Chapter 6
Fox Tales
Naruto slumped in his seat and stared blankly at the swirls in the wood grain of the desk in front of him. He was in a lot of trouble. But he didn't feel like caring about it at the moment.
As soon as he'd reverted to human form, Kakashi-sensei had dragged him off to see the Hokage. The two adults grilled him about the cave and what he knew about it. And Naruto told them everything as there was no reason not to anymore.
They got really mad at him.
He was just a child, he didn't have the experience necessary to judge whether or not a supernatural creature was dangerous. It didn't matter that Ookami-jiji was old and sick, the werewolf was still a threat. Keeping the cursed creature secret was incredibly irresponsible and could've resulted in other people contracting lycanthropy.
The Hokage had nearly stripped him of his shinobi status.
Naruto made no real protests as the old man reprimanded him. He felt so numb that not even the prospect of losing access to the training that he needed to rescue his mother seemed to touch him. All he felt was loneliness.
Ookami-jiji had sort of been his friend. The old werewolf hadn't known that he was human, but he'd known all about Naruto's furry side…and hadn't cared. He had appreciated Naruto's visits, the little things like fresh batteries that he brought, and kept him occupied with checkers all night long. The werewolf hadn't cared that Naruto was a freak, or judged him.
It was great.
It had been great.
He died while I was away… Naruto leaned forward and buried his face in his arms. He died all alone…
A finger poked him in the side.
"Hey, you okay?"
Naruto took a second to compose himself and peeked up to find Chouji looking down at him with concern.
"I'm fine," Naruto told him, managing to smile.
"You sure?" the chubby kid asked and munched on a potato chip. "You look really down."
"Oh…my goldfish died," Naruto lied, letting his smile fall away. "My first pet ever…and it dies."
"Oh…" The Akimichi boy offered him one of his chips. "I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Naruto said and popped the chip in his mouth.
Why couldn't I have been put on a team with Chouji, or the other guys?
When he'd first started attending the Academy, it had been hard to find any friends. All the other students had been going there all their lives. There were no new kids, especially not in the higher grades.
But then he'd shared some cookies with Chouji and made a friend. Almost immediately after that he'd become buddies with Shikamaru, because Shikamaru was Chouji's best buddy and they always hung out together. And then a few weeks after that, Naruto had befriended Kiba (even though Kiba made fun of his whiskers and sometimes commented that he smelled funny).
The four of them were the best of buddies and the troublemakers of the class. Shikamaru would nap through class, Chouji was always eating, Kiba was always loud, and Naruto did a bit of all three things. Naruto knew he should pay attention and be a good student because he was behind everyone else and his goal was to become strong, but…class was just so boring!
Naruto had hoped that he'd be teamed up with at least one of them when he'd graduated (even if Kiba had gotten a bit jerk-y once he'd gotten Akamaru). It had been a big disappointment to get stuck with Sasuke. He'd tried to make that a positive as being teamed with his rival (and cute Sakura-chan) would make it easier for him to measure himself against the Uchiha than if they were on different squads. But his team situation was back to being a negative again…a big negative.
After months of being put on teams, all of his classmates would sit with their teammates during the lecture classes. With Sasuke constantly trying to intimidate him Naruto didn't want to sit with Team Seven if he didn't have to, so he always scrambled to find an open seat between other squads when it was time for class. He couldn't stand Sasuke always glaring at him and Sakura trying to ignore what Sasuke was doing anymore.
I really wish Sasuke would just go back to ignoring me…
Today he'd been fortunate to find an aisle seat open next to Chouji. Shikamaru was the only person better for him if Chouji hadn't been free because he'd just sleep. If his desk neighbor had been Kiba, Naruto probably would've punched him at some point because of his low mood.
I wish I could cut Lecture, Naruto thought sourly as he slipped his hand into his pocket and gripped the black horse-head chess piece. It's so stupid.
Not even leaving the village had spared him from the lectures on the various varieties of demons. When his team had been in Wave, the teachers had made up note packets for them on all the subjects that they'd missed. Upon their return, they had certain deadlines to study those notes and take little quizzes on them to make sure that they'd actually read and learned from the packets.
