Storm Ch 3

"Your body is on fire."

"It is?" Naruto said, as he looked at himself, "I don't look like I'm on fire."

"Not here, your real body is on fire, along with whatever building you were in."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, you're on fire, and unless you want to burn to death, I suggest you hurry and get back out there and get out of the fire."

That had a sobering effect on Naruto, which surprised the fox, "I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"Well, you can see outside, look for your self!" Naruto shouted, unable to actually say what had been done to him.

What the fox found almost made it retch. It couldn't believe what had happened to him, or the fact that he wasn't dead yet.

"Who…"

"Did that? A bunch of villagers broke in and did that," he said quietly, "Every year they chase me on this day, and I usually spend it locked in my apartment. But today a lot of stuff happened, and was so out of it that I forgot about them."

"But why this day?"

"Cause it's the festival celebrating when the Yondaime Hokage defeated you. All the villagers have a huge party, and even the ninjas go." He went silent for a moment, "and it's my birthday."

Kyuubi's heart went out to the child. Having to spend ones birthday locked inside their apartment alone while in fear of their life was not the way a child should be raised. Not even the vilest of demons did that to their children. It just wasn't right.

"I can help you, if you'll let me."

"How?"

"If you channel chakra into that seal, it will allow me to gain some control over your body, and I will be able to move it out of the fire."

"But I can't reach it," Naruto said. As soon as he finished, though, it slid right down to the bottom, stopping about even with his chest. "And I can't really do much with my chakra yet."

"That doesn't matter. You know how to move chakra in your body right?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well, that seal is technically a part of your body. Just focus it there. You don't need much, just enough to tell the seal that you know what's going on."

"Naruto didn't really get why he needed to put the chakra into the seal, he just knew that it was his only real hope of getting out of his burning apartment alive. So he placed both of his hands on the seal, and began pushing chakra into it. It wasn't very much, since he really didn't know what he was doing, but it was enough to let Kyuubi move his body.

When Kyuubi's chakra connected with Naruto's motor functions, the shock almost kicked his chakra out. The pain coming from his body was beyond intense.

Xxxxxxxxxx

Back in the burning apartment, Naruto's body, or what was left of it, started to stir. First, the whisker marks on his face darkened. His finger and toe nails lengthened, along with his canine teeth. His eyelids opened, revealing red eyes with slitted pupils.

Suddenly, a cocoon of red chakra enveloped his body, protecting it from the flames. The Kyuubi-driven body of Naruto then proceeded to crawl its way over to his window, which had broken from the intense heat, and managed to pitch himself out of the window, falling four stories to the alley below. He landed in a heap, and did not move, the crimson cocoon fading shortly thereafter.

Xxxxxxxxxx

Sarutobi was relaxing in his office, paperwork finally completed for the day. He had just pulled out a certain orange book when he felt a chakra pulse. Now, this was by no means a reason for him to freak out, since he felt chakra pulses all day, as did everyone else who could sense chakra while living in a ninja village.

No, the reason this particular chakra pulse made him drop his book on his desk and fling his aged body out the window was who the chakra belonged to. Or rather, what it belonged to. He hadn't felt that particular chakra signature in seven years, and while this pulse was very small, its very presence filled him with worry.

Was the seal broken? Was Naruto alright? Could the fox escape? These were only some of the thoughts flying around his head as he raced towards Naruto's apartment, becoming more alarmed by the second as he saw smoke coming from that direction.

His ANBU bodyguard squad fell into place around him shortly thereafter, and he began to bark out orders, "Inu, Nezumi, Risu, go ahead and find out what's wrong! Tora, go alert the hospital, I have a feeling Naruto's gonna need a bed there. I don't care how you do it; get a competent team ready for him! If they still won't, send them to Ibiki, no restrictions!"

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" they all shouted out, before splitting off in their separate directions.

Xxxxxxxxxx

Of the three ANBU going to the fire, Inu was in the lead, flanked by Nezumi (mouse) on the left, and Risu (squirrel) on the right. "Risu," Inu barked out, "Take care of the fire. Nezumi, look for anyone around here who seems to be taking too much interest in the fire, make note of them, and send the list to the Hokage. I'll look for the kid."

"Hai, sempai!" they both returned, before leaping off to take care of their assigned tasks.

