Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Trust me I have no idea why I keep writing more new stories when I already have a pile of chapters piling up to finish. This fic is dark, gory and err consider yourself warned.
The first time Iruka saw the child he gripped his kunai a little tighter, sweat formed in the palm of his hand. The first time his future classmates saw the child, they chorused welcome, accepting the shockingly scrawny blond boy without much of a protest.
Uzumaki smiled, and the image that superimposed the picture of a sweet boy smiling was one of black jagged teeth and red hot blood soaking into flesh. Then it was gone and Iruka's heart was racing far faster than he could remember in his memory. He was promised a sweet child! He had been told the boy and the monster were completely separate!
The monster peering out of Uzumaki's eyes laughed at him in a rolling wicked defiance. There was a lazy surety in that gaze. A confidence and an arrogance that he would have called suicidal in any adult. And beneath that burning amusement was a river of molten blistering rage. How could his students not see it?
"Sit down Naruto." Iruka managed and the boy's lips peeled back. No matter what he could not get the image of a predator licking his lips out of his minute as the boy nodded and took a seat. Iruka barely managed to stop him from taking a seat next to the Hyuuga heiress and directed him to one by the window instead.
"Aaah." He heard as he turned away, just pitched so that only Iruka would hear. "You're a cruel one aren't you sensei?"
Naruto gazed out of the window and Iruka turned back. What?
The boy pointed a long slender finger at the bunch of fluffy rabbits dozing in the sun.
"Drugs." Naruto smile was as thin and sharp as wire. "I do wonder what lesson you plan on teaching with them sensei."
The boy could tell the rabbits had been drugged from such a distance and without examination? Iruka swallowed, mouth dry. If he could tell that much with a single look…what else was the monster thinking? Naruto turned back to the rabbits with an idle grin.
….###################################################################...
The next time Iruka looked at those rabbits was during his lunch break just before he brought in his oldest class for their lesson. Naruto's class should have been out front playing and there was a lightness to his chest that he did not have to deal with the terrifying boy anymore that day.
At first he noted the grass was unusually red that year and admired the sheen of the liquid before his brain caught up in horrified shock.
The strings of flesh and bone couldn't even be called rabbits anymore.
Pieces of wet flesh were scattered in red glistening clumps and the grass was drenched in red and in the middle was a blond haired boy picking through the intestines of a corpse inspecting it like it was a mildly curious bauble.
Then the boy parted his jaws open slightly and swallowed a piece without chewing. Iruka felt bile in the back of his throat at the sickening sight.
"Oh Kami." He whispered and the other instructors turned to look. He could hear the newest intern be violently sick behind him. Mizuki turned away with a disgusted cry and ran out to stop him (the fool.)
Iruka followed him. The boy was still his responsibility no matter how much his instincts were screaming at him to put a kunai through his head before it was too late.
"Sensei." Naruto smiled, no Iruka could call it a smile when his teeth were stained and the sheer self-satisfaction the boy felt was like a beacon in his eyes. He sucked on a small piece of bone and rolled it between his teeth like a grotesque bit of candy.
"Uzumaki." Mizuki's voice was a whiplash. "Explain yourself."
The blond boy spat the bone at Mizuki.
"Lunch. Or did you forget dismissing us sensei?"
Mizuki crushed the bone in his hand, fingers tight and white knuckled. Iruka knew the tell-tale line of white hot fury in the line of his shoulders and the press of his knuckles against his thigh and he did not intervene.
The boy was a demon. He deserved anything he brought upon himself.
…#################################################################...
The Hokage came down himself. Iruka welcomed him in but he was quickly forgotten as a profound disappointment filled the old man's eyes aimed at the blond child.
"Naruto. There are things in polite society you do not do." The most powerful man in the village knelt so that he was on the same level as the boy dangling his legs off the edge of a chair (yes Iruka had given him that chair on purpose.) "They are unhygienic, sickening and twisted. I do not want you to walk those paths in your life."
