Well, I don't own Naruto and *cough* I don't own anything Syun Matsuena owns... but why does that matter? *cough*

Kusari no Naruto

Hiruzen's tired eyes watched as a ring of smoke lazily drifted away from his pipe. It was carried over to the open window that looked out on the village he loved dearly. His hands were placed behind his back and he stood with such rigid poise he might have been mistaken for a sculpture at first glance. However, the illusion was shattered when he let out a troubled sigh that really spoke of his age. A migraine was coming, and the reason was one Uzumaki Naruto; or perhaps, the two civilians he had killed.

"They're howling for blood Hiruzen, you can't keep them at bay for much longer. Any attempt to sate them now and preserve what innocence the boy has left will be a fool's errand."

The lightest of frowns creased the aged man's already wrinkled features as one of his oldest friends, if not perhaps the closest, spoke up from behind him. He didn't turn though, still looking out over his village, framed by the setting sun lighting the sky up in brilliant hues of red and orange that made Hi no Kuni so famous.

"Don't think I don't know that Danzo." Another tired sigh escaped his lips; it was a bad day when he had begun to agree with the old war-hawk over matters concerning Naruto.

"The boy is obviously unstable; he can't remain among the normal populace as he is."

Hiruzen's frown only deepened but he quickly calmed himself by taking another long drag from his pipe, a gift from his son before their relationship became so strained.

"And whose fault is that Danzo?" There was no accusation in the tone, more one of general hopelessness. "The boy has every right to be unbalanced, with everything that has been thrust upon his shoulders." He could hear the tap of Danzo's cane on the wooden floor of his office as the crippled man crossed the room to stand beside him, a rare sight as of the last few years.

"All the same; he is a risk to the village at large. This isn't just a case of an average Shinobi having emotional issues, the boy is a literal bomb. The Yondaime is no longer among us…" A pained expression crossed Hiruzen's features as he was reminded of yet another failure of his that he had made over his long life; some might say too long "…and we would not survive another attack from the beast." Slowly the sun slipped down behind the horizon, casting more and more of the village into shadow.

"So you would have me hand him over to you? To have his emotions stripped away just so he won't be a threat anymore?" He didn't need to turn to see Danzo's curt nod, yet it still managed to elicit a small, frustrated sigh as Hiruzen closed his eyes for just a moment. Destroy one life to preserve thousands, even if it was a child who already had far too large a burden placed upon them. Was this how the Yondaime had felt?

"It is the only safe option at this point and we both know this to be true; you had your chance and it turned into yet another debacle, unsettling the already delicate situation with the Uchiha. We cannot wait and hope this passes Hiruzen, the academy proved that well enough." The tapping started up again as Danzo walked out of the office, the old men separating once again as Danzo returned to the darkened shadows of Konoha, leaving Hiruzen standing in the light. He was ashamed to say it, but sometimes Hiruzen had wished it was the other way around; the expectation upon him were supposed to have been relieved nine years ago. "You will eventually have to agree with me Hiruzen; we both know it." And with that the sound of tapping faded away until once again Hiruzen was left with nothing but his thoughts and memories.

"I can't believe that; not yet." He turned up to the Hokage monument, drawing strength from the silent visages of his predecessors and the man who was supposed to take these burdens from his shoulders. "I couldn't do that to Minato." However as much as he told himself these things, an alternative did not present itself. It was true that Naruto needed to disappear from the public eye, preferably somewhere where he couldn't hurt the people around him. He would need to be with people that could understand his situation and could contain him if worst came to worst. However he couldn't just neglect the fact the boy was a Jinchuuriki; he would eventually need to be trained.

For his own safety if nothing else.

"Hokage-sama." A lone ANBU dropped from the ceiling, seemingly out of the shadows themselves and without even a whisper of a sound. Hiruzen didn't turn to face the masked Shinobi, but they still knew to continue. "Saru's squad has returned to the village ahead of schedule; do you wish me to re-deploy them as soon as possible?" At that Hiruzen wanted to throw his head in his hands; if there was any contender for something that gave him almost as many troubles as Naruto it would be that damn squad. However just as Hiruzen was about to acquiesce to the ANBU's suggestion his hand paused in mid-air, a tiny flame suddenly alight behind his eyes.

"Actually… no; bring them to my office as soon as possible." He couldn't see it behind the emotionless porcelain mask but the Hokage was sure the ANBU had his eyebrow raised. There was no questioning the village leader's orders though and the only visible response he received was a slight tilt of the head before the ANBU was gone as quickly and as silently as he entered. Slowly Hiruzen nodded his head just once.

This may just work.

