Yea, gonna be switching between this and Chain of Command. For some reason when I'm concentrating very hard on one, I have very nice brainwaves on the other. I've updated Chain as well, no new chapters. Just spelling, word selection, and plot device tweaking.
Onward!
Naruto giggled as he packed his gear away. Now normally the blonde shinobi wouldn't be caught dead giggling, as giggling was a very good indicator of guilt. However, this was a special occasion and no one was watching. He could tell.
Naruto had raced back to his apartment once he had finished his meal with Mizuki. The white-turned-pink-haired man had explained in detail and with many a map and diagram how to steal a "Test Scroll." This scroll was made to look nigh exactly what the Forbidden Scroll was supposed to look like in order to make the test more realistic. Written inside the scroll were to be a few select jutsu and if Naruto could learn just one after retrieving it, he would automatically become a genin. Naruto knew that this would be his last opportunity to become a Konoha shinobi before being delegated to the reserve corps. He also knew the "test" was a complete and utter sham.
The entire time Mizuki had been in the academy for the past year, even during the whole process of giving Naruto the layout of the Hokage's Tower, he had been emitting a glowing red aura to the blonde's "other eyes." Naruto had first noticed his talent about a year previously. He could sense people's intent through the color of their illumination. Red was hostile, blue was friendly, white was indifferent or unaware, and gold was the target of whatever scheme Naruto happened to be mixed up in at the time.
There were several practical applications for his second sight, chief among them being avoiding ANBU. Naruto had no delusions, if the ANBU had ever truly wanted him caught he would be; no matter what kind of hellish chase he may give them. His eyes allowed him, with a little self manipulation, to see them wherever they happened to be hiding whether it be in the crowd or masquerading as a stone. He couldn't see through objects, but then again being able to glimpse red pursuers in a sea of white bystanders and dark buildings was a boon to any ninja.
Naruto debated with himself as to whether or not to bring a nodachi he had found, then dismissed the idea based on the simple fact that he didn't know how to use it. After using the newfound room in his pack to stuff in a few dozen meters of wire, Naruto began to laugh again. Had Mizuki even shown a modicum of effort to help him over the years, Naruto might have overlooked the hostile glow and trusted the instructor. Evidently no one had been kind enough to educate the traitor in the finer arts of deception.
After assuring himself that nigh on twelve smoke bombs would be more than sufficient for any scenario Naruto pulled his black hood low over his face, strapped his pack to his back, and slowly began to make his way to the Hokage Tower.
It was springtime in Konoha, yet as the sun set an echo of the winter months could be felt. This echo, though, made for pleasantly brisk nights on the streets and the vendors took full advantage of the weekend crowds. Here there were bits of jewelry, there a fast food stand. The night was young and vibrant with the throng.
Nobody noticed the black-clad male weaving through the groups. He kept his head down and kept moving. Occasionally he would appear to stop and speak to one group or another, then move on. Had anyone known that this was Naruto Uzumaki, they would have suspected some form of mischief in the making. It was common knowledge that the container, as he was sometimes named, rarely came into the more populated portions of town, and whenever he did a prank soon followed.
Not tonight though. Tonight's misbehavior was on another level of magnitude entirely. Naruto halted near a group at the edge of Shaded Square, the small park beside the tower. Naruto let his eyes shift and saw multiple red figures arrayed along the rooftops, flitting by windows, and even in the mulling crowds walking along. Naruto moved, knowing that to be caught staring at the tower for any length of time would be to invite a squad to question him. As he trekked closer to the tower, seeming to admire the hedges and flowers along the path, he kept a lookout for just one unwatched spot, one crack in the surveillance.
He found it.
Where the curve of the tower met the two-storied building, technically the north side of said tower, there was a lack of patrols and for good reason. That spot was reasonably well lit by a street light fifteen meters away; a piece of ingenuity stolen from their neighbors in Lightning country, along with the know-how to maintain it. Naruto had his path, now he just needed a bit of time to use it properly.
Naruto blended into a nearby crowd heading down the street, away from the light. The group turned a corner and Naruto joined another group heading the opposite way. This new crowd rounded the corner, completely unaware of the blonde in their midst. About two-thirds of the way to the light the leader of the group decided that they should head off towards a nearby eatery and slowly began leading his flock towards the smell of soy and oil. Naruto ditched the group and sat on a bench, waiting for another to provide the cover he needed. He waited next to two elderly folks for only a few minutes before such an opportunity came along.