And Iruka marvelled at the fact the Hokage talked to Naruto as if he was a normal boy and not a monster leashed by a fragile layer of human skin. Like the boy had just been brought up on mistaken morals and just needed support to bring back to human decency.
Teeth closing over red pulpy flesh. The rip of tendon from bone. And the arch of the boy's throat as he swallowed. Blood over his face, hands, skin. Blood everywhere.
Eating raw flesh was not a mistaken moral. There was something broken behind those blue eyes.
"Oya-ji." Naruto bit out. "Why did they call you here over a student stealing lunch?"
The Hokage blinked. "Stealing lunch?"
Naruto sneered and cocked his head, some of the anger rising to the surface. "That's what we do right. We're meant to lie and steal and my only fault was that I got caught. Why are you here?"
The hatred expressed in that hiss nearly rocked Iruka back on his heels.
"Raw rabbit is not lunch Naruto." The Sandaime's voice was firm but the shock and dismay was evident. "The stealing is irrelevant."
"Of course it is." Now it's Naruto who looked confused. "Demons eat raw flesh after all. It's what we grow strong on. And you've never minded before."
Mizuki made a choking sound in his throat.
Iruka felt sick to his stomach.
And the Hokage closed his eyes to the ceiling as if in great pain.
"Who told you that Naruto?" His voice was but a whisper.
Naruto laughed at the old man's shock. "Everyone." And maybe that was innocent naivety Iruka could hear straining under the laughter.
…######################################################################...
Sasuke came back to class pale and broken. Even his most fervent fan girls stayed away in respect. Iruka had heard the tragedy of course and he resolved to be quite nice to the grief struck boy for the next few weeks. The Uchiha would all be missed.
"Yo." He heard a voice.
His head shot up. Naruto who had steadfastly ignored every attempt to make friends or conversation that year stood in front of Sasuke's seat. Mouth dry he remembered that the Kyuubi courted only death and destruction but something rooted him to his spot. Something grew and rooted through his feet and it kept him fixated on the scene he was sure would change history.
"Hate is a verb you know." The blond boy was smiling cruelly, mouth a sharp slash in his face.
Sasuke stirred. "I can hear yours. It screams like nothing you've heard before…it's kind of pathetic you know. Like a child screaming for its mother to chase away the monster under its bed."
Iruka's heart skipped a beat and Sasuke's face flooded with black wrath.
"What do you know about my hatred?" The dark haired boy looked like he was just restraining himself from punching Naruto, eyes spitting fire.
"It's too weak." Naruto murmured eyes scanning Sasuke as if he was a particularly interesting specimen. "But you've come the closest so far." His fingers curled before touching Sasuke's face. "Would you like a show of the ledge you have to climb?"
The class was pin drop silent.
Sasuke smiled without mirth. "Show me then. I will eclipse you."
"Good." Naruto threw his head back and laughed in triumph like Sasuke had said something irrevocably binding.
And there was a gaping sucking hole in the side of his neck. Bubbles shone beautifully (sickeningly) and death wrapped his claws around the slender column of the neck.
"The one who did this to me." Naruto's nails scraped on the fabric over his heart.
"I will paint the dawn with his blood. I will twist his bones into the dust under my feet. I will eradicate him from our history. This I have sworn."
Very slowly the demon bent his head to match a wide eyed Sasuke stare for stare.
"Can you eclipse me?"
…###########################################################################...
The only indication Iruka got something was wrong was when one morning Sakura was crying, dry hiccupping heaving sobs into Ino's shirt and the smirk on the monster's face was the widest and wildest he had seen in a long time. He still didn't know why the Hokage didn't pull him out and execute him but if it was his wish that the demon got an education Iruka would not disobey no matter how much it cut at his insides.
Ino was shrieking at Naruto. Sakura was crying. Shikamaru was trying to calm down the situation. It really said something about the situation when the Naras broke their nap and got involved. And why was there reluctant approval on Sasuke's face?