Naruto had been so distracted by fiddling with his weird fire powers on top of his usual training that he'd barely gotten all the quizzes done with scores high enough to pass.
"All right, class," Iruka called out as he wheeled in a slide projector, bringing the room full of genin to attention. "I hope you enjoyed your last lesson, Tsuchigumo and Jorougumo: Their Similarities and Differences. Today we'll be covering something a little bit different."
While Iruka set up the projector and checked his slides, Naruto sat up straighter in his chair. Lectures that had slide shows in them were always more interesting than those that were just talking and writing on the chalkboard. Once the machine was set up, the scar-nosed chuunin picked up a piece of chalk and wrote out the subject he was going to cover.
"Extinct Demons: Kitsune," Iruka said as he scrawled it out.
Naruto blinked.
"Iruka-sensei," a whiner from Team Three called out. "If Kitsune are extinct, why do we have to learn about them? If they're extinct, they're all dead!"
"Kitsune are important to the early history of Konoha," the chuunin replied as he pulled down the white screen for the projector. "And just because they are believed to be extinct doesn't necessarily mean that they are. Many races of dragons were once thought to be extinct, and then turned up alive after centuries up in some remote stretches of some mountain ranges in the Lands of Earth and Lightning."
Iruka turned down the classroom lights and turned on the slide projector, although no pictures appeared immediately.
"Now, Kitsune were fox demons," Iruka said, sliding into lecture mode, "that were wiped out a little over two hundred years ago. They were tricksters and menaces and after committing a string of crimes against the nobility of the Lands of Earth, Fire, Lightning, Grass, and Tea the shinobi forces of the day began a Great Hunt. The first years of the Great Hunt were filled with many battles, climaxing in the bloody fight where Senju Hashirama, the Shodai Hokage, and Uchiha Madara slew the terrible Kyuubi no Yoko—a nine-tailed Kitsune of immense evil power. And for years after that they focused most of their attentions on ferreting out any Kitsune and destroying them until no more could be found and they were declared extinct."
When Iruka mentioned the battle between the Kyuubi no Yoko and the founding Hokage and an Uchiha, he showed the first slide. The picture was old, an artist's rendering, because cameras hadn't been invented yet. It was of a snarling red-orange monster that barely looked like a fox with nine long, lashing tails. It was surrounded by very small-looking people that were like bugs in comparison to the beast. On one side a man looked like it was attacking the Kyuubi with fire and some shadowy power, and on the other a man seemed to be trying to bind the monster with mud…or it could've been wood.
Once the teacher was sure that his students had had a good enough look at that image, he advanced to the next slide.
"Kitsune, being fox demons, had two main features that always set them apart from ordinary foxes. Their extra tails," he poked his finger into the light of the projector to highlight that feature in another artist's drawing of a different Kitsune, a gray one with five tails that looked a lot less monstrous than the Kyuubi picture, "and their larger size. Also they could come in some more exotic colors than an ordinary fox, like blue, purple, pink, and green. And unlike foxes, Kitsune could speak the human language, and even transform into human form."
The projector clicked again and the gray Kitsune was replaced by a brown one with four tails, and a beautiful woman in a fine kimono with brown hair standing beside it, with lines between them that implied that they were the same being.
"Were Kitsune still alive today, they would be classified as A-class demons, with potential for some individuals to become S-class demons, like the Kyuubi no Yoko. They possessed illusion and shape-shifting powers comparable to the Tanuki, which still survives today. They were incredibly clever, able to use their powers to insinuate themselves into important niches in human societies and create all manner of chaos. And, in addition to those powers, they also were gifted with a wide variety of elemental magicks—mainly either fire or lightning."
Iruka changed the picture again to a black Kitsune that appeared to be surrounded by five orbs of blue ethereal fire.
"A fun little fact," the chuunin said cheerfully, as he jumped to the next slide that depicted a peach-colored Kitsune playing with a violet-hued ball of lightning. "Whether a Kitsune could make fire or lightning, it was called the same thing: kitsune-bi, or foxfire."
