Ho-ly Shit, people. The story was barely reaching 100 hits when I posted chapter two, and six hours later that number more than doubled. Now at 292 hits, 173 visitors, 6 favorites, 8 reviews, 6 alerts, and I've been favorite authored by DarkWorld101. You guys are like literary piranhas. I like it (here's hoping the power doesn't go to my head.
To make it clear, Naruto was supposed to be an ass to everyone in the last chapter, and he'll continue to be an ass for a little bit longer.
So, to answer the reviews:
Anonymous: It isn't bashing, exactly. To be exact, Naruto, in this state of mind, is bashing on the other characters. Doesn't mean that there'll be character bashing (might be some later on, but that's in the future).
TenshiSaWaDa: Don't fret. Naruto's bloodlust will get worse before *SPOILER ALERT* he gets better. It won't be a constant thing, and will act as a catalyst to bring in at least one of the Jinchuuriki. Restraint is the name of the game. *END SPOILER ALERT*
DarkWorld101: I plan on continuing for as long as I have ideas, and trust me, you'll know when I run out of ideas (I'll either post an A/N saying so or start pleading to another author for aid).
I Kicked A Baby: Naruto is not a dumbass, he just doesn't show that he's smarter than everybody thinks (he's also a realist, but when he shows it, he's ignored or belittled); The White Fang is still a sore subject to Kakashi, and it was made worse by everything else Naruto was saying to him; And finally, you don't know that Naruto didn't do his research on his teacher at some point, learning about Kakashi's team and father, which is why I'm presuming he did in this reality.
Alright, apparently the line breaks in chapter one didn't go through, so I question you this: Should I add line breaks to chapter 1, or is it alright without them?
Disclaimer the First: No one's responded to my disclaimer questions yet, so if you see this here, then that means that no one's answered me and I'll have to test to see if readers DO, in fact, read the A/Ns. I challenge thee thusly: Somewhere in this A/N is a character that doesn't belong. Find it, put the character in your review along with where it is, and the first correct answer gets a cookie.
Disclaimer the Second: I'm blanking on a witty thing to say, so I'll just put this sentence down.
Disclaimer the Third: Blunt honesty: charming or annoying in picking up a date (and in a relationship)?
Lucidity
Chapter 3
Dangerous
"It isn't the seal." The voice of a man cuts through the air, disturbing the almost- silence of the room. The only sound being the grunting of the patient restrained to the bed as he tried to kill the almost-7-foot-tall man leaning above him.
Naruto's mouth had been gagged after he'd harshly bitten the Med-nin who'd come in for the routine check-up. The man, a rather inexperienced med-nin with a fair bit of potential, lost a chunk of skin and had to have one of his fingers reattached. After it was wrestled out of Naruto's mouth, though. Ugai had almost resigned.
"Then what's causing the demonic chakra in his Limbic System?" Tsunade hid it well, but Jiraiya could easily pick up the undercurrent of desperation. Looking at the red-eyed boy next to him, who was eying the Sannin like he was a piece of meat to be had, he sighed.
"I've some theories about it, but I don't think you'll like either of them."
"What are they?" This time, hope was prevalent in her voice.
"The first is that it's some of Kyuubi's chakra that simply was pulled from the seal, but somehow lingered in the part of his brain that acts as the conduit for him to draw upon it. If that was the case, then it should be easy to simply heal away." Jiraiya looked at Tsunade, and instantly knew that she'd already tried it. And obviously failed. He sighed, moving on to the other option so as to not make her feel any worse. "The second isn't something I'd like to even consider, but given the circumstances surrounding him-"
"What else is going on, Jiraiya?" Ah, a hint of his teammate as she was at her prime. He had no choice but to tell her the truth.
"The reason it took me so long to get here was that I was at Myoboku. The Toads are in a flurry. When Naruto signed the contract, it was in blood. Binding and, as it should be, irreversible. But his signature is evaporating into nothing, and when it's completely gone, so is his Summoning Contract with the Toads." They fell into silence, looking at the child in-between them, who was looking at the both of them, as if deciding which of the two would be tastier. Perhaps he is, Jiraiya mused regretfully.
He'd failed to protect his godson.
"What about your other theory?" Tsunade broke him out of his negative spiraling.
"The second theory is that this is a function of the seal that I don't know about. That this was supposed to happen. I doubt that's the answer, but there's nothing to suggest that it isn't." He looked away, defeated.
"Then what do we do?" Tsunade looked lost at the hopelessness of the situation.
"I've done what I can. You're the Hokage, so anything else is up to you." Jiraiya didn't say what was on both of their minds.
Is there anything left of our Naruto?
Team Gai wasn't the same. Gai had been somber for several hours afterward, until he suddenly sprang up anew, shouting that he will do everything in his power to prove Naruto's words wrong. Lee was the same, until a rousing speech from Gai about the Ninja of old having no chakra at all, yet still being the greatest made his vigor return with a vengeance. Tenten consoled herself with the knowledge that she still had many skills that she could refine and build up. Neji had openly admitted that he originally had become so strong to spite his uncle, but that now he was working hard to prove to his father that he could make his own choices. It was the same as before.
