Note: Written in 2010, long before Kishimoto came out with Kyuubi's characterization, hence the AU. A bit almost poetical, and takes a bit of liberty with stuff.
and death whispered a lullaby
There is someone with him everyday, every moment in his life. A comforting thing. So with that soft voice whispering in his ear, the little melodies crooned in the middle of the night that keep him awake for so long, he grows used to it and thinks of it as something precious to him. He would not like to change it.
Naruto grows accustomed to the sight of how animals flee from him. He grows paranoid whenever he passes something he can't help but react in both fright and anger to. Anger, how dare they, did they not know who - ? Confusion - why?
The voice is a gentle one that keeps reminding him to sleep and not to worry, simply sleep and it will all be over until the next morn. He likens it to a mother. (It's gentle at first. The subtle presence at the back of his mind, the soft brush of fur that scalds his skin. He doesn't like the pain, but he supposes it comes with it. But it grows more each day until it's searing and then he doesn't know what to do.)
He wanders the forests. They are huge, and often enough, it takes a while for him to traverse it. But he never gets lost because he knows wherever and whenever he can reach somewhere, and outside of Konoha houses things that should be strange and mysterious to him, but are never.
He knows where the fireflies can be caught, what bugs crawl where and how you catch them. He knows where there is a den of foxes, he knows where the territories between wild animals and the birds begins and ends. He knows.
Sometimes, he goes barefoot and feels the earth and its properties with his body. (He doesn't care if he bleeds. He feels everything, and somehow the world is so much more open to him.) Sometimes, that means he can understand that the voice is more tense and angry - because it can no longer.
(He does not pity it. He just wants it to keep feeling that way because that way it will never leave him. It is easier, he thinks, to brave everything when you are not.)
It is easy to leave Konoha. He learns of several ways to leave, through routes that involve scaling the walls, or the less conspicuous way of going through the tunnels and the sewer system, or through routes that are right through the walls that surround the village. There is not a reason he should stay, confined in a single place where it while it is big enough in the outside word, stretching to infinity, even. The shinobi on duty have chinks in their sentries, patterns they almost always follow when checking entries and exits of the village.
The world outside - a limitless land he can get lost in yet still feel and know. It is yours, it is his, it is everything and completely his, the possibilities he can do, the decisions he can make. He takes a moment to wind his arms around a tree - it is far too big for his arms to stretch around completely and he is amazed.
The soft, smooth feel of grass on his fingers, rough ragged textures and patterns of the bark. Wet dew still clinging on the leaves, homes built by animals who are nowhere to be found. (Do they want to be found?)
The voice tells him places, and he feels with his instincts. He knows where the drop will be, he knows where the territory becomes something that is no longer his. It is his, he feels, because he knows it best - he knows where it weaves and he knows where it ducks - and the voice tells him specifically that this land is all his. Shinobi are merely living on it because Naruto allows them to. To a young child such as he, it makes no impact other than delight.
(Happiness is bliss; he falls asleep with the open canopy of stars curled up in a ball on a branch of a tree he likes best. It is old, worn and the wood is rotting, but he likes this tree and he will not give for another.)
It is an adventure.
But getting back to Konoha makes him realize things are wrong. (It is not supposed to be like this, they are noisy, far too noisy, unnecessary noises and movements that irritate him - the voice says so - and they don't care what they do to his land. They live on it, carefree and rude and arrogant and he will not allow this treatment any further.) It is not here that he likes.
Swept up by those emotions, he stumbles and breaks into a run. He runs everywhere, through everything his frenzied mind can remember, from the ashes to ash.
He collapses in his apartment, on the bed and burrowing his face in the pillow. Outside the world moves as should be, but Naruto cannot find calmness in this calamity. His head hurts, his body growing hot, and the emotions overwhelming him. He feels anger and hate, he feels confusion and sense of loss, he feels weakness and frustration. It takes everything to cry to sleep. (He is convinced he will never sleep, this thing digging away at him, sapping his soul, killing him slowly.)
In his dreams, Naruto sees something. A path lit only by the darkness and the fireflies that light the path. A feeling calls to him, and he comes across a figure in the middle of the stone paved road, misty in the fog that suddenly encloses them and the figure with no defined features like the mist in itself, an illusion in the hiding. For some reason, he feels apprehensive, though by now he should not be. It has always been always like this, after all, when he goes to sleep.
A hand reaches out to gently caress at his cheek, and whispers things to him, comforting things, and another hand on his back guides him down the path. He would be lost without his guide, and once in the presence, Naruto feels as though the weight has disappeared, and he forgets, focused on the long trek.
(What do you want? It is a simple question with so many answers.)
He fights not to look at the past souls that gather along the path. They cannot break in, as his companion tells him, but all it takes is him to look too long and he will lose everything.
Under his feet, the sands of the rocks seem to shift. But with his hand gripped tightly in a larger one, he knows no fear. The anger and the dull understanding fill him and he passes obstacles he would not have alone.
It is easy not to think about reality, with the simple being beside him. Naruto feels enthused just by being there, watching the refined movements and the dance-like steps as the path leads out and ends to a small hut. Built with sticks, with wood and everything from nature, kept together by only a bitter promise and a love for this world.
Fondness overwhelms him and Naruto is happy just by being there. He likes this place, built sturdy - he knows - and he likes being brought here, every night, no end.
When they enter, there is no light. Pitch black.
They navigate through with ease, to what Naruto knows in the centre, where his guide sits and Naruto lays against the man's thigh. His arms looped over and his chin resting on it. His eyes raise to look, but all Naruto can see is the smile before glint of red and a hand brushing gently against his cheek where his scars tingle and threading gently through his hair.
When he begins to bleed out of his throat. Naruto doesn't even blink. He smiles and closes his eyes to stay simply like this.
A noise of discontentment reaches his ears but Naruto knows.
Should he answer?
He lets his mind wander, lets his body feel what it feels in term of strength. He lets himself feel the warming embrace of slumber, eternal promise just waiting to be reached.
(Naruto wakes up in the middle of the night, by the crooning melody that is so high and low, that makes him unable to stay asleep. He sits down in his bed, blankets drawn around him and over his head and spends the rest of the night until morning staring out over Konoha.
The stars are pretty, and the land outside this village is his.)
end.