Hey dudes!

Wow…seven chapters. To tell you the truth I didn't even thinks I would make it past five. But here we are! Big thank you to my loyal reviewers. And yes I'm talking to you, springfell7, Alphamech, SuperTay, kingman186, Hagensen, and Just Writer2. You guys have left the most reviews out of anyone so thanks. Also thank you to my other loyal readers! Your hits are valued too! And a HUGE thank you to Darkrose Dragonkin who provided the website I picked Kirimi's demon from, you are also on my loyal reviewer list. Yay: Confetti and balloons fall from ceiling:

Also, referring to the last chapter, did anyone see the "Little Miss Sunshine Pageant" Movie? It is amazing! I loved it!

My dad refuses to buy me my yellow DELL until after we move so I'll try to fit two more chapters in before I leave. Thanks again! All reviewers get imaginary cookies…Well actually Gaara ate all the imaginary cookies, so here are imaginary lemon squares! If you don't like lemon squares, imagine them different. Kay? That's why they're imagined!

Gaara: I like lemon squares too…: pouts:

Mm13: But you ate the cookies.

Gaara: So?

Mm13: So you're gonna get fat if you keep eating sweets like that. Have a carrot instead. : Hands carrot:

Gaara: forcefully takes carrot and chucks it across the room: No.

Mm13: Fine! I'll make more cookies if you say the disclaimer.

Gaara: Okay…Magikme13 does not own Naruto, but does own all OCs and story line. She doesn't own the demon she picked either. All belong to the great and powerful Kishimoto-sama.

Mm13: But Gaara will be mine some day! I swear it!

Gaara: Kami, I hope not…

Mm13: What was that?

Gaara: Nothing…: Nibbles on stolen lemon square:

Will you get to meet Kirimi's demon in this chapter? Maybe…or maybe not… Read to find out.

愛

"No!" He stated, his long pearly canines bared and shining, "I want to know what's worse than what Kirimi's going through! So tell me Matzuno Aiko! TELL ME!" He shook her for emphasis.

"MORE THAN HALF OUR VILLAGE IS DEAD BECAUSE OF HER!"

Naruto's eyes widen ever so slightly, his nostrils flared. He was past enraged. He was full out going to spontaneously combust right on the spot. His long nails punctured Aiko's shirt material, still in his grasp, her feet dangling centimeters from the floor. For someone staring the worst demon in history of man kind straight in the face she was deadly calm.

Her breaths came out in pants that brushed against Naruto's face because of their close proximity. She flinched when Naruto tightened his hold on her collar, chocking her slightly.

"No…" He hissed quietly, "No." He repeated, more firmly this time, as if convincing himself, "She couldn't—"

"She did." Aiko stated, stony faced and serious.

Naruto took a deep drag of the air about him, using every ounce of will power he had to keep from ripping the young ANBU's throat out. His grip slackened gradually until Aiko finally fell from his tan hands, landing on the floor soundly.

"I know what you are Uzumaki-san." Aiko spoke, her voice strong and unwavering, "You are the vessel for the Kyuubi no Yoko; the Nine Tailed Fox. You have been since your birth day seventeen years ago on the tenth of October. Your whole life."

Naruto wasn't surprised to here her state all these facts, oddly enough. He was expecting her to know about him. Everyone in his village did, so why not foreigners too, right? But her repeating them back to him after confirming them to himself so many times, made him even angrier, if that was even possible at this point.

"Kirimi has not been a vessel her entire life." Aiko whispered, as if it was a secret only the beings in this room could know. "In fact, she hasn't been a vessel for even a year's time."

"Elaborate…" Tsunade, forgotten at Naruto's side, finally spoke up, "None of these facts were given to me in the transfer scrolls."

"The demon had been lurking about the outskirts of the village for as long as we could remember. Never attacking; never was doing any harm. Just taunting us with its presence." Aiko began, stepping back from Naruto and Tsunade.

Naruto could see it (1). It sat upon the highest mountain top in the country, gazing over the village. Giant, even from such a far distance, its posture was straight and superior. The moon making its long fur reflect the bright rays and the wind playing with each beautiful strand. Its haunting eyes shined like miniscule suns against its shadowed face. Each tail was set on its own course as they carelessly fluttered about its muscular body, chakra swirling about and rising like steam from a hot spring. Elegant… beautiful… patient…angered.

"There are rumors that we had built our village on its territory. But it never tried to reclaim it." Aiko explained, "Some of our elders told us instead of moving us off the land it decided to protect us, by guarding the boundaries of the village. Others disagreed and said it would attack when we were at our weakest point." She paused, "The Tsuchikage wanted to stop the beast before it made its move. So he sent out his most trusted ANBU to bring the monster to him so he could destroy it. But destroying a demon wasn't as easy as my uncle thought."

