Ryῡko balled her fists and punched the solid concrete wall without sparing it a second thought. She didn't even look when she extracted her bloody hand from the glory hole she incised in Academy property. Someone would come along to fix it, of that she was sure.
What wouldn't be getting a magic repair in the near future was the object of her concern. Neither she, nor the incredibly stealthy building contractors had the knowhow to solve the current issue.
And that irked her.
She was used to punching or slashing through her problems, not thinking around them. That's what she had Senketsu and now Satsuki and her retinue for. But even those two, the ones she would turn to for any seemingly insurmountable task which couldn't be solved through brute force alone were clueless as to how to proceed. They were all just waiting idly by for the true brainiacs to come up with a magical solution.
And she did not idle well.
"Punching holes in the wall isn't going to do anything." The weary voice of her partner came in clear as day.
"Gee, thanks for that, I never would have known." She flexed her already healed knuckles and debated on taking another swing. "I've been waiting a long time to do that anyway."
"Why? What did that wall ever do to you?" She chuckled at the genuine cluelessness in his voice.
"Not the wall specifically. The whole damned Academy in general." She looked with both a scowl and nostalgia at the crested peak looming high over the militarized city, almost missing the angelic glow when her sister stood appraising them like ants.
"But if you never came here, you'd never have gotten any of your answers. You'd never have met Mako, or Satsuki… or me."
"I know." She deflated, planting the unclenched hand on her hip and plodding away aimlessly into the darkness. She'd decided the wall couldn't handle another one of her angered punches. "I know it's not really at fault. But it's what I got to be angry at right now."
"Like with Naruto."
She froze in the middle of the vast expanse of the school's front courtyard and the same fist dropped to her side and tightened again in directionless anger. The Kamui could feel the tension, as well as the mixed emotions coursing through the blood and skipping electricity off every cell.
"Violence. It's a familiar way to deal with problems." If he had shoulders, the garment would have shrugged. "It has worked for us so for. But I don't think it will do us much good in these circumstances. If you can, it's best to let go of your anger. All of it."
"Yeah." Came the reply after another long pause were the only sound was the moonlight radiating down on the plateau. "I know."
The fist relaxed, for good this time and fell lifelessly by her side before she ran the unused one through her already mussed-up hair, releasing a sigh which had been tangled within her.
"So what do you think I should do? You know it's impossible for me to just wait like this."
"Mm." The outfit agreed, not bothering to mention that he too was feeling restless. "Unfortunately there's apparently not much we can do right now. It's in the hands of the research team and Naruto himself."
"Hmph. That makes me feel sooo much better." She rolled her eyes. "Because that idiot clearly knows how to manage his problems in a timely manner."
'And you do?' Senketsu thought to himself, resisting the urge to get into another animated argument.
He was glad he did, for he might have missed her whisper-like interrogative beneath the sound of his own voice.
"Nee, Senketsu."
"Hm?"
"Is there… is there really nothing we can do? You were with him for almost eight months, surely you learned something about the Kyuubi during that time?" He could hear the desperation in his voice, and knew she was grasping at straws because they'd already rehashed this conversation too often.
He heaved a long-suffering sigh before answering her yet again.
"During the time I was with him he never succeeded in truly putting me on. It was very much like you during the first week of our new partnership. Except…" Ryῡko perked up as the Kamui trailed off, as if he were reviewing something he'd never quite considered, a piece of the puzzle he'd never even knew was missing. "It wasn't just that he was ashamed to wear me- no, it wasn't even that he was ashamed to wear me, there was something else which caused the dissonance."
The young woman looked down at the glowing yellow eye glazed on her chest with interest, never having heard this part of the tale herself and honestly fascinated with the thought of a man who had so little vanity.
"Naruto-kun… he was always holding back. Not just from me, but from everyone we encountered along the way. Even the ones who claimed to be his friends.
"On the outside… on the outside he might have seemed embarrassed, but it was deeper than that. It was a shame that existed long before I came into his life.
"From the minute he awoke after I dressed him he knew I was an intelligent lifeform. I told him about us, pleaded with him to keep me close until I could find a way back home. He was the one who reassured me, and in the end, it was also him who promised to deliver me back to you."
"Sounds like you admire him a lot." Ryῡko uttered in a voice devoid of inflection, and Senketsu struggled to find a hint of jealousy.
"Ee." He confirmed at last. "He reminds me a lot of you, so it's hard not to."
"Baka." She did not try and disguise the amusement and compassion she felt. "I guess I should try to help him, huh? Sounds like he needs help feeling comfortable in his own skin."
