Thanks to kylekatarn77, Serious Sam, Leaf Ranger, and all the rest of you guys for helping me with the chapter. I can only give thanks to your tireless effort at helping me.
PREVIOUS CHAPTER: Naruto went through the last enhancements that Kurumi can think of giving him, permanently integrating the changes into his body as a bloodline named the Astartes bloodline. She swore that she will no longer use her powers after this for she hated how godlike it was. One night, however, Naruto was once again beaten by the drunk matron, but this time, he had the body to survive. As she tried to find a way to kill him, Naruto managed to flee. But as he was running away, Kurumi dropped a bombshell, telling him she knew why he was treated as such.
CHAPTER 6: REVELATIONS
UPLOADED: 13 DECEMBER 2015
-CHAPTER START-
"You know, Naruto. I never planned on having your body grow so fast when I created your bloodline, hehe," Kurumi said with a small forced giggle at the end, trying to calm Naruto down as he ran within the forest with no set destination, his senses primed to detect anyone that followed him despite his anger. The winds roared around him as he shot through the woods that gave the Hidden Village in the Leaf, Konohagakure its name. His bare feet pushed upon the rough and messy forest floor, his thick skin protecting him from everything he might have stepped on.
"Never thought that you'd end up like this. It seems that-"
"Shut up." Naruto's harsh words, said out slowly, stopped Kurumi's joking comments cold as Naruto continued his leap through the trees. His hand slowly rubbed his abdomen, the remnants of the pain made him flinch slightly despite the lack of any visible mark from the injury on his body. His anger boiled again from the recollection, nearly causing him to lash out at her once more.
"Naruto-"
"Shut up!" he hissed as silent as he could. "You…" he drew a deep breath, letting the cool night air into his three lungs to calm his raging hearts. "Wait until I find a good spot. Now is not the time."
"Naruto…" Kurumi slowly said, already regretting her words from before about her knowing the reason for his abuse. But still, she'll keep her promise. She'll tell him everything, and leave everything else to him. "Alright. I'll talk later then."
As silent as death, Naruto continued his fast movement. To his relief, no one seemed to be around this part of the forest. Thanks to the skills obtained from his frequent hunting trips, he could nearly delete his presence, making him feel just like a wild animal to anyone nearby. Through the village's many trees he ran, searching for a good location for Kurumi to tell her story.
Finally, after some searching, he found a suitable place. A small clearing filled with dried leaves with a stream running beside it, a sure sign that no one had been there for a long time. Stopping there, Naruto sniffed the air, letting his olfactory senses, enhanced by his Neuroglottis to pick up the scent of any living being lingering in the air. He smelled a wide variety of animals and plant life, but no humans around. A quick scan of his surroundings with his eyes showed no presence of any chakra signature, except for small ones barely even worth registering. Even so, he was still wary, his Lyman's Ears fixed on looking for any sounds of humans around him as he sat down in the clearing.
Sitting cross legged on the layer of dried leaves on the forest floor, Naruto drew deep breaths, letting the tranquillity of the forest seep into himself through all his senses as he sought to calm his angry heart, Kurumi silently watching from within himself. After a while, Naruto exhaled a long breath, having calmed down enough to properly talk. 'Alright,' he finally spoke to her. 'We're here, no one's here, and I think this is good enough of a place for you to talk, so talk.'
"Okay," Kurumi said before she drew in a deep breath of her own to explain her deepest secret to Naruto. "Naruto, have I ever told you about Konoha's history?"
'No. why?'
"Then hear this story first," she said, telling Naruto her story. "Once upon a time there was the Kyuubi, a being of pure chakra, an immortal, extremely powerful being whose chakra was said to radiate death and destruction. The Kyuubi was old, maybe thousands of years old. No one actually knew since no one was alive from the time it existed."
Though still angry, Naruto can't help but listen to his mental voice with rapt attention as she told the story of the mysterious being named Kyuubi, instinctively knowing that this being would be the core of her story. Smiling as she felt this, Kurumi continued. "The Kyuubi was a huge creature, as tall as mountains. A swipe of one its massive tails was said to be capable of creating earthquakes and unleashes tsunamis."
Kurumi's story was interrupted as Naruto asked her 'Earthquakes…? Tsunamis…?'
