Hey guys! :D

New story here. It's some interaction between two separate mindscapes: Kyuubi and Naruto, how did you guess? None of the pale immediate friendship. I'm mellowing out both canon characters, so you'll see some differences, but their purposes n personalities are essentially the same. Main differences are featured in Naruto, n I've granted him both additional intelligence n maturity, which are vital in this story. It's AU from time skip... say, it's been one or two years since?

I've wanted to do this story for awhile, actually. I've found the relationship between the two characters so interesting. One's a malicious 'evil' creature. The other is a fairly immature youngster. Both despise each other, yet tolerate one another. Whole interaction story. I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I'm hoping for the best.

"Character Speech"

Thought / .: Thought :. (Alterations are in accordance to the intimacy of the thoughts.)

.:. Demonic Speech .:.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters affiliated with the Naruto series, and I wouldn't ever take up the series. 12+ pages of pictures a week? Are you joking?

The r e a l i t i e s that b r e a k the i r i d e s c e nc e of l o n e l i n e s s

Speak out to the sun; whisper to the clouds.

Forever o p e n i n g extended a r m s to t h a t skywards h a v e n

... for I cannot break the sky.

The sky was a canvas of faded blues, cottoned by clouds of a tarnished white. The sun broke through the vapor exterior, shedding fragments of sepia light upon the world below. Birds chirped a song of tentative meekness. Branches on trees creaked under the fragile weight of the feathery creatures.

Beneath the sky, and below the sparrows and sallow robins, nestled a village of bright red-orange. A monument stood in glazed stones, bearing the impression of heads with eyes of flinty white. And life flourished in the wide circle of space that was overlooked by the Monument. Life to grow: grass and trees and flowers and bees. And life to kill: razor-sharp knives, acidic green poisons, and some slumbering evils of red-black.

The cluster of life was called a village. The people, however, didn't mark the existance of a village. The buildings did. The sense of shelter and business and food did. The people lived there, but they were unimportant to the definition of a village. They were merely an accessory, automatically associated to brightly painted building stores and thatched houses, as were bees to nectar-sweet flowers.

Then why was it that the people regarded themselves so superior? They believed that they meant something. They believed that they changed the world. And they used hands of flesh to cultivate tools and caves and mines of metal. But all that they had done was shape the earth. One who can mold clay does not make clay, and the world was unimpressed. It whirled on quietly as men began to turn their eyes to the stars and see things that did not exist...

Nine people mattered, however. Nine, out of some millions that lived in the shinobi world. Their lives were important. They meant something. But their worth couldn't be determined in human rights and wrongs, for those were morals that could change in any given situation. No. It was something else, something far more important.

Demons. The word was one to be uttered at nighttime, underneath the empty darkness of a broken streetlight. And yet, they mattered. Far more, at least, than trivial human lives, for the demons had lived longer, and had touched one of the essential orbs of influence in the world.

Should the world break, those demons would stand.

So how unexpected could it have been that those monsters would be shunned and hated? Disgraced?

The world ticked quietly on. It was waiting.

The Sun would join the Moon, and the world would enter its periodic darkness of demons.

Isolations of the Isolative

- Catalyst -

The ground was punctured by deep welling grooves, and blue steel tinkered down in scraps as remnants of some long-fought war.

For a moment, silence fell. Two opponents, each guarded in their own manner, and each equally perceptive of the conclusion of their battle.

A figure shrugged, dark silhouette leaned easily against the shade of some willow tree. Foilage fell, trapped in the metal corners of steel.

Cerulean eyes burned a shade of crimson magma, the red backdrop glittering for an exquisite second before fading away to azure. The tired frame of an atypical shinobi showed through a second silhouette bending beneath the shade of trees.

Naruto stood, quietly beneath the shade of a willow, in the humid heat of summer. Blue-silver kunais glistened from each corner of his knuckles. Sweat trickled down his side.

His opponent faced him, expression calm and undisturbed. Amusement flickered across obsidian eyes for a flitting moment, and metal thundered against the ground in a mocking gesture.

Silence ensued. Both knew how the battle would end. And as one struggled fiercely to overcome the odds, and make his own fate, the other stepped quietly up towards his triumph.