Naruto fidgeted with the chess piece in his pocket. The pictures were pretty and all, but the information was boring. The only thing that sounded remotely interesting was the bit about that Kyuubi no Yoko guy. Naruto hoped Iruka would talk more about him and the shinobi who'd kicked his tails after he got all the general information out of the way.
"Folklore about Kitsune, like folklore about all demons, is full of fantasy and lies and only contains fragments of truth," Iruka continued. "For instance, old tales say that the way to determine if someone is truly a Kitsune in disguise is that you must find their tail, as they were believed to be unable to hide the tail that they were born with; you must see how they react to dogs, as dogs will smell the fox in them and bark and the Kitsune will become nervous; and you must watch their diet, as Kitsune were supposedly fond of any sort of fried tofu."
Naruto made a disgusted face. Fried tofu? Icky!
"Now the fondness for fried tofu is a meaningless clue," the chuunin said and clicked to a new slide of a person in a kimono with a fox tail. "The hidden fox tail is a bit better, although it is believed that only very young and inexperienced Kitsune, lazy Kitsune, and old Kitsune kept their first tail untransformed and hidden in clothing. Were they still alive today, it would be much harder for them to hide such a feature as clothes have become more close-fitting than they were in the past. The most reliable way to uncover a Kitsune is with dogs—they couldn't hide their fox scent and dogs would pick up on it and try to chase down the vermin that they smelled."
Iruka was about to move on, but spied a raised hand. "Yes, Ami?"
"What about the Uchiha's Sharingan eyes?" Naruto cringed as he heard the voice of one of Sasuke's fans, a girl that had bullied Sakura the most. "They would see through these Kitsune's disguises in an instant, so they're much better than dogs."
"While Kitsune do use illusions, they do not use illusions to take human form," the chuunin answered. "When we use henge, we cast a shell of chakra around ourselves that makes us look different, and the Sharingan will see through that easily. But a Kitsune would change their bone, hair, and flesh the same way that a human changes when they become consumed by lycanthropy. It isn't an illusion, and while the Sharingan might notice imperfections in the transformation or the individual's chakra they would not be able to see the fox hiding under the human's skin. That would make the Inuzuka clan a much better detector for disguised Kitsune, if there were any left to be found."
"Oh." Ami sounded horribly disappointed that her handsome Sasuke-kun wouldn't be able to protect her and gain glory by spying out extinct fox demons.
Iruka paused and consulted his little paper of notes and his slides before finding his place and continuing, shifting the current slide to a picture of several different Kitsune with varying numbers of tails.
"The best way to judge a Kitsune's age and power was by the number of tails it possessed. One-tailed Kitsune were the youngest and weakest of all the Kitsune. Every century they lived they would sprout a new tail and their reservoir of power would greatly expand. The highest level of power a Kitsune could reach was to have nine tails, like the Kyuubi no Yoko, and many accounts of such fox demons paint them almost as gods they were so powerful, wise from their long lives, and dangerous."
It takes a century to grow a new tail? Naruto scratched at the back of his head, puzzled. How'd they get that number?
"A Kitsune's tails were also its greatest weapon," Iruka continued as he shifted the slides to show two Kitsune battling each other, one with the white tips of its tails lengthened into sharp points like spears, and the other with the white parts of its tails split and curved into claws. "With their shape-shifting magic, they could turn their tails into cutting blades or grasping claws. They could also extend their length two, three, even four times what they usually were, and control them the way an Ushi-oni uses its tentacles. Kitsune's tails were their most prized possession and a mark of status, and to cut one off would drive the Kitsune to seek revenge for it, no matter what the cost, even though the tail would grow back fairly quickly."
Another hand interrupted Iruka. "Yes?"
"What sort of regenerative powers did Kitsune have if they could grow back lost tails?" some kid from Team One asked.
"While they could re-grow tails like many reptile demons could re-grow lost parts, that's the only limb that they could replace," Iruka answered. "Any other healing power they have was closer to that of werewolves, I believe."
"Did silver hurt them?" a boy from Team Five said without raising his hand.
