Why had he attacked her. That was all Naruto could think about as she ran. She hadn't meant to kill him. Just stop him, push him back. But he flew apart at the seams, unraveled like an old sweater. She remembered Sarutobi flipping away and cringed. He was fine. He would be fine.

The forest seemed darker than usual. Spring-thick canopies screamed by as Naruto lurched on into the sea of green, wings clipping through branches and trunks left and right. Her head was pounding, she could feel blood dripping from her nose. It hadn't stopped since she'd shoved through the village wall. She tried to think. She just needed to move. Put some distance between her and the village. Find a quiet place to curl up. Find a stream to wash the slime of that egg off her body. Find something to fill the growing void in her stomach.

Naruto pushed on until moonlight washed across the forest. She'd intended to run until she couldn't move another inch but that moment of blissful exhaustion never came, and she was left with manic energy crackling in her stomach as she leaped to the forest floor, and her feet sank into the soil. She'd had time to think but nothing was clearer. Naruto only knew that her stomach was killing her.

Naruto spent a short while looking for a meal; though she didn't know how, she knew which direction to go, where to step. She could feel something, a presence. She came across an elk resting against a tree, ears swiveling. Naruto crawled along a branch and drew closer. Twisting pain in her stomach made her grit her teeth. Her mouth watered. A branch caught on the wings on her back, cut loose and fell to the forest floor. The elk spooked.

Naruto buried her hands in its side, the wings stabbed into the thing of their own volition. Then the smell of iron hit her nose and an unbearable hunger crashed over her. She tore into the elk. It made a pitiful racket in the seconds it lasted.

Naruto tore off strips with her teeth, crammed fistfuls into her mouth, slurped the marrow from bones; anything to end that hunger. The impulse faded. The taste didn't bother her. Not the texture or the smell. She couldn't stop. Then when the passion finally fell Naruto found herself hovering over the remains of a mutilated elk - now just a mess of red and glimmers: blood everywhere, all over her. The hunger was gone but now a weight squirmed in its place.

She felt nothing for the elk. Vaguely; far back in her mind she was revolted and terrified but it was so small and quiet the night wind through the trees drowned it out. Still Naruto knew she should feel something. She searched for it. Tried to muster it up. Nothing came. And the elk was such a mess… She thought about Konoha, and fell back to rest on her knees as she did, hands at her sides. She remembered that man at the wall.

He was on patrol. He was shocked, awed. He reacted in anger and she defended herself in fear. Naruto didn't want him to kill him, but that was the extent of her feelings on the matter. Just her own words in her head, defending a sentiment that she didn't truly feel. What a mess she'd made. Poor bastard got everywhere.

They'd gone over it in the academy once or twice, but always lightly, always carefully. She never could take Iruka seriously. A man like him, no. Too softspoken, too worried. Probably why he'd become a teacher in the first place. Yeah he would be terrified ring-deep in some guy's neck. Yeah he would remember that guy's name. He remembered entire classes' damn names - that was nothing special.

There were wolves a halfmile back but Naruto knew they were there. Why wasn't she feeling anything? She killed that bastard dead. Deader than dead.

"Shit."

Her stomach rumbled. Something started squirming in her gut, working up her throat.

"oh shit."

Pain, then. Like spikes carving up her insides. Her throat bulged. She curled up, clutched at herself. She heard thin bone and cartilage popping and shifting, and then the head of an insect was in her mouth, its pincers jutting out between her teeth. And it started squirming out, pincers clacking, millipede-body scrambling for purchase against the muscle of her esophagus. Naruto went numb at the sight of it waving in the night air, and she grabbed it by the body and tore it from her mouth. Blood welled up her throat from the gashes it left.

It squirmed and gurgled in her fist but it didn't bite at her, and it didn't try to get free. Naruto's stomach tensed in distaste and revulsion; she shook, and she almost fell.

Wolves rumbled from behind her, drawn by the elk. They'd been after it a while. Naruto released a breath, tossed the worm-thing aside. It skittered into to the pile of elk.

"Wrong day." Naruto spat. Good that they'd come. Anything to distract her. She remembered Sarutobi's face. Surprise, revulsion. She didn't think she'd be able to take him being disgusted by her. Anyone but him.

The wolves closed around her, and one slightly bigger and meaner than the others erupted from the brush to her side. If it had been quicker, quieter, and if Naruto hadn't known it were there, it could have killed her, bit down on her neck – one of the few places not covered with jagged bone. But a wing whipped out and the thing fell to pieces. Already hunger rose in her but Naruto ignored it. Food wouldn't stay down - she assumed as much. No more worms, no more goop. Not if she could help it.

