Perfect Insanity
Inspired by Disturbed's song "Perfect Insanity", on their album Indestructible. In this story, we shall see (what I hope is) a different sort of the Psychotic!Naruto genre. Pairing: Naruto/Shizune or Naruto/Konan, I haven't decided yet. Rating: M for language, gore, and possibly adult themes.
Mental Illness, Employment, and Mass Slaughter
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There are five buildings in Konoha that are supposedly impossible to break in or out of: the Hokage Tower, ANBU Headquarters, the Reliquary – where records of top-secret missions, genealogy and the like are stored –, the Prison, and the Sanitarium.
It is at this last that the story begins. But to understand it, however, one must be aware of the events leading up to it.
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Flashback: Ten years ago
Naruto Uzumaki was kidnapped from his bed and whisked to a strange, fear-inducing building before he could say "Believe it."
The ones who had taken him – ANBU with the symbol for "Root" on their masks – sneaked into the Sanitarium and found a doctor.
"I have orders from Danzo-sama that this child, Naruto Uzumaki, is to be… 'hospitalized' in the center of the complex. He is to be in solitary confinement and under heavy sedation at all times. We have evidence that the beast within him has been attempting to take over. Thus, for the safety of the Village, he must be locked away."
The doctor, a young foreigner with dark hair and eyes, was upset at the prospect of submitting a mere child to the Sanitarium, but he could see that he had no other choice at present.
Sighing, he said, "Very well then. Leave him here and I'll take care of the paperwork. However, understand that Naruto will be in my care. I'll do as you ask and keep him sedated, but I refuse to impede his mental and physical development."
With a shrug, the Root Agent just said, "As long he's KO a lot longer than he's awake, neither Danzo-sama nor I care. Just be careful not to cross us… Doctor."
Visibly upset at what he had to do, Julian Bashir went about setting up the paperwork for Naruto to be admitted to the Sanitarium for a period of ten years. He felt horrible for what he was sentencing the child to, but he understood that until the Hokage got wind of this and intervened, the most he could do was to keep Naruto under his eye for as long as possible.
Flashback: Terminated
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Naruto slowly became conscious for the first time in a while. For reasons that he didn't quite follow, he had to be sedated – asleep, basically – twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. So each week, he was only permitted twelve hours of consciousness.
To keep him alive, there were numerous IVs hooked up to him in various places. He didn't get to eat or drink much, so fluids and nutrients were pretty much transplanted into him.
He used to be plagued by constant nightmares about some sort of fire-demon, but they had stopped not too long ago.
Naruto was, according to Dr. Bashir, exceptionally bright: even though he was only awake for twelve hours a week, he was still intellectually on track with the rest of his age group, if not advanced.
But it also seemed that his stay in the Sanitarium had been validated: the Kyuubi hadn't been able to completely take over Naruto, but its personality had merged with and partially supplanted Naruto's own.
The result: Naruto was, according to the Sanitarium warden, mentally unstable and unfit for habitation among normal people.
Julian Bashir, however, knew better. Naruto, while not the most controlled of individuals, was far from being as deranged as most people seemed to think he was. Behind those maddened eyes lurked an intelligence that, despite a lack of formal education, could rival nearly anyone Julian had ever met.
Life in the sanitarium was extremely structured: the place was ultimately a prison for the unstable and mentally ill. Psychotics, MPDs, schizoids, bipolars, and the generally deranged all called the Sanitarium their home, whether by choice or by force.
The routines and protocols were so structured, in fact, that Naruto had developed a sort of internal clock by which he could gauge the exact time by what was going on – even when he was knocked out, he could hear and remember what was happening around him, though he couldn't register it at the time.
But today, the clock had been disturbed. In a somewhat high-pitched, but very quiet voice – a product of when they would use gas on him at first when Bashir wasn't around – Naruto said, "Ya woke me up early, Doc. Need me ta take care o' somethin'?"
Naruto didn't bother to stop hanging his head, as he was still blindfolded from being asleep.
But when Bashir replied, he sounded… angry? "You've got some visitors today, Naruto. I tried to dissuade them, told them that your few memories of them weren't fond, but they refused to listen."
