that even most adults would find offensive. Naruto just accepted them as part of his weird and wacky life.
But he was still thankful when that old man's "caretaker", even if he was easily a fifth of his age, smacked him hard enough in the head to send him into the pavement. With a little smirk (toomuchlikeSasuketoomuch), he then planted a foot on between the old man's shoulder blades.
"Why don't we take a break to look at something cleaner. Like this dirt." he stated plainly, though not a little smugly. If Naruto remembered correctly, this guy's name was Kami. Geez, a name like that would make anyone bigheaded. Eichi was mumbling something about brats with big heads and feet just as he thought this. Kami's eye twitched, his wings (seriously, wings? And he had thought that Kaguya guy's bone blood limit was weird) flapping slightly in irritation. Before the blond haired jinchuuriki could even blink, Kami had Eichi by the back of his shirt and, with an angered growl, threw him into the nearest wall. Considering they were inside the base, this was not entirely a good idea. The walls shook upon the impact, the concrete splintering and cracking like a spiders web.
Eichi, spread-eagled and indented into the wall about a foot off the ground, opened his eyes and grinned devilishly. Naruto swallowed. This would get ugly. And things did, but not in the way Naruto was expecting.
"MY BASE!" came the sudden screech from the patio door. All eyes turned to Imi, looking murderous. Naruto backed away. She was almost as scary as Sakura when she was angry. Almost. Plus the fact that her back was to the kitchen, the most dangerous place in the house, which made her even more frightening. Her amber eyes swung from him, to Eichi looking innocent as possible, and then to Kami, who has quirked an eyebrow at her. Naruto was about to warn him to lower it when Kami disappeared. Further inspection would find him on the floor, Imi attempting to strangle him.
"Ohh, Jiraya-kun would love this." The yonbi jinchuuriki commented. "Great sexual tension material for his book!" Eichi grinned. The two younger shinobi blinked at him, and then examined their position. Imi was straddling Kami's hips, and Kami in his struggle, kept moving them.
Two sets of murderous eyes fell on Eichi for the very implication. The old man just kept grinning at them.
Suddenly on their feet, they both stalked towards him. Naruto was busy making himself wallpaper. Not easy for one who arbitrarily wears orange.
How Eichi managed to survive the following beating, he would never know. The fact the elderly man took it all with an infuriating grin also surprised Naruto.
The discovery of the same man's tormented past, however, shocked him to the core.
When people asked why his smile had gained in wattage, Naruto would shake his head and reply, with a sad and knowing smile…
"It could have been so much worse"
The topic is hastily changed at this point.
Gobi
Naruto's first impression of Inuhi was that he had finally found someone as willing to be happy as he was. He couldn't tell you how much of a relief this was. But there was a bit of a downer to this revelation.
And that was she had an inverse image of her standing right next to her.
It was unnerving actually. They had to be related. Surely. You just didn't look so identical without being brother or sister or something. And so, in typical Naruto fashion, he blurted out the first thing on his mind. It was important, really!
"Are you a girl?" his question was directed at the one with straighter hair, less spiky than the jinchuuriki's. Later reflection on the memory would leave him both cringing at his lack of tact and also snickering at the look on their faces.
"Pardon." Came the slightly shell shocked reply. Naruto blinked. Male voice. Whoops. Crap.
"Uh, never mind." He hastily said, quickly changing topic, switching his attention to the other jinchuuriki. "Nice hair you have there." He grinned. But instead, Inuhi made a funny little yelping sound and clamped her hands over the two spiky clumps of hair that stuck up at right angles to her head. Now Naruto was receiving an icy glare from the other one. Oh, what the heck!? This was going to hell in a hand-basket. The effeminate boy growled menacingly, but Inuhi gently placed a gloved hand on his shoulder.
"Mitsuke," she said, sounding tired. Identical ice blue eyes locked, and an entire conversation was relayed in the space of a second. "It's fine." She turned to grin sheepishly at Naruto. "Sorry about that, I get a bit… self-conscious about my hair." Naruto carefully returned the smile; still worried about the warning glare he was receiving from Mitsuke. Inuhi followed his eye line, and then frowned. "He won't spontaneously combust no matter how much you will it, Mi-chan." Mitsuke suddenly choked on air and turned to stare at her with open fear.