And yet, nothing was the same.
Teams 10 and 8 certainly changed after that day with Naruto. Asuma and Kurenai had stopped their relationship until both of them were okay with the idea of openly dating.
Choji had recently been released from the hospital, but he didn't have much of an appetite, worrying his parents.
Ino had gone into her training with a vengeance, utterly determined to prove that she had what it takes to make Chunin. The action hadn't gone unnoticed by Sakura, who'd quickly joined her. Both of them had made up, and silently chose to forgive and forget.
Shikamaru had practically fallen into a kind of depression. The weight of his failed mission, compounded by Naruto's words, had gotten to him, but it was the words of his father one night that helped him get past it. Now, Team 10 was on the road to recovery.
Team 8, on the other hand, was a veritable mess. Kiba had taken Naruto's cutting words to heart, and now was nursing a heavy grudge at Naruto. Sure, some part of him knew that Naruto wasn't in his right mind, but he couldn't just take what he'd said without some form or retribution.
Shino had been rather closed off, but his behavior suggested that the blonde's remarks hit too close for comfort.
The group could only figure that it was simply Hinata's meek appearance that kept her safe from Naruto's wrath, while Hinata simply took it that somewhere, deep down, Naruto remembered his promise to protect her, and that it proved that he was still in there.
Team 8 feared that her conclusion was wrong, and didn't know how they could deal with the fallout of Naruto and Hinata.
The room was simple enough. There was a low-set coffee table in the middle of the small room, with two couches on either side of it. On the upper wall to the right of the door were 4 pictures, each of a different man. These people were the previous Hokages, and soon there was to be a fifth picture, of a woman with amber eyes, dirty blond hair, and a grey-purple diamond tattoo on the middle of her forehead.
That woman, Senju Tsunade, was currently in the room, waiting with her two elderly advisors, a bespectacled man by the name of Mitokado Homura, and a woman with her hair done up in a bun, Utatane Koharu. They were awaiting the fourth member of their party, the unofficial third advisor, Shimura Danzo, a man just as old as the other advisors, whose only defining feature was the bandages that covered his right eye and arm. The man in question entered the quiet room, and sat down next to Tsunade.
"Now that we are all here, we can begin to discuss the matter at hand." Koharu spoke first.
"Uzumaki Naruto." Danzo put forth his thoughts on the matter. "He's gone berserk after overusing the Kyuubi."
"That's right." Tsunade confirmed. "Naruto's currently restrained in the South Ward of Konoha General. For the past week we've had him in a medically-induced coma, from which he was taken out of early today."
"Why did you end the coma?" Homura inquired.
"Any longer and it would prove detrimental for his health."
"And do you know what is causing him to act this way?" Danzo spoke up again, genuinely interested in the proceedings.
"After numerous tests, it's been proven that the cause is a concentration of demonic chakra in his Limbic System, making him excessively aggressive and bloodthirsty to the point where he had to be gagged for biting the finger off of one of the medics while he was performing rounds." Tsunade replied, unsure about the man's intentions. "We've done all we can to remove it, to disperse it, and yet it remains there. Jiraiya himself checked the seal, and found that nothing was wrong. He theorizes that it may simply be an obscure part of the seal activating to allow Naruto to better access and control the Kyuubi's chakra, but doubts it."
"Then what do we do?" Koharu asked of them. "We cannot afford to leave him like this, nor is there an easy solution to this problem."
"Open banishment." Homura's voice cuts through the air, silencing everyone in the room. "We do our best to seal off his chakra. Temporary or permanent, the important thing is that it lasts for some time. We use his condition as an excuse to remove him from the Shinobi ranks, and keep up the story that he's in the South Ward. You, Tsunade, have it set up so that he's isolated, that way no one comes trying to visit him. From what I've heard, Naruto has already done the correct actions required to place him in permanent isolation.
"A team of ANBU is selected to escort Uzumaki, unconscious, on the far edge of the Land of Fire." Homura continued to the group, whom gave him their rapt attention. "He will be given nothing but several scrolls. One explaining his situation, a second one will hold maps of the Elemental Nations, including the locations of the Hidden Villages, with the sole exception of Konoha. The last one is something Hiruzen wanted Naruto to have when he reached 13, and had hoped to bequeath to Naruto personally. It holds an edited account of his mother, telling him everything with the sole exception of his father and her status as the Kyuubi's second Jinchuuriki."
"And how is that a good solution?" Danzo questioned, for once appearing to side with Tsunade, as she also asked that question.
"The open banishment allows us to remove him until such a time that he is back to his former self, when that happens we simply have the Toads summon him-"
"That won't be happening. Jiraiya stated that Naruto's somehow been removed from the contract as their Summoner. He thinks that it may be a part of his condition, but the removal of a Summoner from any of the Summons is unprecedented." Tsunade explained.
"Then we'll have Jiraiya set his spy network to keep tabs upon the boy. When he is mentally sound, we'll send to have him return." Homura finished.
