AN: Iwa made him their container, but he wouldn't listen to their dictator—Deidara at his side, Kenta thought he could hide, but really he's stuck there forever.

(how many times will I think up better intros to this story? ugh)

In which Kenta is a bothersome boy, Deidara is his better (smarter) half already, and sometimes, people just dont appreciate colourful insults and constant disrespect

Fuck Count: 41

Word count: 5, 666 (nice)

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Chapter 4 - Chalk is cheap

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Revenge is all good, plotting is fun

But who will you tell when you're all done.

Like having a partner who knows what you mean

When you slam the establishment and rage against the machine.

Deidara's awesome, his hair is real nice

We did some fun sparring and he let me win twice

My new partner's cool, though his hands are real sweaty

When he gets his upgrades, I'll throw some confetti.

Written by, like, a really clever poet

[written in the margins below, in someone else's handwriting is a messily scrawled 'My hands are a normal amount of sweaty? Stop grabbing them then?']

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"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a killer bee should be able to—SHIT!"

Deidara's hand shot out and caught the forehead protector tied around Kenta's neck before the other boy fell to the ground. He adjusted his grip and grabbed his arm to steady him. "That's pretty unfortunate. Is that like, a Kumo thing? Gross."

Kenta righted himself, shooting the blonde a disgruntled look. "You cut me off before I could continue."

Deidara shuffled back a couple steps, sizing Kenta up. "Did I, yeah?"

"Yeah." Deidara ducked a sloppy punch, a quick flash of a smile on his face before his leg swung out again to clip Kenta's knee. Instead of falling back like before, he dodged, and shot his partner another scowl. "You just don't want to hear the rest of it. I know—you don't have to say it out loud."

"Oh, well—" Deidara lunged right, locking Kenta's arm behind his back and driving him to the ground. His knee dug into Kenta's back, and he held back a cackle as Kenta fruitlessly thrashed his legs behind him in the dirt. "I didn't know you could read my mind. What else am I thinking, hm?"

"Fuck you," Kenta spluttered into the dirt. "That's an illegal hold! I'm being manhandled!"

He pulled Kenta's other arm behind him and securing both wrists with wire, Deidara gently sat down on Kenta's back as the other boys' legs kicked up dust. The blonde coughed, looking down at his partner and wrinkling his nose. "Yeaaahhh…. not even close, you nasty."

"Boys, please stop talking when you're supposed to be blocking." Kitsuchi grumbled, bothered they were getting along so well but not bothered enough to get off his ass and set them straight. A terrible decision, really.

"Which one of us here is supposed to be good at rhymes, hmm?" Deidara smirked as Kenta kicked up another cloud of dirt. "Kitsuchi-sensei, I didn't know you had it in you."

"Don't be impressed by him! Kitsuchi has absolutely nothing going on between those ears of his, a real poet takes hours to come up with a single good-sounding line!." Kenta struggled to pull apart the wire binding his wrists, but all he did was make things worse. He floundered, helpless. It was goddamn degrading.

Kitsuchi turned a page in his book. "I mean, maybe for you."

"Haha, I get it, I'm a shitty writer. Someone set me free!"

Deidara, still sitting on him and doing absolutely nothing to make this easier for Kenta's pride, didn't move an inch. "Well, since you asked so nicely, yeah, sure. You can get up now."

Kenta huffed, a small cloud of dust billowing up in front of his face and clouding his glasses. "Hilarious. Where do you get off? Because it certainly isn't off of me, you ass."

"I thought it was a pretty good joke," muttered Kitsuchi, looking back down at his novel while his student was being brutalized on the ground. "Whatever, pack it up, we have a mission to do and only a couple hours to clean up the mess you both made during the last one." He glared above the pages of his book. "Deidara."

The blonde quickly leapt to his feet. "It's not my fault! How was I supposed to know that random sacks of flour were explosive, hmm?"

Kenta watched him, his wrists bound behind him. "I can't actually untie myself—"

"That's exactly something you would know." Kitsuchi fired back at the blond, ignoring his other student.