"An earthquake is a powerful shake of the earth that could destroy entire villages while a tsunami was a massive wave of water that could drown a whole seaside town without mercy. Both of them are terrible natural disasters, ones that kill many."
'Oh. Okay!'
She smiled sadly as she heard Naruto's excited reply, knowing just how that smile would disappear as her story continued. Still expecting her fate, she continued. "The Kyuubi was not alone however. There were more like it, collectively called the Bijuu, from the one tail, the Ichibi, to the Kyuubi, the nine tailed being. However, unlike the rest of the Bijuu, the Kyuubi was never quite seen, only being heard in rumours and hearsay."
"The eight Bijuu rampaged across the land for some reason, destroying everything that they came upon, trampling over each and every sign of humanity that they encountered. This caused humans to fear them, and rightly so, for they were terrible beings, beings that were seemingly interested in only one thing: the destruction of humans."
"Due to their power, the Bijuu were unstoppable, rampaging across the land unchecked as everything that humanity threw at them were shrugged off without any effect whatsoever. But humanity persisted and fought back, and finally found a way to fight them: the use of sealing arts."
'Isn't that like what you told me before?' Naruto asked.
"Correct," she replied. "However, it was a high level art, unlike the basic ones that I taught you. And with seals, humanity managed to find a way to subdue them, which was to seal them within objects, a sacred kettle, for example, for the Ichibi, or so I heard. This temporarily stopped their rampage until the items that contained them finally broke, unable to contain the power that the Bijuu had."
'Wow,' Naruto said in awe. He never thought that such a being could be sealed within an object.
"One day, a clan managed to subdue the Bijuu, while another created seals to contain the Bijuu in a more permanent residence: a human's body. By sealing a Bijuu inside a person, the Bijuu would be better restrained than within the items. In fact, by sealing them within humans, the person who had a Bijuu within them could tap into the beast's terrible power, enhancing their own powers by a huge magnitude. They quickly became human weapons, a hidden power used to stop an entire war or to end it quickly, acting as deterrence."
'What's-'
"Deterrence means something that could stop someone from doing something , in this case attacking - to someone else - in this case the human weapon's village – through the fear of having the deterrent used on them – in this case, absolute destruction from the power of the Bijuu."
'Uh… that's quite hard,' Naruto said, scratching his head. That was a new word, and it's meaning was quite confusing to him.
"Don't worry," she smiled. "You'll understand it sooner or later. Anyway, the first clan was the Senju, and the second was the Uzumaki. That's how good your clan was at the sealing arts Naruto. I'm sorry I hid this from you. But I'll tell you about it later."
'Wow!' Naruto said in happiness. 'My clan is awesome!' he screamed inwardly, already forgetting his anger thanks to this story.
"And I'm sure you'll be able to continue their legacy," Kurumi said with a smile. "Back on track, all of the Bijuu were caught and sealed within a person – their jinchuuriki. All of them, except for one: the Kyuubi." She edited this so-called 'historical account' quite a bit, but she'd still give the full explanation later.
'What?' Naruto asked in surprise. 'How did it end up not getting caught?'
"Because unlike the other Bijuu, the Kyuubi hid itself within a mountain. It never showed itself, never did anything, and its existence was only known through legends."
'Oh yeah!' Naruto exclaimed in surprise. 'You said about it earlier! No one ever really found it!'
"Yes," she continued. "However, one day, out of nowhere, the Kyuubi appeared in the world. And as it appeared, it did what Bijuu do best: destroy things."
'Uh huh!' Naruto said, his excitement palpable. This story was getting to an interesting part!
"It appeared from out of nowhere at the outskirts of Konoha, its massive size dwarfed everything that was in the village. Its powers shone like a beacon, rendering all sensor nin within Konoha nearly dead due to the amount of power overloading their sixth sense. It slowly walked towards the village with one goal in mind: to destroy it."
'Wow!' Naruto said out in surprise. 'It must've been unstoppable!'
"It was," Kurumi said in a sad tone, slowly getting to her part of the story. "The ninjas of Konoha valiantly defended their prosperous village. They met the Kyuubi's march head-on, throwing jutsu and weapons at it to stop it. However, everything was in vain. Their jutsu impacted harmlessly on the Kyuubi's chakra form, the miniscule power the humans wielded splashed harmlessly on it, not even slowing it down one bit. The weapons all melted to slag the moment it came in contact with its corrosive chakra, such was the being's power that it couldn't be slowed down by any human method."
