Disclaimer: I, Swift Mountain, do not own Naruto. I do, however, hold some of these Ideas as my own.
See a powerful Naruto, without the Kyuubi.
Naruto did not fear death. He reveled in it. The truth was that he was already dead, long before entering his teen years. An savage, rage-bearing mob had torn his body to pieces when he was only five or six-years-old. They even burned the corpse a little.. And for what? To satisfy their confused sense of blood lust? To simply vent the built-up anger from their long-suffering lives, all on a helpless, little boy, who tearfully apologized for even the slightest of offenses for the better part of his short life?
Those were horrible excuses to Naruto. Excuses he thought no one in their right mind could accept. In fact, all the people he met who accepted it were never in their right mind, in Naruto's opinion.
His mood grew cold whenever he thought of why the villagers had killed him. Bitterness dug its claws into his skull and gnawed on his smile until he could hold it no longer.
Rage had flown through his blood and bled through his heart, just as strong as his joys and sorrows. Just as powerful as an great ocean flowing through a narrow canyon.
Just as the waters and winds eroded the mountains, so did these feeling tear away his ignorance. He learned to put on a guise, a mask. Try as he might, he couldn't seize the smile that had fled him when he died, a smile that gave the word 'human' a pleasant song. So he found a new face as his mask, the face of the one who may have cost him the pain of his entire life.
He took the face of a clever creature as his mask, a creature that stalked and pounced where its brothers would sprint and lunge.
But the thing that nearly ruined his life was more than a creature.
He held a monster within him. It was a monster that almost everyone in the village had come to hate with a deep-rooted passion, The Nine-Tailed Beast. The creature was sealed inside his body from the day of his birth—the Fourth Fire Shadow had done the sealing himself—and the news of the sealing caused every one to hate him as if he were the creature and not the container. They were too blind to see that they had mercilessly trampled and beaten a boy until his spirit had no other choice but to retreat from its body. Though he could not forgive the villagers, he could understand them now more than ever. The beast had been crawling and slithering through his being for as long as he could remember up to the point of his death, but he never knew. He knew now though. He knew now.
And so his flesh lied useless on the ground, staining the dry earth with his blood. That day, his spirit, along with the soul of the beast—an enormous fox-like creature—loomed over the body that they had once shared. The animal sported a spiny, nearly black, red coat of thick fur, powerful musculature, and rather nasty set of canines, all accented by the curling, crimson aura that seemed to radiate from it. Naruto didn't seem to mind as much as he thought he should have, but he dared not pet the towering thing. Naruto spoke gently with the fox-beast and, after muscling his way through the screaming urge to flee that burst through him every few seconds, soon learned of why the demonic being had attacked his home. There was no grudge, no instigator to play mind games, no puppeteering trap-builder.
The great fox had simply gone mad.
The fox had been afflicted with an ethereal infection that toyed with its mind and drove the Beast into a senseless rage, unstoppable by most known forces. Leaf Village scouts and soldiers had reported the rest of the tale to the school system. At heart, the Kyuubi—"nine tales"—was a malevolent creature only when challenged by a strong adversary. But the infection, which had thankfully subsided since his imprisonment, had turned him into a rabid animal until the Fire Shadow of that time had sealed him inside the baby Naruto. As the sudden imprisonment had tamed the beast, by at least the child's developing context, Naruto could easily hold mild civil conversations with it and not submit to every part of him that told him to run for hills—though the Leaf had no hills as far as he knew.
It came as a shock to both of them when some guardian of death had not whisked Naruto's soul away to meet its fate. The fox, being familiar with containment in various vessels, had always caught a glimpse of Death snatching away the spirit of his fallen container. Once they came to this strange fact, Kyuubi then decided to give the poor, wondering spirit a gift. Since they had begun roaming around the Leaf, from boarder to border, as invisible ghosts, the beast had to lead the boy back to his waiting corpse. Or, at least, that is how he referred to that chunky mess of charred and broken flesh.
"Boy," he addressed the lad in a rumbling, belluine tone. Naruto senses perked up at the sudden authority in the fox's voice, which contrasted to the oh so recent pleasantries. "There is a way to take your body with you, keep the advantages of being mortal. Do you want to go through with this?" Naruto was nodding before the fox could finish. Its black, canine lips turned up in an animalistic smile. He then turned to the battered corpse that still remained by the school yard. Hopefully, it would be hours before the children came out of class to see the horrific scene.
"Now, lay your hands on your body and focus on becoming one with it," The boy stepped closer to his body, or at least the biggest chunk left of it, listening intently to the beast " Do not focus on reviving yourself. That will not work. Simply lay your hands on the 'head' and concentrate on it as much as possible. I will help you." Naruto took in these instructions like a sponge and immediately knelt down to put his hands on the bloodied, beaten, and battered head of his body. As he made contact, Kyuubi rested one paw gently on the child's back, drawing his own spiritual energy from within and pouring it into the boy as fiery, red light.
