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Chapter Six

Defeat and Despair

The torrent of rain finally stopped its onslaught of rain a few hours after the battle, allowing the drenched and healed shinobi to slip from their makeshift shelters. Moving toward the site of the battle, they grimaced at the sight of the Jinchuuriki child, who sat atop the mound of mood, face reddened by the strain of his own grief.

"What do we do now?" Takezo whispered while Kaede approached Keitaro.

"Captain, its just a child," She murmured. "Perhaps if we showed compassion, this may not come to blows."

Keitaro tensed. "I doubt that," he replied grimly, jerking his head toward the demon child.

The child lifted its head, face set in misery, blue eyes falling upon them. The small body stiffened, the pretty blue eyes began to turn a deep purple, then an angry red, the pupils thinning and becoming cat like slits. The child moved to his knees and crawled sinuously down the mound, his small child-like body moving with such grace that it almost seemed bizarre.

"Shit," Kaede hissed as the child's hands touched the soaked ground and then his feet. The child stood up, remained in a slight crouch, then became still.

"Takezo please stay out of the way," Keitaro ordered calmly, and saw the man back away toward the foliage, yet remaining in sight. The jinchuuriki's eyes shifted toward the man then back at them. It was the moment before a deadly battle-a standstill, when each opponent is waiting to see who would make the first move. But the child was so still-like he was carved from marble. He had never seen a living thing become so immobile, and yet the tension was thick enough to shave with.

"Do you feel that?" Muragi gasped suddenly, and then he became aware of it. He had been mistaken. It was not tension that he felt-but chakra, so much chakra that his ears began to pop with the pressure.

His eyes trained on the boy with a new light, he began to see a slightly reddish haze begin to flow around the motionless child. The boy seemed to be gathering chakra! What kind of bijuu rested within him? Was this battle really worth it? There was a twitch of his facial muscles, the first movement the boy allowed, then the attack came.

The ground exploded beneath them, tossing the shinobi into the air like rag dolls. Quickly they controlled their fall, only to gasp at the sight of two large red chakra hands reaching out to grab Muragi, who quickly performed a kawamari as the chakra gripped his leg. Immediately he popped into a log, and as the hands gripped it, they watched grimly as the log caught fire then was crushed in the powerful grip

Keitaro landed gracefully on his feet, attention riveted on the angry jinchuuriki, and was surprised to see the startled look on the demon child's face. The child's red eyes seemed momentarily fixated on the smoldering pieces of log wood before they fell on him. The child bared teeth, showing sharp incisors. But there was fear along with the rage.

Had the boy never seen a basic jutsu before? Something even an academy student could do? He remembered when he saw his first displacement jutsu, how awed he was and excited to learn. And yes, he also remembered the fear. Keitaro ran his eyes over the child's body. No muscle tone, no calluses, the boy seemed feral with no ninja training to go with all that chakra. This should be as easy a win as the others.

Muragi, who had settled in the nearby trees, must have come to the same conclusion and quickly performed the seals for shadow clones, summoning forty of them onto the battlefield.

A flustered look passed over the demon's face and he spun in a circle as the forty Muragi shadow clones surrounded him. The chakra hands that had been occupied with trying to grab Kaede hesitated and stilled. Keitaro took his opportunity and threw several kunai at the youth, and was actually surprised as they hit their mark, sinking into the child's back.

The child cried out in pain and made an attempt to grab the embedded kunai from his flesh, his face twisted in misery, his eyes changing from their angry red to a dull blue. The chakra hands sank into the earth as the child crouched on his haunches, trying to grab the hilt of the kunai, seemingly having forgot the battle.

Assuredly this child had never been in one before, if it completely discarded the battle it was in- in favor of nursing a wound. Perhaps this child had never fought a human before? And if not, what did that mean?

Muragi leaped from the tree, short bladed katana unsheathed and dropped to the boy's side. Muragi had always been a quick killer; he seemed to favor severing heads from bodies. He was also careless.

As he landed at the jinchuuriki's side, the helpless pained look disappeared, the eyes changed back, and with a speed that they had never seen before, slipped behind the shinobi, leaped onto his back, and buried his face into the man's neck. Muragi screamed, dropping his katana in favor of grabbing the child's head. Kaede shouted and leaped at the youth, her hands fueled with chakra that would burn upon contact. But the boy pushed off the anbu and soared away from them, landing on all fours, eyes taking them in, body becoming still once again.