It was with good reason.
"Mi-chan?" Naruto giggled, attempting to hide it behind his hand. Almost upon queue, as if she had been waiting for it, Ameko popped up out of nowhere.
"Yes, Mi-chan," she grinned even wider than usual, showing off rows of pearly white teeth, leaning towards her prey. The blue haired boy backed away faster and with more emotion on his face than Naruto had seen… ever. "Hey there Mi-chan" the dark haired girl drew the name out, long and song-like, her somewhat evil smile becoming more and more pronounced with each syllable. "Do you want to go shopping with Inuhi and me again, Mi-chaaaaan?" At this point, Naruto felt the temperature in the room drop several degrees. Inuhi blinked, blue orbs showing confusion, of not a tiny bit of amusement.
Mitsuke's darker eyes were wide and frantic, like that of a trapped animal, darting everywhere but Ameko's face. "I, um, er." He stuttered, his eyes swinging to Naruto, pleading with him for help.
Oh ho ho ho…
The tables had turned.
Naruto grinned himself, though it paled in comparison to the Rice Country girl's predatory leer. "Oh, Mi-chan!" he snickered at the name. "I think you would look just stunning in a pink dress, wouldn't you say so Ameko?" Mitsuke was sweating bullets, pressed against the wall of the small dojo of the rebel base like he wanted nothing more than to meld with the wall. To bad he wasn't Imi, and could not do that.
Ameko and Naruto advanced on the poor boy. Closer and closer, Mitsuke's eyes growing impossibly wide at each step. The tension in the air rose, until…
Ding-dong!
Mitsuke took off running for the doorbell faster than Naruto had ever seen anyone go. Even Lee would have found his speed challenging. But then, it was the speed of a desperate man. Naruto wasn't surprised that, just like in the cartoons, there was a small, Mitsuke shaped cloud of dust where the boy had previously been.
Inuhi just laughed and laughed. "That's the most fun I've seen him have in ages!" she cried, wiping tears from her eyes.
Naruto would muse after that it was the first time he had met a guardian with a more depressing history than their jinchuuriki.
Rokubi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Shan was that the world was a very cruel place indeed.
To make such a small child, such an innocent party, into a jinchuuriki, a vessel for a demon, he began to wonder if there was any justice.
And he wondered if anyone had ever thought that about her before. About any of the before.
Shan's big, earthy eyes stared up at him from under dual coloured hair, containing more wisdom and understanding than any child her age ever should. It was raining, and Naruto had just received the news that Sasuke wasn't going to come back, even if he had taken out Orochimaru, because he had to find his brother first. This single hope, that if the snake sannin was gone, his best friend would return, had been shattered brutally, cruelly. The back veranda of the house, the small inn where he, Shan and Arisa were staying, provided little shelter from the driving rain as it blew sideways into his face. Shan was standing in the mud of the small, sodden back garden, Naruto with his legs dangling off the side of the wooden walkway as the rain disguised his frustrated tears.
He and Shan had never properly met. He had heard of her from Yugito, seen her bent over towering stacks of paper in the Hokage's office the day before, but never talked to her. He had been told to meet the two rebels at this inn, surprisingly enough, alone. Arisa had quickly informed him of his purpose, but upon questioning of where the jinchuuriki of the pair was, had been informed she was out exploring.
Apparently not all of that had been above ground, because despite the large quantity of water being thrown down at them from the steely grey clouds above, Shan was so muddy that her clothes had lost any colour except for brown. At first Naruto thought her skin was the same, but then noticed, upon closer inspection, that it was her actual skin colour.
Couldn't get weirder than blue though.
The two stared at each other for a while. There was an odd sort of comprehension in the younger girl's eyes. Slowly, deliberately so, she reached for his wrist, turning his hand so it was palm up, and placed an orange in it.