The useless 'body' began to glow for a few seconds before bursting into sparkling blue dust, leaving the blood to further stain the earth. Naruto fell on to his rear and gaped mildly at the sudden cloud of blue. He stared in wonder as the particles spun around him before flying into his spirit, making it glow blue. When all the dust had entered his spirit, Naruto felt more solid then ever, more heavy and yet more mobile.
From that day, Naruto was thankful to the Kyuubi. He now had all the advantages of being a free-roaming spirit as well as the advantages of having a body. There were no immediate drawbacks. He was immortal. He could touch the world and never be touched in return, if he so desired. The cruel villagers could not kill him again. He did not boast about it as often as he might have, remembering that the fox had told him Hell was not the only thing that could bring deathly agony to an otherwise indestructible soul. There were things out there that could mangle a soul entirely, even if it would just form back together. There was also the trials of managing his sense of time. Some times, weeks felt like decades. Other times, years felt like moments. It really didn't deter his excitement. He getting to explore the land freely now.
He had found others like himself, mostly Ninja who defected from their home village. They taught him many things about chakra, the energy used by nearly all Ninja of this age, but he still earned a beating from several challengers. One day, when he was wondering the streets of the Leaf, from a journey that felt like a centuries, he found a sobbing girl by a tree. She was blond and quit cute.And familiar. Apparently his long, grueling 'journey' was no more than a field trip, even if he had more life lessons then he could remember. He wondered why she was so sad. He walked up to her, knelt down, and put a light hand on her shoulder. Her sobbing subsided when she looked up and saw her fellow blond looking into her eyes..
"What's wrong?" he asked in a soft voice. She sniffled a bit and pointed to her left, arm shakily extended. Naruto followed her finger and caught sight of a motionless body, identical to the girl before him. He instantly understood. She was a ghost. But how? The Kyuubi had said that wondering spirits were 'One of those frequent one-in-a-million chance things', what ever that meant. Most of the spirits he met were stubborn old crones and geezers who walked about as young adults.
He noticed that her shoulder shook less in his hand.
"How did you get out of your body?" he asked. She had calmed down by now and looked him in the face, her eyes skipping over his expression. She breathed in deep, then sighed.
"I..I was practicing…,"she stammered slightly"practicing a technique from my family. It involves transferring your soul to another person's body and possessing that body for many purposes." It sounded as if she had recited these facts many times over. Her face was almost blank as she continued. "My technique failed though. Someone attacked my body while I was practicing on a bird. Now I can't get back inside. And how can you see me when everyone else doesn't?" Desperation snapped her mask of calm control. Her insecurity seemed to tug at the answer hidden within him, willing it to reveal itself to her. He felt the words climbing his throat and he coughed harshly. He scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously. "Are you dead too?" she asked. Naruto figured that he had caught her in her final throws with sorrow. She was talking openly about death, now.
"Well, I've kinda had the same problem, but I was forced out of my body." Her eyes widened "It's okay now, I'm find, now, let me help you." Thinking back to the time he traded his sandals for some skills to the spirit of an old man, he stood and marched over to the corpses, swallowing his unease, his posture erect, his gaze set. He loomed over the body, the crunch of feet on dirt approached him. The girl looked from behind the boy, staring down her cadaver, her brow locked in a stern way.
"Put your hands on the heart," he commanded abruptly, ignoring her sudden jump "Palm over palm, pressing with only your weight, knees steady." She looked at him with an eye brow raised. He returned it with a wolfish smile. The girl hesitated, but complied, falling to her knees somewhat dramatically and pressing her weight on the cold body, just as he said. Naruto bent over and let his hand fall on her shoulder. At that moment, pink bolts of light crackled around the separated body and soul. The girl let out all squeak as her body suddenly became pink light and joined the bolts in sinking into the poor, confused girl.
The blond girl stood, then patted herself down, smiling. Naruto bared his teeth in a wide, animalistic, yet harmless grin, fists on his hips, striking a 'heroic' pose. He felt a sudden warmness on his torso and soft limbs slipping under the crook of his arm and embracing him. A confused look bumped off the grin instantly as he peered down to see the girl hugging him, burying her face in his chest. After a few warm moments, she untangled her arms from him and stepped back, smiling with her own foxy grin, slightly flushed with pink.
"I," she began, putting a hand to her heart and some how mixing haughtiness with due respect for her savior, "am Ino, training warrior for the Leaf, what is your name, great hero of mine?" She smiled sweetly at him and he grinned in returned.
"I'm Naruto, nice to meet ya. I'm your fellow...spirit...solid...thingy." He laughed weakly as he struggled for a definition. Ino, however, raised her eyebrow once again.
"If you don't mind, I wouldn't like either of us to always refer to our selves as 'thingies'. You did revive me, right." She stepped towards him, now scrutinizing his every move.
