Written for Day 24 of Sakura Month: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Naruto cocked his head and peered around at the strange trees, fingers already outstretched to the nearest, almost brushing the bright orange bark.
You should not touch-
Kurama's voice faded out as a door swung out of the bark and Naruto tumbled down into the trunk. The world swirled madly around him, something tugging at him as Kurama snarled and roared wordlessly, his energy thrashing inside Naruto.
"Whoa!" Naruto landed in a pile of dry leaves with a painful thump that had Kurama's power lighting up inside him, warm and almost-painful, then soothing as it healed whatever hurt he'd done himself.
Foolish kit. Kurama snapped, and Naruto grinned, ignoring the irritation with the ease of long practise. Kurama rarely really meant it any more, anyway.
He climbed to his feet, shaking leaf litter out of his hair, and looked around. He was still in a forest, but . . . this one was rather different, and all the trees looked vaguely creepy, twisted and dry and dark.
"Huh." Naruto mumbled to himself, searching for any sign of something familiar - though he doubted there would be one, when even the trees looked so distinctly different. After a few moments of debate he chose to follow a winding path that was less path and more a place where the trees happened to be grown not quite so thickly together.
Eventually they thinned even further - Kurama was still muttering in his head as he passed between the thinning trees, though there was nothing intelligible - and he found himself in a pumpkin patch. Naruto laughed, running his fingers along some of the higher vines - some of these pumpkins were huge - and then coming to a sudden stop as he nearly tripped over a . . . headstone?
It was labelled Deadly Nightshade.
Naruto eyed the plants growing in the space before it, then the other small patches verging on it nearby, and carefully skirted them all. Then it seemed he was moving into a real cemetery, headstones engraved with proper names and slightly eerie statuary and mausoleums all around him.
He proceeded carefully among them towards the fence on the far side, only barely visible, curiosity further piqued. There were . . . strange figures in sight in a few places in the village he could see behind the spiked iron bars. Not just strange but rather . . . scary looking ones. . .
"What are you doing here?"
Naruto jumped at the half-snarled question, spinning to find glowing blood red eyes gleaming in the wispy fog. He recoiled immediately, and the eyes began to whirl, a black pattern sunk into the glow drawing his gaze and making him dizzy.
"Uh. . . Exploring?" Naruto said cautiously, eyes searching for a figure below or around the glowing eyes - or even a face. Something.
"Coming from where?" the dark voice said, accompanied by a barely-audible step and a stirring in the fog. "You don't belong here."
Naruto's eyes widened, but he set his jaw too, taking a step forwards. "Hey! It's not like I was trying to trespass, but I'm just looking around!" It was just a boy his own age who was questioning him, Naruto saw suddenly! . . .a boy pale as a ghost with burning eyes and-
Fire spilled from pale lips along with another snarl, and the boy moved towards him.
Naruto jumped back, then turned tail and fled. Temperamental bastard; what had Naruto even done here that was so bad? He was quick, he knew, and he darted around a gruesome-looking statue - fountain? - then scrambled up and over a building while the fountain itself was concealing him. His bright jumpsuit might make it easy to spot him in this village, but Naruto was used to running away from people who hated his very presence.
Someone stepped out in front of Naruto as he was checking behind himself and he skidded a bit as he tried to change directions, yelping. How had the bastard- Then he actually made out the figure and slowed. "Oh! You're not scary at all!" Naruto cried, sagging a little with relief. "You're pretty!"
"Thank you!" The pink-haired girl beamed at him, her eyes sparkling.
A sound behind him made Naruto stiffen, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He spun to find the shadowy boy with the eyes like fire and blood had somehow caught up with him, tracked him, and was closing in. He yelped and began to run only to slam into-
Naruto looked up from his butt on the stone to find only the pink-haired girl in front of him. It had felt like he'd run into a tree - or maybe a boulder. Not a skinny girl.
"Sasuke," she smiled brightly, tilting her head, "are you being mean again?"
Naruto gasped and scrambled sideways as a swirl of flame rushed over the stone nearby, dying away to show a pair of dark boots. He looked up, heart in his throat, to find the scowling boy from before barely a step away.
He snarled and clenched his fists and Naruto cringed.
The girl stomped her foot and Naruto bounced upwards off the stone street as cracks radiated out from under her toes. There was a crater left under her foot! Naruto's eyes bugged out.
"I saw him first, stealing across the graveyard!" Sasuke growled in reply, stepping forward again, feet still silent on the cobblestones.