Inu didn't even make all the way around the building before he found a body in the alley behind the building. He noticed the broken window belching flames from the top floor. 'He jumped out of a four story window? In that condition?' he quickly moved him to check for a pulse. 'And he's still alive?' He scooped up the battered body, and right before he leapt off, Sarutobi arrived.

"How is he?"

"He's alive at the moment. Can't really tell much else though," the doubly-masked nin replied.

"Go. Tora should have the hospital set by now. When you get there, I want the both of you to watch over him. Once he's stable, only let people you trust near him. Should there be any… problems, do whatever you have to, to keep him safe. I'm failing Minato's last wishes bad enough as it is; I will not let the villagers kill him."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," Inu said, before vanishing off towards the hospital, going as fast as he could while trying not to further aggravate Naruto's injuries.

Xxxxxxxxxx

When Inu arrived at the hospital, there was a team of mednins waiting outside the building for him. He quickly handed the boy over to them, before following them into the emergency section, Tora right behind him. As they passed through the lobby, Inu was mildly surprised to only see three doctors in heaps against the wall. Inu looked at Tora, raising an eyebrow behind his mask.

"They said no," replied Tora.

"Ahh."

As they reached the emergency section, a nurse tried to halt their progress, but a glare from the two masked nins silenced her even before she began to speak. Once inside the room, they quietly stood in a corner, watching over the mednins as they worked on the boy.

Xxxxxxxxxx

Several hours later, Sarutobi finally made it to the hospital, and found Tora standing outside Naruto's door. When he went in, he found Inu sitting next to Naruto's bed. He still had his mask on, but the left eye-hole was closed, and his hood was down, revealing his gravity-defying silver-white hair.

"How is he?"

Inu just pulled back the sheet. From waist to neck, Naruto was wrapped in bandages. His left arm and both legs were in casts, since he broke them when he fell out of his window. His hair was gone, as were his eyebrows. The upper half of his right arm was bandaged as well.

"Well?"

"It's not just burns, Hokage-sama. The villagers cut him up. They cut him up bad." He produced a scroll from one of his pockets, handing it over. "The villagers carved names of the Kyuubi attack victims into his skin. That scroll has the ones they could read on it, but they overlapped so much it's probably nowhere close to all of them. They could only read about thirty or so, but based on the amount of area that they couldn't make out, it's probably closer to a couple hundred names."

Sarutobi just collapsed into a chair, "What about the burns?"

"Thankfully not as bad as they looked. Most were concentrated on his back and left arm. Mainly second-degree, although there was some third. Left arm and both legs are broken, most likely from falling out of his window."

"And the seal?"

"Still good as far as I can tell. I got a quick look at it before they wrapped him up and it didn't look any different, and I can only sense a tiny amount of other chakra in his system right now, although I can't tell what it's from. It doesn't seem to be doing any damage, though, so it's probably leftovers from the medics."

"They say when he might wake up?"

"Well, they got him on some pretty strong stuff right now. I'd tell you what it is, but I don't feel like trying to pronounce it. The name of the stuff is like fifteen syllables long. Once he's off that stuff, it could be anywhere from a day to never, they just don't know."

"Thanks for watching over him. I'll make sure your team gets a B-rank for this. Nezumi and Risu will take over for you in a few hours. Oh, before I forget, how many?"

"You'd have to ask him, but when I got here, there were only three on the floor unconscious. The mednins were even waiting outside for us."

"I'll make sure to do so. Please, if anything changes, let me know."

"Ah. Pakkun knows that I may call on him at any moment."

As the aging Hokage left, Inu couldn't help but hang his head at how bad his village had failed his teacher. 'Gomen, sensei. It would seem that the village is too stupid to see him for what he really is.'

Xxxxxxxxxx

Back in Naruto's mind, he was having a rather interesting conversation with the fox. Meaning, he was walking it through his memories, which was NOT fun. The fun and interesting part came from the fox's comments on everything. That managed to take the edge off the bad memories, especially when the fox called the orphanage lady "Oban." (Bitchy old hag) When they finished, the fox was beyond shocked that the boy in front of her had gone through what he had, and come out the way he did.

"So when do I get to wake up?" Naruto asked the fox.

"Not for a while. Your body is pretty messed up right now. You're better off staying here for a while."

"How bad is it?"