"Upon analysis of your file and current clothing, I deduce that you like the colour orange." She said, her soft voice barely audible over the rain. The blond haired jinchuuriki stared from the fruit in his hand to the strange little girl. Since when did kids use words like 'deduce'?
"Uh, good guess?" he responded, unsure what to say. He brought his wrist back. "… Thanks." He tried to smile at her, but if felt broken. Shan, though, beamed at him.
"You're welcome. May I join you?" she asked politely. Blue eyes blinked, then he nodded. Instead of sitting on the veranda, however, Shan plopped herself onto the waterlogged ground, mud splashing onto her shorts. She absently drew something in the dirt, which Naruto recognised as numbers. He hopped down off the raised deck, ignoring the wet splash the ground made as his bare feet made contact with it, and tried to read out the number. The little girl wrote fast, he couldn't keep up.
"Three point one four one…" the list went on and on. Naruto frowned. "What're you doing?" he asked, tilting his head and squinting at the ground. Shan blinked big, knowledgeable eyes at him and smiled again. He finger did not stop writing even as she looked away from what she was doing.
"Reciting Pi." She said cheerfully.
"Doesn't look much like a pie to me…" Naruto mumbled. Shan laughed, quiet and kindly.
"Pi is the unending number. There are no doubles, like nine nine, next to each other, and nobody knows how far it goes." Then she smiled wider, and something moved in the depths of those eyes, something frightening. "Apart from me."
The Kyuubi jinchuuriki blinked. "How far does it go?"
"Forever." Shan replied simply, beginning a new line of numbers as her line went slightly beyond her reach. "It is a reassuring thing, Pi."
"It is?" he couldn't see how.
"Yes." Her muddy finger paused, then a childish hand rubbed out the 134 numbers she had written so far. "Is it not a comforting thing, to know that no matter how many twists and turns and dead ends there are in the world, there are some things that go on forever?" Her smile was gone when she looked at him again, but there was something in her eyes, a kind of warmth, that made the blonde boy's spirits lift. "Things like Pi. Like love. Like bonds." At this, Naruto frowned.
"Some bonds aren't forever." But the tiny genius shook her head.
"They don't stay the same, true, but they do stay. They don't just… end." She hesitated, then stood up. "A bond of love can become a bond of hate, a bond of happiness can become a bond of sadness." Her hands went for the hand that still held the orange, raising it up. "And it can go back again." She grinned. "So cheer up! Orange is a happy colour! You're meant to be a happy person, right?"
Maybe the world wasn't so bad, Naruto decided as Arisa ran out and had a huge fit at the state of both of them. If there were little rays of hope like Shan in the world, maybe it wasn't all doom and gloom. His trademark smile found it's place on his face once again, as he laughed heartily, still clutching the orange.
He brings them for Shan every time he visits.
Shichibi
Naruto's first impression of Naida was not so much of confusion as it was one of wonder.
Her hair… was the most awesome colour ever.
Naruto stared at the girl with a mouth full of ramen (not all that uncommon an event actually), unsure whether to ask if her hair was naturally that colour of if she was just awesome enough to dye it like that. She really stood out, especially next to her darker haired friends. Well, not enough to overshadow them, they each had something about them that made them interesting. The hooded boy was glaring moodily down at his bowl, like it was poison, or something. Inversely, she girl Naruto was sitting next to was eating with gusto, like it was the best thing on earth, which of course it was.
Naruto's expectant chopsticks met his empty bowl with a resounding "clack".
A short silence followed.
"YOU ATE MY RAMEN!" the blonde boy screeched. All three newcomers jumped. Naruto watched as all of their gazes slowly zeroed in on the dark haired girl with the scarf. Or… was it the scarf they were looking at? Whatever, she was going to pay.
"No I didn't!" she protested, raising her hands placating, shooting a glare out of the corner of her eye at her scarf again. Naruto grabbed it, dragging her outside of the bar.
"YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR EATING MY RAMEN!" he roared, glad the street was relatively empty. It would be clear enough once he beat the snot out of her. Yet there she stood, looking thoroughly annoyed but still confident in herself.