'Wow…' Naruto slowly said in awe, his anger completely forgotten at Kurumi's storytelling. Even though there were a lot of words that he didn't understand, he was sure that he could learn about them from Kurumi later on, so he let her continue her story, not interrupting.
"It's every step killed Konoha shinobi by the dozens. Its roar destroyed entire fortifications meant to stop human armies and sent massive trees flying like twigs in a storm. It walked towards its target unopposed, no one having the slightest bit of ability to stop it as it crushed and destroyed the walls of Konoha with a single flick of its massive tails, the powerful barriers that were made into the walls doing nothing to slow it down."
"The oppressive feeling of its chakra entered into the hearts of the people of Konoha like a terrible poison, the sheer level of terror that it created killing weaker willed people as the massive creature rampaged within Konoha's walls. More and more ninjas came to stop it, but nothing they did had any effect."
'That's awful!' Naruto said in fear and surprise. 'What happened then?' Naruto asked, getting more and more absorbed in the extremely fascinating story that Kurumi was telling.
"Suddenly, out came the Fourth Hokage, the current leader and the strongest ninja in the village with his signature Hiraishin kunai in his mouth and a baby in the other. With his one free hand he summoned his ally and good friend, the Boss Toad Gamabunta to help him subdue the rampaging Bijuu. However, even with his power and skill, Gamabunta only managed to slow the Bijuu down by a small margin, just enough for the Fourth to use a forbidden jutsu to stop the Kyuubi."
'Wow! The Fourth must've been a very powerful ninja!' Naruto spoke again, excitement shining in his sapphire blue eyes.
"He sure was, Naruto," Kurumi said with a small, sad laugh at the end. The time grew closer to when she'll have to tell Naruto the reason why he was hated. "He uses a forbidden jutsu, the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to call upon the Death God itself to seal the Bijuu."
'What?!'
"Yes. The Kyuubi was so much more powerful than the other Bijuu that normal sealing methods just wouldn't work on it. The only way that the Fourth knew of to seal such a powerful being is by calling upon a being more powerful than it to seal it, the Death God. However, it came with a price. The Death God will seal the target but he will have his summoner's soul as payment. The Death God will consume their soul causing the summoner to be trapped for eternity within the stomach of the Death God, fighting forever with other unlucky souls that were trapped together with him."
'Why did he do that?!'
"Naruto, you must understand," Kurumi said. "Being the leader of a village means that you'll have to sacrifice what you have for your village, putting it first before everything else, even your family sometimes."
'That's terrible…' Naruto sadly said.
"That's the price of being a leader, Naruto," she said. "Anyway, the Fourth sealed the Kyuubi within the baby, since only a baby could hold the immense power of the Kyuubi back. After the sealing, the Fourth died, and the baby… he was… he was you, Naruto," Kurumi said slowly, dropping the bomb at the end of her sentence with a sad tone, barely holding back the tears in her eyes.
Naruto's excitement and interest quickly turned to shock and surprise at this, causing him to slowly exclaim in surprise. "W…what?"
"Naruto, you are the prison that holds back the Kyuubi from the people of Konoha. The Kyuubi was sealed within you on the day of your birth by the Hokage. This is the reason why the people hated you, Naruto. You carry the demon within you, and their hatred of it was forced upon you."
"B…But…" Naruto stuttered out, his mind unable to comprehend the magnitude of information that he was suddenly hit with. "T…Then…" Naruto said as his enhanced mental faculties quickly made the connection between his condition and his mysterious mental voice, one that he never even questioned the existence of before.
"Yes, Naruto," Kurumi said slowly, a tear rolling from her eye into the murky water of Naruto's mindscape, her thoughts already running as to what Naruto's reaction would be. "I am the Kyuubi, the same being that attacked Konoha three years ago."
'B…but…' Suddenly Naruto recalled something, something from before he had his awesome bloodline. The fact was that Kurumi looked like some sort of an animal, like a fox, from the way her head looked like. A fox with strange humanlike hands with claws sharper than a knife.
And nine gentle tails that warmed him in times of cold and comforted him in his rough moments.