"That's probably not far off the mark." Her partner agreed. "It certainly wouldn't hurt him to hear a sympathetic voice."
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to baby him. For such a 'tough guy' he sure knows how to be melodramatic."
Senketsu chuckled as Ryῡko turned on her heel and headed back the way she came.
"You really are two of a kind…"
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Nothing, nothing… at least it'll give you a break from Mankanshoku's croquettes. Once more I'm concerned about your waistline…"
"Oi! Don't start with that shit again! So I haven't been getting exercise for the past couple of weeks, you can't tell me that knucklehead is thinner than I am!"
"I must admit that Naruto-kun is not the healthiest eater either, but he does certainly make up for it in his day to day routine. Plus, the amount of ramen he eats does make his blood nice and salty…"
As their banter continued its comfortable back and forth all throughout the ironclad complex, Ryῡko spared a thought for her best friend who would no doubt be waiting up all night for her return.
Just wait a little longer, Mako. I just have a few things to take care of.
"Hmm. You really are two of a kind…"
Senketsu drawled as the he surveyed the damage the pair had walked in to.
"Can it, Patches." She snapped, flicking the garment on the opposite lapel for emphasis. "Oi, get up, Uzumaki. What the hell do you think you're doing lying down in this shit?"
Propped up against the gouged and pockmarked wall Naruto made no move to acknowledge her presence. He sat with head resting between his knees in the epicenter of what could have been a small hurricane. Machines were smashed with their wiry guts hanging out every which way, draped from the ceiling and spread out across the floor. The bed had been thoroughly dismantled and the mattress itself looked like it had been through a woodchipper.
Naruto himself was without a scratch but had an air as if he'd just been through the ringer anyway. The near-complete suit painting his body was still immaculate.
"Geeze, I get not liking hospitals, but Satsuki and Inumuta went through a lot of trouble for all this, ya know?" She padded over to him with an aloof jaunt, though internally cautious as she reviewed the wanton destruction and the young man's unresponsive demeanor. "Come on, get up. Let's find you another place to rest your fat head." She bent down to scoop an arm under his shoulder, but he continued to sit there like a sleeping cat and soon it became obvious the effort was not going to work.
"Would you quit being such a drama queen? Move your ass before I have to do it for you." Still there was no response from underneath the matted blond locks which shrouded his eyes. "You asked for it, fucker."
She grabbed ahold of the loosely defined collar of Naruto's juvenile Kamui, the fabric just barely having enough give that she wasn't tearing at his skin. With a fraction of her considerable strength, she lifted him above her head to his feet, though he continued to dangle there like a puppet.
"What the hell's the matter with you?!" She yelled at him with genuine irritation. It was beyond obvious that he was awake, and yet he was obstinately insisting on mimicking a comatose state. "You don't want to pay attention to me, fine!" With that she threw him back against the wall, sending more worrying spiderweb cracks in every direction and snapping the back of his head against the unforgiving concrete.
"Careful, Ryῡko!" Senketsu admonished as the blond peeled away from the wall and slid back down to the ground.
"Why the hell should I care if he gets hurt? He obviously doesn't." She practically spat as she crouched down in front of him, shoving her face underneath his bowed head so that their noses were almost touching. "As if something as little as that would hurt this idiot. So tell me, what is the matter with you now, Uzumaki?"
Because she was holding him up like a newborn cub, he had little choice but to meet her eyes. But she gave nothing but bullheadedness in return to the lackluster stare, refusing to let his selfish malaise affect her.
"…Could you do me a favor, Ryῡko?" If it weren't for the minute flutter in his lips she might not have heard the request.
"…What?" She asked dubiously, still not loosing her grip on his neck. "I'm not going to wipe your ass for you, if that's what you want. You hurt yourself by being stupid again and that's on you."
She didn't think that would pry any kind of cheer out of the teen. Though her vulgarity and bluntness had amused him before, he had always tried to hide it when she was looking his way. And it only became more muted in the past 24 hours when there didn't seem to be much humor to be found anywhere. It didn't hurt to try, though.
Another almost invisible movement, a nod which was little more than a twitch.
"I know." He said simply. "I've gotten myself into this mess. But I need your help."
"That's what I'm trying to do, stupid." But her already scant patience was wearing thin.
"If I ask you, would you please kill me?"
Rather than the stunned silence which everyone had been expecting, there was a harsh crunch as Ryῡko's fist buried itself into Naruto's face. It had all happened so fast, it was like she had been merely waiting for the signal. But in the end, it wasn't scripted. She just moved.