Kaede clutched Muragi before he collapsed to the ground, ready to heal the damage done to his neck. His neck was a bloody mess, and it was hard to see the extent of the damage with Kaede's healing hands covering the wound. Keitaro turned his attention to the demon. The child's mouth was smeared with Muragi's blood, and as if just noticing it, a blood coated tongue slipped from the small lips and swiped at his mouth. Four shuriken soared towards him, reminding Keitaro of the old man-Takezo, and began to perform a simple genjutsu.

As Kaede worked to heal Muragi' s wounds, Keitaro saw the child slap a shuriken out of the air and slink sideways to avoid the rest.

This battle was an easy one. The child had chakra, so much of it, but didn't know how to do any justu. It had speed and agility, but obviously had never fought humans before. Jinchuuriki yes, but still nothing more than a child.

The seals were finished, a minor and quick one- made to cause disorientation. It would seem as if the world itself were tilting.

He really didn't want to fight this child. He wanted to collect his fallen teammate and go, report to his Kage, and kiss his wife.

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Sunny sent his source hands toward the stupid human, intending to rend it to bits, when his vision began to swirl, making him drop the source and stagger to his feet, trying to gain equilibrium. The world would not comply. Sunny staggered to the side, tripped over his own foot, and crashed to the muddy ground. He saw one of the humans throw several of the sharp things at him. He surged to his feet, made to dodge them, but apparently went the wrong way as the objects embedded themselves into his stomach and chest.

Sunny crashed into a tree behind him, causing the sharp objects in his back to sink in further, one scraping his spine causing spots of pain to burst up his spine and causing flashy lights to explode behind his eyes.

He had lost the fight, he knew, as turned and rushed into the cover of the forest, smacking into trees and tripping over roots- making his wounds worse all the while. The things these humans could do frightened him; turning into logs and then making more of themselves…

He had been beaten by humans with the source, just like Krik said he would.

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The jinchuuriki had run off into the forest, making a wise- but noisy retreat. Immediately Keitaro dropped to Kaede's side, taking in the damage.

"Will you be able to heal him?"

Kaede shook her head and grunted. "I've already healed the wound. The child missed his artery- only took a piece of flesh off. But that's not the problem."

"What is?" the captain asked, spotting the old man as he came to their side, face weary, eyes haunted.

"I can't seem to fight this infection."

Keitaro's attention dropped back to Muragi's neck, though still bloody, seemed healed. Only what looked like an embarrassing black hickey remained. "He was bitten two minutes ago."

"Yes I know. But the bite seems more deadly than that. We need to get him back to the village."

Keitaro nodded and stood up.

Yoshiru would have to wait

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Three miles east of the shinobi sat a sobbing, bloody, blond child with five metal objects embedded in his back, two in his chest, and one in his stomach. There was mud caked over most of his small body and blood running from the wounds mixed in with it. But the tears were from emotional pain and not the physical.

Krik…Tkaa…Spayt…Tsorn- they were all gone. Dead. And he was alone.

One minute he had been fighting with Tsorn- the next they were dead. It all seemed so unreal that he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't witnessed the whole thing. And by humans! no less. Sunny gave a gurgling sob as he viciously pulled the metal objects from his stomach and chest, then began to twist around uncomfortably to reach the others. He managed to grab one and pull it out- albeit tilting it so he caused more damage than he wanted. The others came out after more painful twisting and the child sat amongst the instruments of pain, feeling hollow.

They were gone. How had those filthy humans found-

Any remaining color drained from his face. Tkaa had said the humans had sensed his source.

His source.

He had led them to their deaths, he had paved the path to his own packs' annihilation. Sunny's face scrunched up and he began to pull on his hair again, his tangled feathers falling into the dirt. More tears came as he began to bash his head into the dirt. He should be dead. He should be with the pack right now, a corpse like they were.