Naruto felt particularly good as he walked down the central road in Konoha, shown by the toothy grin that rested on his features. As he passed, people gave him an incredibly wide berth, some even walking off in different directions when they saw him. Some turned away, others whispered to people close to them; all of them had looks of fear in their eyes. This is what Naruto had wanted; not their respect, not their love, but their acknowledgement; he finally had it through simple fear.

It might have had something to do with the fact that, as he walked, long golden chains flickered out around him, tipped by vicious serrated blades that almost looked like kunai. Some swayed behind him like tails, others reared up over his shoulders like cobras poised to strike; all of them looked menacing.

Then again he might have been smiling because he couldn't help but replay a particularly funny memory over and over again. Around a week ago the Hokage had told him he would be entering the academy and to be honest Naruto relished the idea. It seemed perfect; go in, learn how to kill people and become stronger, walk out and do those things. The reality was far from that though.

Naruto was bored; very bored… so bored that chains started to subconsciously appear from his shoulders, looking around as though they were living entities of their own. On the bright side it really seemed to freak out the mousy-haired kid to his left; way to his left, nobody wanted to sit next to the demented-looking 'freak' after all. Not after he had thrown a boy he had later found was called Kiba across the room and nearly through a wall. Naruto wasn't sure why they had looked at him strangely; the boy had made fun of his height, saying he didn't look strong and the only thing an Inuzuka could respect was strength and dominance. Naruto had just educated the boy that appearances can be deceiving.

He wondered if Kiba respected him now; or would, when the kid woke up from unconsciousness.

Right now, the new academy entrants were sitting in a tiered classroom listening to a lecture from the man who would be their instructor for the next year or two. Naruto had tuned him out half an hour ago when he had started talking about some flaming will or something.

His ears twitched when he finally heard something interesting; his chains twitched too, but that only seemed to make people shuffle even further away from him. The instructor smiled brightly as he looked around the room, everywhere but at Naruto of course, and clapped his hands together. The very same man only minutes ago had asked Naruto to put away his chains because it was 'unnerving' the other children. Naruto had responded by pinning the man to the wall; he was a little more accepting of the golden attachments after that. In Naruto's opinion he was lucky he had only pierced him through the clothes; the holes were still there.

Huh… maybe that was why the other kids gave him a wide berth?

"Alright kids, as a fun exercise to ingratiate you to academy life we're going to the training fields out back to have a few test spars; just to see where you guys are at." He quickly answered a few questions from some of the civilian children, mostly him settling their worries that they had no prior training, before leading the class out to the back of the academy. There, a small ring was set up; it was just a simple rope laid out in a circle to mark a boundary but that was all they really needed for academy students. After all they didn't know any devastating or landscape-altering Jutsu… yet.

"Okay, would anybody like to volunteer for the first spar?" When he got no takers he just smiled warmly. "No need to be shy; it's all friendly here." Slowly one of the boys near the front of the crowd raised their hand, a dark-haired boy with bright black eyes. "Ahh Sasuke, perfect." The boy smiled timidly before stepping into the ring; the chuunin turned back to the crowd of students only to pale as he saw another hand raised up. "Ah, aha, anybody like to spar with Sasuke?" The hand stayed up but the chuunin managed to keep his eyes anywhere but on it, even when a gold chain snaked up into the air to make the child more visible. "Anybody at all?" Unfortunately for him at that moment Naruto got tired of waiting and simply stepped through the crowd.

"O-Okay then, Naruto against Sasuke." The Instructor's eyes nervously glanced between the two kids; Naruto didn't even have his chains out but something about his expression; the longing for the fight… it was unsettling. "First we make the seal of confrontation; this is an important art of traditional Shinobi sparring; it acknowledges that you are equals." A quiet snort came from Naruto but the instructor ignored it, showing them both the hand sign. "Afterwards you will make the seal of reconciliation, to show that there are no hard feelings after the spar is over." Again the chuunin showed them the seal before finally stepping back.

"Okay, on my signal." He raised his arm and you could just feel the tension in the air from the group of silent students. "Hajime!" Sasuke suddenly bolted forward; as an Uchiha he had been receiving training for much of his young life so naturally he felt as though he had an edge over most kids, especially in Taijutsu. Of course Naruto had no intention of only sticking to Taijutsu, where he was sure his scrawnier and smaller stature would be an immediate disadvantage. That was why Sasuke was shocked as a bright gold chain suddenly lashed out at him from Naruto's stomach, all without the blonde moving an inch.