The girl matched him, the bottom hem of her bright red dress nearly brushing Naruto's shoulder. He kind of wanted to jump up and get out from between them, but he didn't quite dare - especially not while they looked so focused on each other. They might be talking about him, but no need to draw their attention to him more fully while they were exchanging glares.
"Well it looks like you lost him, little prodigy." the girl said smugly, tossing her hair and smiling sunnily at Sasuke. It was a little bit of an alarming smile but Naruto couldn't quite figure out why.
She was really cute and there was nothing weird about her face or eyes or anything, unlike Sasuke or any of the people Naruto had seen at a distance before. Even her voice was cheery and sweet and absolutely not scary.
"Sakura. . ."
Naruto jumped and twisted to look for the source of the new voice and found only a single glowing red eye in a cloud of much heavier mist. He yelped.
The mist resolved itself to be messy hair falling around one glowing red eye and one almost the same colour as the wispy fog around them. The fog which . . . shifted in strange patterns, Naruto's eyes catching on something like the shape of an insubstantial dog prowling around the man's feet, and another nearer his shoulders. He wasn't sure if a normal person would be able to see them - sometimes Kurama let him see . . . strange things - or even if they were really there so he tried to ignore them. The man tilted his head and his eyes closed in an arc. He was wearing a dark mask that hid over half of his face from close beneath his eyes.
"Are you stealing Sasuke's toys again?"
"Aww, Kaka-sensei. . ." the girl pouted, wrapping a long strand of pink around her fingers. "I play so much nicer than Sasuke-kun. . ."
Sasuke snorted, crossing his arms and shifting his weight onto one hip.
"Naughty girl." The man shook his head slightly, opening his more normal-looking eye again and focusing on Naruto. "Where did you come from and. . ." his eyes narrowed, the normal one suddenly beginning to shimmer, crazed with glowing blue-white lines like lightning, "what did you bring inside you? That didn't come from Halloween Town."
"See!" Sasuke huffed, his own eerie eyes flashing, and Sakura braced her fists on her hips and tapped her foot. "I saw something around him. . . What is it?"
"I. . . I don't know what you mean." Naruto said hurriedly, shivering and splaying a hand over his belly, instinctively covering the seal there which locked Kurama inside, even though it was hidden away under layers of clothing.
Kurama growled in his mind. I told you. Spirit realms are dangerous!
Spirit realms? Naruto frowned slightly.
"Maa. . . What indeed." the man drawled, tilting his head and examining Naruto. His eyes suddenly looked lazy, half-lidded and not so focused, but they were still sharp, one glowing ember-bright and the other sparking like electricity.
"Kakashi-sensei." Sasuke said sharply.
His prodding netted himself nothing more than another strange smile, and Naruto swallowed, nerves settling slightly.
"Well, I think you're both being very rude." Sakura said poutily, and Naruto jumped as a hand curled into the shoulder of his jumpsuit. Sakura yanked him to his feet without apparent effort, smiled at him, then glared at the other two. "So I'm taking him!"
"Sakura. . ." Kakashi scolded, though he gave a soft laugh with it.
"Um. . ." Naruto began.
Sakura tossed her head and then turned, hand still firmly locked in Naruto's jumpsuit, and dragged him away.
"Um." Naruto said again, torn between being happier to stay with the non-terrifying girl, not wanting to argue, and- Well. Sakura looked like a normal girl, pretty much, but there was that . . . something strange around her. Something that was . . . scary.
"Play nicely, brats!" Kakashi called, and Naruto looked back only to see Sasuke was following after them. Kakashi lifted a hand in a lazy wave, then was just . . . gone, in a swirl of mist and autumn leaves. Naruto bit his lip and looked back at Sasuke, then stumbled and had to pay attention to his path, even as Sakura effortlessly kept him on his feet. A moment later he was stifling a yelp as he was dragged up and over a low stone fence, then across a narrow stream.
"As if I am ever anything but nice!" Sakura complained, coming to a stop and finally releasing her hold on Naruto's shoulder. She turned towards Naruto and clasped her hands before her. "You think I'm nice, don't you?" she asked, her eyes huge and glittering.
". . .of course." Naruto said, half blindsided. Kurama muttered darkly in his head. "Uh."
"I'm Sakura!" Sakura said brightly. "The grouch is Sasuke." She winked coquettishly at him and he growled, baring teeth that looked slightly sharper than they should.
"I'm Naruto!" Naruto said, grinning. He eyed Sasuke warily and edged a tiny bit closer to Sakura, who seemed to at least be generally happy with his presence. "I didn't trespass on purpose or anything, you know, I was just curious."