"The Tsuchikage is your uncle?" Tsunade asked, baffled by the information.

"Yes, we had lived with him since the death of our mother." Aiko confirmed, "He had hand picked ninja for the mission. Two hundred and I waited until dusk to find the demon, when and where it usually appeared. But it was two steps ahead of us. But I suppose I should start from the beginning shouldn't I?"

"Please do." Tsunade said, pointing to a chair stationed before her desk like a mother telling a child to take a time out. Aiko nodded a sat, her hands wringing harshly in her lap. Naruto made no move to sit or stand near the desk and stayed where he was.

Aiko took a deep breath and began her tale, "It was five years ago…"

愛

"I'm afraid that's all we can do for now."

"Thank you." Matzuno Miki bowed to the doctor as he left the room, leaving her and her daughters to say goodbye to her husband.

"Okaasan (2)…?" Miki looked to her oldest daughter, "Otousan (3) is gonna be okay, right? Right?" Aiko looked up to her mother with worried eyes. "The doctor said he'll be okay?"

"Ai…Aiko, go wait outside," Miki instructed, "I need to talk to your father alone."

"Do you want me to take Kiri—?"

"JUST GO!" Aiko's eyes widen as her mother raised her voice to her and she ran out of the white painted room, leaving her infant sister and mother alone in the hospital room. She sat outside and waited, listening to her mother talked to her unconscious father.

"Tyuzaki…?" She whispered, her shoes clacking toward the side of the bed, "Look…" Aiko could hear the rustle of the blanket her infant sister was wrapped in, "It's your daughter…Don't you want to see her? Don't you want to see your new child? You have to open your eyes. You have to see her. She's beautiful. She has your eyes…" She began to sob, "Please Tyuzaki, open your eyes! Look at your daughter! Look! Please…please…"

Aiko felt her own eyes leaking salty tears of grief. Her father had left on a mission two months ago, only to be brought back injured and approaching death. Kirimi had been born in that window of time and he couldn't even see her.

Aiko's thirteen-year-old's body began to wrack with each sob that escaped her, as she listened to the steady tone of her father dying in the next room.

"TYUZAKI!"

愛

Aiko took in a shaky breath, "Kirimi never met our father, the Tsuchikage's brother. Okaasan was never the same again."

愛

"Okaasan, Kirimi, I'm home!" Aiko slipped her shoes off, "Kirimi? Okaasan? Hello?" she called out, walking farther into the house.

"Aneue! (4)" Kirimi shrieked from another room, "Aneue!" Aiko smiled, Kirimi only recently became aware of words and speech so she knew little language beside her and her mother's titles. "Aneue!" She shrieked again, telling Aiko to come and find her.

She found the baby in her mother's room, standing up in her collapsible play-pen.

"Aneue!"

"Okay, okay, I'm here..." Aiko reached into the pen, and lifted Kirimi up and out of it. "I missed you." Kirimi responded with another "Aneue!" Aiko laughed and snuggled the little girl closer to her chest, tickling her slightly. Finally she kissed the tip of her button nose and asked, "Where's Okaasan, Kirimi? Show me where she is." She placed the bluenette on the floor and watched her waddle out of the room toward the bathroom, repeatedly saying "Okaasan" over and over again like she had with her sister's title.

A small groan exited the bathroom. Aiko began to panic as they neared it, picking up her pace a bit to follow Kirimi more closely. The approached the door and Aiko swung it open, making sure she didn't hit Kirimi or whoever was inside in the processes.

Aiko took in the display slowly. Her mother was wrenching in the base of the toilet, a sake bottle on the counter and an open bottle of pills next to it. Aiko gasped when she realized what her mother did. She had taken her anti-depressant pills with alcohol.

Miki turned her head away from the toilet when Kirimi began to chant Okaasan behind her, making her more aware of her surroundings. She smiled at her daughter and then looked to Aiko with smiling eyes. "Welcome home…"

Aiko shook her head and kneeled down next to her mother, pulling her hair back as she continued to empty her stomach of all its contents into the bowl.

"What were you thinking?" She scolded, rubbing her mother's back in soothing circles.

"I was afraid," Miki paused to gag a few times on her saliva, before finishing, "that you wouldn't come home."

"Okaasan, it was a C-ranked mission! I was fine! I was barely gone for a day!" Aiko flushed the toilet and helped her mother up, only for her to collapse again.

"Still, a mother can't be worried about her children?" Miki asked before passing out from exhaustion in her daughter's arms.

Aiko shook her head again and hugged her mother closer, "This has to stop." She whispered as she watched her sister tug on her mother's sleeve, wanting to be picked up and cuddled again.