He was lost. But then how could he have expected to win? He had stumbled into a battle, unprepared. Half his kunai were missing, locked away in the weapons pouch he had left back at the camp. He would never see them again, that much he was certain of.

Unless... It was hope beyond hope. The team thought that he was finishing up the patrol. How would they know that he was in a battle for his life? No matter how much he stalled, and tried to prolong the battle, time would tick by at a mediocre pace. And with the jarring wound he received, that rendered his left arm useless, and the countless notches of injuries he had received, the end was closer than he had anticipated it to ever be.

Footsteps rang against the darkly compacted earth. He could try, of course. But never succeed. Of that much, he knew. But if he could stall for just a few more precious seconds...

Metal flew, twisting in intricate patterns, wires streaming loose from the circled end.

Cerulean eyes widened, pupils dilated. Surprise. Bright red streaks cut through the air, breaking through the metal and wires with unparalleled ease.

A blur of noise - a scream? Had they finally come? - , "Naruto!" , and then pain shot through his skull.

The stiff nausea of numbness engulfed him and his vision dimmed to darkness.

H.C.W. Ward 9 - Patient #12

White, sparsely embroiled covers, were drawn over a flat bed. Curtains were pulled to the side of a white picture-frame window, held by beryl strips of fabric.

Placed atop the bed, with covers surrounding each corner and side, a single figure lay. A figure with blond hair and blue eyes and dressed in white hospital gowns. Cuts marred his skin; his arm was bent awkwardly in a painful splint. Somewhere in the corner, a heart monitor beeped weakly.

: 1 :

A figure was draped over a marble desk, frowning at a young teenager with hair the color of faded roses. Arguing. Waiting for a moment, as if to gauge some innumerable measure, the figure shook her head.

"The room is closed to visitors." The receptionist replied firmly to some weakly whispered inquiry. "The patient needs to recover sufficiently in order to allow people in."

"It's important." The girl retorted. Emerald eyes narrowed, challengingly. "I'm a medic nin. And it'll only take up a minute of your time."

The figure paused, head turned in consideration. "Come back tomorrow. If you have the actual credentials to the status of medic nin, as you claim, we'll have a full report on his injuries ready."

: 2 :

"How is he?" The girl from yesterday demanded, stepping up to the receptionist desk immediately upon entering the sterile building. "Patient 12... How extensive are his injuries?"

A figure stood up, clearly irritated as he faced the intruder. A new receptionist. "Excuse me; we can't give out medical files to people without any proof of connection to the patient. If you can step back - "

The girl leaned forward, eyes flashing deadly malice. "I saved his life." A technical lie; it had been a victory accorded to her whole team, but what would civilians care for the details? "I want to know if he'll be able to live through the night."

The receptionist stumbled backwards, clearly unused to the power struggles that occured so often back at Konohagakure no Sato, before regaining himself. "That doesn't matter. If you'll go to the waiting room, please - "

Emerald eyes flashed with boiling impatience. "I'm a medic-nin. Apprenticed to Tsunade of the Sannin."

"How would I know if you're lying?"

"File my name." Her expression turned placid. "And send it to Konohagakure. You'll have confirmation there."

The figure paused, slender brows wrinkled in thought. "It'll work, I suppose. Your name, then?"

She stepped back, relieved. "It's Haruno Sakura."

The receptionist paused. "I don't recognize it. Were you a relative?"

"Hardly." Sakura murmured derisively. "I'm a friend of the patient."

"Have you come in before?" The figure turned critically towards the girl. "You seem familiar."

"Yesterday. I was told to come back to find his medical file."

"I see." The figure turned, stooped over a desk, frame rigid in the pale beams of light. "Who was the patient, Haruno-san?"

"Uzumaki Naruto." Sakura paused before adding, softer now. "He's known here as Patient 12."

: 3 :

She didn't know why the receptionist's face changed, turning sombre as he glanced back towards her. His fingers slipped as he placed the file back into the drawer. He paused, waiting a fraction of a second longer than he should have had, before confronting Sakura.

"Haruno-san..." His voice mellowed out to a thin whisper. "I..." His lips parted, attempting to frame some appropriate inquiry. "...Were you close to the patient?"