A short scuffle later which somehow included multiple shadow clones, impossibly appearing kunai and a kick to a spot on a man's body which should not be kicked, ever, Naruto found himself glaring as the other two dragged their mad friend into a back alley, presumably to talk some sense into her. Naruto, seeking an apology, climbed onto the roof to wait until they were done.
It didn't take long for Naruto to decide that he had been kicked entirely too hard.
The scarf was talking. More than that, it was arguing with the girl wearing it. The other two had a resigned look on their faces like that of two people who had heard the same loop of conversation entirely too much, even though Naruto himself could only catch a word or two. When the orange haired girl appeared to have finally had enough, she whacked both around the head and began to give them a thorough scolding.
And then her voice changed.
Low, foreboding, sending chills down his spine despite the warm Konoha climate, as something deep within him stirred, chuckled, sent a hot red stare out of his own eyes.
The shichibi… Naruto heard the demon growl in his mind. With no hesitation, he jumped off the roof, intending to land directly next to the group.
Of course, he missed.
Within the course of the next few hours, he learned many things. One; demons can be sealed into (previously) inanimate objects. Two; hearing other bijuu talk was almost as frightening as having the Kyuubi mutter inside his head twenty-four seven. Three; there are even more people out there with the label jinchuuriki tagged onto them than just him and Gaara, which was a bittersweet revelation indeed. And also four; people really could have hair that colour, naturally and without the assistance of bijuu.
Life was definitely full of amazing things.
Hachibi
Naruto's first reaction to meeting Hakkei would likely be the one he would remember the most.
Never before had he stood before a person who could radiate such menace and power… while wearing a pink apron and making breakfast.
Granted, that apron was emblazoned with the words "Shut up I'm still manly", and was clearly a joke gift of some kind, but the point still stood. The only thing that prevented he blonde Konoha boy from breaking down into hysterical fits of laugher was the perfectly calm stare, which somehow contained so much power that the air all around him dropped in temperature instantly. With his long, white-blond hair falling majestically over his shoulders and right down his back, and his golden eyes slitted like a snake's staring at him regally, even the strange clothing couldn't remove the impression that this was someone very powerful…
And somehow frighteningly familiar.
"Hey there fox brat." The man finally smirked, tilting his head up in a mocking way. Naruto snapped out of whatever trance he had been in, and glared fiercely at him.
"Don't call me that, snake bastard." The name slipped out without his notice before he caught himself. The one in question raised a thin blond eyebrow.
"You'd better not talk down to your superiors, kid." He said, an undertone of menace making the other jinchuuriki shiver. But at those words, an unmistakable presence bubbled within him, seething in anger.
"More powerful than you, tail-less fool." Words slipped free of Naruto's control, even as he clamped his hands over his mouth. He forced the Kyuubi's rage back down until it was only a muffled growl in the back of his head. By that time he noticed the other man laughing. Side splitting laughter, his hand braced on the side of the counter as he doubled over.
"Oh man that's rich, Kyuu-kun!" he roared, trying to calm himself. Naruto felt the world fall out from under him, before coming crashing back up again. Kyuu-kun?! He almost fell into hysterics himself, were it not for the suddenly ten times more malevolent presence in the back of his mind. "What do you think I've been doing all these decades, while you've been locked up inside pipsqueak here?" He expertly flipped a pancake, smirking as it hit the pan again with a satisfying sizzle. "Not making pancakes all day, I assure you."
"Oh I know exactly what you've been doing" came the indignant growl from inside Naruto's mind. He didn't know how many of those words were making it outside his mouth, but he kept his hands on his lips anyway, concentrating on trying to push the bastard back down. "You, you little bastard, have been chasing around the continent looking for your precious human woman." Naruto was so stunned by this sudden revelation that his hold slipped on the bijuu's chakra. It burst outwards in a physical wave, knocking an unfortunate mid-air pancake into the wall. There was a short silence, during which both blue and gold eyes stared as the half baked pancake slid slowly down the tiled kitchen wall.
