You ever die, see the pearly gates of heaven and live the life of luxury you've always wanted on the other side? Yeah, me neither. What I did get though, was power I didn't want to touch, invisibility to all those around me with the exception of the boy I can't take sixteen steps from and crazy guys wanting to harvest me. Life as the Kyuubi is great.
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My life, was a not a bad life- just so we're clear. I had a lot going for me, well, I would have had a lot going for me if not for the fact that I died. I was pretty, dear lord did I have the looks. I was the middle child in a family that for the most part got along, I was even pretty intelligent for my age and in only six months I was going to be free from the green grass, boring, small, white picket fence community I lived in.
How horrible is that? Seventeen, I died after seventeen years, six moths and twelve days of working my ass off to get out of my plastic town where every third woman had fake boobs and every other had orange skin. Seventeen, old enough to be given the responsibilities of being an adult but not treated like one. I was just that half year away from cramming all the clothing I had into a suit case, chucking it into my car and driving away like a maniac with nothing but a note left behind telling my family I wasn't kidnapped.
A little harsh but it was the truth, that little town only held me back. In fact, it got me killed.
Six months from living the rest of my life a building collapsed on me. To be fair, the entire structure did give me a bit of a warning. The old library that sat at the edge of town was as old as the town itself, first thing built on its dusty roads actually. A couple centuries later some idiot got drunk and knocked a candle over and fell asleep. He died, poor him, and the library became a charred mess.
It had stayed that way ever since. No one really knew why it was never rebuilt but the teenagers of the community all took advantage of it. Prying a few boards loose it was the hangout of all the kids, the only one in the town other than that pizza place down the road.
I went to the old library often and the day I died, was no different than any other. I sat beneath one of the many remaining beams holding the place up, huddled up like a little mouse with social anxiety issues and bobbed my head up and down to the music playing from my I-pod. Yeah, I was wearing earphones. Yeah, the library groaned and shuddered for a full five minutes before it finally collapsed. I could of gotten out of there and to safety if I had just turned down the music some.
But yeah, that's how I died.
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It became apparent to me in my last moments, just how much of a bitch I am. My last thoughts on the very Earth I was born on didn't center around the family that would no doubt be devastated. I didn't give much thought about the mother and father that spent sixteen years raising me. My mind skipped over the siblings that would have to deal with the grief of our parents and their own and I certainly didn't think about the friends that I had.
Instead I thought about all the dreams I had. All those nights I spent cutting out pictures of places and people from magazines and placing them in books, of hours spent daydreaming about life outside of my little town. I thought about the playlist I had composed for my leaving, full of empowering songs that I would listen to as I had the wind in my hair and the sight of nothing but road in front of me and a life behind me.
I cried, the first time in a long time, not for family or friends, but for myself and the life I never got to live.
It was selfish and sadly it broke me. So when I found myself lying down in the sewers with a body that was far too small to be own with bright brown almost orange tails wrapped around my naked form like a makeshift blanket instead of the pearly gates of heaven I didn't move. I couldn't be bothered to, I let my depression take me and slept for god knows how long. I was tired and I didn't have the energy to even twitch.
I could only assume the lonely sewers I dwelt in was Hell.
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Days, months and years blurred. My form grew, not that I payed much attention and it was with much dread that I realized every time I awoke to stare at the shadows above me, I felt more alive, stronger. As if I had been rebuilding energy along the way. If it wasn't obvious, I didn't do anything about it. I still didn't move, I didn't want to. I didn't think about my tails or the sewer. Instead I focused on sleeping forever with nothing but the sound of dripping water and the darkness. Other than that, I didn't even have a shadow to keep me company.
I didn't know how long I stayed like that drifting in and out of conscious but I did know how long it took me to realize that water and the sound of my own breaths weren't the only thing I could hear any more. Thirty seconds. In the haze of my mind, it took thirty seconds of pure confusion to realize that the sound of a child's weeping did not belong in hell.
The cries echoed around the sewers, coming from the direction of the sewers gate. It was saddening to listen to the wails of a child, especially when they sounded so lost and confused but I didn't want to acknowledge the cries. What I wanted was to wallow in my own pities. So I ignored the child, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
When I awoke it was silent once more.
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I heard the cries more often after that. They would wake me up from my sleep and whatever pity I had was always outweighed by annoyance. It was annoyance that caused me to move for the first time since my death. It didn't register in my mind that I got up with no difficulty, that my purposeful strides were not marked with muscle decay after sleeping for god knows how long. I kept walking, my tails wrapped around me and what I could see was messy ginger hair lapping against my shoulders.
