Killing Intent: Chapter 1

Darkness. The absence of light. The pretense from which all things begin and the inevitable end of everything else. It was in this darkness into which a young blonde boy found himself awakening. As he rose, hip-deep in water in this sewer-like dreamscape, the rancid smell wafted into his acute nostrils, filling his senses and causing bile to rise up in his stomach. Feeling the saliva under his tongue that prepared him for the vomit that desperately wanted to be expelled from his mouth, he swallowed hard a few times to suppress the involuntary reaction. The boy looked around in the darkness, trying to get his bearings as his stomach roiled with the fear, apprehension, and anxiety that began to grip his heart in that moment.

Standing slowly, carefully to his feet, the boy tried to ignore the feeling of strange particles within the dirty water that flowed in between his toes, the sewage lapping against his calves as he rose to get a better vantage point on his new environment. When did he get here? How did he get here? These questions bounced around in his mind as he took one step, and then another, towards what sounded similar to a strange, growling noise coming from a nearby corridor. His breathing came slightly faster as he forced himself to progress down the strange hallways, and the child could feel his heart beating ever faster within his chest. Putting one foot in front of the other, he tentatively brought himself closer to that mysterious presence, the water around his legs gradually lowering in its depth until he came eventually into a large, black antechamber split in half by large metal bars, shadows dancing in his sight as the young boy tried to look beyond the cell. Standing now in water that washed over his feet and splashed against his ankles, he stood in the middle of the enormous room, gazing into the prison from which that growling came.

Suddenly, a large, reddish-brown paw erupted forth from between those great wrought-iron bars, before it landed on the wet floor with a sickening crunch, crumbling the tile beneath the water. A bark also emerged from behind the barrier, and a voice growled out quietly, menacingly in a deceptive way. "It has been six years since I was put in this cage, and you finally come before me. Have another *bad dream*~?" The demonic voice was not kind, yet its timber was calm and soothing, in the way a fox may speak to an innocent chick who wandered outside of the chicken coop, with the intent to lead the poor child away into the dark forest and to a fateful end. "You will find that this hell is a darker nightmare world than any you could have dreamed up, little one. Why have you come here?" The presence snarls at the innocent boy, feeling a malefic sense of pride at seeing the way the boy falls backwards and stumbles, trying to form an answer in his own mind.

The small boy trembled before the large, imposing specter, his eyes big like saucers, blue irises narrowed as his pupils dilated in reaction to the darkness around him. "I… d-don't know why I am here, Mr. Fox. Please don't hurt me…" What little light that illuminated the space came from the torches on the distant walls to both sides of the two beings, which ricocheted around, casting an even more evil glare upon the fox within its prison. The beast within crouched forward, revealing his slightly canine, slightly feline features as his snout poked through between two thick bars. He huffed from his nose, the warm air rising up into the rafters of the sewer, creating a breeze up high that caused a large canvas-like banner stretched across the bars to flutter, the runes on its cloth rippling and catching the child's attention briefly.

"W-what is that up there…?" Another growl came from the enormous creature behind the steel bars and a resigned sigh was heard before he collapsed on the ground, tired of the intimidation act. The boy obviously was afraid of him, but this damned cell did not do much to improve the fear factor, and the little one clearly seemed more curious about this place than about him. Whipping two of his tails back and forth, splashing the water behind him, he mumbled out a response to the boy. "How old are you, little one?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm a big six-year-old. Believe it!" The blond-haired kid looked back down at the Fox, his rapt attention torn from the magical seal above and staring at the beast, before making his declaration with a thumb-up and a big grin.

"Precisely… And how many years ago did the 'Evil Nine-Tailed Fox' attack your precious Village Hidden in the Leaves?" The small human looked away for a moment at that before sitting, practically lopping himself down, on the flooded floor beneath him, slouching forward and putting his chin in his hands while he thought deeply about this. Despite his bravado, Naruto had never been known for his intelligence, after all. "Also six years…? Wait… Are you saying that you're the-?"

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect." Somewhere far, far away, perhaps in an alternate universe with a mythical country called "Florin", a former-farmboy-turned-masked-swashbuckling-hero sneezed, his gentle wife frowning at him and asking if he was alright. "Yes, little Naruto: I am the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox, the Demon that attacked your home when you were just a baby. The history of how you were born is a called a Class S classified secret punishable by death in your society, and even I would not defy the village leader you affectionately call 'Old Man'. I can say, however, that on the night you were born, your father and mother trapped me and put me into your belly, giving you that tattoo around your stomach." The Fox grumbled and pointed at the stunned child, who in turn looked down at himself and at the curious mark that had always been over his belly button. Now looking away and thinking about the myriad of magical jutsu techniques even the Third Hokage himself had hidden away, terrible things he could do to a creature of Chakra energy, the Fox turned his massive head back to Naruto as the child prepared yet another question. Of course, he was full of them...

"But… why would they do that?" Naruto looked up at the Fox with a curious look in his big blue eyes, but after a moment realized that the Fox either did not have answers to that line of inquiry, or would not be immediately forthcoming with the answers he did have, and blinked as the creature above him replied. "Well, I hate you less than I would and probably more than I should, little one. What I can tell you, child, is that I would like to help you. Don't give me that confused look: I have a vested interest in your continued longevity and the quality of your life. You did not ask for this existence, after all, and I have seen the way the people in your village treat you…" Naruto sighed sadly at that comment, allowing himself to flashback to all the time he was called names like "Demon" or "Evil Brat", and the stone-throwing from many of the more brazen citizens in the large metropolitan city he lived in called the Hidden Leaf Village or "Konohagakure".

Rocking back and forth, not quite as terrified of the Fox as he was before, due in part to the fact that the child knew what the malevolent creature truly was now, he looked up at the Fox's blood-red eyes, another question forming in his brain. "How would you help me?" The Fox took a large breath in and exhaled it into the child's face, hot and moist air blasting him immediately and knocking him over. "I will show you next time you go to sleep. For now, it is time to wake up." As soon as he was blasted with the Fox's breath, Naruto sprung up in his small, dirty bed, gasping half in shock and half in relief at the realization that he was indeed alive and all of that was just a weird, possibly bad, dream. Or was it? Looking over at his analog alarm clock and seeing the short "hand" on the 6, he jumped out of bed, deciding that for now he had bigger things to worry about: the first day of Ninja Academy! And the grand opening of a new ramen stand a few blocks away…

Author's Note: PLEASE review and let me know if I should even continue with this story. I have read so many bad fanfictions that I decided to try my hand at it, just not doing all the things they did...