Naruto frowned. Bad memories? He thought for a moment about all the people he knew: Yugao Uzuki (an ANBU who often kept him company in his few waking hours), he liked her; Takuya Kanbara, Takato Matsuki, Daisuke "Davis" Motomiya, and Taichi "Tai" Kamiya (some of his fellow inmates, the so called "goggle-heads"), he liked them; Doctor Julian Bashir, he was OK…
Covered eyes widening, Naruto then realized what his "caretaker" meant: people from before. At the Sanitarium, there are mostly two time periods: "before", and "during". "After" was usually considered a mere dream that the newbies clung to.
If these visitors were from "before", then they were responsible for putting him here.
"Gimme ten minutes alone an' unchained wit those motherfuckers and I'll be satisfied, Doc. Just ten fuckin' minutes."
But Julian didn't get to respond, as an unfamiliar voice took away the chance.
"Come on now Naruto-kun, would you really kill the people who have come to offer you your freedom?"
The voice touched something within Naruto. Whether it was the blatantly derisive tone, the way that –kun was used like an insult, or the implied insinuation that he was so unintelligent that he couldn't detect these things, no one will ever know. But whatever it was, it pissed him off to know end.
Naruto would've lunged at the source of the voice, were he strong enough. It wouldn't have made a difference either way, though, since he was held back by his IVs (which were exceptionally strong – as durable as steel chain) and chakra-reinforced leather straps. With a feral grin, he whispered, "Why dontcha say that ta me while yer in arm's reach, ya motherfuckin' bastard? It's 'cause o' you shitstains I lost ten years o' my fuckin' life in this place."
He would've been roaring loud enough to shake the entire complex normally, but he was still weakened from the various sedatives and barbiturates, so he was only strong enough to mumble. Due to various microphones Bashir had installed for easy communications, though, everyone heard him clear as a bell.
The next voice was rough and belonged to a man: "As much as it pains me to admit it, your help is needed. You have the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox inside you. Your country, your homeland needs that power. Will you rise to the call of duty?"
Naruto fell silent for a moment, and then he said, "I want a fuckin' lawyer. And they'd better be a damned good one, too."
Then, at last, he heard a voice that he recognized: the Third Hokage. "Then until I personally say otherwise, you can have my lawyer. Will that suffice?"
"Yeah, now bring 'im down 'ere. I want a fuckin' contract so I can sue you up the ass and out the nose if you try to screw me over."
So the lawyer, named Takeru "T.K." Takaishi, went down into Solitary Confinement, a.k.a. "Psycho Alley".
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As T.K. entered Naruto's cell, he asked, "So you want a contract, eh? Well in that case, I should be able to lend you a hand. But first, I'm going to remove your blindfold and take those straps off."
Naruto, slowly but steadily gaining strength and mental coherence (or what passed for it in his mind) as the drugs wore off, muttered, "They say I'm dangerous, unstable, that I can't be let loose. Why are you doing this?"
T.K. smiled as he replied, "Because if any kind of deal we make with each other is to have even half a chance of success, then we have to be able to trust each other."
Naruto opened his eyes. They were bloodshot from the various drugs he'd been injected with, and while his iris had once been azure as the sky, it had since darkened to royal blue. The influence of the Nine-Tails showed even further when T.K. noticed a fiery rim around the blue. It was as though the vastness of the entire ocean had a coat of flame over it.
T.K. shook himself from his reverie, before releasing the leather straps and then opening his briefcase. "Now then, I think it's obvious what the Council's opening offer is: you get out of here in exchange for fending off the foreign invaders. You want it in a legally binding contract, and I presume that you'll want additional things as well."
A bit louder than he'd been speaking previously, Naruto replied, "Damn fuckin' right I do. I want got a very simple list. And I might be fuckin' crazy, but I ain't unreasonable most o' the time. 1) I want real estate, and not some shitty apartment either, it's gotta be a motherfuckin' honest-to-god house. 2) I want a goddamn salary. I dunno how much, half whatever either o' those bastards up there gets. 3) I want total immunity to charges of assault and murder."
T.K. raised his eyebrow at the last, silently asking for an explanation.
"Hey man, if they piss me off that much, then it's their fault for havin' shit for brains."
T.K. just shrugged and continued writing. Then Naruto asked, "Say there, uh, I got a question for ya: Do ya know what kind of bullshit loopholes they might use to toss me back in here?"