"No, Kitsune had no specific weakness," the chuunin replied. "Sometimes some would imbue part of their spirit and power into crystal orbs that could be stolen and used against them, but it was better to depend on attacking vital points like the heart, spine, and brain with overwhelming force than waste time seeking out some hidden crystal."
"Were they contagious?" a girl from Team Nine called out, also not bothering with her hand.
"No, they were not curse-born like werewolves are," Iruka explained. "Kitsune are born Kitsune and there is no other way to become one. Their bite wasn't curse-laced or venomous, but they did have sharp teeth and strong jaws so it wasn't a good idea to get bitten anyway. They could and did breed freely with humans, and for a few generations the fox blood would be strong enough in the children for them to be considered Kitsune as well."
He glanced around the darkened classroom. "Are there any more questions or can I get back to my lecture?"
After an embarrassed silence, he advanced the slides to a painting of a many-tailed fox leaping at an ancient samurai.
"The crimes of the Kitsune race varied wildly. Some would lead travelers astray with their orbs of ghostly fire and leave them to be preyed upon by others or rob them themselves. Some would steal something valuable from one home and then plant it in the neighbor's house to start a feud. Many would steal from merchants; some would steal by casting illusions on leaves to make them appear to be money to purchase goods with. Some would take the guise of beautiful women to become concubines to powerful nobles so that they could leech on the man's riches. Some would cheat and lie their way into positions of power in noble courts to spread gossip and destroy reputations. If wronged, some would go on rampages until their rages cooled. They were sly, selfish, slippery, shadowy bringers of chaos and crafters of subtle plots, and when they nearly toppled several countries' governments they finally reached their greedy paws too far and paid dearly for it."
Naruto sagged very low in his seat and clenched the chess piece in his hand so hard that the points of the black plastic horse's head almost made his palm bleed.
"There are some old folktales where Kitsune were faithful spouses to kind people, or poets and artists, intellectuals of good reputation who never harmed a soul," the chuunin said. "But such tales are not believable. Kitsune behaved only to their own advantage and viewed humans as tools to their plans or toys to manipulate to their own amusement. If they ever were wives, husbands, poets, artists, or people of knowledge, they played these roles as part of some scheme that could last centuries."
As Iruka ran through more slides of Kitsune disguised as humans or being nefarious and wicked, Naruto looked away to glower at his desk.
How would you know what they were like? Demon-hunters don't get to know demons. They just kill them.
Sasuke hurled his kunai at the practice target with more force than was necessary while he and the other members of Team Seven waited for their tardy sensei to appear. Before he'd left home for Lecture, his older brother had taken him aside for a talk. He was still grinding his teeth over it.
"If you want to impress father, it would be better if you did well in the upcoming Trials than if you ruined your team's chance for even being entered in the hopes that you might find something about your teammate that I won't."
The Uchiha grunted as he yanked his knives out of the target before pacing back to the throwing line to start over. Itachi had told him that knew that Kakashi had been considering entering them into the Trials that would be starting in barely two months. But because he was leaning on Naruto, the jounin was changing his mind.
"I don't see why Kakashi would protect someone like him," Sasuke had groused. "He's no real citizen of Konoha. Isn't he at all curious about what Naruto can do?"
"I'm sure that he's plenty curious," Itachi had replied. "But he knows better ways of finding out what he wants to know than you do. Let him do his job and focus on improving yourself and your team."
Sasuke checked his kunai for damage and then started throwing them again, with just as much fury as before.
"Improving my team?" he'd snorted. "I have a bookworm that only wants my affection, and a strange orphan that is under suspicion. What's the point of improving them when I'll be leaving them behind the moment I get promoted?"
"Think about what I said," Itachi had told him, and then jabbed him in the forehead with two fingers. "Foolish little brother."
The dark-haired boy hurled the last of his knives at his target and glowered at it, even though he'd grouped the knives tightly all around the bulls-eye without using his Sharingan.
What is Itachi up to? he wondered. Is he trying to help me? Or is he trying to hold me back?