Quickly Naruto stood to his full height as he shook his head quickly, not wanting to accept this truth. How could he? The same thing that helped him through his terrible life, the same thing that taught him how to speak, how to do some cool ninja stuff was actually the same being that nearly destroyed Konoha one day in the past? The same being that soothed his nights, helped him survive, became his pillar of humanity was actually one that caused him to be tortured day in, day out? It's not something that he could accept, much less bend his mind around. 'But you're not the Kyuubi!' Naruto shouted back. 'You're too good! You're not evil! You're not bad!'
"Naruto…" she replied to Naruto's outburst. "Naruto, no matter how you believe otherwise, I am the Kyuubi. I attacked Konoha not once, but twice. I… I hid this from you, Naruto. I don't want you to know."
'B…but…' Naruto said slowly, his mental state in disarray due to this sudden shocking knowledge. Slowly he fell, his huge body hitting a tree trunk behind him with a thud before he slowly slid down onto the ground, a devastated look on his face as his behind hit the ground. He sat there in that position for a while, both of them saying nothing at all.
"Naruto, I-" Kurumi finally said to break the silence when she realised that something was wrong with Naruto.
"He he…" Naruto suddenly opened his mouth and let out a giggle, a smile slowly forming on his face. The small smile turned wider and wider, before it seemed to split his face in half as his lips parted in an insane parody of a smile, revealing his extremely sharp and hardened teeth. "Hehehe…" he chuckled again before he slowly stood to his full height.
"HAHAHAHA!" He finally laughed out loud, looking skywards in a sudden bout of insanity as tears fell from his wide eyes like rain as his entire body shook from his crazed laugh. Naruto finally snapped. How could he not? Through his entire life, he was left for dead, both literally and figuratively by everyone. He was alone, with no one to be with him, to comfort him, to console him. His only friend was a voice in his mind, the same voice that gave him strength, trained him, kept him alive, and became his company through the cold nights and the hot days and the torture, even giving him one of the most wonderful gifts ever: a bloodline, a power, not just for him, but also for his future children.
And now, that same voice was actually the reason for his suffering in the first place.
"HAHAHA!" Naruto continued his deranged laugh as tears kept falling from his eyes, lamenting everything he ever went through. The beatings, the starvation, the terror, the pain, the hurt, the loneliness, the cold, the hot, the days of torture, all of them sped through his head in a rush of memories as his broken self recalled everything that happened to him, causing his tears to fall even harder as his laugh became more and more insane.
Kurumi couldn't take this anymore! She must stop him before he became completely insane! "NARUTO! DON'T LOSE YOURSELF!"
"HAH!" Naruto cuts off his laugh with a scoff. "Why shouldn't I?! I… I'm tired of this!" Naruto cried out, losing his crazed visage with an unimaginable sadness as his smile abruptly disappeared, leaving a massive frown as he cupped his face with his two massive hands, the tears still flowing from his eyes. "I… I've been starved, hurt, and left alone my entire life! And just now, I found out that my only friend, one who gave me my bloodline, my power, who trained me, taught me, and kept me alive all this time, she's the reason for my pain in the first place!" His tears temporarily slowed as he spoke with a devastated tone. "Tell me. Tell me why I shouldn't just lose myself?!"
"Because…" Kurumi said, her tears once again falling into the waters underneath her as she prepared to unleash another bombshell in Naruto's life. "Because your parents would be sad and disappointed at you."
This completely snapped Naruto out of his funk as the words hit his head with the force of an avalanche. "My… parents?" Naruto slowly said.
"Yes, Naruto. I knew your parents, and I know that they'd be completely disappointed in you," Kurumi said, even more of her tears falling down her face. Her memories of Kushina quickly resurfaced from within her mind. Her laughs, her tears, her happiness, her fights, her battles, her anger, all of them reappearing within the confines of her memory in display within her mind as she spoke to Naruto.
"Hello, Kurumi! Mito-sama explained to me about you, so, nice to meet you, dattebane!"
"Kurumi-chan, Kurumi-chan! Look at that girly looking guy over there!"
"He… he saved me…"
"Kurumi-chan! I'm going to be a mother-ttebane!"