Naruto took it.
Within a few seconds his latest cover was mere feet away from the lamp. Naruto moved to the head of the pack, and then swiftly ducked near the access panel, slid it off, deftly twisted a small explosive note around one of the wires, and primed it. The note was small enough that it would have had trouble blowing through a mid-size pile of paper, but the blonde only needed it to sever a small wire. It would do.
Naruto looked around one last time, took a deep breath, and then waited. Three heartbeats later and his little section of street went dark with a loud "Pop!"
Naruto sprinted towards the wall of the two-story building, grasping windowsills and drainpipes to make his way up. At one point he had to leap from the building to the tower and back again in order to progress. Eventually though, he found himself hanging off of the balcony of the tower's roof. Naruto lifted himself up just enough to ascertain that there were no guards, then hoisted himself up and crouch-ran to the roof's access door.
Quickly transforming into a nondescript maintenance man, Naruto entered with what seemed to be nothing more than a tool bag and a clipboard. Nodding and smiling to one of the receptionists, he made his way to an old storage room which was part of the previous iteration of the building. The tower had since been redesigned but this room still had an exposed, low-hanging ventilation duct which a now un-transformed Naruto took full advantage of.
The blonde wriggled inside, then began his slow crawl toward the Great Shinobi Library of Konoha. The Great Library was a contribution made by the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. It allowed registered shinobi to research any non-clan related techniques Konoha had either developed or stolen that weren't classified as forbidden. To research a forbidden technique, one needed to have permission from the Hokage himself to see the Scroll of Forbidden Techniques, also known as the Scroll of Seals and the Forbidden Scroll. That the scroll was located in the center of the stacks of paper seemed only to increase its mystique.
Naruto lowered himself into the library on the wire he had brought, attached to a few wooden rods with rubber feet to provide an anchor in the vent above. He reached down, clamped his hand around the central dowel of the scroll, and hoisted himself back up into the vents. He just had one last stop to make on his way out…
Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed, long and low. No matter how old one became, no matter how many times one found themselves in a similar situation, it was always one of the most pleasant sensations to have relieved ones bladder after many hours of needing to use the restroom. He would even wager that Itachi Uchiha, cold and ruthless though the boy turned out, appreciated a good piss. He had left his office about five or six minutes earlier, using the excuse of "stretching his legs" to make his way to the good bathroom on the third floor. Upon his return to his office, the aged Hokage settled into his armchair, reassured himself that no new paperwork had spawned in his absence, and pulled out a little orange book to read.
A sizeable chunk of time passed and Hiruzen had just made it to chapter three, where the young hero had just settled into a nice cozy inn/hot springs owned and operated by a buxom young woman, when something fell out of the middle of the book. The elderly man picked up the scrap of paper, read it, then paled and called for the ANBU. The paper merely said:
Jiji, Mizuki is a traitor. He's meeting me to gain the Forbidden Scroll tonight, two miles west of the north gate. I'll stall him. Assemble a squad, look for his exfiltration team. -Naruto
Naruto arrived at the rendezvous a full hour before the proper meeting and he had plans to make the most of his time. Rifling through his pack, Naruto quickly extracted several blank scrolls and steel inkpots as well as a few brushes. After arranging his supplies, Naruto pulled the large scroll off of his back and began to copy the techniques in the order they were shown. It was time-consuming and laborious because he copied each instruction verbatim, but it would be worth it to gain even a fraction of the knowledge contained within the scroll.
A half-hour later, Naruto had managed to copy five techniques in their entirety. With the time remaining to him, Naruto decided to attempt the last of his stolen jutsu: the shadow clones. Fully solid and sentient, they would be a boon in multiplying his effectiveness against the traitor. Naruto packed away his supplies, strapped the scroll to his back, and began running through the handsigns he had only just read. He flared his chakra, and a translucent image of himself manifested out of the chakra cloud which marked his failure. Naruto dropped the jutsu and tried again.