"Like, maybe a little help—"

Deidara kept to the defensive. "Okay, maybe, yeah. But it's not like I left them out there to begin with."

Kenta huffed. "It's not like I couldn't get out of this on my own to begin with, but we all have our vices. Someone—"

"They were sitting in front of a bakery, kid. Cut the crap?" Said Kitsuchi incredulously. The explosion had been quite memorable.

Deidara was hardly apologetic. "Life is fleeting, they should have appreciated the flour when they had it!"

"You threw paper bombs at them!"

"Just leave me here to die, really, I don't mind." Kenta buried his face in the filth on the ground, resigned to his misery. "Of all the ways to—eUGH!" He yelped as Deidara hoisted him up by the arm, cutting through the wire with a kunai from his pouch.

"Better, hmm?"

Kenta's glasses slipped down his nose, but all he could do was glare. His partner was such a cheeky prick. "...thanks."

"Right, then." Kitsuchi closed his stupid little romance book and faced them both. It looked like he had been reading some sort of tropical romance with the most bland, soul sucking vanilla cover Kenta had ever seen. Of course his sensei was basic as fuck, it just made sense. "Are we ready to get going?"

Kenta adjusted his glasses and started dusting himself off. "Sure, yeah, if the village needs another dumbass cat rescued from a tree, or a little old lady to walk across the street. Honestly, what better use of my time? I love helping the jackholes who benefit from human sacrifice."

"You'll love it even more when you get to work as the village's mail boy tooday," Kitsuchi said dryly, handing him a mission scroll.

"I love helping jackholes who benefit from my sacrifice even more when they're pushy jerks about it." Kenta passed the scroll to Deidara without even looking at it, staring unblinkingly up at his sensei. "You're fucking welcome by the way."

Kitsuchi sighed deeply, looking like he just wanted this conversation to be over. Finally, he asked, "for what?"

"Being the sacrifice that saved your ugly hide."

"Thanks for the hourly reminder."

Deidara rolled the scroll back up, grumbling to himself. He tossed it back at their sensei, shoving his (sweaty) artist hands into his pockets. "You had to pick a team co-op mission for this? You couldn't have just let us do our own thing? What a bummer."

Kenta winced. "Who are we saddled with?"

"Some borning nobody named Akatsuchi—" Kenta relaxed. "—and some chick named Kurotsuchi."

"NO!" Kenta threw a punch at his sensei, which was easily blocked. "You're a nightmare! You're trying to make my life more difficult aren't you?! Go have your daddy time somewhere else you old hag!"

"Ohhh, is Kenty afraid of a widdle girl, hmm?" Deidara mocked, also blocking a punch sent his way. The blonde snickered. "That's hilarious."

"Your face is hilarious!" Kenta tossed a fistfull of dirt at him, and soon enough they were at it again, kicking and scratching at each other for no reason this time, and Kitsuchi was as useless as fuck ever.

For the second time in minutes, Kenta was pinned to the ground with an overly smug, dirty heathen sitting on top of him. But at least this time his pretty hair and face was messed up, so like. It was a Win?

"Keep trying, yeah? Maybe someday you'll be able to fight your way out of a wet paper bag." Deidara looked like a ruffled, pissy cat, as he gently wiped the dirt from his face with the sleeve of his robe. "Sensei do you have a rag?"

"Not for you," Kitsuchi sighed, hands on his hips. "I'm still down a handkerchief after the molotov cocktail incident. You two are a menace."

"So you—get the hell off me—thought you'd throw in your daughter to spice some things up?" Kenta wheezed, kicking his legs back and managing to clip Deidara with enough force to make the blonde move. "What if I go nuclear?"

"You can't, and you won't," Kitsuchi said, rubbing his temples. "I know what I'm doing."

Deidara, still trying to get the grime out of his stupid fancy hair, asked, "What does nuclear mean?"

"The biggest explosion you could ever dream of."

"Big, yeah?"

"Enough to vaporize entire mountains and landscapes."