I walked through the shadows, following the voice and ready to tell them to shut the hell up. It was in the dark that I saw a small boy curled in a tight ball, rocking himself as his whole body wracked with sobs. Whatever anger I may have had evaporated at the sight. He was the same size as me I noted mindlessly. It wasn't such a shock, I had always been told anything could happen in the after life- that everyone in heaven was young. Why would it be different here?
His sunshine yellow hair was blinding in the darkness and his tan skin so different from my pale nature in both lives. He didn't notice me walking towards him, my small feet making ripples on the wet ground, until I was kneeling directly in front of him.
"Boy," I called, using my voice for the first time in a long time.
He startled, his sobs stopping in shock as his head snapped up to look at me with beautiful blue eyes. Frightened eyes, innocent eyes. He must have been lost, someone like him didn't belong in hell with self consumed people like me. I looked around, attempting to find the place where he came from, some possible way that he had gotten distracted from the path to heaven.
My eyes landed on the sewage gate, the large iron bars that kept me inside hell were spaced largely apart. He must have slipped through but for some reason unknown to me the idea seemed unfathomable, like walking through those bars would be impossible despite how logical it really was.
"N-nee-san, aren't you cold?" The little blonde sniffled, his eyes shining with tears. "You've got no clothes." Those blue orbs followed my tails with silent fascination. Yes, he was most definitely lost. He was too good for hell. Too pure.
I shook my head with a smile and took his hand lightly in mine. Willing him to stand I pointed at the sewage gate. "Do you see those gates?" He nodded, using an arm to wipe the tears from his face.
"If you slip through those once more, you will be where you need to be." I told him.
The hand that gripped mine held on fast. "But its dark, what if there are ghosts?" He trembled in fright, looking into my eyes as if I could save him.
"There are no ghosts here, only demons. I am one of them." I say, a dark joke the boy didn't understand but to be fair, he must have died young and didn't understand what was going on. He probably didn't even know what hell was and why he didn't belong here. "Don't worry though, so far I am the only demon here."
To my confusion he doesn't look scared, if anything he looks extremely happy. His eyes lighting up and the biggest grin slid across his face. The most sincere smile I had ever seen in my life, that smile could teach the sun how to blaze with warmth. "I found you!" He cried, his hand untangling from mine so he could throw his arms around me.
"I knew I had family!" He babbles. "I'm a demon too, everyone says so! Are you my sister? We have the same whiskers." He explains and it pains me that someone so young and bright could be called a demon.
"Whiskers?" I whisper, stupidly because I could have done something significantly more intelligent. Like, ask why anyone would call an angel like him a demon, why he seemed to think I was his sister or comment on his family or lack of family.
"Uh-huh!" He points endearingly at his own pair of whisker shaped lines across his chubby cheeks, now possessing a pink sheen. Shyly, blonde lashes brush his tan skin as he blinks away happy tears to clear his vision and touch the whiskers I apparently have. His hands trace the lines, giving me a somewhat abstract feel of what they might look like, starting at the inner apples of my cheeks and ending near the edges of my face. "Just like mine." He murmurs.
Too quickly, dots connect in the recesses of my mind. Blonde hair, familiar blue eyes, demon, orphan. Useless details individually and even together, it would hardly be noticed. Unless you've read the books, unless you've watched the anime. Unless you did all those things, like I did.
"Who are you?" I ask huskily, accepting it easily. What concerned me was that he was within the gates and if he truly was who I thought he was...
He smiles up at me again, this time it's tinted with wariness that doesn't belong on such a sweet face, the first face I've seen since my death. "It's okay." I assure him, an equally weary smile on my lips. "If you give me your name, I can give you mine and a brother should always know his sisters name, ne?" I felt horrible for exploiting his emotional weakness, but I needed to know for sure.
The smile still painted across his face turns genuine, making me internally wince. "Uzumaki Naruto, I'll be the best brother ever, dattebayo!" His arms wrap around me and it's only now I notice he's the smallest bit shorter than I am. "What's you name, nee-chan?" He asks, eager.
This is noted dully as my mind wraps around his existence. Uzumaki Naruto, jinchuriki, demon holder, tailed beasts, fox, fox tails, my fox tails, demon holder, demon, dead, hell, sewer, how long was I in there, tired, sleeping, gaining power, demon, tails, nine, trapped, bars, impossible to go through them, nine tails, nine tails, nine tails, kyuubi, always felt so tired, like I was drained, slept, fox tails, mine, I was-
"Naruto!" I take hold of his shoulders, the material of his shirt bunching up in my hands. "How many tails do I have?" I ask with urgency.