"You…" There was clear anger laced into that trembling voice, but Naruto made no move to get out of the way of its warpath as he posed loosely on his knees in front of the vengeful deity. "You bastard…" She re-clenched the fist which was bloodied for the second time that night and stalked up the few steps to him.
"Ryῡko-"
"YOU IDIOTIC BASTARD!"
Senketsu's attempts to intervene were muted by the repetitious sound of flesh impacting flesh. He even tried to physically prevent her form moving, but his partner had grown far stronger than he could have ever imagined in his absence, and he was not even a worthy distraction for her as she unleashed those prickly emotions on something much more satisfying than a wall.
She had spent all the words she was willing to waste on him back the first time in the infirmary. Now, it was her turn to be provided comfort as she purged herself of all the confused and frustrated feelings which surrounded his arrival.
*WHAM!*
She punched out his arrogance.
*SLAM!*
She knocked out his cowardice.
*BAM!*
She beat down his self-righteousness.
*SLAP!*
She boxed up his uncertainty.
*CRUNCH!*
She expelled her misgivings.
*CRACK!*
She defeated her jealousy.
*KERPOW!*
She beggared belief.
It was done only when her arm trembled trying to lift it. The other was still clamped somewhere on Naruto's collar. Where her hand ended and where he began were anyone's guess as the whole area was covered in thick, dark blood which plastered every inch of his face and caked her quivering fists. They were one disfigured mound of flesh sitting amongst a disaster zone. When she had walked in and first saw what he had done in his own fit of rage, she thought it couldn't have been ruined further. She was wrong.
The purge finished, the darkness expelled, she breathed heavy but clearly for the first time in a while. Not minding the ferric hint in the air, she gulped down the smooth concoction like it was her first drink in ages.
Meanwhile Naruto wheezed in and out of a broken nose, and several other broken things which were unidentifiable underneath the blood and bruises. He slumped forward, only being held up by her locked arm which braced the two of them across from one another, knees poised on bits of glass and rubble uncaringly. He trained a swollen eye on the horrified Senketsu who couldn't look away from the madness which had befallen his two patrons.
"Heh." He chuckled with a moan and a lisp. "Thawnks Wyῡko… I ndeeded dat." And then he proceeded to list to one side and toppled over into a vertical chunk of broken concrete, whistling snores following not long after.
"Oi…I didn't say you could pass out… I'm not done with you yet…" The woman protested as the Kamui rolled his single eye in exasperation. "Fine… but you better not go dying on me just yet. You still owe me big Uzumaki…
"But yeah… a nap sounds great just about now…"
And with that empty threat voiced to the almost equally empty room, Ryῡko followed her blond punching bag into semi-restful slumber, leaving the Kamui by himself to stay awake the rest of the night and figure out what had happened.
"Those two… they're both insane…"
"…Are you mad, Uzumaki?"
Though the Kyuubi himself was only barely hanging on to his dignity whilst literally hanging from the ceiling, he had to question the sanity of his jailer who showed up staggering like a drunk for the second time in as many hours after being forcibly ejected from his admittedly daunting presence.
"Seriously, what are you doing here? You must be insane…"
"Nope and nope!" Naruto grinned cheekily after shaking off the residual lumps and cuts which had followed him from the real world. "I got rid of that already. Had some help, though."
"I can only imagine…" The beast rolled his eyes and stopped them away from looking at the smiling blond. "Are you here to laud your temporary victory over me more? Annoy me into submission? Or perhaps you are finally willing to beg for your life. I wouldn't mind some entertainment before you cease to exist."
Naruto just took the disinterested fleer in stride as he trod over to a particularly thick bunch of Life-Fibers before lifting them casually and tossing them aside. The Kyuubi watched out of the corner of his eye, trying not to show any interest, but little did he know Naruto was doing the same thing while he fiddled with whatever it was he was doing.
He smiled softly to himself as he drew a bloodied finger across an unassuming cobble. He stood when a large scroll seamlessly squeezed its way from the ground and stopped just short of his full height. With no formality, he unfurled the familiar parchment and went about his ministrations under the furtively curious eyes of the Kyuubi.
Though the fox would later wish he had paid more attention to his predicament, as without warning the chains suddenly retracted and he found himself dropped unceremoniously on his rear with a yelp that was decidedly unbecoming of such a powerful and awe-inspiring essence.