"They will be utterly, totally disappointed in you, Naruto. You're their hopes, their future, their entire lives, and yet you would just ignore their dying wish, and lose yourself in your sadness!" Kurumi yelled to him, the memories of when she was sealed within Kushina resurfacing. She remembered her indomitable will, her strength, her unquenchable spirit, and the lovable ball of energy that she was. She recalled her never-back-down attitude, her gung-ho approach to nearly anything that she faced, and her absolute belief in the fact that no one could stop her even if they tried when she puts her mind to something. "Your mother… she was a good person! Heck, a great person, even! She placed everything on the line to have you Naruto! Her life, her body, everything! For your sake!"
"Then where are they now?! Where?!" Naruto screamed out loud, no longer caring if anyone heard him out in the forest, the sheer sadness of his scream scared birds away. Even nature seemed to agree as everything seemed to fade into infinite darkness, hanging over Naruto's head like a cloud. "I was tortured, hurt, broken every day, and they never even came to see me! Where are they?!"
"They're dead Naruto! Dead!" Kurumi yelled out, her tears no longer stopping as they poured like rain, her regret and her anger flowing together with the tears into her words, her fur bristling as everything that happened ran in her mind. "They're dead because I killed them! I KILLED THEM NARUTO! I KILLED THEM!" she screamed, dropping even another bombshell into Naruto's mind as she started sobbing hysterically at this fact, her regret growing even more with every drop of tear.
Naruto lost everything. He lost his emotions, his feeling, his thoughts as her words echoed like some bad music ear worm within his head, her scream bouncing off the walls of his mindscape as it registered within his entire being about a fact that he, before today, would never even thought possible. His greatest friend, his ally, his trainer, his teacher. The same pers- thing that made him what he was today. That same thing was the one that caused his life to become a shitty hellhole, and finally, was the same thing that killed his parents. "Is… is that true?" Naruto said slowly in an emotionless drawl.
"Yes, Naruto," Kurumi answered, her sobs already slowing down as she felt, rather than saw, Naruto snap. "I killed your parents. No amount of regret, forgiveness I ask from you nor anything that I could do or give to you could cause you to forgive me, nor will they bring back your parents."
"Why…" Naruto said emotionlessly as he laid down on the base of the tree trunk. His eyes looked dead, not a single tear on them anymore as the continuous revelations that were hammered on him the night took its toll on his already fragile psyche. "Why did you kill them?"
"Naruto…" Kurumi slowly called his name before hardening her heart. She swore that she would tell Naruto everything, and that time's today. She would not back down, not now. Sniffling her tears, she spoke. "To explain this properly, you'll need to hear another lengthy story. It all starts when Konoha was just recently built…"
And so, Kurumi told him the entire history of Konoha. How Senju Hashirama, the First Hokage, united the Uchiha and some other clans, creating a ground for them to work together in peace. She told him about Madara's rebellion, Hashirama's fight against Madara, her involvement in it, and how she was first sealed within someone else. She told him how she met Mito and Hashirama, about the ninjutsu that they taught her, and how she promised to be with Kurumi as they discover the chosen one that would change the world.
She opened a new chapter in her story, of how she was transferred from Mito to his mother, Uzumaki Kushina, the Whirlpool Princess. She told him of how Kushina was close to her, becoming her overly energetic friend as she lived within her, of how she stopped her as Kushina nearly went on a rampage when Uzushio was destroyed. She continued her story, telling him how her mother fell in love with his father, Namikaze Minato before they both married in secret after he became Hokage at the end of the Third Shinobi War, and how she reacted as she found out that she was pregnant with Naruto. She even told him of what happened with his mother, of the conditions of his birth, and it's sad, bloody aftermath.
"…After that, you met me in your mindscape, and here we are now," Kurumi said, finally finished telling Naruto everything. At the completion of her story, she had a sad smile on her face. She finally stopped hiding secrets from Naruto, and she never thought how relieved she was as she did so. It was true what some humans said, that by opening up, you'd feel much better than if you kept secrets locked away.
Naruto… he had no idea what to think now. He nearly snapped once today, completely snapped after that, and had quite the history lesson being dumped on him afterwards. In just a few hours, he went from confused to angry to shock to completely dumbfounded to almost crazy to crazy to sane again. The roller coaster of thoughts and emotions really tore him apart. At least it culminated in him being capable of reasonable thought again. Finally, after a long period of silence, he said. "…So you were controlled?"