He sent Naruto out immediately finding him the root of the commotion.
And slowly he coaxed an explanation out of Sakura.
"He told me I was a parasite!" The girl wailed. "He told me that no matter what team I'd get put on, I'd be the last one standing because I'd be standing on their corpses to stay out of the reality of the situation! It's not true sensei! It's not!"
Ino took over attempting to calm the girl down. She was mature and calm, traits of her father shining through the childish immaturity she had displayed until that point.
Iruka was normally a calm man. But the distress of one of his students, along with the deliberately vicious words uttered by the monster made his head thrum with a rage that clouded his vision.
He stormed out blood pulsing in anger. Naruto lounged on the wall, arms crossed having the nerve to look bored.
"How dare you." His voice was ugly. Iruka did not care. Naruto had crossed the line.
Naruto tilted his head and a strange expression crossed his face.
"Is it such a crime to call her the most beautiful parasite I've ever met?" The boy laughed hollowly and rubbed at his cheek with the back of his hand. "I don't understand sensei."
And Naruto looked at him the same way Sakura looked at him for explanation on chakra theory. The same way Sasuke looked at him every time he mentioned extra practice. And he could feel his heart cinch in pity.
Sighing Iruka stooped to explain to the boy that empathy and sincerity were two different emotions.
…#########################################################################...
Mizuki's hand trembled in relief as Naruto was called for his test. Iruka could help but feel the same way. There was something terrifyingly unsettling about having blue eyes rake your spine every time you turned around to write on the board.
But he remembered with a mild dread that Naruto had failed to produce a clone all year and he gripped his pen tighter dismissing that voice of doom.
The blond boy entered and his eyes were hidden in the shadow of his hair.
"Naruto." Iruka's voice was clipped. "Please produce a bunshin for us."
"No."
The word sunk like a stone into Iruka's gut. Mizuki narrowed his eyes.
"What do you mean no Uzumaki? This determines whether you graduate or not."
Naruto's teeth were bared in defiance.
"No."
The boy raised his head and-
Jelly spilled down his face from a gaping socket. It shone and quite morbidly resembled tear tracks. Glistening. Wet. And the darkness in the boy's socket flooded his face, tainting his features into jagged glass-the lips moved but-
But Iruka could hear.
"I am the last gate." The boy was speaking with a heavy tone of finality. It made him sound older and wiser than any demon had any right to be. His fingers curled deliberately at his temple.
"I will not create more gates and compromise the safety of this village."
Iruka reeled mentally. He was reminded of the conversation with the Hokage where the man had reassured him Naruto was not a security threat. Had he misjudged the boy all along? Was he struggling under the weight of the demon's sins screaming alone? Duty, responsibility, maturity. For the first time the malicious amusement was not there.
"Give me any task you like." Naruto continued firmly. "I will even repeat the year. But I will not create a clone."
The blond boy clasped his hands in front of him and bows in such a manner Iruka could not fault his dignity or the fact that the boy looked oddly noble.
Naruto Uzumaki was a headache he was not prepared for in the slightest. He needed alcohol and lots of it to figure out if he had been treating a victim unfairly and unforgivably for the past year. He would not forgive himself if he had.
He sighed and overrode Mizuki's silent glares.
"Then give us a demonstration of chakra that you feel is appropriate for your situation." Iruka conceded.
Naruto shrugged and before any of the two instructors realised what he was up to, the boy bit his finger off.
Even Mizuki could sit there silently. Both men leapt over their desk concern for a student overriding their confusion and disgust at a monster.
Naruto spat the severed finger at their feet and held up the regenerating stump. Flesh and bone were sprouting like a miniature tower in red and white and Iruka was transfixed. Seconds later Naruto flexed his completely healed hand and Mizuki sat down hard on the floor.
What did someone say to that?
Iruka wanted to scream at his walls. He wanted to weep and laugh at the state of their resident monster. The monster who hadn't hesitated to bite his finger off to protect the village.