It was an unusual question to ask, even in a hospital, and Sakura couldn't help but hesitate. Was she close to the patient? It was a cliche, used in old times to try to divert attention from disaster. Fear gripped her heart, wrapping cold and pale fingers around her veins. She shivered.

"I've known him for years..." For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to articulate further. His question, 'Were you close to the patient, Haruno-san?' struck a distant cord in her heart. Anxiety suffocated her.

The receptionist nodded slowly, as light gleamed from the edges of his wiry glasses. Sympathy softened his words. "Uzumaki Naruto suffered various minor injuries, most of which should, under normal circumstances, heal in a few days. However, he is - " He paused, straightening out his words, trying to place it as kindly as he could... "I mean, he - "

"Is he dead?" The words were strangely detached, as if spoken from another visitor, another person. Beryl eyes hardened, turning to a stony green.

The figure laughed, but the sound was fake, a dead denial. "No, Haruno-san. Of that much, you can be relieved." He paused. "But there is little to celebrate. Rather, Patient 12 is currently deeply situated within a self-induced coma."

: 4 :

Naruto slumbered on, hands resting on the pale blanket that swathed him. Bandages were wrapped around various areas of his body. He seemed to be slumbering, asleep. But his eyes were wide open, a glassy blue sheen of color. The room was quiet; nothing stirred in the canvas of starched white.

Deep within the child's mind, however, there existed a separate plane of existance, tunneled in with sewers and passages of various darkness. Water rippled across the floor, like some stale recreation of a long-neglected sewer-system.

Silence in the hospital room. A brief second of quiet tranquility in the child's mindscape.

But peace never lasts in this child's mind. Movement. Flickers of color in this blackened imagination. Bright red eyes, burning with blood and malice, snapped open deep within.

: 5 :

"Can I see him?" Her words were weak, some fragile comfort of hope to provide. "I have to check up on him."

"I'm sorry." The receptionist shook his head. "His room's been closed."

"You wouldn't open it for a minute?" Her voice was cracking, but it was difficult to keep up a stiff exterior with the torrent of emotions that flooded around her. "Please..."

"No." He collected the files with a generous hand. "Ordinarily, we would allow any visitor in," he explained. "But a corrosive poison was discovered in the patient's veins. We have to inspect the room further for contamination."

Sakura's brow wrinkled. "Can't the poison hurt Naruto too, then?"

"It's his own poison." He paused. "I can't explain it yet. None of us are sure, but it's incredible toxic. It does no harm to the patient, however. Of that much, we have been assured."

Her heart skipped a beat. "The poison... Can you describe it?"

Light glinted off of his glasses. "You seem to know something of this." A pause. "Am I wrong to think that you have encountered this substance before, Haruno-san?"

"It depends," Sakura wedged. "I need it's characteristics first, to check."

A second of silence ensued before the receptionist reluctantly began to speak. "It contains bacteria cells that self-duplicate and are self-functioning. It's stabilized as a liquid at the moment, but occasionally, lashes up. It's the oddest thing, really."

Emerald eyes sharpened, narrowing. "What color was it?"

"The red of blood," the receptionist leaned forward, scrutinizing the other's expression minutely. "The patient... We heard him speak just once. We're not sure of what he was referring to, but we suppose that it's the poison... That man - he called it 'Kyuubi.'"

: 6 :

Ripples formed in liquids of copper red, as a figure sloshed through the puddles. Faded open sandals swam through the pooling waste.

Naruto's brow wrinkled as he stepped closer towards the heart of the sewer systems. His breath quickened, and his footsteps grew in number, forming hundreds of ripples across the water-clogged floor.

He was running. Towards something beyond his comprehension. Escaping the cruelty of fantasy, into the stiffness of reality. An unadorned door - with a crimson knocker - came into sight. His heart skipped a beat.

A pause. Blue sandals kicked up sewage water as they skidded to a halt. Naruto slowed before the door, eyes dilated in the sudden rush of urgency.

He had to move forward, confront this inner demon. Standing before the vast unknown, however, fear flickered in his heart... Was this really the way home?

A tentative hand reached up and gripped the cool metal of the knocker. Twice, the heavy steel ring rang across the wood of the door. The hand loosed its hold, and the knocker rattled to a halt.