Sunny stopped banging his head and jumped to his feet, his wounds long since healed and rammed his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree, hearing the wood splinter as he turned away and glared despairingly into the foliage. He could not bear another moment with this knowledge- could not spend eternity knowing-

The sound of the tree crashing down missed his ears as the tree toppled over, one of its thick branches colliding with the top of his skull and sending the child into immediate unconsciousness.

The first time in seven years.

--

Sunny awoke with a start and jumped to his feet- red eyes wide with surprise and confusion. What had just happened? One moment he had been angry, the next getting up off the ground. He glanced at the tree and put two and two together.

Sunny slumped down next to the fallen tree and rubbed his face miserably. He was sad, he was confused- he tipped to his side and rolled into a ball. All he could do was lie there and hope for oblivion. He took a deep breath and became still. Resting wasn't going to come for a few days, but he was content to mimic it.

After all, life no longer had any meaning.

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TWO WEEKS LATER

She was embarrassed to say that she had inadvertently become a hermit. How it happened, wasn't exactly clear, but at the ripe old age of sixty-two, she was acutely aware that time was no longer on her side.

Not that I have anything urgent to do, Mayu thought with a dry chuckle. She had always been fond of nature, and as she had gotten older, had spent more time in the forests, becoming an old wayfarer at the time when she should have been spending her days on some porch somewhere, reminiscing about times past and when her children were young. Maybe she would have, if she had any children.

Mayu sighed and pulled some berries off of the thorny plant as she foraged through the forest. The wilderness was no place for an old woman, and she wondered if she should head back to civilization soon.

She straightened from her crouch and groaned at the ache in her lower back, which always became stiff when given half the chance. Her small cottage, which had been for fur trapping in its previous life, sat not a mile from her current position, and she wondered if she could make it back before sunset. She hated traveling at night, not because of fear, but because her eyesight wasn't getting any better with age, and the darkness of a forest can be absolute.

Mayu placed her basket in the crook of her arm and turned to leave, when she spotted a snake lying nearby. Her heart surged into her throat as she froze in place, then gave a small sigh of relief. It was green, a harmless garden snake, not even poisonous. Mayu put a wrinkled hand to her chest and listened to her thudding heart. She was too old for scares like this, and the receding adrenaline rush was leaving her weak.

While she waited for the weakness to pass, she eyed the serpent, and was startled to see that there was a distinct bite taken out of it. Frowning, Mayu crouched down slowly and eyed the wound. The wound must have been recent, for the blood still glistened and the flesh was still pink. But what sent the gray hair on her head on end was the perfect human shaped bite, as if someone took a chunk out of the serpent then decided that he/she didn't like the taste.

The snake wasn't cooked…

Mayu straightened and allowed her eyes to scan the thick foliage of the healthy forest. Was there another person out here, perhaps lost and ravenously hungry? Mayu bit her lip and began to push through some of the bushes, brushing off tumbling spiders as she passed through their webs. Perhaps-

Mayu popped into a small clearing and practically yelped at the sight of the small, grungy child that sat on the forest floor.

"Good lord child! You almost gave me a heart attack!" and not to sound accusatory, "Not that I don't have one coming soon anyway." She stared intently at the youth. He looked around eight or nine, undernourished and dirty, so that his skin seemed an earthy brown. The hair was matted, yet traces of yellow gold popped here and there under the filth. He was naked, and obviously male, though he wore much jewelry. Nothing flashy or expensive, most of it looked home-made.

The child lifted his head and Mayu sighed. The eyes were such a pretty blue, but filled with such despair. Obviously someone had decided to abandon the poor thing. Why was it that there were people who had children and didn't want them, while there were people who desperately wanted them but couldn't have any? It was so unfair, and it seemed someone had dumped a little angel out in the forest, to starve and die.

"Hey there little one," she said gently and slowly walked to the child's side, careful not to spook him. "are you hungry? I've got little on me, but if you come home with me, I can make you a nice meal."

Despite the apparent despair, the boy's eyes seemed sharp and watchful, and they followed her movements. There was an air of steadiness that seemed unnatural in a child his age, but he made no movements or sign that he understood her words. Kneeling down next to him, she reached out slowly and placed her hand on his forehead in a soothing motion. Some thing flashed in his eyes, perhaps an echo of rage, but the boy's shoulders sagged and his head fell dejectedly to his chest.