"Congratulations Genin Uzumaki." His voice was strangled. "Feel free to collect a headband from the desk."
..###############################################################...
"Tell me, what is the colour of time?"
The first time Kakashi had met his sensei's son he hadn't expected the toddler to peer up at him and ask the weirdest question he'd ever heard.
He had never given an answer he remembered and it popped into his head when he swung open the door to greet his new team that he really should have an answer for an eight year old question by now.
He did expect a brooding Uchiha, a fan girl kunoichi and whatever the eerie child had grown into. Instead he saw a thin blond boy with the coldest and brightest eyes he had ever seen; a dark haired boy keeping both a respectful and defiant eye on the former and a bright jagged hatred in his kunoichi's eyes. None of their eyes matched his profiles.
Well his eyes weren't even his own anymore. They matched well as a team.
Kakashi smiled and sidestepped the kunai trap deciding to be a bit more serious than planned.
"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I know who all of you are. You know who all of you are. I don't care what you like or dislike or what your dreams are, I don't think you particularly care about mine. So I'll cut to the point."
All three were looking at him now and Kakashi hid a grin.
"I won't take you on as genin unless you can pass my test." He warned once. "I do have the authority and am willing to use it. Training Ground 7 at six tomorrow and oh, don't eat breakfast. Ja ne!"
….############################################################...
The Chunin ran up to him as Kakashi was leaving. He recognised the scar across the nose at once and profiled Umino Iruka from when he had to memorise all personnel in the village. The little wary flick of the Chunin's eye towards the closed door did not go unnoticed. Kakashi let the chunin speak first as his curiosity was piqued, no one willingly approached him when they were of a lower rank.
Instead the man held out a chunk of flesh, he recognised it as a finger of course and with a mild curiosity he noted that the tear was jagged. Why was the Chunin offering him a finger?
"It belongs to Naruto." Iruka told him as if he was telling him the weather and not that the body part he carried belonged to his potential genin. "He's mad Hatake-san. I don't know what to make of him but-" Iruka shrugged and deposited the finger in Kakashi's palm.
"Don't send him back." And there was a peculiar yearning and desperation in that voice that Kakashi could not miss for the life of him.
Kakashi stared sadly at the appendage in his palm, he had heard of the legendary healing ability of the Jinchuuriki of course but to think the boy actually lost parts of him so young? If Kakashi took him on he'd have to fix that as soon as possible.
For the first time since his sensei's son was born Kakashi went home and read his file fighting his own heartbreak at the possibilities he had abandoned.
….#########################################################...
"Kill me."
Was all that Kakashi offered to Naruto. "Kill me before I kill you and I will consider you my finest student."
Sakura and Sasuke were not there yet, both of them were there an hour before the time set by Kakashi and he had known the blond boy would be there.
"Use any way you like." Kakashi grinned under his mask. "I will stop you. And I warn you now, I will only strike once, another will not be needed."
Naruto tilted his head to the side and Kakashi saw in the wrenching clarity of the moment what had terrified the chunin so much.
There was too much rage bottled up in that boy and it leaked through his eyes like a dripping faucet. But Kakashi was Jonin.
He was not fazed.
Something flashed in those blue eyes.
Half of Naruto's skull was caved in. Blood and bits decorated the side of his face. His lips were torn off and he was laughing grotesquely. He would have been unrecognisable if not for the blond hair matted in brain fluid.
Kakashi stopped the kunai headed for his throat by grasping Naruto's wrist and squeezing hard enough to make the wrist break. He hadn't meant to do that and he felt a brief spike of regret. For all that the boy was the Kyuubi host his body was still human and more fragile than most.
"Tell your little pet that that trick won't work on me." Kakashi's eye was very, very cold. "I have seen hell and know it far more intimately than you."
Naruto bared his teeth fiercely and the genjutsu was dispelled.
"Memories." He hissed and Kakashi felt his whole self-lurch. The blond boy spun in Kakashi's hold, breaking his wrist further so that his feet skimmed the top of the Jonin's head. Kakashi threw him far away and he could plainly hear the body breaking further.