"…Yes," Kurumi answered hesitatingly.
"…I believe you," he finally said after a long pause.
Kurumi was stunned at this reply. How could he trust her so much?! She just admitted that she was the demon that killed his parents, and the reason why his life was a complete pile of shit! "How… how could you believe me? I killed your parents! I made your life a living hell!"
"But you didn't mean to, right?" Naruto said, his mind being capable of thinking straight once again. That much shock probably snapped him back to sanity again. Any lesser people would be broken to pieces after that. But he went through a lot ever since he was a baby, and even though he nearly went crazy just now, Kurumi's call and her history lesson really helped him return back to the rational world.
Besides, he was an Uzumaki by blood, the most stubborn, strong-willed, strong hearted people to ever exist in the Elemental Nations. If there's anyone that would snap back to reason after such a world-changing revelation, he would be it.
"…I sure didn't, but-"
"Then I guess that's fine," Naruto said as he stood up, dusting the dried leaves from his back. Sure, he's still hurt inside, but he understood better now. About his existence, his life, his parents' history, and a whole lot more. That was quite the shock, though it helped him put his mind back on its track.
"B-but I…"Kurumi stuttered out before she shouted. "But what if I'm lying?! What if this is just a ploy for you to forgive me?!"
This stopped Naruto cold. What if what she just said was true? Was she lying? Was she just making a sob story for him to forgive her? Naruto closed his eyes before running through everything that Kurumi just said, thanks to his photographic memory. Finally, he came to a conclusion. "Because you're not. Your feelings, your thoughts, all of themreal. I can feel it, you know. Your feelings, they were clearly visible. You cannot lie about that feeling." He then had a small smile on his face as he continued, no longer speaking out loud. 'Besides, you asking that question just proves that you're not lying, you know.'
Shocked, Kurumi could say nothing as Naruto's reasoning hit her in the head. What he said was absolutely true. He could feel her feelings, just as sure as she could feel his, thanks to the seal's weak structure, probably purposely made by Minato so that Kurumi could more easily communicate to Naruto. 'Minato… you are truly a great man,' Kurumi thought. 'Now I understand completely why Kushina married you. You'll be happy to know that your son inherited the same greatness as you.' However, she can't help but give Naruto a lesson in life right now. "But Naruto, always remember that not everyone would say something like that truthfully. There are many liars in the world, and some of them are so skilled at lying that they could even fool your emotions," she said.
'I know, I know…' Naruto said as he straightened himself to his full height, stretching out the kinks from his long period of sitting down on the ground.
"So… are we friends?" Kurumi asked hesitatingly, still afraid that Naruto would not accept her as a friend.
'Of course!' he happily replied without hesitation, his blinding smile on full display in the real world even as his eyes light up with happiness. He may have been stuck with the killer of his parents and the reason for his terrible life, but never let it be said that she wasn't also his one and only friend in the entire world. 'Forever!' he added, just to be sure.
Not like he didn't want that.
"Friends forever," Kurumi said happily as she wiped her remaining tears with her forehands, her sadness and regret turning into happiness and determination at Naruto's cheerful words. 'Kushina, Minato, know that your son is a great man. You could not have a better child, I'm sure. And know that I will be with him until he dies, or until the end of time.'
Looking around the darkness of the night, using his Occulobe to its full capabilities, Naruto said to Kurumi. 'Still, I never thought that my parents would be the Fourth Hokage and a princess.'
"That makes you royalty, you know," Kurumi responded. "Both of Konoha and of Uzushio, if the latter still existed." A certain thought then nibbled at the back of her mind. "You bounced back awfully quickly just now, Naruto. You nearly went insane before, and you snapped back quickly just to accept everything in stride. How come?"
Naruto just shrugged at this. 'Well, I think that history lesson must've given me some time to think out everything. Your feelings that reached me helped as well, together with the fact that you're not lying. Also, you gave me this kickass bloodline!' Naruto happily exclaimed before he scanned his area with his Occulobe, letting his Lyman's Ears catch the voices of everything around him. 'There's no way someone that could – and would – give me this awesome bloodline also be a bad person, now that I think about it.'