"Keeping tabs on the boy will prove to be a daunting task. Back before he made Genin, he was quite adept at running circles around many of our best in-village Hunter-nin, along with a fair number of our best out-village Hunter-nin." Danzo stated.
"Don't underestimate Jiraiya's network." Tsunade said.
"Don't underestimate the Uzumaki boy." Danzo countered.
"So we are in agreement." Koharu butted in. "Uzumaki Naruto will be removed from the Shinobi ranks and placed into open banishment, with South Ward isolation being the official story."
"Agreed." Homura stated.
"Agreed." Danzo commented.
They looked at Tsunade, who had a clear goal in mind.
"Agreed."
"Oh, Hinata, what are you doing here?" Iruka was on his way to the hospital when he found his former student at the front desk, asking if Naruto had been moved.
"I-I was just ch-checking to see if there was any change in N-Narut-to's location." She meekly replied, and Iruka wondered if the blonde Genin had gained some clue about Hinata's crush on him. Leaving that thought for another time, he simply smiled and asked that she lead the way.
The room was exactly the same, with the sole exception that Naruto's mouth had a gag in it, placed in such a way that it didn't hinder his breathing.
Iruka was shocked to see his favorite former student in such a horrible state, that he immediately ran over to remove the gag, not noticing the red eyes or the hungry look that Naruto was giving him.
He was barely able to dodge Naruto's jaw as it snapped shut where his hand had been not even a second before.
"Naruto, what-" Iruka wasn't able to finish his sentence as he finally noticed the crimson eyes glaring at him.
"Iruka-Sensei!" The smile Naruto was giving him was fundamentally the same as his usual toothy smile, but it was completely different. "Can you please untie me? The doctors here won't accept that I'm fine."
Iruka almost believed it, as that was expected behavior of Naruto, but had enough common sense to give the right answer.
"Sorry Naruto, but you gotta-" Iruka was cut off by Naruto's sudden outburst.
"UNTIE ME YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR A NINJA!" Naruto screamed, shocking the Chunin, and making Hinata let out a small 'eep!' which brought her to his attention. He immediately went back to his overly polite self, as though the outburst had never happened. "Hinata! I didn't see you there? Can you untie me?" He gave her the sad-eyes, and she almost complied.
Almost.
"I-I apologize, N-Narut-to, b-but-" And then he snapped once more.
"For fucks sake you gods-awful woman, get your pansy ass over here and untie me right now!" His voice didn't rise like before, but it wasn't exactly forthcoming, either. She didn't move from her spot as Iruka started to realize just why Naruto had been gagged. "Did I stutter? No, wait, you'd definitely hear me if I'd stuttered j-just lik-ke you-ou." His voice became horribly mocking, and it brought Hinata to tears.
"Naruto, there's something wrong with you." It was a pure statement of fact, nothing more, nothing less.
"Of course there's something wrong with me. It's that I'm not feeling your heart in my hands as I squeeze the last dregs of life out of it. That I'm not doing my damned best to make that thing next to you beg me to kill it." He started going off on a rant about how unfair it was that they wouldn't let him do as he pleased, and Iruka couldn't take any more of it. He swiftly moved forward, pinning Naruto's head to the bead with his left hand as he reattached the gag with his right.
Iruka left Naruto's room feeling nothing but grief that the child that he'd once taken a liking to had become this monster. With him was an openly sobbing Hyuga Hinata.
That was the last time anyone Naruto knew from Konoha would see him for years.
The banishment itself was a rather silent affair. Tsunade and had injected Naruto with a tranquilizer, so he was sufficiently suited for his banishment.
The ANBU team that had been assembled had been given a backpack holding several days' worth of clothing, some flint, a half-dozen Kunai, a small tarp and the agreed-upon scrolls.
Jiraiya had come and sealed up Naruto's chakra, stating that they should include the information about his chakra being sealed in the explanatory scroll. He'd also said that the seal would only last two, three days max.
And then the time came.
Naruto was slung over the shoulder of one of the ANBU, whose mask looked feline in nature. The man, who had short brown hair, simply nodded to his team, took one last look at the village from the gates, and left.
As they traveled under the moonlight, one of the feline-masked ANBU's subordinates noticed the string of a necklace break as they moved, and picked it up as it fell. The necklace was simple, appearing to be a geometric cylinder of jade between two tiny bells. She pocketed the necklace to give to the Hokage when they returned.
Finally, after several hours of moving as fast as they could, they stopped near the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.
The ANBU who had pocketed the necklace watched as her commander set down the boy and checked to make sure that everything that he was to be left with was in order. She also suspected that he'd marked where they were on the map of the Elemental Nations that the boy was to be left.
A small consolation, it seemed, as soon after they left.
Several hours later, blue eyes opened to view the sky above.
And the banishment hath occurred! Word count is somewhere in the 2,800 range (not including these A/N's), and next chapter is gonna have Naruto alone. I'm sure a few of you can guess where's he's gonna go and what he's gonna do, but I aim to shock you by (hopefully) doing something that you'll never expect.