Deidara's pupils dilated, he clasped his grubby little hands together. "Ohh, my god, I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Kitsuchi groaned. "Save your pillowtalk for another time, please. We have a mission, remember?"

"Are we good?" Kenta asked, ignoring the whiny pissbaby voice of his teacher. There were other things on his mind. "Because we need to square the fuck up when K spawn Jr. rolls in. She has an accomplice now, I don't know what she's capable of, and we definitely need to stick together—"

"Deidara-kun is that you?" The cheerful laughter of the devil sounded out behind Kenta, and he knew the it was too late. "It's been so long!"

"You know her, why didn't you say that you know her?" Kenta hissed, holding onto Deidara's sleeve in a death-grip as the other boy happily greeted the parasite. She was taller than them both, as well as her teammate lagging behind. Robotically, Kenta turned to Kitsuchi's spawn. "I thought your family had done Enough."

"You'd be wrong," she smiled, her new shiny forehead protector wrapped around her neck. Her smile widened, looking at the placement of his. "Hey, look at that, we match."

"Twinzies," Deidara, the fucking traitor, said under his breath, somehow finding the humor in their ambush. He did seem more and more uncomfortable standing in between the two of them though, like they were about to start swinging any moment.

Good, sweat a little more, piggy. Squirm.

Kenta dropped Deidara's arm, his hand reaching to his pocket. "One of us is going to have to go."

"You mean change?"

Kenta pulled out a kunai. "No, go."

"There's going to be no attempts on my daughter's life while I'm here," hissed Kitsuchi, plucking the harmless little weapon out of Kenta's hands with more force than necessary. Like a bitch. He rounded on Kenta, who could already see a lecture coming on. His daughter was literally the only thing that could get his sensei riled up, it was so predictable. "If you think that sort of behavior will be tolerated—"

"Daddy, I don't think he meant any harm," the homunculus interrupted, sweetly smiling up to her creator. Her liquid compound eyes shifted over to the sacrifice in front of her, and stretched the skin around on her face in a mockery attempt at what humans could have called a smile, a smirk, (if they were blind). "Besides, I don't even think four-eyes can even throw straight…. if he even knows what that word means."

"I'll show you straight," Kenta hissed, reaching for his hollister again, before his sensei yanked his arm back.

Nuclear, he thought. Kenta had been fucking robbed.

It must've shown on his face, because then Deidara quietly whispered "ka-boom," with hand-reenactments and everything. God, those upgrades really couldn't come soon enough.

Kenta couldn't even look at the dumpster fire in front of him anymore, instead, looking back at the antichrist's poor victim that had tagged along with. Their sensei had moved on from being a boring, quiet stalker and started chatting up Kitsuchi, who kept sending Kenta warning glances not to off his genetic mark on the world.

Whatever, buzzkill.

The other kid, Akatsuchi was… nothing, there was nothing special about this guy at all. Totally boring in every way, he had absolutely nothing going for him in life other than his baby-fat figure, and his pug-like face that just reminded Kenta so much of Ōnoki he wanted to puke.

So naturally, he insulted him.

"So are you the face-sitter's unwanted bastard or just his ugly failed clone?"

And the kid burst into tears.

The nerve?

"What the hell did you say?" Kurotsuchi was spitting flames at him as she tried to console the giant baby next to her, patting his back and giving him a one-armed hug. "It's okay, it's okay don't listen to that mean jerk, he didn't mean it."

"H—He didnt?" The irrelevant kid blubbered, looking up hopefully between his ugly snotty tears. Figures, a nose like that could pack a wallop.

"I mean it was a question, I wanted to know which one was the truth."

Deidara let out a startled laugh, like he had been trying hard to hold it in and couldn't. Akatsuchi started crying harder.

"You two are the worst!" Kitsuchi hissed, baring her teeth at them. Finally, she was showing her true devil colours instead of wearing the face of a little girl. The Truth would set them all free, and it would be forged through fire and the defeat of his enemy. "Apologize, both of you!"

"W-why are you lumping m-me in with him?" Deidara choked, struggling to rein in his composure. "I d-didn't say anything."

