Author Note: I actually went back and watched the episode were Naruto first meets the Kyubi in his cage to get a feel for such and encounter. A lot of that is reflected in the first part of this chapter. Also, apologies for the delay in posting. I went skiing on the 10th (last minute), dislocated my left thumb on my first day and only just got back. Anyway, read on and enjoy. Or don't. It's your choice.
Darkness; all encompassing and as unfathomable as the space between stars. A sense of falling, as if tumbling down a great hole. He fell for a thousand years into darkness.
Faces passed him materializing out of the black, some he knew with great fondness, others he did not evoked hate and anger. As suddenly as they appeared they were gone.
Then abruptly, and without transition, Naruto was no longer falling.
He was standing in a sewer that stretched on and on, water lapping at his ankles and the cracked and yellow walls that rose up on either side. It smelled of stale tears; felt like pain, loneliness and heartbreak. It felt like home.
Splish splash, splish splash.
Naruto was walking without having remembered moving, the sound of water parted by sandaled feet a steady rhythm as he passed corridors leading off to parts unknown. Paths he knew, without knowing, lead to destinations both more and less frightening than where this one was leading him.
In the dream, because surely this must be a dream; Naruto realized he was following the chakra trail of something vile and vast. Something he knew, with the implacable certainty that only come in dreams, did not belong to anything human.
Up ahead a door way of light beckoned and with his next step he was suddenly through. Naruto stood before a great cage set into the wall and as his eyes traveled up, up, up; they came to rest on a lone slip of paper adhered to the bars: Seal, it read.
"What is this."
"My prison." The voice that answered rolled across Naruto like the crashing surf and as he peered into the darkness beyond the bars, eyes the color of pooling blood peered back.
"Boy, come closer."
He complied despite every shred of his being screaming: danger, danger!
Naruto had only managed two steps before claws the size of full grown oaks scythed out through the bars narrowly missing him as he stumbled back in fear and shock.
"I want to devour you, but this gate will not open. It is a detestable seal."
Naruto stared up at the terrible sight; eyes that promised destruction and a wicked smile that told of the enjoyment that would be taken. Awareness of what exactly this creature was crashed down on him and with it came the knowledge that this was not a dream.
"You're the Kyubi."
Answers to questions left unanswered for 7 years suddenly became clear. All the dirty looks, cold shoulders and undiscouraged bullying. The outrageous prices charged by merchants or the down right refusal of service. It all made a sick perverted sense.
The Kyubi's smile widened at the awe, fear, disgust and anger that dawned across Naruto's face. It read the next question in his eyes.
"But how can I be here; and where exactly is here you ask, if the Yondaime killed me?"
Naruto found himself nodding even as the answer came to him as his eyes were drawn once again to the seemingly innocuous slip of paper.
"He sealed you into me," Naruto reasoned. "And we're in the seal."
It made sense. The Yondaime was a seal master, supposedly the greatest that had ever lived. The academy instructors hadn't focused over much on that particular skill set of the Yondaime's during history lessons, but Old Man Hokage had mentioned it in passing when Naruto had asked him about the man.
It stood to reason then that Yondaime would turn to the sealing arts for a way to defeat what was thought unbeatable.
"Indeed, boy. For a human your Yondaime was extraordinarily cunning." There was a grudging respect in its voice, Naruto noted.
"He knew he could not kill me so he invoked the power of the Shinigame and sealed me inside a newborn. You." Kyubi narrowed his eyes as a growl rumbled up and out like rolling thunder.
"I am beginning to think it is a fate worse than death."
Naruto bristled. "Yeah, well maybe if you hadn't attacked Konoha you wouldn't have gotten your ass handed to you." He was standing within arms reach of the cage now, righteous indignation fueling his tirade and any fear Naruto felt toward the Kyubi previously was pushed aside in its wake.
"And how they hell do you think I feel about having you sealed inside me, huh. I've had to put up with more shit than anyone should ever have to because of you!"
"Silence."