It struck him just beneath he ribs, sending his skidding backwards on his ass with the breath knocked out of him. However Naruto didn't do it hard enough to knock him out of the ring; that would be too short, it wouldn't be any fun. Sasuke's eyes immediately widened as he saw another serrated chain flying at him, forcing him to roll to the side. Of course the chain simply diverted course, looping around Sasuke's ankle before picking the boy up of the ground and dangling him there by the leg.

"Naruto stop this; it's supposed to be a Taijutsu match only!" Naruto snorted loudly as the chain whipped the young dark-haired boy across the arena, slamming him painfully into the ground before picking him back up again, dragging his face along the ground while he was at it.

"Why would I limit myself like that? I would only get beaten." For a moment his spiky hair fell across his eyes, shadowing them as his head tilted forward, his hands clenching into fists. "I refuse to lose anymore." Suddenly the chain holding Sasuke cracked like a whip, sending the boy flying into the air; the instructor moved to catch him but the chains were just a construct of Chakra and were as light as Naruto wanted them to be… they were faster. One shot out from his palm, slicing through the air before impaling the poor Uchiha right through the thigh, painfully pulling him back to the ground. Naruto grinned at the scream he had managed pulled out of the young boy while their classmates looked on, half terrified and half disgusted.

He would have slammed the boy into the ground again had the chuunin not just gotten beneath him, catching the boy and quickly pulling the chain out of his leg. He took consolation from the second scream Sasuke gave. He had nothing personal against the boy, he didn't even know him before today, but he was unlucky enough to have volunteered. Giving the blonde a quick glare, the chuunin quickly rushed Sasuke off to the hospital, but not before Naruto called after him.

"But Sensei; I thought we were supposed to make the seal of reconciliation!"

The chuunin was already gone, leaving a smirking Naruto alone with the rest of the class. He turned to see them staring at him with varying levels of fear and unease.

"What?"

They all flinched, making him grin again as he walked right past them. He supposed the academy wasn't so boring after all.

He still had that smile on his face as he walked towards the training grounds, not even realising he had arrived before stepping over the boundary into the large grassy clearing. After the incident with the Uchiha he had been 'temporarily' pulled from the academy; the Hokage had told him he was just unsuited to study there. It was only recently though that he had been told there was now an alternative, which was why he was here. He leant against a tree as he waited for whoever was supposed to turn up, watching the sun begin to descend below the horizon in the distance.

Suddenly, he dived forward, eyes wide, as a line of kunai that would have ran the length of his body thudded into the tree trunk he had just been resting against. Breathing suddenly fast and shallow, he forced a few chains out of his body; it was just in time to swat away another volley of the deadly Ninja tools.

"Hmm, better than I thought; I honestly wasn't expecting him to survive the first volley," a calm voice from from seemingly all around Naruto, making his head dart about nervously before he forced that expression away and replaced it with a deep scowl.

"Who's there?!"

A short laugh from a different, more nasally voice was his answer, causing Naruto growl at the casual disregard.

"Ah, whose turn is it now then? Nezumi, perhaps you want a shot?" There was rustling in the trees but Naruto couldn't tell from where. In the still darkening conditions of the evening his visibility was dropping by the second. Suddenly, reacting on nothing more than instinct, he threw himself forward, sending a volley of chains bursting from his back. There was the clang of metal on metal and he felt resistance through his connection with the Chakra constructs, but when he rolled to his feet in a low crouch there was nobody there.

Again though, a sort of sixth sense told him there was someone behind him. This time he spun, the chains around him whipping out wildly. Through the sparks created between his weapon and his opponents, he caught a glimpse of a pale white mask and long, dark hair in a pony-tail. However they quickly vanished in a flicker of motion far too fast for him to keep up with, leaving him alone again in a seemingly empty training ground.

To his immense shock, he noticed that a few links on one of his chains were almost completely severed clean through.

True, the lighter and therefore faster his chains were the weaker they became, but he had never even seen so much as a scratch on them when he was testing them out. The sight made him even more nervous despite the cold scowl he wore. A quick burst of Chakra through the chains, not that Naruto knew it was Chakra, healed them up. Doing so was rather draining though, and while Naruto was generally considered quite lively, he was not a bottomless well of energy.

"Ah ah, Kuma's turn, Kuma's turn!" A second voice, much louder, more lively and more childish than the first, made itself known as Naruto's eyes went wide. What could only be described as a roughly human-shaped beast suddenly rushed out of the surrounding shrubbery. "Kuma kick!" It was so fast that Naruto only briefly caught a glimpse of light blue hair and tanned skin covering a mountain of muscle, before he saw nothing but stars, then just nothing at all.

"Uh, did Kuma break him?"