愛

"Okaasan just couldn't cope with the fact Otousan was gone. She talked to walls thinking he was there, and chairs with no one in them. I wanted to help her, I really did, but I couldn't…I just couldn't. She wasn't Okaasan anymore…"

愛

"Aneue…? Aneue…?" Aiko's eye lids fluttered open as she heard the sound of her sister's voice trembling by her bed side. "Aneue, wake up…"

"Hmm…? What is it, Kirimi?" Aiko propped herself up on her elbows, rubbing sleep from her yellow eyes. She could only make out the silhouette of the three-year-old by her bed side. "What's wrong?"

"Okaasan is sleeping." Kirimi stated, rubbing her tear filled eyes harshly with her little fists, her stuffed turtle Semi dangling from her arms, "She won't wake up."

"Where is she?" Aiko asked, a little grumpy because, according to her clock it was two fourteen in the morning and she had a mission tomorrow.

"In the kitchen…" Kirimi replied, "At the table."

"Kirimi, go back to bed. Okaasan just probably past out again. She'll be fine in the morning." Aiko laid back down to attempt to go back to sleep again, but what Kirimi said next made her bolt up and stare at her.

"Okaasan doesn't drink red water, does she?"

Aiko stared at her sister, and grabbed her shoulders roughly, "What?" she asked.

"Okaasan drinks white water (5), not red." Kirimi said, hiccupping, "She's leaking red water…"

Aiko jumped out of bed and ran out the door, leaving her young sister to stare after her in confusion.

"Okaasan!" Kirimi bolted after her sister when she screamed out for her mother.

Aiko was in the kitchen, staring wide eyed at her over turned mother, a sake bottle and cup to one side, a kitchen knife to the other, and her wrists pouring out the dark precious life liquid. Her blue eyes had gone cold and lifeless, a small smile playing on her hard face.

"Okaasan, no!" Aiko gathered their mother up into her arms and attempted to stop the bleeding. "No! Hang on, Okaasan, hang on!" She shouted and looked to Kirimi, "Kirimi! Go get the neighbors! Tell them to come quickly! Hurry! Run Kirimi, run!" She felt her heart shatter more as she watched her sister drop Semi and run out the door screaming hysterically for their neighbors, when she didn't even know what was going on. She didn't know that they were slowly losing their mother before their very eyes.

"Okaasan?" Aiko asked when her mother mumbled something. "What…?"

Miki repeated what she had said, the first genuine smile gracing her face for the first time in years, "I'm coming…Tyuzaki…"

愛

Aiko paused for a good long time before looking up to meet Tsunade gaze. "We were sent to live with my uncle, and we did, happily for some time. But then it happened…"

愛

Gobi no Houkou walked through the dirt streets leading to Iwagakure, the snowy fur on the back of her neck bristling in annoyance. Who did these humans think they were? Even after they had invaded her home, she had allowed them to stay and allowed them to dig in her mines for precious gems and metals; watching them so they didn't do anything reckless or idiotic. She had never given them any reason to doubt her or fear her. She had never advanced on them in any way, shape, or form. She never betrayed them by hurting anyone, yet here they betrayed her by planning to attack her. Although they had done wrong in the past she never stepped in to fix it herself. She allowed them independence in whatever they did. Allowed them to finish wars by themselves, so they could keep their silly pride. But they had outstayed their welcome. By about five hundred years. She planned to stop this foolishness at its source.

愛

"Where is it? Its past twilight, and it hasn't appeared yet." Aiko complained, fiddling with the string of her wolf shaped ANBU mask, "Where could it—" Aiko was cut off by a blood curdling scream, and her face paled as she finally sensed the demonic chakra entering their village.

"It's in the village! Move! MOVE! MOVE!"

愛

"Tsuchikage-sama--! Hurry!" An owl masked ANBU guided his leader through the halls, "We have to evacuate you immediately." The ANBU suddenly realized that the older man was not following him to the exit. "Ts-Tsuchikage-sama, where are you going?"

But the Lord was not listening to his guard as he sprinted away and threw large double doors, flying up a flight of stairs, screaming for a certain four year old niece, "Kirimi!" He slammed a door open to find said girl in her bed, visibly trembling under the quilt.

"O-Ojiki (6)!" She called out, her voice trembling as much as her body, when she saw him in the doorway. He was by her side in an instant. "What's hap-hap-happening…? W-w-where's Aneue…? O-Ojiki?" She had started stuttering ever since his sister-in-law's death and now wasn't any exception. He lifted her, blanket and all, up and out of the sided bed where she had been laid for sleep.

"Shh, Kirimi… Your sister's fine." He confirmed, holding her head against his collar bone, "It's us I'm worried about…" He muttered, not meaning for the young girl to hear him. But she did and tensed in his arms, whimpering slightly.