"That's very kind of you, Naruto. Do not lose that kindness Naruto, for it is what makes you." Kurumi said, a smile gracing her face even as she lay herself down on the foetid waters of Naruto's mindscape.
'I won't,' he said, determination pouring from every pore as he said so. 'Still, what do we do now?' he asked Kurumi for directions. 'We have no place to stay, no home to go back to, and I'm not sure the Third would be happy if he were to meet us in this condition.'
"You're right. That old man will definitely be unable to accept that the baby he left at an orphanage ended up being a superhuman with a bloodline that came from the Bijuu within him," Kurumi said before she voiced her idea. "For now, what about if we walk through these woods first, maybe look for something to hunt and eat, then we'll see."
'Okay,' Naruto said, agreeing with her suggestion as he walked in a random direction, one that he did not come from just now. They had nothing else to do anyway. And so, he walked silently through the forest, keeping himself low and covered, in case someone saw him. Though the matron already knew about his changes, the rest of Konoha still didn't, and he might just be captured by Konoha ninjas and be accused of being an infiltrator, trying to get into Konoha for unscrupulous reasons.
Through the night he walked, no set destination in mind, his bare feet stepping on the undergrowth of the woods as silent as he could, his enhanced eyes enabling him to see through the darkness of the forest without any difficulties whatsoever, not missing a single detail with every sweep of his eyesight. 'Hey, Kurumi-chan?' Naruto said suddenly, breaking through the silence between the two.
"Hm?"
'What about... what if we leave this place?' Naruto suggested. 'No one liked us, no one cared about us, and I think it would be better if we were to just leave this village.'
"Hmm..." Kurumi hummed, contemplating Naruto's suggestion. She understood that what Naruto said was true. It was also a good idea, being able to give Naruto some experience in life. However, this was still his hometown, and she was damn sure that old Sarutobi had a reason why he never checkedNaruto at all. "Very well. How about this? We'll leave this village, travel the world, and came back in a couple years. While doing so, I'll teach you everything that you need to know while having you train your skills outside."
'Whaaat?' Naruto whined. 'Why do I have to come back? No one likes me here!'
"Naruto," Kurumi said, trying to persuade Naruto. "No matter how people may hate you, this is still your hometown, the place where you were born. Besides, this was also the home of your parents. Leaving this place for another almost seems like betraying their memories, does it not?"
Naruto thought about this a bit as he slipped past some low hanging branches. Finally, he sighed. 'I guess you're right,' he said. 'Besides, the people just didn't understand you so well.'
Kurumi's ears perked up at this. "What do you mean?" She asked.
'Well, think about it!' Naruto said. 'They never knew you, never met you. They only knew you as the demon that attacked Konoha, when you're actually a good person! They just need to understand you!'
"I... I guess," Kurumi replied hesitatingly. What Naruto said had a point. They never knew her, never understood her, and never talked with her. Their preconceptions about her were completely wrong, and nothing that anyone said about her could fix that. Kurumi was totally amazed at Naruto's reasoning, so she asked. "How did you get to that line of thought?"
'Well,' Naruto began. 'Isn't our situation right now a bit similar? No one ever saw us as us, just as the demon. People saw me as you, and you as... well, maybe as destructive as your siblings. The truth is that you only attacked Konoha the two times because someone controlled you, not because you wanted to. Besides, you told me all those stories and gave me this kickass bloodline. No way would someone bad do that to me.'
"Naruto..." Kurumi said, almost crying again. She totally didn't expect this. For a child, Naruto was much, much more mature than what the entire population of Konoha was. No matter that his growth of mind was forced through years of torture, he could reach that conclusion in a very short while, unlike the people of Konoha who was too blinded by their own fear and idiocy that they failed to see him for what he was, instead seeing him as the demon that he was not. "Thank you," Kurumi said with a smile, as a teardrop of happiness fell from her eyes into the waters.
She's been crying so much, it's a wonder that she's not dried up yet. Naruto's did once though, and it took such terrible despair to make them come back.
'No need, Kurumi-chan,' Naruto said with a smile. 'It's true anyway. Let's go, I guess.'
"Yeah," Kurumi replied slowly, watching the world through Naruto's senses as she prepared a plan of action for the two of them to run away from Konoha.
-CHAPTER ENDS-