Another wolf - smaller, the coat worn and ragged - launched from behind. Naruto knew it would leap before she heard the crunch of dirt. She moved her wings on her own this time. They meshed behind her back and the wolf slid apart. Something in the air changed; one wolf fell back, and the others still standing followed instantly.

Naruto didn't pursue. It was too much. She just wanted to go home. Shoot the shit with Sarutobi. Pretend to listen to Iruka. Laugh with Ayame and her father. But she couldn't. That man at the wall was dead. And her apartment was gone. And Sarutobi was flying back, bloodied and terrified. And she… What even was she.

The worm was gone when she looked over. A film had built up over the remains of the elk, and things were swirling around inside: Liquids, chunks of bone, a strip of heart-tissue chugged along the film and adhered there while veins swelled up along the surface.

Naruto sat and watched, and thought. She wondered what she would do, where she would go. She didn't know. But they had to be after her, she knew that much. Still every time she went to leave, put more distance between her and the village she felt herself drawn back to that sac. Soon she didn't bother trying.

The heart piece grew, fluids mixed, more veins pressed out. The sac swelled up like a balloon. The contents pulsed and rattled the skin of the thing. Liquid muscle poured out from the base and over the dead wolves, sunk down into the earth. Clouds passed, wind blew, the moon circled overhead and down the other side. The sac was taller than her then, and she was standing and prodding at the membrane, feeling the contents toss around inside and brush against her palms.

The sun crept up, and orange light glimmered against the surface. It burst. Naruto stepped back. The membrane flew apart, sheets of it cast around the clearing. A wave of glop rolled down over her feet. In the middle, Naruto saw with a vague, detached sense of disbelief, an abomination uncurled and rose. The thing looked like the offspring of a snake and a praying mantis, but it was seven feet tall and all glistening muscle and bone.

It turned to her. Naruto's mouth fell open. It slithered towards her, its one ton frame leaving a deep furrow in the dirt. One night? Not even one night was enough time for that thing to grow? Naruto backpedaled as it closed. The morning light caught on the thing's teeth, on the slaver that oozed down them, and then it gnashed its jaw and Naruto saw the tips of bundles of spikes hidden inside.

A tree thumping between her shoulderblades stopped Naruto's retreat. The thing closed, scythlike arms resting on either side of her, and it leaned in, breath hot on her face. Naruto felt an unwarranted sense of familiarity with it, a closeness she couldn't explain and it left her fumbling.

"Well…" Naruto said, breathless, "aren't you… pretty." She reached out and ran her hand along its jaw, her wings twitching as she did. It bowed its crest and leaned into her hand. It felt like she was petting a dog. It was the posture; the submissive, almost eager posture. Like they could play fetch. Like she could find a good book and a fire and it would curl up at her feet.

Then Naruto remembered. She couldn't feel anyone after her, not like she'd felt the wolves. But she had to keep moving. They'd been after her in force after the wall and just couldn't keep up - but she'd crippled the Kage and left a trail of trimmed branches behind her. No chance they'd thrown up their hands and gone back. They'd attack on sight: for what she'd done, for how she looked. Optimistically she'd get a sentence out.

Naruto ducked out around the snake-mantis. She caught a hint of dark clouds pouring over the horizon, keeping pace with the rising sun. Then she realized that she had no idea where she was. The trees were sharper, dirt harder, air mustier like there was standing water just out of sight. Then again that could have just been the offal strewn around the place. Naruto looked up and sighed.

"I…" Naruto caught herself talking to the snake-mantis. She remembered how that thing had come about and her throat clammed up. "I. Let's… Move. Come on. If you want."

Naruto headed for the rainclouds, really hoping that they were rainclouds. She'd yet to find a stream to wash in, and though the smell of herself didn't bother her the stickiness was driving her mad. She tried to not leave a trail this time. She stuck to the ground, experimenting with ways to not leave such a sharp footprint. Her toes kept cutting into things without her meaning to, even under the gentlest pressure. Naruto tried to be positive: at least she'd never be without decent footing.

The air grew thicker. The clouds grew closer. Naruto turned to her wings. She curled them around her and prodded at them as she walked. Then she flapped them, hoping more than she'd hoped for rain that she'd take off into the sky. But that didn't happen. Slashes appeared in the dirt around her, nothing else, and she sighed wistfully at what could have been. If only, she said to no one. Probably for the best: she would inevitably kill herself in a completely unavoidable loop-de-loop-corkscrew maneuver and that would put a major damper on things.

A peal of thunder brought a smile to her face. Rain. Angry rain, now that the clouds had gotten themselves in formation. They crashed closer in an ominous grey wave, and would be atop her in less than ten minutes. Good. She'd wash off, find a quiet hole to curl up and cry. And think, whichever came first. She thought about the snake/mantis and it emerged from her left as though summoned. It had a fawn in its mouth, and there was a foot-long spike through the fawn's head.