Naruto matched the Kyubi glare for glare but said nothing was something in the Kyubi's tone that cautioned him against pursuing the argument any further.
"I brought you here for a reason, boy. And it wasn't to debate the moral and ethical merits of my past actions."
Naruto was bombarded with images: The scent of blood, a burned out warehouse, severed hands and an unknown assailant. Paralysis and then pain. He remembered.
"I'm dying." The Kyubi's eye's narrowed and Naruto was forced to amend his statement. "We're dying."
Kyubi growled deep and it resonated like a thunderclap. "You were careless boy. You allowed yourself to be poisoned. I can feel it coursing through your veins, shutting down your organs one by one as we speak."
The Kyubi's words were dripping with scorn and disgust.
Naruto slammed both fists against the cage. "Then do something you damn fox!
Kyubi was suddenly towering over Naruto and for the first time during their conversation its chakra spiked in anger. "Do you think me a fool? Do you think I want to die trapped inside this pathetic shell of meat and bones? Or at all?
Kyubi's claws raked out toward Naruto again forcing him to fling himself backwards. He landed hard on his ass, the Kyubi's claws raking deep furrows in the ground as they retreated behind the bars.
Kyubi leveled Naruto with a gaze that carried behind it the weight of centuries. The Kyubi had once been immortal, but now it found itself bound to a human who was subject to the laws of death. Nauto understood then. The Kyubi was afraid.
"Under different circumstances I would demand you remove the seal." Kyubi spiked his chakra to forestall the protest he could see Naruto was about to voice.
"But with the seal the way it is currently, we both would die and the resultant backlash would destroy a large section of Konoha. Both outcomes you would like to avoid I'm sure."
"So, what can you do then," Naruto demanded. Pushing himself back to his feet, he approached the cage, this time with more caution.
"I can give you a portion of my chakra to purge the toxin and bolster your immune system. But you must ask for it. This retched seal prevents me from forcing it upon you."
Kyubi snorted in distaste. "Even to save your life."
"And if I agree, then what."
"Then I will have done everything I can, boy. The rest will be up to your own will to live and the human doctors of your village."
Naruto did not want to die and it was obvious the Kyubi didn't want to either. And while he couldn't be sure Kyubi was being entirely forthcoming with him, he also couldn't think of any other option.
Despite the circumstances Naruto managed one of his infamous smirks. "What the hell. It's about damn time you started paying rent anyway, bastard fox. Let's do this."
Red tendrils of the Kyubi's chakra surged out from the cage and rapped themselves around Naruto almost before he was done speaking.
The Kyubi let out one last bone rattling growl before turning his back on Naruto. "It is done, now be gone, If I must die I wish do so with dignity."
Naruto's vision turned red as the Kyubi's chakra fully enveloped him. There was a momentary feeling of warmth and then a pain so excruciating his mouth snapped open in a soundless scream. Then blessed nothingness.
There were few moments in Sarutobi's life when he felt as useless as he did now.
From his place at the back of the OR he was relegated to an observer. ANBU-2 stood at his side. A wraith in human form. He had summoned this particular ANBU for the unique skill set he possessed. One Sarutobi fervently hoped would not be needed.
In the center of the room Naruto's small form lay limp and unresponsive on the operating table. His personal physician-Takani Megumi-was running a diagnostic-jutsu even as the machines monitoring his vitals issued an electronic report of their own. A breathing tube snaked out from his mouth providing the precious oxygen his lungs could no longer draw in on their own.
Naruto's ruined, empty eye sockets stared up at the ceiling; a Med-nin used a steady stream of warm water to cleanse the wound of the blood and ichor that was all that remained of his once vibrant sky-blue eyes.
A second Med-nin was drawing blood for analysis while Doctor Takani issued orders that the rest of her staff scurried to obey.
Though he was not a medical professional, he understood enough of the terminology to piece together the picture. Naruto had been poisoned and the agent that was used was causing a cascade failure of his organs.
His respiratory system had all ready failed and his cardiovascular system was on the verge. The damage to his eyes was minor in comparison.