"We're not quite alive,"he said "and not quite dead either" he put in before she could utter another demand. "I solidified your soul, using your body as a sort of mortar—hey, I remembered that word!" The girl sighed and put a hand to her face, despite herself. She held back her tongue and let him continue with his explanation. "Anyways, we have all the benefits of being alive and dead, but as always, there are many things that can still kick our ass. We're otherwise immortal too." Just as he finished he felt something warm and soft on his cheek. Ino stepped back from the small kiss and smiled.
"You've done more for me than I thought. It might have been a day before someone realized I wasn't asleep. Even if there are numerous things that can still kick our ass, we can't really die...again. Now, how about teaching me everything you know right after I show you some of my skills?" Naruto simply nodded. After that, they spent what felt like months roaming the lands of the country, learning skills and talents left and right. They even saved a few lives and restored others. They were back before dinnertime, leaving enough time for Ino to explain why she had walked into the house, looking older, and with what looked like the 'Demon of the Leaf' by her side. Apparently time was prone to speeding up away from home. They had spent more than half a year traveling, yet it had only been a hand full of hours since their departure by Leaf Village time.
Naruto gave a quick hug to Ino before stepping out of the house, telling her that he had to do something at home, jogging down the dirt road at a mild pace. She closed the door behind him and sighed, then turned to her gently scowling parents. Her mother pointed to chair by the dinner table and Ino sat obediently, her posture slumping to a slight pout, her elbows square on the table, waiting for the inevitable. Her mother ambled up and sat on the corner of the table, looking down at the bored expression of her daughter.
"Honey," she began rigidly "I want to know how you came to know that," she paused to choke back the more offensive words in her mouth "that boy." She shifted a bit where she sat. Ino smiled widely, just keeping her face from falling into grin territory. She leaned back in her seat and put her hands behind her head, something she had picked up from her recent companion. Seeing her mother holding a tight glare, she loosed the smile and let her hands fall into her lap. She peered at her father to see him frowning deeply, though it never really reached his eyes.
"Well," she began, her words a bit long and pronounced " I was practicing my techniques about," she paused and clasped her chin and tapped her jaw with a finger tapping her jaw moderately, tilting her head back in a pondering gesture. She gave a few 'hmm's and 'uh's, looking out the window and to the sun bathes streets. Judging from the coloration of the lighting, it it must have been the late afternoon. "a few hours ago." she gave. Ino looked at her parents to see that her stalling was frequently nipping at her mothers scowl and plucking at her father's frown. Now it barely reached the man's cheeks, let alone his eyes. The parents waited. And waited. Her mothers glare broke into an annoyed stare and her father's frown gave way to a tired sigh.
"And..." her mother pushed, leaning forward a bit now. "You were practicing your technique a few hours ago and..." Ino blinked a broke out into a short lived laugh.
"Oh, that." she wrangled her mirth and diminished it to a giggling voice. " I was practicing and some random thug killed my body. I was in a bird at the time, just flying around." by now she had put away her laughter and went on with the story. "When I got bored, I circled back and landed by my body, which I had hidden in a tree with a few ties, just like how you told me, Dad." her father nodded and she continued "Well, when I got to the tree, I found it empty, other than the broken binds. Looking down the trunk, I could see my body laying there, slightly blue. I say a masked man looking at it from over in the shadow of another building, he had my necklace in my hand." Ino gestured to her heart, right where it would have been. "When he heard me flapping down to my body and saw me pecking in lightly, he 'sank' into the shadows. I tried to follow him, but I couldn't even pick up a scent." She leaned back and sighed. "I had been crying at that spot where the man disappeared, since I knew that I was officially dead. That's when 'that boy' came and helped me. He combined my body with my spirit and pretty much made me immortal, like him. After that, we went exploring for what felt to be a few months, but, by your time was actually a few hours, since immortals don't really obey the same time laws as mortals."
Her mother and father gaped at her as she smiled, unbothered, in her seat.
"By the way," she added cheerily "he's not a demon. He just had one inside him—and it wasn't talking to him or corrupting his soul!" Her parents let their brows fall, shooting her a skeptical look. "Who are you going to believe?" she asked, giving her own semi-hard look of the day. "The villagers, who were probably drinking themselves to death by the time the information on the Sealing was released, "she paused to put her hands on her shoulder "or me, your precious daughter, who has actually spent months with the 'demon' by her side."
She waited for them to speak. And waited. Finally ,when she was about to shout, her mother spoke up. "Fine," she said, holding back a redundant sigh, "You can hang out with him—but I'd better be expecting some grandchildren in the next 5 years." she finished sternly, her slight smile lost on Ino, who had a sick concoction of fear and embarrassment tear through her expression. Her mother through her head back and burst with high, hysterical laughter. Shocking the young girl further.
Her mother muffled the laughing with a hand and struggled to say "Setsuka said your face would be priceless if I said that" before continuing her storm of joy. Her father stood perplex, scratching the base of her ponytail as Ino stood and walked tiredly out the door, closing behind her. She could still hear her mother cackling. She ignored the pedestrians that stared at her house, the source of the howling mirth.
Review Please. And point out anything you want in the story. Like ideas and characters.