The boy had no consideration for his physical health; he abused the Kyuubi's legendary healing power to the absolute extent possible. Kakashi was torn between highly appreciative and exasperated.
"Oh." Naruto himself sounded quite exasperated. "It broke again." His wrist cracked into place as Kakashi kicked his own formidable sensory ability into play. A foul, seething chakra settled around the blond boy's wrist like a set of teeth and sunk in.
"Everything breaks." The boy seemed almost to talk to himself mournfully.
And suddenly Kakashi was very uncertain about the Fox God being sealed in such a fragile body, a prison shouldn't break so easily.
…###############################################################...
Naruto had stopped after the first onset which had surprised Kakashi slightly. Instead the boy seemed content to sit there and stare.
"Why do you apply that genjutsu?" Kakashi asked after fifty minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"It does seem like one doesn't it?"
The frozen smile sent a minute chill down Kakashi's spine. Seemed like a genjutsu? So it wasn't one?
The white haired man indulged his growing curiosity and let Obito's eye swirl out.
Beat.
"That's not possible."
"What a pretty colour." Naruto answered slightly dreamily ignoring Kakashi's shock altogether. "Did you know that red comes from the blood vessels in your eye bursting and pooling in the cornea? I tested that once." He tilts his head back mouth tilting into a slash. "Think Sasuke will get desperate enough to let me try again?"
"No experimenting on your teammates." Kakashi blocked off that route quickly before it grew dangerous. "Or on any civilian or ally of Konoha…Naruto…how are you alive?"
Naruto frowned, the faintest crease flickering between his eyebrows before it disappeared.
"You weren't meant to look at that."
He hit himself hard on the solar plexus with the heel of his palm.
And Kakashi could detect Naruto's heartbeat for the first time.
"I told you." Naruto's voice was dismissive. His face was not. "Everything breaks."
'Everything' seemed to include Kakashi's long unused and ignored heart. This was Minato-sensei's son. He wasn't meant to walk around in glass like bones. He wasn't meant to be used to having his heart stop in him and be perfectly ok with restarting it himself when he remembered. He wasn't meant to be like this.
…..################################################################...
The Bell test was a dismal failure.
Well he really hadn't expected anything else.
Why was there so much hatred in his team? It was positively unhealthy.
Sakura snarled and swiped at Naruto keeping him at a constant distance. Sasuke went out of his way to avoid either of his team mates and Naruto…had just sat there on the grass from when he and Kakashi had been talking watching the white haired man with mocking eyes not moving a single inch.
It was the single worst case of teamwork he had seen ever and he was semi sure Naruto only did his bit to anger him and cloud his vision.
Then there was the constant wary looks Sasuke and Sakura kept looking Naruto when they thought he wasn't looking. The calculation in the dark haired boy's gaze gave Kakashi pause and so did the hidden contemplation in Sakura's.
"Hate is a verb." Naruto smiled at him lazily. "It's not a state of singular being. A person can do several verbs at the same time sensei." He tilted his head and laughed softly as every single person looked away. When Kakashi looked again the look in Naruto's eyes was undecipherable and so very dark.
"You all fail." Kakashi's words resound like a bell and the relief on two of his genin's faces further sow doubt into his heart.
….###########################################################...
Sakura knew that she was giving up her dream to be with Sasuke and she kicked herself for it. But under any circumstances she was not agreeing to share a team with Uzumaki because she knew a team had to stick together and be closer than family and…she refused to do that to Uzumaki. After the parasite comment she would not forgive him, could not trust him past her own prejudices and Sakura was clever enough to know that such a team was headed for disaster.
The seething hatred locked away in her stirred. Something Uzumaki had done had given her access to that river and she was frightened. Perhaps she would go nag Sasuke, perhaps the hate would go away.