He didn't want to think badly of his older brother. Itachi had always made time for them to play together, and he'd taught Sasuke more than his father ever had about the shinobi arts. But if he backed off Naruto, Itachi alone would get all the credit for anything that was discovered about him, and he would stay the perfect Uchiha son in their father's eyes.
What should I do?
"Hey Sasuke," Naruto's voice butted in his thoughts. "Who was this Uchiha Madara person?"
"I-I was wondering that, too," Sakura added timidly (she was always timid with him unless she was already angry about something).
"He was my ancestor and an Uchiha," Sasuke answered, trying not to growl. "He lived a long time ago and killed that Kitsune that Iruka-sensei mentioned and thousands of other demons. That's it."
It was probably true, but he didn't know for sure. He wasn't about to admit to them that he had no idea who Madara had been. He'd never heard the name before.
The next time that he saw his brother he resolved to find out more.
Poof!
"Sorry I'm late!" their sensei said cheerfully as he appeared on the scene. "There was a crying little girl who'd lost her puppy and I had a terrible time finding it for her."
"Liar!" Naruto and Sakura snapped, even though this excuse was almost believable.
Sasuke watched Naruto, in his obnoxious orange clothes, out of the corner of his eyes.
I suppose I'll back off for now… But if I ever find a weak spot, I'll dig at it until he tells me. I'll just make sure that no one else is around to see me do it.
Sarutobi Hiruzen peered over the edge of the form he was studying at Uchiha Fugaku.
"You want me to approve expenses and time for Itachi to travel to Yokoshima…why?"
"Yokoshima is one of the most corrupt cities in the Land of Fire," Fugaku replied. "I want him to check on a few leads in some cases for the Military Police."
"What cases?" the Hokage inquired politely.
"A few older cases with some loose ends," Fugaku answered, staying very vague.
Hiruzen didn't like that non-answer. "They must be important cases to send your clan's heir off to look into them."
"Itachi hasn't had much experience on solo investigations outside of Konoha," Fugaku said. "I'd like for him to have more."
The Hokage gave him a hard stare for another minute before setting the papers down on his desk, notating them, signing them, and stamping them with his seal.
"I'll give him one month," he decided as he handed Fugaku the copies he needed back. "That should give Itachi enough time to reach the city, and return from the city, with plenty of time to investigate in-between. If he needs more time, I need to have good reasons before I'll approve any extension."
"Understood," Fugaku grunted.
"You may manage your own personnel however you like within the village walls," the Hokage reminded him. "But when you send them to investigate beyond Konoha, I need to know about it. My office needs to know which shinobi are available at all times in case of emergency."
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Fugaku bowed, still irritated by the Hokage's curiosity, and left the office.
Hiruzen sighed and puffed on his pipe as he dumped his own copies of Fugaku's paperwork in his outbox and eyed the much larger stack waiting in his inbox wearily.
It never ends…
A tap at one of his windows stopped him from reaching for the form at the top of that stack. He turned to see one of his ANBU waiting for him there. The masked hunter had a black folder and a manila envelope in his hand. The Hokage waved his ANBU in and accepted the delivery.
"This is the report?"
"Yes, sir," the man with the bird mask nodded.
"Tell the door chuunin that I don't want to be bothered for the next half hour unless it's a dire emergency," the Hokage commanded as he returned to his chair to read.
"Hai!" the ANBU bowed and vanished.
Hiruzen settled into his set and carefully read each page of the report tucked away in the black folder. When he finished with it, he opened the envelope and pulled out a clear plastic bag with a bio-hazard stamp on it. Inside was a broken knife blade that was nearly black with a few smaller metallic fragments.
Disgusting.
He put the bag back in the envelope and put it and the black folder into one of his protected drawers. He locked the drawer with a seal so that it would be safe until he brought it home with him in the evening. Seeing that he still have nearly ten minutes left to himself before he had to get back to immediate business, the Hokage leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the last of the tobacco in his pipe.
Exhaling smoke, he turned to gaze out his leftmost window, towards Training Ground 41—the Forest of Death.
So you play checkers…
…Interesting.