Kenta stuffed his hands into his pockets, indignant and undisturbed by the sobbing punk in front of him. "He's supposed to be a ninja, right? you're not in preschool anymore, people say words sometimes. Get over yourselves."

"You are such an insufferable prick." Kurotsuchi dropped her arm slung across the baby's massive shoulders, which was impressive because whats-his-name was supposed to be like, A Child. To be honest it just counted towards Kenta's theory that Ōnoki was trying to grow himself a bigger body so he could reach the big-boy shelves. "You're lucky my dad is here, I'd have broken your nose already, you smarmy little punk."

Deidara glanced up at their sensei, who shrugged. "I mean if that's all thats stopping you…"

"II'm ssworry fffor bewing ss so mmean," Kenta sniffled, jutting out his bottom lip. "Yyowu ddon't nweed t-to saywe such mean wwordws…. owo, I mwight c-cry twoo... ."

Kurotsuchi's fist slammed into Kenta's face without a second of hesitation.

"Wh—ftuftafheck?" Kenta stumbled backwards, blood splattering to the ground and coating the front of his shirt. Thankfully Deidara caught him, but as he brought his hand up to his crooked swelling nose, his eyes started watering as the pain set in and—she just fucking punched him!?

"Oh no, looks like you're the one crying now," Kurotsuchi said flatly, shaking out her hand. "Funny how that happened."

"I-I was—? I didn't—! You fuCK—?!"

By her side, Akatsuchi gasped, wide eyed at how much of a deadass bitch she revealed herself to be. Obviously now he was thinking of running far, far away and not idolizing her at all.

"Y-you did that… f-for me?" the irrelevant kid said, drying his eyes as his partner nodded at him. "You're k-kind of amazing..."

"Yeah laugh it up ugly, it won't make your face any less of a mess!" Kenta's voice came out pitched and choked. The lense on his glasses slid down the side of his face, beating his fucking nosebleed and the water (NOT TEARS, FUCK YOU) gathering in his traitorous fucking baby eyes.

Deidara had seen enough to want to retreat. He looked anxiously between the two, tugging Kenta back before he earned another punch to the face. "Ok I'm picking your battles for you now, and I think it's time to ease back on the insults, yeah?"

Kenta sneered at him. "Where's your loyalty? You should help me kick her ass, you traitor."

"Where's the beauty in that?" Deidara put his hands on his hips, unperturbed by the blood fucking gushing from Kenta's face. "Sorry for caring. I should just let you tear eachother apart, I'm sure it'd go off with a bang."

"I should be allowed to go nuclear! It's my right to be able to blow a bitch out of the water, this is so unfair—" Kenta grasped at the seal planted over his heart, locking down his chakra flow and keeping him from his destiny. He threw his shirt off, scratching at the ink on his chest. "If I could use chakra you muppets would be toast, I'd wear you out like like the cheap sock puppets you are, I'd take my foot and shove it so far I'd have a pair of leg warmers. The winters would be cold but I'd be right fucking warm all night long—"

"Are you ready to start the mission?" Kitsuchi asked, jumping in at the last fucking moment. "Time to go."

Shirtless, bleeding from his broken nose, Kenta squinted at him through his broken glasses. A mess of his own making.

"What."

(He had also maybe gotten a little lost in the narrative he had been building. He hadn't even gotten to the part about making a matching pair of gloves yet?)

"Ready to go, daddy~!" Kurotsuchi skipped past him with a cheeky fucking smile on her face, pulling along her partner by the hand, like they were best fucking friends in the world now.

Deidara picked up Kenta's shirt, hurling it at his hand, which he missed, (because fucking depth perception sucks when your glasses are broken by Girls Who Punch Good). The shirt hit in smack in the face.

"Yikes." Deidara winced. "Come on, let's just get this over with."

"Easy for you to say, traitor."

The blonde frowned. "Hmm. Would it make you feel any better if I said I only knew her because she bullied me in the academy?"

Kenta pulled his shirt back on. "I dunno, did you deserve it?"

"Absolutely," Deidara grinned. "You have a better chance with me at your side getting your revenge on her than you do with any of her other enemies."