"You shouldn't you know." Uzumaki sat in the tree behind her idly kicking his legs in the breeze. Sakura started, she hadn't even heard him! The look on his face turned absolutely malicious. "You kiss him and he'll eat the lips right off your face. Right off. And you'll feel every moment as he chews and chews until there's a skull grinning where your foolish face used to be."
What did the stupid boy know? He only lied and lied and laughed at other people's suffering. Sasuke appreciated strong women! The baka probably didn't know any better and wanted some attention himself. Yes…Sakura wasn't going to play his game!
Uzumaki's sneer flickered. "Don't do that." He snapped a real heat rising up behind his words. He dropped from his tree eyes wild and blazing and fists clenched. Sakura took a step back at the intensity.
"If you push your hatred towards me away again." Uzumaki snarled and in her shock Sakura noticed that his teeth were sharper, longer and undeniably blood stained. Instead of a boy's mouth Uzumaki had a wolf's. "I'll really give you a reason to hate me." A bubbling growl forced its way up the boy's throat like he was throwing up glass shards.
Sakura let herself drift.
She punched the infuriating boy straight across the face, head snapping to the side. No…
His neck cracked and she screamed in horror but stood her ground as a broken neck bone pierced a vein and she was covered.
She was screaming. Uzumaki was dying. No he was laughing.
A wild reckless laughter like an eagle soaring in a storm.
Uzumaki was dying. And the dying boy tilted his head to face her again, neck free of any injuries and smiled.
A fierce rage overtook her. He had frightened her so badly. And he had the audacity to laugh at her! Monster!
She wasn't even aware she had done it. But a fresh bruise blossomed high on Uzumaki's cheek and faded away.
"Come on." Uzumaki taunted her. "That was pathetic. How are you going to fight for Sasuke when you can't even take down an unresisting opponent?"
Every word he spoke was a serrated blade on the last few threads of her control.
A line of blood opened up high on his cheek bisecting the bruise.
"I'm warning you Uzumaki." Sakura's voice was ugly. "Back off."
The line of blood trickled down his cheek and all the infuriating boy did was lick the drop once it reached his mouth.
Sakura shrieked. Was nothing she did ever going to faze the monster?! She was going. To. Make. The. Other. Boy. Pay. Attention.
The blond boy spread his arms in a parody of a hug. The look in his eyes would haunt her nightmares for years to come; a cold vicious amusement at what he had caused and a certainty that chilled her to the bone.
She broke his ribs. She stamped on his stomach and felt the organs burst. She shook him by the neck until his neck was a band of purple and blue. Nothing she did worked and he just looked at her like she was a child he was humouring.
"Look at me!" She was barely aware she was shrieking as she slammed the blond's boy's head into a rock splattering the grass red.
"Don't look at me like that!" Her fist broke his nose and her thumbs found his eyes. Her nails ripped down his stomach and it was hot and pulpy and the sound of her haggard breathing and shrieking was the only thing in the training ground.
"You don't need that." Sakura hissed viciously straddling Uzumaki and leaning over his face, her hair acting as curtains to the rest of the world. She flung something squishy away and finally, finally the boy arched minutely. Her hand grabbed something hot and pulsing and she squeezed until it burst, hot acid and blood spilling over her hand. And both she and he were screaming now.
She was still screaming with pain. With horror. With sheer terror and shock at what she had done when his arms came around her and she was hugged to Uzumaki's chest firmly. She hadn't meant to do that! She hadn't used nearly enough force!
"If you're trying to get me bored, you're failing miserably Sakura. As punishment let's take this up a notch. Disembowelling one's stomach tends to do that to a hunter." He smiled against her hair and just held her as her screams turned to sobs.
"What…are you?" Sakura gasped feeling the mortal wounds close up against her hands.
He hummed.
"No wait." She interrupted herself. "Forget that. What are we to you?"
Ah. She could see his wolf teeth again.
"You." He spoke warmly. "Are my second disciple." At that he released her and got to his feet leaving Sakura in a pool of body fluids. "Sasuke is my first. You can't have him Sakura, I'll kill anyone who tries to take what is mine away."