T.K. smiled a bit and said, "If I don't know, then I can find out fairly quickly."
Naruto then turned to the side and whispered behind his hand (if this were a movie, then he's talking to the camera) and said, "I like this guy. 'E's honest."
Then, turning back to his new attorney, he said, "And one last thing. Don't jot it down or nuthin', but I want some fuckin' food before I get out. Get me some shrimp, I like shrimp. It's better than that godforsaken ramen shit."
Complying with his client, T.K. left, signaled for the Council members to wait a few minutes, and then grabbed some shrimp from the Cafetorium (called such as it was both "cafeteria" and "auditorium". Some idiots wanted to call it the "auditeria", but every smart person knows that saying is 'dinner and a show', not the other way around.) to take back to Naruto.
After the blonde crazy got some seafood in him, he couldn't resist a bit of a laugh. Naruto then said, "Well if that's everythin', then I guess I'll take my leave. Since ya already cut me loose, is there anythin' else I need ta know before I start kickin' ass and takin' names?"
T.K. thought for a moment before replying, "Only kill or maim them if they have a Sand or Sound headband. That should be it, I think." Holding up a poster with both emblems on it, T.K. made sure that Naruto had them memorized.
Naruto nodded, cracked his neck and knuckles, and then stared hard at the cell exit. Suddenly, with a what-the-hell grin, he ran at it full-tilt, and kicked the door cleanly off of its hinges. He muttered, "Blood, violence, and possibly women: the only things that can wake me up faster than normal."
He glanced at the thick steel door he'd just broken down and laughed. He laughed like the madman he was. He noted that the next door was pull, not push. Grinning even more derangedly, Naruto gripped the handle and pulled hard, until the rest of the door came with it. In the same motion, he carelessly threw it behind him, where it threatened to crush the Council members who'd just freed him.
Naruto continued his "escape" in this manner, basically kicking doors open and breaking down walls that were in his way. And with each progressive act of property destruction, he only laughed harder, until he was all-out cackling.
And true to his statement, his eyes, deranged as they were, became clearer. This was due to the successive adrenaline bursts that helped overcome the innumerable sedatives that had been used on him for the last ten years – many of which had accumulated so much that he felt strange as they wore off. Better, but strange.
Then, once he had reached the ground floor, he grabbed an office chair and threw it out the blast-resistant window, at which point he leapt onto the street…
And right into a firefight. There were two Konoha Jonin trying to fend off a dozen or so Special Jonin and Chunin from Sound. One of the Leaf ninja was smoking a cigarette as he countered his opponent's katana with his chakra blades. The other was a really freaky dude who looked like he actually belonged in the Sanitarium. The bowl cut and green spandex weren't helping his case, though Naruto actually thought it looked kind of stylish if you hopped on one leg and squinted with the opposite eye.
But since they had Leaf headbands, they must be OK.
This logic firm in his far-from-firm mind, Naruto shouted, "Heeeeeeere's 'Ruto!"
And with this as his battle cry, Naruto lunged at the closest Sound ninja, completely startling everyone on the scene. Using his nails-grown-to-claws to impale the man's carotid artery, Naruto made sure the bastard died a very bloody death.
Then, Naruto brought his fingers – still coated in hot blood – up to his face and took a deep sniff, getting the scent of blood, before licking his hand clean.
The corpse still twitching a bit, Naruto slowly raised his head to look at the others, blood from the man he'd just killed still on his lips. Licking it clean, he said, "That's a fuckin' wake-up call. Now then, who's ready for me to splatter their guts?"
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A much longer opening chapter than I usually write. Matter of fact, this might be one of my longer chapters period. Either way, I'm still working on the next chapters of Manhunter, For the Glory of the Empire, with Fox-Carnage coming after that. I've been dealing with a lot of shit at school, and was recently run over by a godforsaken freight train called "The Writer's Block Express". All I can say about the next chapters for Manhunter and Glory is that MH will have blood, murder, and cannibalism aplenty, while Empire will feature a very pissed off Judge. Fox-Carnage will probably go headlong into the Chunin Exams, which is where I've hidden an entire ranch of plot bunnies. Expect blood and guts on that front too.