"No one ever comes here!" Sakura said, shaking her head.
"So how did he." Sasuke muttered, not really sounding like a question.
"I fell in a tree!" Naruto said, laughing. "I was curious, and I found myself here - or, well," he gestured vaguely in the direction he thought he'd come from originally, "in the woods, and then I found your village and. . ."
"You mean you fell out of a tree and somehow landed in our world?" Sasuke questioned, eyes narrowed.
"No, no, there was a door and I fell down the inside of a tree." Naruto explained, then frowned. It was, admittedly, a bit of a strange story. Then again, he was talking to people who lived in a world he had gotten to by falling into a door in a tree trunk. If anyone shouldn't question such weirdness, it should be them, right?
Because humans are always so reasonable. Kurama rumbled, and Naruto shushed him, although he could hardly argue the sentiment.
"Well. . ." Sakura drew the word out and Naruto braced himself. "Since you're here, and you were curious, want us to show you around the village? Or play a game with us?"
"Us?" Sasuke said dryly.
"You're the one who followed!" Sakura said snootily. "If you don't want to play you can just go away then."
"Game?" Naruto repeated, surprised. "Erm, what about what your . . . sensei said?"
Sakura flapped a hand. "You have to play; you came down here! And if you were something to worry about Kakashi-sensei wouldn't have just left." she said matter-of-factly.
"Probably." Sasuke muttered under his breath.
". . .probably." Sakura echoed after a beat. She looked away for a moment and cleared her throat. "Anyway!" She clapped her hands. "You'll play a game with me, won't you?" She smiled at him prettily.
"Of course!" Naruto punched the air. "I'll win too, just you wait and see, dattebayo!"
"We'll see about that!" Sakura punched one hand into the palm of the other, producing a sharp crack, and grinned at him almost alarmingly. Sasuke smirked, almost prowling as he circled nearer. Naruto grinned at them and bounced on his heels eagerly.
"Ninja tag?" Sasuke suggested in a soft rumble, almost smiling.
"Ninja tag?" Naruto repeated, curious.
Sakura giggled and explained the rules, then seized Naruto's wrist and dragged him off again, a little further from the village. "You better really try though! We're good at this!"
Naruto growled a little, still grinning, and then slipped Sakura's hold so fast she gaped at him. He laughed as he lightly punched Sasuke's shoulder. "I'll show you!" he crowed. "Sakura-chan is it first! Yah?"
"Sure." Sasuke said, arching his brows, then all but disappeared in a swirl of smoke and a few barely audible footsteps. Naruto yelped and followed suit by the simpler expedient of running as Sakura bared her teeth - she was still smiling . . . sort of, but it was scary - and chased towards him.
Ninja tag, it turned out, was exhausting, but it was fun - and Sakura and even Sasuke actually seemed to be enjoying playing a game with Naruto. He kind of never wanted to leave them or this place, even when he wound up with a faceful of tiny scratches from being tackled into a pile of leaf litter and sticks. It stung, but despite the laughter, neither of the others really seemed to want to hurt Naruto - that, too, was new. New and . . . amazing.
Eventually, though, they all tired out, and called a halt to the game without quite having a winner. Naruto sprawled on the grass near Sasuke, while Sakura sat primly on a dead log not too far away, shaking her head at them in superior fashion. Naruto stuck his tongue out and then looked over at Sasuke. Girls.
Sasuke snickered, stretching and then sitting up. He moved to sit near Sakura, and Naruto sighed. Now he just felt silly there on the ground. He lay there for a bit longer out of spite before dragging himself up and flopping down between his new friends.
Sasuke shouldered him lightly, and Naruto shoved back. Sakura giggled and patted him almost absently, her touch light enough not to hurt even when her hand landed right over some of his new bruises.
"You're fun." Sakura told him and Naruto beamed, his chest tightening.
"Pity he can't stay." Naruto looked around at Sasuke, face falling at the simple, even words. Sasuke met Naruto's eyes and arched a brow. "You aren't from our world, staying here would be. . ."
"Oh yes." Sakura sighed, patting his back. "That's probably what Kakashi-sensei went to do. Find out how to get you back to your world."
"If he didn't forget." Sasuke said, rather snidely.
"Or decide it was more boring than his," Sakura's little nose wrinkled up, "books."
"Or get ambushed by Gai." Sasuke snorted. Sakura giggled.