"You're a monster." Sakura felt too calm for the situation. "I'm not anyone's anything."
Uzumaki laughed at her. "So are you now. If I hadn't been me…well you'd be wanted for murder wouldn't you Sa-ku-ra."
…..#################################################################...
The ANBU came for her that night. She blinked her eyes as the blindfold was removed into a set of bright lights. Shadowy shapes moved around the edge of her vision and she leant her head back huffing in fear and inappropriate amusement as her situation proved Uzumaki wrong. She was wanted for failed manslaughter.
"Student Haruno." Came a very old and familiar voice.
"Hokage-sama." Sakura giggled. "I would bow but ah I'm a bit tied up at the minute."
There was a pregnant pause before a flurry of incredulous muttering started.
Sakura felt her amusement wither to an ice cold resolve.
"Why am I here?" She asked sharply. Even a few hours ago she would have stuttered and pandered to the elite Nin all looking at her with varying amounts of disbelief.
"You tried to murder a military asset of Konoha." The Hokage's voice was very old and cold Sakura thought. "You tried to kill my grandson. Such crimes cannot be forgiven."
There was something wrong with that image. She hadn't dreamed she would ever be capable of violence like that and she wasn't sure if she should be grateful or furious that the blond boy had drawn her potential out of her.
A flash of wicked blue eyes out of a shadowed face. Uzumaki tilted his hat over his face and laughed until the sound was raw and ugly.
Funny. He laughed a lot but he never seemed happy.
Sakura was jolted out of her thoughts by the Hokage snapping his fingers irritably.
"Nothing can kill him." Sakura told the Hokage flatly. Even she had picked that up. Even if she had to argue until she was blue to the face she would not waver from that belief.
"You certainly tried."
Sakura smiled minutely. "I failed didn't I? Naruto is alive."
She had seen the colour of his insides. That intimacy qualified her to use his first name. And there was the tiniest hope beyond hope that the boy would hear. Hear her using his name when he had never given her permission to and come.
The Hokage kept talking and her hope kept shrinking. It had been a stupid idea, people didn't have powers like that. She had no way out of this and bitterly she acknowledged it was a fair decision. She had tried to kill Naruto. But she didn't want to die.
"You have some nerve old man." Drawled a familiar and unwelcome voice. Sakura's neck nearly snapped trying to see past the bright light. What was Naruto doing here? How did he know?! Had her prayer worked?
"Naruto." The Hokage breathed. "How did you-"
The sound of footsteps.
"She used my name." And Sakura felt a cold finger tap on her forehead and within her the hope in her chest exploded. "You drove her into such a corner that she had no choice but to rely on me."
His voice grew colder and colder, very uncharacteristic for the laughing boy.
And she didn't understand. She did not understand the simple anger that burned in the boy not three feet from her. Did not understand the hand of concern pushing her hair back over her forehead.
Why had he come? Why was he saving Sakura?
"Justice must be served Naruto." The Hokage told the boy. "I will see her punished for what she tried to do to you."
The laugh took them all by surprise.
"You have forced her to use my name." Naruto laughed in genuine mirth. "Don't you understand?" Sakura thought she could see Naruto shake his head. "She hates me." He stated like it was a simple truth. "The shame of resorting to me. To have to trust me to save her is punishment enough."
Sakura closed her eyes.
That wasn't true. That…wasn't…true?
"Get out." Naruto snapped to the other shinobi and there is something predatory curling under the curt words. His fingers brushed over the bond securing Sakura's neck and tugged slightly.
"No." The Hokage's voice was as hard as stone.
"Don't interfere Jiji. I won't back down ever so you'll have to beat me into agreeing with you." Sakura thought the normal smile is sharper and thinner than what she's ever seen before. "As you know, I'm tough. Very tough. Can you imagine the damage you'll have to inflict on me before I bend?"
Incredibly the Hokage flinched, the answer being apparently yes. And he backed down.