"And from there, I can work my way up to the top." Kenta rubbed his hands together. "Okay, maybe you're forgiven. For now. Next time try to save my face if you see any punches thrown my way though, its all I have."

"All?" Deidara asked, dubious. "That's unfortunate."

"Shut up, pretty boy."

Deidara tossed a lock of blonde hair over his shoulder, batting his eyes. "You think I'm pretty?"

"Like a picture. I know you spend an two hours every day getting ready, go fish for compliments in someone's else's pond."

"Looking good is An Art," Deidara sniffed. "You'd know if you ever washed your face, you caveman."

"People wash their face?"

"Wh—yes?"

"And that shit works?"

"Are you being serious right now?"

"I mean—wait, are you?"

"I can't deal with this." Deidara held up his hand and closed his eyes, looking pained. "Let's just get this mission over with so I can afford food tomorrow."

"You'd be able to eat well if you stopped spending all your cash on paints and makeup, bitch." Kenta spat a wad of red onto the ground and gave his best sneer at the kids leaving him behind, but his heart wasn't in it. All the steam had left him after that muppet thing. He was still kinda thinking about it actually.

God. he thought, watching them go. Kids. All fully fledged shinobi. What a waste—

Kurotsuchi shot him a little wave as she left him behind, her knuckles pink and speckled with crimson. All sympathy flew out the door and he was back, hating her fucking guts again.

Filthy little ingrates.

This family would the the death of him.

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Roshi paced outside the home of the new Jinchūriki's residence, mulling over the words he had practiced in his head.

How would it go, reaching out to the new human container, now that the child's life was so drastically altered? How could he speak with the boy, impart on him the wisdom forty years of this life that Roshi had experienced? He wanted to help, he wanted to reach out and extend the hand he had once wished was there for himself.

Maybe, perhaps the two could be allowed to train together, Ōnoki would allow them that much, yes? There was hope, if only—if only Roshi knew how…

Finally, the boy came within distance. "Ah, Ken'ichi Ishikawa, it's good to catch you—"

"No, not fucking happening." Kenta stepped right under Roshi's outstretched hand and unlocked his door. "I'd too tired for whatever shit you're planning, thank you, good day."

"Wait, what—?" The wisdom, the information he could give; Roshi wanted to introduce the boy to his tailed beast, cultivate a relationship. He had mediated on this subject for days— "Um."

"Bye." Kenta slammed the door behind him, dumping his bag by the door and peeling off his sandals.

After a second thought, he turned around—

A muffled, confused, "Ishikawa-san?" sounded out behind the door.

Kenta locked it behind him for good measure.

He wasn't doing this again. Never.

Setting his sandals by the rest of the shoes, he blindly reached out for his slippers. He had a new pair of glasses in his pocket after buying a new pair in the market today—the brightest obnoxious colour blue he could find, because that was just how he wanted it. To be honest, he probably had some long standing debt running with the glasses guy who kept having to replace them, but since the face-sitter sealed a fucking horse inside him, Kenta figured he's pass the bill onto the old man. It was only fair.

Inside was a mess, but he carefully navigated around the trash and shit his Nana hoarded, reaching down to scoop up a plant pot that had been knocked down (again). He placed it a little further back onto its original spot, rubbing his hands together to get the dirt off his fingers after shovelling it all back into place.

He couldn't pick out any signs of life in the house, but figured his aunt was either tucked away in a corner or something or her stacks of collectibles had finally toppled over on top of her and she was dead or something. "Nana? Are you awake?"

A cup whizzed over him, missing his head by at least three feet. Ah, the kitchen then.

"There's nothing in the house for you to steal! Get out of here, I'm calling the police!"

"Calm down—" Kenta made a face as the little old lady shuffled as fast her her legs could carry her across the kitchen, running from him. How the hell she could navigate amongst all this trash was beyond him. Temper short today, on account of the nose punching, he really didn't want to fucking deal with this today. "It's just me, you know who I am."

Without looking, she shuffled after. "No I don't! Go away!"