Naruto blinked. It looked so expectant. Or maybe she was reading into it too much. "Uh. Good job."

The snakemantis said and did nothing else, only kept pace, fawn flopping in its mouth as they carried on into the approaching gloom.

Then the storm was on them, and Naruto had the sneaking suspicion that the rain was ice cold, but she wasn't feeling it. She scrubbed herself clean, wincing as she became intimately familiar with her body and aware of how naked she was. Her breasts were these odd red membranes. She spent a long moment squeezing them before remembering an awkward childhood moment with Sarutobi and stopped. Bone and tough connective tissue covered her other important bits, and the mechanical implications puzzled her until she remembered the worm and forcefully dropped the issue.

Her hair bothered her in particular, the stuff moved as she tried to run her hands through it, tumbling over her fingers like giant floppy spider legs and she couldn't help the girlish shriek that came from her. Then she was so painfully aware of it she could feel it dancing against her back.

Snake-mantis waited. Maybe it stood guard, it could have been. Or it could have drifted off. Naruto didn't pay it much mind. She kept catching bits of her reflection in puddles and flinching away. Her eyes were burning and it was damn creepy.

Naruto was done washing and she started off again, looking for some abandoned cabin, some half-fallen tree, some naturally-occurring pillow fort to hide in. The trees grew thicker, the rain grew lighter as the storm beat past her. She faded back into her own thoughts, thinking about sad things and warm meals.

Naruto stepped around a tree and came face to face with a girl no older than eight, in weathered overalls and goulashes splashing around in the rain. They were so close Naruto could smell that peculiar kid-smell that all little kids carry. Vaguely bad. The vaguest bad. Naruto vowed to try and pay attention to her surroundings from then on. Especially considering she should have felt the kid a quarter mile back.

Naruto's mouth opened. 'Don't scream,' she considered saying in that moment. She also considered 'bring me your young I hunger' but this probably wasn't the time for jokes and she wasn't in the mood.

The girl's eyes lit up. "You really came? For real? For real real?"

"…Uh." Came from Naruto's mouth. Snake-mantis emerged from behind her, half a fawn hanging from its mouth. "Uhhh."

"Yes this is perfect!" The girl hopped around. "You – oh my – I just. You. Me! Come, now! This is yes! Please thank you!" She grabbed Naruto's hand, and Naruto had a small seizure keeping her claws from tearing the girl's hand. "I – you have to come inside! I'll. We. Mah'll get back - some food up soon, and. Yes."

"Uhhh!" A cabin emerged up ahead, small and quaint and made by someone who knew how to build a roof. Off to the side and further back a large shed hid in the brush. "You. Were. Um. Expecting me?"

"I was praying for you!" The girl said. "Every night. Every night! But now you're here! You're really here!"

Naruto felt powerless in that way that only small children can make someone feel powerless. She was too young to disappoint, but also too young to treat like a coherent being capable of logic and basic math. Naruto tittered around trying to think of the best phrasing for 'you are making a huge mistake' as they drew closer to the cabin. "You were praying for – for me? Me me? Why?"

"For you to come and kill my dad!"

"Time to go." Naruto sunk her feet down. The girl stopped like a dog caught at the end of a leash, jerking back surprised and inexplicably betrayed. She wouldn't let go.

"But I called you!" The girl cried,"I prayed! Every night! You have to don't you?"

"I don't have to do shit." Naruto worked at prying her hand lose without getting extra fingers in the process. "Now leggo."

"But – but! I! I did the – I did the thing! The circle, the stuff! You have to have to!"

The rain must have been louder than Naruto thought because no one had emerged from the cabin to investigate their unholy racket. "I got no clue what you're talking about."

"Aren't you a demon?" The girl grabbed with both hands to keep Naruto from escaping, "from the bad place?"

Naruto cringed. "I. No, I'm not a demon. And that's very rude."

"But… The red eyes. The wings. And the sharp things. Are you sure?"

"Well. Pretty sure. I guess. Shit I dunno. I don't think I am."

"But you even sound all evil…" The girl trailed off pathetically, and her shoulders drooped as she moped. She released Naruto. "Well now what…"

Naruto looked at the forest, where she could easily vanish. Then back at the cabin, and down the girl shuffling her boots in the mud. She sighed. "Well… Talk. What's up."

It was like a switch flipped and the girl was glowing. "You mean you'll do it?"

"No. Goddamn. Probably no. Just." Naruto drew her hand across her forehead. The kid would catch a cold if she stayed out much longer. "Go see if your mom's in. If she isn't we'll go inside and clear up this mess. Else we'll talk out here."