"That was a waste of a pancake." The older of the two muttered, looking a bit put out. Then a revelation dawned on him. "Oh shit." He paled considerably, going the shade that Naruto usually associated with Orochima-
"MY PANCAKE!" came the distressed cry from the doorway. A plain looking girl stood there, her strange, miss-matched green and blue eyes, the only distinguishing feature, welling up with mortified tears. The long-haired man's face took on a new level of panic.
"I-It wasn't me!" he stuttered, hands raised in defense. "Midget here let off a chakra wave!" Regardless of his pleas, the girl stormed up to him, grabbed his hair and pulled him down so she could get a clear swipe at his head. Several swipes in fact. "Ow- hey- Karen- owch- I mean Sairai!- stop!" He cowered under the beating of her fists, though the blows did not look all that forceful. The girl, Sairai apparently, was not listening to him though, instead grinding out word after word with each hit.
"Don't-call-people-names-Ha-kkei!" she then raised her fist even higher, still not loosing her hold on his hair. "And stop calling me Karen!" she brought it down, this time with force, sending Hakkei face-first into the wooden floor. Dusting her hands off, she grinned at Naruto, who had backed up into the wall with fright. "Hi there, I'm Sairai. Please ignore Hakkei, he'll do anything to get a rise out of someone." Naruto nodded mutely, as Sairai turned to peel her pancake off the wall. She blinked at it, dusted it off, then plopped it on a plate and swept out of the room with a cheery wave and lit up the room with the biggest grin Naruto had seen all month.
After a minute of stunned silence, Hakkei got to his feet, looking completely uninjured and grinning, but not with the same viciousness as before. He stared at the door where she had left.
"You know what, Kyuu-chan?" he said quietly, and Naruto's eyes snapped to him, ignoring the way the demon fox inwardly growled at the nickname "I'd do it all, the banishment, the separation of my tails, the loss, everything. Just to make her smile like that again."
"Kyuubi thinks you're an idiot." Said the blond haired Jinchuuriki. Hakkei blinked, then snorted.
"Yeah, I knew he would." He scratched his head, then tried to smooth out the mess that the incident had made of his hair.
"But I don't." Naruto continued. "I think you're a smart guy." Hakkei stared at him in a mixture between shock and suspicion. "Seriously. People are always stronger if they're fighting for their precious people." He grinned. "Take it from the expert!"
Hakkei snorted, and discarded the apron into the corner.
Kyuubi
In the technical sense, the first time that Naruto met Kyuubi, he was a new born of only 12 hours, and thus his first impression was that the giant scary thing was of course going to eat him, which it nearly did, were it not for the timely execution of his father's sealing jutsu.
The first conscious time Naruto met the demon fox, however, was when he was six. Looking back on it now, he almost always is reduced to banging his head on something hard at his naivety and stupidity.
He had been simply wondering around the town one evening, not particularly looking forward to going back to the cold and empty apartment where he was supposedly meant to be at this hour. But it wasn't like orphans had curfew, nor did they have any reason to do anything really. Naruto was proud of that, the fact that everything he did was of his own choice. He wanted to be a ninja, he wanted to look after himself and he wanted to be out in the freezing cold at an hour close to two in the morning. Really.
Today had been a relatively good day. He had swung on his rope in the woods for an hour, climbed trees, messed around with an ant nest (proclaiming himself ant-kage) and fishing in the river (with his bare hands, might he had. He only caught one fish, but by the time he was old enough to impress ladies, he'd be catching them blindfold for sure.) The problem was he was not slightly damp, with lead to him feeling the cold more than usual. But he didn't care; a little cold never hurt anyone.
It didn't, right?
"You're damn right it does." Startled, Naruto looked all around him to see where the deep voice had suddenly come from. He caught his reflection in the shop window, and saw something very strange indeed.
Another him.
This is of course what most would expect of a reflection. But this other Naruto seemed different somehow. No noticeable differences, just giving off an aura of wrongness.
"Get inside right now you little idiot." The voice continued, and the blond boy watched in alarm as the reflection's lips moved as his stayed still.