Her heart went out to him.

---

Over the days he had taken to wandering about aimlessly, no where to go and not really caring. He had never been alone like this, and he found it maddening, the silence, the isolation. Though the forest was teeming with life, most of the animals fled when he approached. His appetite was non-existent; he had no energy to hunt for food, and had little control to Lure anything in. He came across no other demons in the wilderness, and stopped wondering when he would. He had never seen any other when he was with the pack. The pack had been his world. There was him, there was them, there were the animals and the humans, and that was it.

Now there was just him.

Resting was welcome, for he found that he thought less when pulled into the stupor, and had discovered that resting was lasting longer than it used to. He could only connect it with the fact that he hadn't been eating much, he'd used up much of his reserves, and his body was weakening. Would he fall into a permanent resting when his body became too weak? Or would he fall into that oblivion, that puzzling darkness that he had experienced many days ago.

There was a hissing near his foot, and Sunny glanced down listlessly at the green snake that reared its small body at him. Right now he hated snakes- snakes were nothing but trouble, and that particular snake had ruined everything. Occasionally the flash of the newly acquired necklace would remind him of him.

Sunny's hand flashed down and grabbed the snake around its middle, the small serpent writhed and sank its small fangs into his arm. Feeling agitated, Sunny grabbed its head with his free arm and yanked it from his arm, scowling as its fangs tore at his dirty flesh. In retaliation, or perhaps to revive a diminishing appetite, Sunny took a solid bite out of the snake and chewed experimentally. It tasted of dead leaves. With a sigh, Sunny tossed the snake far from him and slumped to the ground. Before, he had never understood what tired was, how it felt, and why it was that most creatures besides he felt it. But now, tired was all he felt.

The sound of feet met his tired ears, the scent of human soon after, and Sunny was aware that there was a human within the vicinity. How far had he wandered? He searched for the traces of the source, wary that this could be one of them, but there was none. It was an ordinary, pathetic, human. It would be so easy to kill…if he could muster the energy.

Then the human was in the area, and the sound of their language assaulted his sensitive ears. He was startled at the relief he felt, but understood. He'd been so lonely, that even though he was likely to kill the human, he was grateful for its presence. He lifted his head and stared at the human.

It was one of the decaying ones, the dying ones. Krik had said that humans were fragile creatures, and that there were a million and one ways to kill them. They healed slowly, caught multiple ailments many times a year, and after a while, their bodies began to rot around them until they died. The decaying ones tasted dull and gamey- too much flesh and very little meat. Their bones were always brittle and the succulent marrow lacked the vibrant taste he always enjoyed. But the worst thing was that their hearts were useless to dine on, his favorite part of the human body.

As the decaying human…female? slowly made it to his side, cooing all the while, Sunny felt another wave of despair. He wasn't hungry, and this filthy human wasn't going to do anything for his appetite. Its wrinkled hand reached out and touched his forehead.

His world shattered. He was so lonely. He missed the pack, missed the world that he knew and loved.

And its touch was so welcome.

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Keitaro sat grimly in Anbu HQ, finishing his report, and worrying over Muragi's wound, that constantly burned. He had yet to leave the hospital, and it seemed that the blackness left behind from the bite was spreading. Then there was the previous mission, which had disturbed him. Upon returning to dig up Yoshiru's body, not only was the mound of dirt dug up, but Yoshiru's corpse was no where in sight. Along with the missing cadaver, only three demons remained. The one burnt to a crisp, the one with the severed head, and the mostly crushed one, whose head had escaped being squashed. The other, was gone- the one that had been injured from the get-go. How had it survived? And most importantly, where was it now?

Was it seeking out the jinchuuriki?

TBC

Just so you know, the characters thus far are:

Sunny/Naruto: Main Character

Keitaro: Anbu Captain

Muragi: Anbu teammate

Kaede: Anbu Medic Nin

Yoshiru: Deceased teammate-killed by Krik

Takezo: Yumi's father- seeking vengeance for her death

-Disappointed that Sunny/Naruto was defeated so easily? Remember, he has no ninja training. Yet. Surprised that Tsorn's body is gone? Yes, me too.

Next Chapter- Sunny/Naruto learns to speak the human tongue- the road to revenge

begins.