Mizuki arrived at the abandoned shack and waited for the blonde brat to show himself. All of his plans, his machinations, and his cunning had led to this. If he could bring the scroll of seals to his employer there would be rewards and privilege aplenty. Ah, speak of the blond meal ticket, there he was now: collapsed inside of the hut. "Must've burned himself out hard trying to learn from the scroll. What an idiot!" Mizuki thought with a grin.
The white-haired traitor pulled a kunai from his vest and made his way slowly toward the exhausted blonde.
Naruto watched through nearly-shut eyes as Mizuki crept towards him. The blonde wasn't nearly as tired as he appeared, but he still wanted to avoid a direct confrontation; Mizuki was a chunin for a reason. Now was the time to put his plan into action. He sat up and yawned, startling Mizuki.
"Naruto! I didn't know you were awake." Mizuki discretely, or so he thought, slipped the kunai up his sleeve.
"Hmm? Oh, yea; I'm awake. I just got really tired from practicing is all. So, does this mean that I pass?"
Mizuki smiled. "Yes Naruto, I think it does. No one even knows that you have the scroll: there've been no alarms. You've done very well, now hand over the scroll and we'll go get all of your paperwork done."
Naruto had to hand it to the man, he was an excellent liar. As Naruto reached around his back he discreetly palmed a smoke bomb and then cast it at the ground with a flick of his wrist, enveloping the pair in a thick curtain of white. Naruto could hear Mizuki spluttering and coughing from the unexpected smokescreen and took the opportunity to form a shadow clone to take his place. When the smoke cleared the blonde doppelganger stood across the clearing from the traitor, while said traitor was holding a kunai that had been thrown at him. Mizuki scowled. "Oh. So you're not as gullible as you seem, but you really should have taken that opportunity to run, demon brat. You'd have lived a bit longer."
The clone contemplated this for about half of a second, then rushed his former instructor: using his right fist as a feint for a left uppercut. Mizuki easily blocked both blows, then stabbed the blonde in the neck with his captured kunai. An expression of shock and pain was briefly visible on the boy's face before he dissipated into a haze of chakra smoke. Mizuki laughed.
"So, even a child can learn something from the forbidden scroll, eh?" Naruto endeavored to stay perfectly still behind his cover; all he had to do was wait until the Hokage's reinforcements arrived.
"Well, even if you did manage to learn something from it-" There was a sound of rushing wind, and suddenly Mizuki was face to face with the hiding blonde. The traitor finished his thought.
"-there is no way for you to escape." The kunai in Mizuki's hand plunged towards Naruto's chest. Naruto seemed to see the blade move both in real time and in slow motion at once: too fast to dodge, not fast enough to be invisible. Naruto closed his eyes for the last time.
Or so he thought.
Barriers inside the young man snapped: his body flooded with power and his mind filled with a new focus. The blonde's left arm snapped up and deflected Mizuki's own, allowing the boy to take a few steps into the clearing to gain space.
How did he get into the middle of a forest? He couldn't remember a wood that resembled this one anywhere near his home. No matter though: the strange man charged again, swinging his short blade. The youth swung his right arm up and to the side, deflecting the blow once again, and then thrust his left palm towards the man's chest while flicking his fingers. Shock was the only feeling when no crimson blossom unfolded from the man's chest. Instead of collapsing, the adversary backhanded his assailant and caused the blonde to bounce across the ground of the clearing, only just managing to stay on his feet.
The blonde quickly glanced at his left side: there was no blade slung under his arm as there should have been! He rolled his shoulders and bounced on his feet, deducing from the sensations sent back that his throwing knives and short blade had either been lost or stolen, along with his armor. He was unarmed against a very formidable opponent in an area he was completely unfamiliar with. It was time to take drastic action.
The man charged again and this time a hand darted out, grasping the man's forearm. With a short chopping motion, the boy had had broken the man's elbow inward and brought the blade closer to himself. With a twist and a flourish the blade found itself taken from its owner's hand and in the firm grip of its target. Capitalizing on the man's apparent shock and pain the smaller warrior slipped around him and stabbed at the back of his opponent's knees, causing him to kneel. A wrenching motion had the downed man's uninjured arm folded behind his back and the blade at his throat. The blonde used the opportunity to gain information. He asked where the two were.