"Tsuchikage-sama!" The ANBU from before exclaimed, "I'm sorry but we have to leave immediately." He pointed a gloved hand out the open window, "The demon has split itself."

"Split itself?"

"Yes…there are at least eighteen out there looking for you; smaller than the original."

The brunette man looked out the window for himself. Indeed there were multiple mist-like animals weaving in and out of buildings and streets. Their muzzles wrinkled back over their snouts, bearing their teeth aggressively to those who dared get in their way. "Has my niece and her men returned, yet?" he asked frantically as he pulled himself away from the window pane and strutted over to the ANBU.

The ANBU nodded, "They are making their way down the mountains as we speak. But we still must relocate you for the time being." They made their way up a long flight of spiraling stairs, leading to the top of the Tsuchikage's Mountain Tower, where they would exit through the top.

"How many are in the village at the time?" Kirimi's uncle asked his guide.

"Well, we sent a good, or bad depending on how you look at it, amount of ANBU to the demons lair. So we have little defense until they return."

"Damn…" The Tsuchikage swore.

They approached the opening in the top of the tower, the ANBU helping the Tsuchikage through the tight hole, Kirimi still in his strong hold. They jumped from rooftop to rooftop with speed and agility only ninja could possess, the Tsuchikage ahead of the ANBU. But they weren't alone for long.

"Tsuchikage-sama, move!" The ANBU sprinted forward and pushed the Lord off course, sending him off the roof, unintentionally.

"Ojiki!?" Kirimi shrieked in fright, frantically wondering what was happening outside her cocoon of blankets as she felt her uncle and her become airborne. But the man was on guard, he blindly groped the air as he fell freely, finally grasping a gutter lining the roof of someone's home.

"Ugh…" He grunted as he pulled himself up. He looked up and suddenly found himself snout to nose with one of the downsized demons. It was so close he almost gagged from its foul breath, soaked with death and blood, the red liquid covering its originally white lips. A low growl vibrated from its throat and chest. The man's yellow eyes grew wide with fear and anticipation when his eyes conveniently landed on the fallen form of the owl ANBU, his throat and chest torn wide open; His visible heart beating its final rhythm and pulsing blood out of his chest, his lungs trying to force his final breaths out. But the beast never moved.

When his arms began to tire from holding himself and his niece on the side of the building, he shifted, making the canine demon jerk in excitement or it was feeling threatened. It gave him an idea.

"Ojiki…?" Kirimi asked, trying to pull the blanket away from her face.

"Wait one minute, Kirimi." He directed, "Just give me a moment… don't be afraid…just hang on…" He breathed softly next to the place where Kirimi's head was.

"'Kay."

He threw her, bundle and all, up into the air without warning making her yelp briefly but stay quiet none-the-less. The miniature demon's head jolted up to watch the bundle fall threw the air, eyes narrowed in slight befuddlement, but decided that it was none of its concern. Its one purpose was to bring the human's leader back to its mother. But when it looked away from the air born heap of cloth, the Tsuchikage was gone. Its head snapped violently from side to side when it dashed to the side of the roof to look over the gutter railing, expecting to see a fallen man, but instead saw nothing.

Suddenly, a black figure dashed from the shadows of a nearby alleyway of rocks and mountain, and launched itself into the air, catching the bundle of Kirimi milliseconds away from hitting the earth below.

The Tsuchikage grunted. He had sprained his left ankle for sure. He was getting too old for this. But he ran without even pausing in thought, the small white demon dog following closely behind them. It was only mere feet away from catching the man's ankle between its powerful jaws and ripping it from his body. It snarled in rage and annoyance at each miss.

The demon suddenly skidded to a halt and looked away from the fleeing man to the waxing moon above, its sleek white ears twitching as it listened to another's lone howl. After the sound had faded out it threw its head back and gave a responding howl, before letting a think mist dissolve its body away. Mother would take care of the man.

Kirimi's uncle heard the wolf's sad howl behind him but kept running…and running…and running…he had to get away. But you can't run from fate.

The Tsuchikage stopped dead in his tracks; Watching the great threat before him. He should have known he couldn't run from it; The Gobi no Houkou…

愛

Wow… I thought I was gonna finish her past in this chapter but decided to end it there 'cuz 1) it was an evil cliffy :evil laugh: and 2) it was getting too long.

I sorrta force part of this chapter out, so if it seems crappy that's why…

Oh, this chapter was sooooo horrible! I'm sooooo ashamed of it! Please forgive me!

And thanks again for reading this far!

Ja Ne!

Franki-chan

(1)Don't ask me how, he just could. Something to do with the Kyuubi in him or something... Be Creative.

(2)Mother

(3)Father

(4)Older sister

(5)She was talking about her mother's Sake, but she was too young to know the name of it.

(6)Uncle