Naruto waited, arms loose to the side. Perspiration formed at his neck.

After a moment, some few breathless minutes, a low gutteral laugh rang across the cavernous rooms. A mocking voice: .:. You've returned to the palace of the king, have you? .:."

Naruto snorted, amused, even as his brow folded into a mass of creases in disgust. "A king with no subjects to rule, if you are one."

Silence. The sound of water rippled across the shinobi's senses. Naruto stirred, uneasy, as water soaked into his cargo jeans. His lips parted in a soundless whisper before discerning the words to a reply for the mute demons of kings. No matter how much he hated him, the demon was his only way home. He couldn't lose him. Not now. "... Kyuubi?"

The door opened suddenly, outwards in a flurry, and some deep red coils could be seen for a second, deep within the chambers of the door. Just as quickly, the red flashes vanished, and the door creaked eerily. The knocker collided gently with the sewer wall, clanging quietly, metal against stone.

.:. Enter. .:. A voice came from deep within the room, within the confines of a cage. .:. And step within this cage of yours. .:. The sense of watching red eyes burned into the adolescent's mind as he watched the empty hollows of the cage warily. .:. I'll promise that you won't be alone. .:."

: 7 :

Emerald eyes snapped open - a perfect deer-in-headlights gaze, light refracting off of dilated pupils - suddenly, and a fist came crashing down on the table. The girl leaned forward, pink hair glowing like a halo around her, in the building lights. "I need to go to the patient."

"Haruno-san, you can't - "

She leaned in closer, until her eyes were but a mere six inches from his. She stared at him intently, analyzing his expression, before whispering, "I know what the poison is."

The receptionist's face changed automatically, from confused to detachedly curious. Suspiscion flickered in his eyes. "You've seen it before?"

Sakura smiled, a stretched and forced grin of the muscules. Remembering, a sudden sense of repugnance. A chakra tail of red-black threads lashing out towards her. "I have."

"Is..." The receptionist couldn't seem to help but lean it closer as he asked, softly, "Is there a cure?"

"There might be." The girl leaned back, stretching her arms across the table. "That's why I have to go in there."

"I can't let you in. It's not allowed."

Wrinkles of confusion marred the girl's brow. "Why not?"

"You need your guardian's permission." The man seemed to flinch under her wrathful glare. "We need a waiver signed by them, so that if any damage occurs during your visit by your hand, the hospital can't be held responsible. You've heard of this before, if your claim as a medic-nin is legitamite."

Sakura leaned in again, eyes glowing an eerie green as she spoke. "My parents are nearly a continent away. I can't contact them but I can't leave my friend here to die without even checking up on him, can I? I can't go all the way home and back like that! Not fast enough, anyways. Please... You have to trust me."

"Any guardian will be allowed." The receptionist leaned back, guiltily turning away from the adolescent teenager. "Come back with a guardian, Haruno-san, and then we can discuss matters."

: 8 :

"Do you believe his nerve? How could he ask for my parents to come, when I told him that they were a full continent away?"

"He probably wasn't aware that you were a kunoichi. You didn't tell him, did you?"

Sakura paused in her fumbling rage, stomping her feet on the ground in utter frustration. "I told him I was a medic-nin. He should've known! I spent a half hour just talking to the guy and he wouldn't let me pass! He - "

"Even civilians have the ability to heal the wounded, Sakura." A man called out loftily. A single obsidian eye rolled lazily in its socket. "Naruto'll be fine."

Sakura huffed, setting her arms on her waist as she faced her teacher. "That's not it, Kakashi-sensei. It's this poison that I'm worried about."

"Poison?" Kakashi stilled suddenly. His eye snapped towards Sakura. "Was it the enemy?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "It's not that, sensei." She turned her hands skywards, in an awkward stretch, with fingers carefully clasped together. "I asked the people at the desk up front." She hesitated, and her hands turned downwards. Her fingers pulled apart from each other slowly as she thought. "He said that it was a corrosive poison. The color of blood. And, even worse, Naruto said 'Kyuubi,' before he fell into his coma, sensei."

"Have you confirmed it with the doctors?"

"Do you think I'm lying?" Sakura retorted. "It's clear that Kyuubi is in Naruto's thoughts, but I don't get it..."