His button nose scrunches up, while he silently counts, any other time I would have found it too cute for words. "Uh, nine, nee-chan."
My body sags, that is that then. I was- I was what I was. A demon created by an overpowered sage from a long time ago. A fixture of nature, chakra with sentience. "Naruto..." I trail off, "what are you doing here?"
He shrugs, looking far too sad for a child his age that can take such emotions with easy acceptance. His little feet are wrapped in black sandals which he uses to kick against the wet ground frugally as he avoids eye contact with me. "I don't know," He whispers and shrugs again, "I guess I fell, I hit my head and ended up here with you, nee-chan."
There was obviously more to the story, Naruto had always been clumsy but not to the point where he knocked himself out. His shielded demeanor is quickly replaced as his whole body language seemed to transform before my very eyes, his shoulders rising, little chest puffing out and his eyes dancing with victory, like a huge battle had been won as he shoves a pointed finger in my face. "You never told me your name, nee-chan! And a brother should always know his sister's name!" He shouted, as if he hadn't just stolen my words and instead said something very insightful.
Still, he was adorable beyond belief, if not that little bit annoying but perhaps that was because I had never been comfortable around children. Though I never hated children, I didn't exactly like them, to say they were my weakness was a good way to put it. Children had no filters, they could say what they wanted without a care as to how it was taken, my biggest insecurities could always be found by children and if one cried while in your arms it was safe to say any self esteem you had would disappear. But Naruto for all his lack of years, seemed a very social person and could easily figure out how to keep someone comfortable, even when he wasn;t trying.
"No, I didn't," I easily agreed. Just when it seemed he was about to throw a hissy fit- and inevitably showing me how comfortable he could be around people he declared family, dangerous, very dangerous- I held out a hand and introduced myself, "I'm Melanie," My name flowed off my tongue perfectly as it always had but Naruto struggled with it.
His tongue wrapped around the syllables and twisted them into something of his own language, "Meranii." He stopped, pausing for a moment as something sparked in his little blonde head and his eyes sparkled with childish amusement. "Mera-nii. You're big brother fire!"
I scoffed, "Mera is an onomatopoeia for the sound fire makes when it burns something, Naruto. It doesn't actually mean fire." He didn't look the slightest bit put off but I didn't particularly care as I leaned in to stare him hard in the eyes, "Listen Naruto, this name is precious to me okay?" He nodded but I shook my head in earnest, "No, you don't understand, names are important. Especially if what I think has happened, actually happened. The right to know someones name is earned, I've given you mine and now it's yours to protect."
There was something that clicked into place in his eyes, it wasn't understanding, though living the hard life had forced Naruto to grow up somewhat he was still too young to understand somethings. "But why, Meranii-nee? Everyone gives out their names." He cocked his head to the side, his brows furrowed as he searched for a reason why.
Licking my dry lips I ask, "Naruto, do you know where demons come from?"
His spike blonde bangs flew as he shook his head, the locks flying about like a dancing beam of light causing me to crack a rather bitter smile, women everywhere would kill for hair and eyes like his. "Naruto demons are fallen angels, they're people who lived a whole different life becoming what they are. Melanie was my name back then Naruto, it was my name before I became what I am. But, I'm no longer her so that name needs to be protected until she comes back again, do you understand?"
His lips press into a firm line as he nods determinedly, though it was very obvious he still didn't get it, what he did understand was that her name was her gift to him and in the recesses of him mind that simple name is locked in a vault. "So what do I call you, nee-chan?"
My tails shiver in repressed amusement.
A cat is placed in a box with poisonous gas that is released by a device when radioactive activity is detected. Inside this device sits a radioactive substance that has a perfectly equal chance of decaying as it does of it setting the device off. Therefore there is also a perfectly equal chance of the cat dying as there is of it living but no one knows what the outcome is as the cat remains within the box and away from sight. Is it alive? Is it dead? While in the box no one knows and so it is considered both living and dead, locked in a state of two existences until someone finally opens the box and determines it's fate.
Was I living? Was I dead? Right now I was both, locked between two realities until I could determine what had happened to me, I was- "Schrodinger," I finally answer.
"Shuredinga." Naruto tasted the name, the sound of it apparently sitting well with his sensitive ears.