Sarutobi struggled to maintain an air of calm as his emotions raged beneath the surface.
It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. Naruto wasn't supposed to grow up without a mother or father; wasn't supposed to have to live a life shunned by his peers and elders, a victim of bigotry and short sightedness. He wasn't supposed to have to learn how cruel and unfair life could be so early in life. And he wasn't supposed to die before he'd reached the age of 10.
Naruto deserved so much more than what he'd been able to give him. And he damned himself for that every day.
His senses perked up and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. Beside him ANBU-2 stirred; he felt it too.
Doctor Takani snapped off the diagnostic-jutsu in alarm. A split-second later Naruto's chakra…shifted and everything went to hell.
A seal, intricate in design and singular in nature, blazed to life on Naruto's stomach. The machines monitoring his vitals went haywire; unable to make sense of the impulses they registered. His body arched off the table, startling the Med-nin and his mouth opened, expelling the breathing tube in a spray of blood and mucus.
Then he screamed.
A torrent of red chakra blazed up and around Naruto with such force that those closest to him were thrown against the walls like so many rag dolls. The machines hooked up to Naruto exploded in a spray of sparks and bits of metal and plastic.
The chakra saturated the room; thick and heavy, it beat on the air like the wings of some great and powerful bird.
He knew this chakra. Kyubi.
"Tenzo!"
Sarutobi was moving even as he barked the order, his hands blurring through the seals for the Shadow Clone technique. Four exact copies of himself sprang to life a moment later and darted forward to pin Naruto down.
Beside him Tenzo was finishing the seals for his own, much more elaborate Jutsu. He ended on tiger, braced his right arm with his left and thrust his right hand forward.
"Wood Release: Hokage-style Sixty-year-old Technique-Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-bringing Hands."
The ground shook as a circle of wooden pillars broke through the hospital floor around Naruto. Eleven in number, they pulsed with power as they sought to contain the torrent of Kyubi's chakra. As if in response the mass of energy swirling around Naruto intensified. Sarutobi's Shadow Clones were destroyed almost immediately under the new onslaught and the wooden pillars groaned in protest.
Around him Med-nin struggled to their feet, hampered by various injuries and the sudden chakra laden atmosphere. Fear rolled off of them in waves as the reality of the situation dawned on them. Doctor Takani alone had managed to regain her footing and retain a certain amount of calm.
Sarutobi could feel the panic spreading through the rest of the hospital and out to the surrounding area as people felt the Kyubi's chakra, contained as it was, and remembered the fear from 7 years ago. Soon, he knew, whole squads of his ANBU elite would be arrive with steal in their hands and death in their hearts for a boy forced to carry a burden to heavy for any one person.
And just as suddenly as it began it stopped.
The corona of chakra surrounding Naruto cut off and his back slammed down on the table. The seal on his stomach glowed for a few more seconds and then it too disappeared.
Tenzo held his jutsu for a few second more then let it drop. The ground trembled and groaned as the pillars retreated and he sagged in fatigue, drawing in short ragged breaths.
One short Shunshin later Sarutobi was standing over Naruto's still form. He searched for a pulse and found one. It was faint but there.
Doctor Takani joined him a moment later and fired up a diagnostic-justu to take a more in-depth look.
Several agonizingly long moments later she snapped it off and looked up at him in shock.
"That burst of chakra: it appears to have almost completely purged the toxin from Naruto's system." She shook her head in wonder. "The Kyubi…I think it just saved his life."
Sarutobi shoulders sagged in relief. And as he gazed down at Naruto's still form he did something he'd never thought he'd do.
He thanked the Kyubi.
End Note: Several re-writes and it still doesn't seem right. I wonder if that's how all writers, regardless of skill, feel? Some of you might have noticed a familiar non Naruto-verse name. Kudo's to those who did. Expect more. These cameo's will figure prominently in later chapters and will impact the story in a meaningful matter. Probably. Maybe. Feed back would be much appreciated.