"I'll take care of the matter." His voice was brisk, a sudden contrast from its former sleepy drawl. "The more time we waste, the longer that Kyuubi remains in Naruto's thoughts. Call Sai to help pack up the bags. We're leaving now."

: 9 :

"Kyuubi..." The whisper echoed in the massive room. "Where are you?"

Flickers of red shaded various portions of the vast metal cage. .:. Can't you see? You never were worth more than maggots' heads, but I thought that your eyes were of some use to you. .:.

"Come out, Kyuubi." Naruto called wearily. "Tell me what's happened outside."

.:. You were left to die. .:. Red eyes glowed from the farthest reaches of the cage that took up an entire wall of the room. .:. Outside, your body rots. The tunnels here will fall, and your life as you know it will end. .:.

"And I don't believe you." He stepped forward, even as anger bristled as a warning thought in the back of his mind. Sandals reached up to the ends of the cage. "I can feel whatever happens outside. I'm fine out there. I feel... healthy."

Disapproval thrummed through the cage. .:. Then why are you still trapped here, Uzumaki? Why are you tarnishing even further the ruin of this place? If you were fine, you'd be out of here by now. Or is it that you enjoy my company? .:. Bright teeth leered at him from the bars of the cage.

Naruto stepped back, uncertain. "I must be recovering. At a hospital... Earlier, at the fight, I thought I heard a scream. Someone called my name." He turned urgently. "Weren't my friends there?"

.:. You enjoyed your hallucinations, didn't you? Hiding pathetically in the smallest corner of the shade when doom befell you at last. .:. Kyuubi paced in his cage, deep footfalls resonated throughout the room. .:. Your friends thought that you were out on patrol. What would they know of your fate? You were alone, miserable as you always were. .:.

"I don't believe you." Even to him, though, the words were weak. His voice faltered, cracking midway through his declaration. What Kyuubi said seemed to resonate with truth. Where were his friends? And why was he even here, if Sakura had really gotten hold of him? The woman could heal him quickly; if his friends had gotten a hold of him - Kyuubi was right - he wouldn't be here anymore. "But even if you weren't lying..." Cerulean eyes glanced up, reflecting the demon's misantrophic red eyes. "They'll come eventually."

.:. You'll be dead, then. Even with your mediocre intelligence, you would know that. .:.

"I hope not." Naruto placed a hand on the faded yellow bricks of the sewer walls. "But they'll come, sooner than later, I hope. That'll be enough, I think, for now."

: :

"You claim that you are the uncle of Haruno-san?"

"Yes."

"And this Uzumaki Naruto... is your third-removed cousin, is he?"

"Not really. He's Sai's third-removed cousin. They're inseparable, really."

"And you are related to the patient by blood?"

"No. Sakura told you that much yesterday, didn't she? I'm a friend. Sai, however, is family to him."

The receptionist paused, clearing his throat. "You've clearly fit the requirement of relation to the patient... Age workes in nicely. Give me a moment." The man disappeared behind a stack of papers even as he spoke.

"This isn't funny, sensei." Sakura hissed. "What're you trying to pull?"

"Something unusual," Sai noted. "As usual. Are you really even surprised anymore?"

The receptionist reappeared from behind some mountain of paperwork. "Yes. I believe that it's all been arranged." Suspicion was clear, however, in his eyes. "What is it that you wanted, Hatake-san?"

"To remove the patient to another recovery center." Years later, even Sakura would grudgingly hand Kakashi his credit for his flawless acting. "We're taking him to his grandmother for herbal treatment."

"I see." The man nodded, clearly unconvinced. He reluctantly passed over a pencil. "Sign in the box. The responsibilities of Uzumaki Naruto will pass to you now, or so the paper declares, anyways. Who has legal custody over him at the moment?"

"I do." Kakashi nodded curtly. "He was an orphan so legal matters regarding him passed to the next available adult. It won't change things much now, will it?"

"No, I suppose not." The receptionist sunk down into a chair. "This is as much as my job entitles me to do. You have custody over Patient 12. You can take him out at your discretion."

"Which room is he in?" Sakura demanded.