Sakura could barely believe her ears or her eyes as the most powerful man in the village exited the room after reluctantly giving her a pardon.
She called out for Naruto to release her but he just stared at the door eyes grave. He flicked his blue eyes down and something heavy hit her in the stomach metaphorically. Something was wrong.
"Naruto." Sakura was wary now. "What are you doing?"
The boy stopped by the side of her restraints and gazed down calmly as if he was surveying an experiment.
"Let me go from here! You got permission." Sakura pulled at her bonds, the sense of wrongness weighing even heavier on her heart.
Naruto smiled and opened his mouth in a creak of teeth and jaw joints. Long curved teeth shone in the light of the interrogation room. Sakura stilled looking at that terrible mouth.
"Fear is a funny thing. You needn't be afraid Sakura; but tell your instincts that."
Sakura's heart nearly burst as he leant down and gently fixed his teeth on either side of her neck, mouth impossibly opening wide enough to fit her neck in between. No, no, no, no. She couldn't die here! She had made such a mistake trusting the mad monster for more than a second and now she would be paying the price.
"Relax." Naruto murmured breath ghosting like the edge of a kunai over her throat. "I'm just making it easier for me to protect you."
No!
The snap of jaws in the silent room sounded like a bell toll and Sakura's head fell back eyes lifeless and glazed.
…##################################################################...
She awoke to darkness in a bed too strange for her to be comfortable. She felt her neck almost feverishly, maybe she had imagined the awful teeth clamping down and the taste of iron in the back of her throat as she grew colder and colder.
"Fool!" A sharp voice barked at her from the dark room. She blinked and to her surprise Sasuke came vaguely into view shadows draped over his frame and face as he glared at her legs crossed in a chair.
"You let him capture you." And Sasuke's eyes were hot and furious enough to set oil afire. "Are you lost in the head Haruno? What were you thinking?!" The sound of the chair falling back was loud and Sasuke paced angrily up and down the room.
"I died." Sakura confirmed numbly hands around her throat.
"Yes!" Sasuke snarled throwing the curtains to the window open. "You died! I found your corpse on my doorstep and then miraculously you started breathing again!" Sighing he breathed out and fixed a tired look on her. Her hand was shaking Sakura noted distantly as she carefully unwrapped them from her throat.
Sasuke had treated her in his own house. He had taken care of her while she had been hovering in between life and death. This gratitude went beyond any crush she may have had on him in the past.
She slid out of the bed ignoring Sasuke's harsh bark of 'get back in that bed before I break your legs to make you stay there'. She touched her head to the ground and abruptly Sasuke cut himself off.
When he spoke again he sounded rather gruff. "Pick yourself off the floor."
"You're a target too." Sakura told him still kneeling. "He called you his first disciple."
A dark brooding silence filled the room.
"Pick yourself off the floor." Sasuke repeated stepping by her and snapping the door shut behind him. "Kakashi is our best bet." He spoke suddenly. "He's strong enough to keep him in check." His fist creaked as his knuckles paled.
"He failed us." Sakura pointed out.
"He failed us yesterday." Sasuke didn't bat an eyelash. "And I bet something happened in between Kakashi and Naruto-" He raised an eyebrow at Sakura shrieking at him not to use the name.
"That's how he tracked me down." Sakura elaborated nervously.
"Fine." Sasuke sighed. "Something happened between Kakashi and Uzumaki. I have a feeling he's going to be pestering the Jonin too. It's dangerous, by getting close to the protector we're getting too close to the demon."
Both of them shared a glance. It was terrifying that she and him could be caught up in Naruto's web and tangled and tangled until they danced to his tune. Why them anyway? The boy could not die. Terror turned the liquid in her stomach to acid, what did they do to someone who didn't die? How did they stop someone who was immortal? And it was very clear Naruto danced to his own tune.
Sasuke's mouth flattened into a thin line.
"Sleeping pill by your head. You might not want to sleep without them for a few days."
Sooo…what did you think? Review?