"You're being unreasonable," he hissed, following after her in a few easy strides. He caught the lamp before it fell, cursing after her. "Why would I want to rob this drump? You never throw anything out."

Her head snapped over to him, and she narrowed her eyes behind the dish-wide glasses that rested on her face. With the low light, her face seemed to glow, and her eyes took him him, recognizing and uncomprehending at the same time, because she was a crazy old lady off her fucking meds. "You're not my niece."

Kenta rolled his eyes, not amused. "I'm your nephew, use your fucking glasses, and get over yourself."

"No, you—" She cast a gnarled hand at the point above his heart, where his Jinchūriki seal was. "—are not my nephew. Get out of this house. Leave me alone."

This wasn't the first time she had said that. It wasn't. But somehow it just added to the shit that he had dealt with today. Kenta groaned. "You're out of your mind—why are you always like this now? It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

"Get your cursed demon hide outta my house!" She hissed, wrenching her hand back and padding further and faster away from him, her shawl trailing behind her.

Now that she recognized him, something keenly burned in the pit of Kenta's stomach. He couldn't deny the fact that she was right.

He didn't chase after her. He watched her slam her bedroom door behind her, sighing when another plant pot got knocked over from the force. She had surprising strength for an old lady. It was always the plants that got the worst of it.

"The Clozapine is next to the bed, you stupid old hag!" She probably couldn't hear him anyway. "Right next to the Respect-Kenta-Juice….bitch."

Ten minutes later he was pulling on his shoes again and heading out the door. The place stunk of mothballs and old lady musk anyway—he wasn't running away. They had a mission out of the country next week and he had to stock up on soldier pills and shit, the market was probably still open. It didn't matter if he just came from there and using this as an excuse to leave the apartment, it wasn't like he was wanted there anyway.

Opening the door, the old fucker from before was still waiting outside, meditating, and a part of Kenta just wanted to scream. Another part just deeply wanted to slam the door on him again. Maybe this time he'd get lucky and avoid any bullshit this stupid adult was trying to rope him into. Kenta could Only Fucking Hope.

But no, he didn't actually want to stay inside. He had drugs to buy, and pointy weapons to play with.

Breaking his seiza, Roshi opened his mouth to say something.

Kenta cut him off before he could even start. "I'm not interested."

"You haven't even heard what I'm going to say," the fossil argued, frowning at him as Kenta easily darted around him and made a break for the market.

What did these old fuckers even want with him? Why couldn't they solve their own fucking problems? Why was it always him they sought out?

The dinosaur pursued him, relentless. "These are stressful times for you—"

"Yeah, no freaking way. You picked that up from my Aura, my Chi? My ~chakras~? Ohh, incredible, you must be someone important." Kenta ducked bewteen a couple and tried to shake him, no no avail. "I don't care what you're going to say, I'm fucking busy, alright?"

"Not even if it means a better understanding of the beast inside you?" Roshi called after him, stopping.

"My inner beast, what a joke." Kenta scoffed, turning to him. "What is this, some sort of teen drama? I'm not a fucking werewolf. Go bark up someone else's tree and leave me alone."

"I mean, the transformation is more of a cloak—"

"I'm not transforming into a fucking dolphin horse, okay? Take your furry shit somewhere else, thanks."

"I could teach you how to avoid it."

Kenta hesitated for a second, before—his common fucking sense kicked in, because he already knew everything, and Ōnoki signed his death warrant, so he'd really rather focus on having his small petty revenge against the kage instead of finding his ~Inner Tranquility~ and Taming The Beast Inside him. That kind of bullshit wasted time.

He'd be better off getting trampled by the Gobi directly than talking to this loser, whoever he was. Someone irrelevant as fuck probably.

"I'll pass. Fucking go host a sermon or something if you want to pass on some enlightenment. I'd sure there's other suckers out there willing to drink your kool-aid."

"You may not be able to stand on your own, son," called out the monk, further away as Kenta walked away from him. "It's good to have allies sometimes."