"Ward 9." The man murmured, before making an effort to sit up and stare the shinobi in the eyes. "Listen to me, though. Don't jostle the kid around to wherever you're taking him. Be careful. His health is teetering on an extremely delicate balance. We don't want you messing that up."

: :

A giant cage, reaching up from the bottom to top of a wall, stood at one end of a room. Its bars rusted and its hinges rotted. In all appearances, it seemed unused and abandoned, left for some shiny, clean, and altogether better confinement for some poor trapped animal.

On instinct, if he chose to defy logic, Naruto could sympathize for the creature trapped within the cage. Water came up to his knees already; the animal must be perpetually wet, with damp claws and weakening paws to show as a result. The poor lighting could blind the animal; the stale air would be no comfort. It was for the poorest and weakest of animals, those who would be let down in hours. Kept in the cage for a second, a minute, perhaps. Never a day. Never an year. Not even for a weak, dying little animal.

Kyuubi wasn't that dying weak animal. He was a demon, the worst of the legendary nine that existed. Slaughter was an easy thing for it; it cared not for life. Its giant, red, hulking tails could erase a whole half of a village in a second, and the monster wouldn't care for the lives that it erased. It was monstrous, demonic, and deserved its conditions, did it not?

.:. Are you still awake, Uzumaki? .:. The voice was rank with amusement. .:. Surely, you must've fallen asleep. You're dreaming, aren't you? After all, shouldn't you be out of here already? Shouldn't your friends have found you by now? .:. Crimson eyes opened, emerging as specks of white from admist the seas of red within the cage.

"They're coming," Naruto retorted. "They don't know the path I took." Naruto could remember a time in which Kyuubi had been brash, thundering chakra down upon him, cursing him, and spiting his name. But he had mellowed out, and his weapons of choice were words now: sly, skulking, mocking. The blade of his new sword was sharper; mocking words were better than threats. Both of them knew it now. And there was no way to escape this kind of torture, not by the defiant shouting and quick rage that Naruto had utilized so often to keep the threats from before at bay. Nothing. Nothing but vicious, biting, quiet words to counter. It was his weakest defense, and Kyuubi knew it.

The demon grinned at him from behind the bars. .:. I wouldn't believe it, if I were you. Haven't they simply forgotten you? .:.

"They never forgot Sasuke. Not even after all these years," Naruto retorted. Sasuke. It was such a biting, tear-rendering word. "And they remembered me, after those years in which I had left."

.:. They loved the flea-ridden Uchiha for his eyes. But why should they care for you? .:. A quiet smile from behind the cage, secretive and mocking. .:. They're not here even now, are they? They don't want to search for you. You feel it, don't you? .:.

If he could bring himself to heed Kyuubi's advice, he would have conceded without arguing. Even so, doubt flickered in his heart. It had been an hour, at best. Hadn't his patrol ended long, long ago? Wasn't it Sakura's shift? Shouldn't she have stumbled upon the fringes of the fight, at least by its conclusion, so long ago? The thought of his blood, spilled in generous portions across the path, being ignored by his team, even as it left a dripping trail down to his death, made him naseous, but what else could be believe? Where were they? Did they really not care?

.:. Wait if you must. But they'll never come for you. .:. His words rung with impressive finality, deep and graven. His voice sounded almost morose, and painfully honest, that just for a second - please, just a flitting moment - skeptism died in cerulean eyes, and for a dark second - an instantanous moment - a blurring instinctual instant, he could almost believe the devil itself.

And... that's it. :D

When I started this story, I wanted to create a growing bond between the two characters. And yet, it would perpetually be marred by the essence of these characters. Their relationship is scarred with animosity and leeches of power. I wanted to see how they could mature through this, so this is what I came up with.

If anyone thinks that it's unrealistic, kind of blah, or OOC, leave me a comment saying so and why, and I'll fix it up as much as I can. It's the first time I've put in Kyuubi as an interactive character in my stories, and I want to see where I can improve.

I've read through it all, but if there's still any outlandish spelling errors, inform me and I'll try to prevent them from occuring again. FF's spell check froze my browser just now and I'm not willing to chance it again.

I... think that I'm done now. I'll leave mroe comments on the next chapter once I come up with things to say.

Leave a review and have a nice day~! :D