"She isn't here!" The girl said, apparently only capable of whispering and yelling. "she'll be back in a while, but she isn't here now! And he's asleep! Come on!" Then she tugged Naruto inside; snake-mantis couldn't fit through the door and waited out in the rain, vacantly gnawing on a fawn-skull.

The rain cut off as the door closed. The inside was lit by flickering candles. They were in the kitchen, and Naruto could hear distant snoring.

"Come on, here." The girl whispered now, and pulled Naruto to a seat at the dining table. It was an awkward sit; Naruto's wings kept her from leaning back comfortably, and something about the place made her feel like she was permanently moments from knocking something over.

"Uh. Do… " Naruto began as the girl floundered around the kitchen, seemingly looking for something, "do you not like your father?"

"He's mean." She said. "Mean and smelly."

Naruto remembered she was talking to a kid. "Does he do… Bad things?"

"He does stupid things. And he makes mom sad."

"Not, er. Hurt?" Naruto could see her own hands resting on the table. They looked gnarly. She felt snake-mantis roam away into the forest, having caught the smell of something. And shit this was the most uncomfortable conversation she'd ever had.

"Sad. Sad sad." The girl said. "I don't like it. I don't like mom sad."

"Do they yell?"

"Sometimes. For dinner, and for go to bed. And bears and boogibears."

Naruto was sure there was a story there. "They don't yell at each other? I mean… Mad yelling?"

The girl didn't find whatever she was looking for, and finally took a seat at the table. "They don't yell. They talk, and say bad things. And it makes mom sad. And I don't like it."

Naruto let out a breath and wondered what the hell was she doing. "Look. Kid. From what you just told me, I don't think he's a bad, uh… person."

The girl puffed up.

"Stuff gets… Complicated. I think." Naruto scratched her cheek. "It's… I think they still. Er. Care, about each other. You know?"

"No."

"Fucking kids - I didn't mean to say that out loud – the point is. Just. Talk. Talk this stuff out. With them. Alright?"

"Why?"

"Don't you start that why shit with me. Just promise you'll talk to them, okay?"

"… Okay." The girl said, looking down.

"And actually mean it. Round two, come on. Again."

They locked eyes. The girl's face scrunched up. "Fine. I promise."

"That's better," Naruto crossed her arms imperiously, "and no more summoning the devil. I'm serious that never ever works out. If I was a demon, I would have like, taken your toes and made pancakes or something-"

The girl eeped. "But I need my toes!" she cried, "I need them!"

Naruto frantically shushed her into silence. "Promise you won't try that again?"

The girl nodded.

"Good." Naruto stood, careful not to cut or tip or otherwise interact with anything accidentally. "I'm gonna go now, okay?"

"Okay." The girl said, slightly mopey.

"Don't be sad – there are puddles goddamn everywhere. Splash extra hard today, yeah?"

"Yes!"

Naruto shushed her again. "Well. Uh… bye."

She turned to leave, and was nearly to the door when a weight caught on her hip. The little girl was there when Naruto glanced down, face dangerously close to one of the jagged spikes curving up from her hips. Naruto had a miniature panic attack.

"Thank you not-demon."

Naruto groaned. "Eww gedoff me." She carefully extracted the girl and nudged her back, hands on the girls' shoulders.

The door opened. A middle aged woman caught sight of them. Naruto saw her, saw her eyes drift over her daughter and settle on Naruto's hands, and her wings, and she knew there was nothing she could say. Not really. She pulled back.

"Juuko!" The woman's cry seemed to shake the cabin. A commotion came from the other room - a burly man issued from the doorway as though he'd been fired from it. Naruto turned and saw his face, saw the bags under his eyes. A moment of tense indecision.

The little girl made a noise, a bead of red welled on her cheek.

The woman dashed for the girl, the man came at Naruto, drawing up a chair like a shield and pressuring her to the door.

"Please!" The woman said.

"Leave, now!" The man said. "G-get out!"

Naruto had raised her hands palms up without realizing. She dropped them now, lips moving but not making any sound. 'I'm not going to hurt you,' she wanted to say. 'I'm not a monster. Don't worry. Your daughter is fine if slightly stupid.' But nothing came out. It hurt to be feared. And they wouldn't listen, Naruto knew. She wouldn't in their place. No point in trying to explain herself. Still maybe she could help.

Naruto looked to the little girl. "You're lucky they're here." Then she left, and shut the door behind her.

They would be fine, Naruto knew. They'd talk, soon. Make sure the girl was alright, fuss over her scratch and then they'd clear the air, and then they'd laugh because they were alive, and they'd never quite believe the girl's story about the kind not-demon that said bad words. They'd tell her not to talk to strange monsters.

Naruto shook her head. The rain washed down her face, through her hair. Snake-mantis came to her side. She moved on.

Edit 3/28/13: a few minor edits.

Edit 4/1/14: a few minor edits