Naruto sighed a little regretfully, not really listening to them. He had known he would need to go back to his own world, but he was a little sad all the same. He paused, though, thinking about their sensei. "What's under that mask of his anyway?" Naruto asked, glancing warily between the two of them.
Sasuke snickered.
Sakura shook her head slightly, lips curving. "You don't want him to take it off, trust us." she said, looking at him sidelong. Naruto stilled. Somehow the gleam in her eyes was twice as terrifying as Sasuke's bloody red or even Kakashi's inhuman glowing ember and sparking silver eyes.
"But what's underneath?" Naruto asked, curiosity piqued.
Sasuke shook his head, lips quirked, and Sakura only giggled at Naruto, leaning against his shoulder companionably. She was warm and soft, Sasuke even warmer though almost stiff against his other side. He resisted the urge to wriggle in place just to feel them so comfortably close, as almost no one ever got. Naruto swallowed thickly.
"Uh, but. . ."
"What?" Sasuke snapped, chin jutting out.
Naruto stuck out his tongue at the other boy. The shadow-black pattern in his eyes whirled a little faster, but Naruto swore he saw the edges of a smile on his dour face all the same.
"What is it?" Sakura asked in her far more friendly manner.
"Could I . . . come back? And visit?" Naruto asked tentatively.
"If you really want to," Kakashi said, startling Naruto horribly as he somehow appeared abruptly right above him, "and you can find your way back. Don't you think that would be fun, my cute little students?" he teased.
Sasuke and Sakura both huffed, and Kakashi chuckled at them, brushing the backs of his fingers against Naruto's shoulder.
"For now, it's time for you to return to your own world." Kakashi said almost gently.
Naruto nodded, bidding farewell to his new friends with Kurama all but pacing jitterily inside him.
"Come back if you can!" Sakura hugged him around the middle, tight enough that Naruto couldn't breathe for a moment just from the pressure - although the affectionate gesture all but took his breath away itself.
"You weren't entirely terrible to have around." Sasuke said, snorting again, but his eerie eyes were almost friendly somehow as he met Naruto's gaze.
"I'll be back! Dattebayo!" Naruto swore, nodding firmly. Sakura smiled at him, leaning against Sasuke, who deigned not to shake her off, nodding back at Naruto.
Kakashi rested a hand on Naruto's shoulder and led him away and then deeper into the woods, where the thick mists made him seem even more alarming, particularly with his silent steps . . . and the ghostly canine figures around him that Naruto still wasn't sure if he should be able to see or not.
One of them looked him directly in the eye and winked, and Naruto had to bite back a growl from Kurama inside him. He told the fox not to be so obvious and he snarled deep in Naruto's mind, but didn't try to vocalise it with Naruto's throat this time.
Kakashi stopped Naruto and gestured lazily around them at the clearing.
"This looks . . . familiar?" Naruto said slowly. "But not quite . . . right."
"It is close to where you came through, most likely." Kakashi said, tilting his head. "It will take you back. If you would find your way here again you will have to do it on your own." He eyed Naruto. "You have done it once."
"I'll do it again!" Naruto agreed, determined. He followed Kakashi's final nudge and stepped forwards uncertainly, not sure how he was supposed to get back to his world in this random patch of forest. Kakashi hadn't said anything else, though. . .
"Maa, one more thing, Naruto-kun."
Naruto turned around and promptly froze.
Fingers hooked over the edge of his lowered mask, Kakashi grinned wolfishly at Naruto, wickedly sharp teeth gleaming through a ruined mask of scars and bones showing through places where there was a gaping lack of flesh. Naruto's eyes widened.
Kakashi laughed, tugging his mask back into place. Somehow it smoothed out the wrecked planes of his face until it looked only like there was a normal face underneath.
"See you next time!" Kakashi said cheerfully, and reached forwards with one finger to Naruto's collarbone, pushing him back.
He tumbled into the empty blackness, and the strange swirling feeling tugged at him once more. Returning him to his own world.
So. . . I didn't actually try to use specific horror or mythological creatures (this time) for any of Team Seven.
Sakura is Sakura . . . but she also still has Inner Sakura, who is a lot stronger and meaner and shows through sometimes.
Sasuke has fire and the eerie eyes, of course, and a bit of a thing with shadows/smoke.
Kakashi has whatever the hell happened to his face that he survived just fine, perhaps because of the wild canine spirits that hang around him, along with a gifted Uchiha fiery eye and his own lightning affiliation that shows in his own remaining eye.
Naruto is from the human world and does indeed have a malevolent (or whatever) fox spirit sealed inside him, which is not exactly received kindly by most people in his own world.