Dizzying pain; that was what the young blonde felt as his faculties began to return to him. It was a confusing feeling; not one he hadn't felt before but given the circumstances he had fallen unconscious in, not one he had expected to feel again. For a moment he heard a roaring laughter that sounded as though it was echoing down a long corridor before his head stopped swimming and he slowly faded back into reality.

"-stand the hype about the kid; other than the chains I didn't see anything all that special." He remembered that voice; it was the second one he had heard in the clearing; what was going on?

"Oh I don't know; there was something to be said about the boy's reflexes. He must have a good set of ears on him at least." That was the first voice; calmer and more disciplined than the other, but he still spoke with a trace of amusement. Naruto was seriously confused; he had been attacked and yet wasn't dead. Did his attackers want him alive for some reason?

"His chains… were sharp." Another new voice, this one definitely a woman's; however it was low and quiet and whoever it belonged to certainly took their time with their words. Naruto wanted to crack an eye open to see what was going on but he didn't want to let them know he was awake.

"Oh ho, that's high praise from you Nezumi-chan; don't you think Kuma?" There was the second voice again; slowly Naruto worked a chain out through his back, digging it into the earth; he wanted to be prepared. These people were strong; stronger than anybody he had ever met before, at least it felt that way to the blonde.

"Ah; Kuma is sorry for breaking him."

He couldn't help it; hearing that loud, child-like voice made a single shudder run down Naruto's back. The chain he was extending though was almost-

"Don't worry about it too much big guy; in fact, he's awake right now."

Suddenly, Naruto sprang to his feet at being caught, pelting off in a random direction as fast as his small legs could carry him. At the same time his chain burst through the ground branching off into as many smaller chains as he could make. Each randomly shot out in every direction like shrapnel. It was for naught though as he hadn't taken three steps before he was grabbed by the back of his shirt by a slender but strong hand and quickly hoisted into the air.

"Please… don't." For just a moment Naruto's legs continued to pump desperately before he realised he had been caught. Immediately Naruto scowled; crushing the helpless feeling within him as he prepared to launch as many chains as he could and turn the person holding him into a pincushion. He would have too, had they not placed a sword's edge dangerously close to his throat, causing him to freeze in place. "Please. Don't." This time it was said just a little more forcefully, even if it was in that same dull, husky tone. His body immediately went limp in the woman's hand; he didn't even dare to gulp the blade was so close to his throat.

"Now now Nezumi-san, there's no need to be so forceful with the boy."

Naruto was turned around, still held by his shirt, and for the first time got a good look at his 'attackers'. It was only for a moment though as hearing the kind but stern words the woman had almost immediately dropped him.

"Okay… Saru-Taichou."

Naruto winced as he hit the ground before looking back up; wary for what he had seen in that brief instant. Sure enough when he saw his kidnappers they bore the white porcelain masks and slate grey body armour of the ANBU, Konoha's watchful protectors that he would sometimes see darting about rooftops late at night. The one who stood slightly in front of the others, wearing a vaguely monkey-esque mask done in red, spoke in a voice that immediately identified him as this 'Saru-Taichou'.

"Well aren't you a quiet one; got a bit of a bite though don't you?" There was that same irritating hint of amusement his voice always seemed to carry; although it seemed warranted as the man was somehow holding the chains Naruto had launched out.

All of them.

"What do you want with me?" The blonde growled, not bothering to get up off the ground; he couldn't outrun these people anyway. As much as it pained him to his core to admit even to himself, he was helpless in front of them.

"Ooh! Ooh! Kuma wants to say! Kuma wants to say!" The man Naruto had been doing his best to try and ignore, if he could even me called a man, started bouncing up and down on the spot. Sure enough the blue markings on his mask denoted him as a bear and Naruto couldn't have thought of a more fitting animal to represent the mountain of a man. He was all tanned muscle; so much so that it didn't even look like he would fit into one of the dark cloaks the other ANBU wore. The blonde swore if he jumped a little higher he was going to start making tremors in the ground. However the last man, a short man who might have been mistaken for a child had it not been for his voice, calmed him down.

"Maybe you should leave this one up to us Kuma; you're explanations tend to get a bit…" He genuinely seemed to think of the right word to say as the brute of a man stared at him with a cocked head like some sort of dog. "…ah, boisterous." The massive, light blue-haired man just nodded quickly before turning away; Naruto could almost feel the dumb expression on his face. The leader of the three men, Naruto still couldn't see the woman standing just behind him, seemed amused by the whole interaction before turning to Naruto.

"Yes well, anyway, as Kuma-san was trying to say-" Saru tried to say but was quickly cut off by Naruto who hadn't stopped glaring at the trio since they had begun talking.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

They all paused at that before suddenly the man Naruto assumed was Tako by process of elimination began laughing.