The man paused in his struggles and began speaking in an alien tongue. The blonde switched languages, trying English, Turkish, and then the language of the Mongols. None of them seemed to be understandable to the man. The victorious opponent decided that he must've somehow been taken to a foreign land in his sleep, maybe drugged, and so knocked the man out to prevent any escape attempt.
As the man fell Naruto felt a wave of exhaustion ripple through him, bringing him to all fours. He noted that Mizuki was bleeding on the ground next to him, then wondered how that had happened. Another wave ripped through him and Naruto fell to the ground, asleep.
*Drip*
Naruto twitched as a drop of water fell on his cheek. His head was pounding, he was dizzy, a fog filled his mind.
*Drip*
Another minute splash, this time on his nose, making him sneeze as the water entered his nostril. Naruto felt shallow water under his hands. Had he fallen asleep in class and his year mates were pranking him? No, no: the smell was all wrong. The classrooms smelled like new paper and chalk, not dampness and… Metal?
*Drip*
This drop landed on the boy's closed eyelid, prompting him to sit up and wipe it away. As soon as he shifted position, though, a spear of pain drove through his skull. Naruto held his head as the throbbing subsided, wiping his eye clear as he waited. Eventually the pain left, and Naruto blearily opened his eyes.
He was sitting in what appeared to be some sort of abandoned service tunnel or a repurposed cave network. The walls and ceiling were of a dark stone, chisel marks plain to see. Some places were mirror smooth, others were rough to the touch. Pipes ran along the walls and overhead, crossing over and under each other, sometimes diving in and out of the stone. A thin layer of water lay on the floor of the hall, preternaturally still. A faint rush of air could be heard, as though hearing a bellows from a distance.
Naruto slowly stood; relieved when the pain did not manifest, yet confused when he looked down. His motion had not disturbed the water. Naruto shuffled his feet. The water did not move, yet he heard a splashing sound as though it had. His thoughts were disturbed by an ominous voice.
"Come…"
Naruto could almost feel that voice resounding through his bones. With no other real options, he followed the voice. Through winding corridors, past doors of metal and stone, the voice guided him through the labyrinthine passages of the waterlogged caverns. Eventually Naruto came upon a set of heavy metal doors. At least thirteen feet high and easily as wide, the door was unblemished.. It was kept shut by a thick sliding bolt.
"COME."
Naruto jumped, the voice was much louder now. He could hear the metal door rattle on its hinges. Swallowing his trepidation, Naruto unbolted the door and stepped through.
The room on the other side of the door was massive: the walls were easily a quarter-mile apart and probably more, the ceiling looked to be higher than the Hokage's tower. Across from Naruto, though, was the only feature in the massive space. A great cage made up one of the walls; each bar was dark and wide, the only way to discern them from the inky blackness beyond was to seek out the dull shine of the metal. A small patch of white was located near the center though, and Naruto couldn't puzzle out what it was.
He began walking closer; the water swishing and sloshing under his stride, though still no ripples. The rushing air had become more defined since he had entered the room and had become louder as he approached the cage. It sounded like breathing.
Naruto stopped when he could make out the white spot on the bars.
Where on a normal gate or cage there would be a latch, a lock, a pin, or some other sort of fastening mechanism, there was a simple piece of paper with the kanji for "Seal" written on it. Transfixed by the oddity, Naruto stepped closer.
A massive red eye opened behind the seal.
Naruto yelped and jumped back, this time causing ripples to form on the water. Naruto took no note, though the owner of the eye did.
It chuckled. "Are you afraid of me, little one?"
Naruto's knees quaked imperceptibly. Yet more ripples formed.
A titanic set of teeth revealed themselves as the beast grinned. "I see that you are. It is understandable that you would fear me. Still yourself: I cannot harm you. No more than I could harm myself."
Naruto let out a shaky breath, then inhaled. He repeated the exercise thrice more before he was calm. As he settled, more of the being in front of him was revealed. Red fur covered a vulpine snout, long ears swept backwards towards a lithe body and nine shimmering and shifting tails, each as long as the Hokage's Tower and as flexible as the finest wire.
Naruto was dazed by the sheer majesty of the creature; he could not help but to ask: "What are you?"
The fox made a chuffing sound in it's throat. "I have been many things to many people. To some, I am a god. To others, I am a force of nature. A few have known me as a protector and guide. But to your people, to your village, I am known as the Kyubi no Kitsune or else as Kyubi no Yoko. I am the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox."