"Well, you're wrapped in bandages from neck to waist, along with half of your right arm, and the rest of your limbs are in casts from falling out of your window. I'm sending my chakra out to help fix what I can, but I really don't know much about human bodies, so it's going pretty slow. Besides, they got you stuck on some pretty powerful sedatives and painkillers right now, so you probably couldn't wake up, even if you wanted to."

"Oh." Naruto got another defeated look, as he sighed heavily. Kyuubi had come to hate that look. It just seemed so….wrong for a child to wear a look like that, especially one that was as energetic as he was. It affected the fox on some inner, primal level, to do whatever it could to fix the problem. The main issue with that being that the fox knew almost nothing about human emotions, and knew even less about how to influence them.

So, the fox thought about it from a different perspective, that being what it would do if Naruto was another demon in the same situation. Suddenly the fox had the urge to hold him, which completely confused it. Kyuubi was the lord of all demons, after all. It wasn't supposed to have feelings for humans besides what the best way to kill them was.

Still, though, that urge just wouldn't go away. Deciding that it was some sort of long-dormant parental instinct, since it had been a few hundred years since Kyuubi had children, the fox decided that it could handle these strange feeling. It then realized that its current form wasn't exactly the best suited for the task at hand, so the fox decided to shift.

"Naruto?" the fox called out, getting the child's attention.

"What?"

"Come here, I want to show you something."

Naruto stood up and walked up to the cage. "You're not gonna eat me or anything, are you?"

"Why would I do that? Humans taste really bad."

"Oh. Cuz the stories all say that demons like to eat people."

"No, I'm not gonna eat you. Or do anything like that, either"

"Oh, ok, that's good. What are you gonna show me?"

"This," the fox replied, before starting to glow a dull red. The glow gave Naruto the chance to see the giant fox fully for the first time, even the nine tails waving around behind it. Suddenly though, the fox began to shrink, until it wasn't that much bigger than he was. As it did, the glow got brighter, until Naruto had to look away.

When he looked back, he almost didn't believe what he was seeing. The person on the other side of the bars was about five and a half feet tall, with crimson hair that went down to the person's shoulder blades, with two white tipped ears sticking out the top. There were nine white tipped crimson tails behind them, and they were wearing a silver kimono. The persons face had a slightly feral look to it, which wasn't helped by the slightly longer than normal canine teeth poking out the sides of their mouth.

None of that is what Naruto noticed, though. Him being him, he shouted out the first thing he DID notice.

"YOU'RE A GIRL?"

"What, is that a problem?"

"Err, no, not really. I just thought that you were a boy."

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, you kinda sound like one when you're a fox, and all the stories say that you're a boy."

"Well I assure you, I am most definitely a woman."

"So, why'd you show me this?"

"I don't really know. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Ever since you showed up here and woke me up, I've been getting these strange feelings, and they only got worse after I saw your memories."

She could tell that reliving all of his memories was taking its toll on him, regardless of how well he tried to hide it.

"I'm having these urges, to do things that I would otherwise never ever think about doing."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Come here and I'll show you."

Naruto slowly walked over to the fox woman, slipping easily through the bars of her prison. When he got close enough to her, she slowly put her arms around him. When he started to speak, she just shushed him.

"You do a remarkable job hiding your true feelings from the world, but you need to let them out. Having just seen your memories, I can tell that you have bottled up far more than is healthy. You need to let it out."

So that's what he did. He let himself be held by the lord of all demons, and let it out. She held him for hours, letting him ramble and cry and shout, helping let out all of his pent up emotions. For she knew, the only way to properly heal was to have a clean wound, and if he kept all of that bottled up, it would never be clean.

AN: please tell me you know who Inu is. if you dont, based on the hints i have given, i will find you, drag you out of your house, and kick you in the head, before having kakashi use kamui on you. (thats his special mangekyo technique, for those who dont know. it sends stuff to other dimensions.)

AN 2: wow. chapters 2, 3, and 4, (which im writing right now) were all supposed to be the same chapter. i never thought it would grow out to be this freaking long. also, in case anyone thinks the fox is too OOC, (and she is, big time) keep this in mind: my kyuubi has been asleep the whole time she has been sealed in naruto. she hasnt seen all of his memories either, just the ones he could remember. she does not know who his parents are either.