"Wh-who are you!" exclaimed Naruto, glad the place where he was seemed to be empty but for him and his reflection. The apparition snorted and gave Naruto a long suffering look of irritation. Naruto hadn't even known he could make that face.
"Just think of me as the voice in your head." It commented, sounding peeved. Naruto frowned in thought. "No, I'm not your conscience. That would be twisted, even for you." Naruto jumped as the … thing read his thoughts. "Of course I can read your thoughts, dumb ass, I'm inside your head." He stressed the last bit, like explaining something to a very stupid child, which in a way he was.
"Shut up." Naruto muttered indignantly. The vision chuckled. "Shut up or I'll make you!"
"I'd like to see you come in here and try." Suddenly, a shiver went all the way up Naruto's spine, and he coughed violently. The reflection didn't move, and just stared at him until he had finished. "See what you've done to yourself. Don't just eat raw fish from the river like that, idiot; that shit's polluted. You've got all wet too; it's all I can do to stop you dropping dead from pneumonia right here. Get your skinny little orange ass home and sit in a warm bath or something." The other Naruto ranted. Glaring at his reflection, the real Naruto straightened crossing his arms.
"You can't make me." He retorted childishly. The reflection made another annoyed sound.
"Believe me brat, I wish I could." It grumbled. "Look, either go home and get some rest, or stay out here until I run out of energy and we both die. It's winter, you little idiot, did the idea not occur to you that even in fire country it gets cold at night in winter?"
"Die?" Naruto quivered, trying to stave off another coughing fit. If his reflection was right, then he needed to get home. With that he turned on his heel and ran, stopping every now and again to cough up what felt like half a lung. All the way, the reflection ran with him, appearing wherever there was a window, puddle or mirror, chastising him all the more the longer he took to get home.
"Hey, reflection." He asked once he was about three blocks away from his apartment, staring at a broken mirror. His own face refracted oddly, spider cracks making it disjoined and alien. "Are you always gonna be here, looking after me?" the reflection shrugged.
"I'd love to get the heck out of your puny little body, but due to extenuating circumstances, I can't. So, you die, I die, and I've lived too long for that." Naruto couldn't understand most of the words, his head was spinning too, but he smiled all the same. He ran through all the streets back to his home, pausing to stare at his reflection on the doorknob. "I can't talk to you once you're immune system is back up, I'm only here to keep you alive." Naruto blinked.
"What?" he asked, unsure of what the words mean and ignoring the reflection's grumbles to turn the knob and get inside already.
"I mean once you're better, I'm out of here." Naruto's hand froze on the way down to the handle.
"You mean, I never get to see you again?" his voice was slightly panicked. The vision shushed him.
"Not so loud, you wanna be labeled a loony as well as an idiot?" the other Naruto sighed, crossing his arms behind his head just like the normal Naruto would. "Look, I'll be here but only when your life is seriously in danger. Don't eat the raw fish again, seriously, and watch out for those eggs too. Look, there's a bloody mirror in the bathroom just get inside already!" Naruto jumped to attention and practically ran though the doorway. The apartment was warmer than outside, but not by much. Still, he made a beeline for the bathroom, setting the hot tap of full blast. It would take a while for the water to warm up, but then the cold and hot would balance out to make a warm bath. It was one of the first things Naruto had learned when he had started living on his own. He sat on the edge of the sink, so as to have a better view of not-himself.
"You'll… always be there?" he said after a while.
"As much as I'd simply love not to be, yes." The reflection nodded, satisfied now that the bath was filling up. "You could say we're too closely related for me to leave you now."
"We're related?"
"In a messed up kind of way, yeah."
"Good." Naruto smiled, slipping his clothes off and easing his cold body into the large bath. Slowly, he sunk into it, letting the feeling return to his limbs and the tightness in his chest ease.
Naruto's first impression of the Kyuubi was this; he was his first family ever.
Yeeeeeah, I copped out a bit on the endings in a few of those. I just sorta got on a roll and couldn't stop myself, and realized that I would have to somewhere. Oh well.
See you later hopefully!