Naruto's mind was reeling. This was the monster that had ravaged Konoha? This was the beast that the Fourth Hokage sacrificed himself to kill?
"How-" Naruto's throat went dry. He swallowed and tried again.
"How are you here? We were taught that the Fourth Hokage killed you."
At this the fox outright laughed! It was a chilling thing: nothing that powerful should be able to produce such a normal sound. "I am afraid that the circumstances of my death have been only slightly exaggerated. The man who fought me nigh on fourteen years ago was mortal. It takes one immortal being to kill another. The most that the ningen could do was to guide the God of Death, the Shinigami, to seal me away. Into you."
The Kyubi turned both eyes on the blonde, studying him. How would a lesser being process the idea that they contained an entity of such might and nobility? How did a human cope with the fact that they had been touched by a god? How would a child deal with the newly revealed truth of their existence as a sacrifice and a safeguard for a village that would gladly see him dead?
By laughing, apparently.
It started as a small chuckle, little more than a snort, then erupted into full-blown guffaws as the boy placed his hands on his knees. He steadied, then burst into a new fit of merriment; eventually he collapsed into a sitting position, one leg under the other.
The boy took in a deep shuddering breath while raking his hand back through his golden hair in an effort to calm himself. He locked eyes with the fox with his hand still sifting through the freshly-tousled mass. "So, what do you want?"
The Kyubi blinked. Slowly. "What do you mean?"
Naruto sighed, then leaned back so one of his hands supported some of his weight, gesturing with the other. "I mean what do you desire? Do you want to conquer the world? Do you want a soul to eat? Do you want me to destroy Konoha? What do you want? I'm going to be stuck with you for a while."
Then Naruto grinned. "Unless you know how to pull us apart without killing us."
The Kyubi blinked again. "That would be an impressive feat, for I am already dead. As are you."
Naruto spluttered for a moment, disturbing the water under him, then: "Dead? How can we be dead if we're not in the afterlife? I don't know about you, but Konoha isn't exactly my idea of Amaterasu's Palace."
The demon's fur rippled along its length as it chuckled. "We are dead in the sense that we are no longer what we were. Whatever I was, and whatever you were going to be, is no more. Instead we are as we are."
Naruto's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."
"The Shinigami melded our souls; twined them together in the furnace of his might, then struck them with a blow that forever bound the two. Over time we shall mix and overlap until only one distinct individual remains, stronger than either and gleaming in its newness. Until then, another could look at us and see the remnants of the two that were."
The blonde was still grappling with the imagery that the fox used to illustrate how he was dead. He tried, and failed, to comprehend several times until the fox gave him an impression of his meaning.
A man gathered red sand from a beach, melted it into metal. He held the cooled mass in a forge, folding the bar and mixing it with the orange ashes of the flame. He polished the metal, smoothing it until it mirrored his face when he looked into its side. Naruto understood.
"So, I am not only myself, but a part of you?"
The fox nodded. "As I am a part of you. This seal was made to merge us slowly, so as to spare the world the shock of a new being, such as what we will become, coming suddenly into existence. Small spirits alone can cause a mountain to fall; we will be, and are, far more than they."
Naruto became confused again, an understandable thing when one took his company into account. "Spirits? What are they?"
The fox's eye slimmed. "A lesson for another day. You quicken. Tell no one that we spoke. We shall again later."
With that the room blurred, and Naruto felt himself falling.
The blonde demon container awoke in a familiar office. He was lying on a couch, the room was empty. Portraits of past Hokage adorned the walls, a small library stood in the far corner from the door. Naruto sat up, scanning the rest of the office.
He immediately noticed the aged man sitting behind the large desk just before a wide window. Outside of and below that window lay the skyline of Konoha, lights twinkling in the night as streetlamps illuminated streets and lamps lit homes. Before the window sat an aged man with sun-darkened skin and a pipe with smoke drifting lazily out from under the wide conical hat.
The Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi; known to Naruto for most of his life as "Saru-Jiji". Monkey Gramps.
The old man smiled.
"Ah, Naruto. I was wondering when you'd wake up. Would you mind clearing up what happened tonight?"