Kenta really couldn't care less about what the old prick had to say about tailed beasts. "Then I'll find one on my own, definitely not in you."

ᛜ

Suddenly he kind of regretted not listening to the old bat. Talking about the Gobi must've listened a few screws loose in the seal.

"yOU mOck ThE haNd thAt IS ofFerEd to yOu…." A warbled, high pitched voice intoned, the weight of the vibrations coming from it beating to the sound of Kenta's heartbeat. He could feel the sound in his chest, his ribs. "yOu trUly ArE thE fOoL oF yOUr bLoOdLinE…."

"Yeah? And what's it to you?" Kenta called out to the darkness, his voice carrying further than his eyes could see. He was in a place of nothingness, of darkness. There was nothing but fog and the knowing fact that something out there was looming, watching him. His instincts told him to run, but there was no place to hide. "If I'm a fool then you're a fucking coward. Come out and face me!"

"I oWe YoU noThing…" Spoke the voice . At this point Kenta was getting real tired of this bullshit, and he started waking in the loudest direction the sound, aimless as it echoed around him. "pERsUe AnD yOu WiLl Perish… aS iT haS bEeN FoR aLL oF yOur KiNd….. yOu nEveR Do chAnGe….."

"Are you accusing me of learning? You really don't know me then." He turned in a circle, searching for the gigantic fucking horse dolphin that had to be somewhere, because it was too damn obvious that was what this was, but he couldn't see a fucking thing.

Actually, he didn't even have his glasses on, so how the hell could he see at all?

"yOU seE wHAt You dESire, NothINg FurthEr….. I wOulD PItY YoU, iF yOu deSerVed aS mUch….."

"Bla, bla, I've heard it all before. Do you have anything useful to say?"

Kenta sat down on the white-grassy field that he was wandering through, looking down at his hands in crystal clarity. Funny how things worked in the beast real or whatever, he looked bigger than his stupid little kid body did. More normal. He could get used to it….

"How does this usually go?" he huffed. Cooperation was like, a thing for them, right? Fine, whatever, if it meant he could start healing the broken noses Kurotsuchi ket fucking giving him. Being bros with a horse could be easy. He just needed some sugar cubes or something, horses were like giant, stupid pigs. "We need to tolerate each other if you want your freedom. We're probably going to die in a couple years anyway, might as well strike up some sort of agreement.."

"I dID nOt caLL yOu HerE fOr A dEaL….." rumbled the Bijuu, its voice pitched like an angry squeal.

Kenta raised an eyebrow. "Then what's your damage?"

"I wILl nOt bOw tO yoU… YoU wILl NevER REceIVe mY heLp… nO maTtEr whAt yOU mAy tHinK. "

"Is that it? You're delusional." he said, his voice tight. "Then we'll die. Is that what you want?"

"ThEN pERIsh."

As the steam and mist faded, the ground beneath him moved—clouds parting and sinking below him, until he realized it wasn't down, but up, as the Gobi stood. In a single motion, it shook its coat, dislodging Kenta from its fur and shaking him off its back, the wind whistling pas him as he fell—

The creature's chest rumbled like a stormcloud, and this time Kenta could see its eyes, the red sclera, the pulled flesh around its mouth. He could see the beast's attempt at what teeth might look like, if chakra could have a mouth and eyes and looked like a living creature at all—

Its head dove towards him as he neared the ground, its mouth opened up, unmoving as its words filled his head. He could feel it's anger, its hatred coiling inside him as he fell, sick and vile like a leeshing parasite.

The steam rolling of its coat was palpable, and he was blasted in the face by it's hot breath, its teeth circling around him as the ground inched ever closer.

"nOw bE GonE."

And then its jaws snapped tight, and it fucking ate him.

ᛜ

Kenta woke the night before their mission sweating, afraid to go back to sleep.

This would be the last time he ever spoke to his Bijuu. It stayed true to its word. He wouldn't be able to use its chakra no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe the old man had been right. Maybe he was a liiiiiittle bit fucked.

...well. Now he could add the Gobi to list of people who signed his death warrant.

Things just got better and better.

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