"Kill you? What gave you that idea?"

Naruto blinked before tensing up as the man suddenly approached him, coming down to a crouch right in front of him so that Naruto could pick out every abstract line on his mask. Suddenly his hand whipped out behind him; just as Naruto was about to try and spear him through the chest though, it came back around holding… an ANBU uniform?

"This was your initiation. Welcome to the corp, gaki."

Naruto could only blink dumbly as he stared at the simple black clothing atop the standard grey armour, seemingly made in his size.

"W-What?" That was the limits of Naruto's eloquence at that moment as he lamely stared at the uniform and the blue, bird-esque mask lying on top. He quickly recovered though, his scowl returning as he glared back at Tako. Chains began to writhe out of his wrists menacingly. "Why would I want to join ANBU? I'm not even a Shinobi yet." Tako didn't give him an answer he was expecting, instead the short man just chuckled, reaching forward and ruffling Naruto's hair before the blonde could even react.

"Who said anything about you 'wanting to' Gaki, or should I call you Karasu?"

Crow? Now that Naruto looked at the mask it did bear somewhat of a resemblance to the carrion bird. Slowly the chains retracted and Naruto got to his feet, looking around at the four ANBU members. He wasn't sure how, call it some childish intuition, or maybe a killer's perspective, but each one of them looked poised to kill him at a moment's notice; yet their postures were calm and relaxed.

"So what? I join ANBU and just disappear? I'm guessing that is why the old man sent me here in the first place?" Now that he actually looked, they had never actually left the clearing he had been ambushed in. Saru answered him with an easy, amused tone; he didn't seem to take much seriously.

"Pretty much; Hokage-Sama believed that ANBU would provide an outlet for your more… unsavoury tendencies. Not to mention you have killed two civilians, injured a clan child and 'attacked' a full squad of ANBU." Naruto snorted indignantly at that but kept his eyes narrowed all the same. "Under normal circumstances you would be lucky to see the outside of a prison cell for the rest of your life. As it is, you have special circumstances."

Naruto smirked at that; knowing what he meant.

"I contain the Kyuubi."

Without missing a beat or showing any surprise, or even any real care, the masked Taichou simply nodded. The Hokage had theorised some kind of interaction with the beast might have triggered Naruto's sudden lapse in personality.

"Yes, so now you will be trained by us, live with us, eat with us and go on missions with us until you are either deemed safe to re-enter the normal Shinobi corp, or you die in the line of duty." The mask hid all of the man's features but Naruto could still tell he was smiling at the blonde. "Welcome to ANBU Karasu-Kohai." Naruto stared at the three men in front of him, taking in their calm but dangerous posture, the arms that looked like they could snap his body like a chopstick on Kuma and the slight gleam of metal he could see in Tako's sleeves. These people were trained killers, little more than dogs for the village to release on their enemies.

Sounded like fun.

"When do I start?"

The four ANBU smiled lightly behind their masks.

Naruto sat in the small, spartan room he had been provided in the large apartment complex that apparently all ANBU operatives shared. It would seem that extended periods in what they colloquially called 'the corp.' tended to bring out some stranger parts of their personalities and most weren't the most stable types. Well in that respect Naruto fit in perfectly, although he did stand out as being exceptionally short. However, for some reason, that just made people look at him warily; Konoha had a long history of child prodigies and the dangerous people they could become.

Right now he was sitting on a hammock made out of the thinnest chains he could make; the bed in his room was less comfortable than what he was used to and this provided good training so his teammates actually encouraged it. He could do nothing about the slight glow that his chains gave off so it would be useless on a covert mission but that didn't bother him too much. Then again that might be because he didn't understand what the word 'covert' meant, but he was sure he'd find out eventually.

For the last few days his so-called squad mates, consisting of the group that had kidnapped him in the first place, had been running him through various drills to gauge his skill levels. It was tough, and by the end he was battered and covered in cuts, but at the same time he was oddly excited being surrounded by new, strong opponents to test himself by. They would make him stronger because they in turn were incredibly strong; they had proven that enough.

He stared down at the mask in his hands again; he was told that once he put it on it basically stayed on. Uzumaki Naruto would cease to exist and in his place Karasu would walk away into the world; he grinned at that, it was fine by him. The uniform was comfortable and warm even if the new tattoo he now sported on his right shoulder stung a little. The people around him were strong and would be taking him on missions where he could test himself, where emotions like empathy meant little and the only thing of importance was the next target.

In ANBU he was just another monster among monsters.

Karasu was home.