He uncoiled himself onto all fours and growled dangerously at the now considerably subdued Naruto. But the boy had yet to completely wipe the smile off his face, and did not look like he was about to shy away from the overbearing challenge he set up for himself.
"Very good." The Kyuubi said patronizingly. "It seems you have finally accepted your fate."
"In a manner of speaking." Naruto shrugged before plopping himself down in front of the beast, within arm's reach of the giant bars. "I'm here because we still need to talk."
"When I said that I wanted entertainment before you perished, I did not mean your tasteless banter." It continued to insult the mettlesome youth, though restrained from carrying out its threat because of a genuine curiosity it held for his unprecedented actions and bearing.
"Well, it's not like I intend for either one of us to die just yet. But that's really up to you."
"Of course it's up to me, boy. You are nothing but an insect in my eyes, and the fate of one such as yourself is no different as a careless step on my part could end it." A massive paw was raised for emphasis, stretching past the bars which did nothing to stop him and bathing the cross-legged Naruto in its shadow. "This is your last chance to give me any sort of reason I should prolong your meaningless existence for another minute."
"Nee, what do you think happens if you die here?"
The Fox's paw halted inches above his head, so close he could feel the smoldering heat perk up his gilded locks.
"I mean, it's possible that you could reform. But there isn't even any nature Chakra on this planet, and without an abundant source to ground you it might take a while… maybe forever."
"Fool." It growled but kept its paw steady, tails swishing restively behind it. "I already told you. The new Kamui is close enough to completion. I shall escape this crumbling prison through it, and with my network of Life-Fibers shall construct myself a new body which would be the envy of any of my brethren."
It spoke with no small amount of pride and desire. Truly, the thought of such a symbiosis was frightening, perhaps more so than the vague threat presented by Kaguya. A demon which was hell-bent on eradicating humanity, a near limitless wellspring of energy to fuel the most efficient and ruthless infiltrators known to life. No one in the galaxy would be safe from that partnership.
"Yeah… not going to let that happen." Naruto drawled without the concern which should have been there.
"And I repeat," It pressed down on the top of his head ever so slightly. "Fool. There is nothing you can do to stop me."
"Mm." Naruto nodded his head, bumping against the incredibly soft pads of the Kyuubi's paw, much to its ire. "You're right. There's nothing much I can do. But you know Ryῡko-san is up there, and I'll tell you what, I think it's been a bit of a struggle to get her not to kill me."
"A human after my own heart…" It bore its fangs once again. "Maybe I'll take hers instead?"
Naruto failed to rise to the bait and just stared patiently at the fox, as if reminding it of its own curiosity.
"What do you think would happen if she tore me to pieces with those Scissor Blades, hm?" The smug look slunk off the Kyuubi's face. "You remember those things, right? The blades that can cut through the most hardened Life-Fibers and render them useless?"
"It didn't work so well for you last time." It poked its nose outside the bars, huffing in Naruto's face with olid breath. "Why should I heed such an idle threat now?"
"No reason." Naruto broadened his smile, making the Fox actually shrink back behind the bars again. "But what do you think? Do you really want to take the chance that your new Kamui is as good as Senketsu? Are you fast enough to escape your bonds before Ryῡko can turn us both into stir-fry?" His grin grew manic, and for the second time in a single conversation the Kyuubi questioned his host's sanity. "You wanna make a bet on it?"
It was all a bluff. It was all just insane desperation. That was the only trick the humans ever had when backed against a wall, they rejected the cruel fairness of the world and rallied against it until the bitter end. But the end would always come, and the humans would always lose.
Except when they managed to break even. When that insanity, that belief in impossibility actually bore fruit and they cheated the zero-sum game. The Kyuubi knew the gamble Naruto's father had made. He also knew the boy's own track record when it came to dumb luck.
No, he did not want to take that chance.
"You have no idea just how satisfying it would be to crush you here and now."
"You're right." Naruto cocked his smile to the side of his mouth. "I don't. So tell me, would it be worth it?"
In truth, he was simply glad he had no bowels in his mindscape, or else he might be voiding them just about now. In that pause in which the Kyuubi pondered his fate, he surely would have flatlined several times over.
"No." It said at last, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Just barely."
"Good enough for me!" Naruto tittered. "Now, what do you say we start over, eh big guy? I'm thinking this conversation was long overdue."
He reached up to the massive prehensile paw which was still poised to flatten him like a pancake, shifting it off of himself like an iron girder on a crane until it was just at arm's reach away from him.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" He beamed, shaking his hand against one razor claw of the gargantuan appendage. "Not going to say it's nice to meet you just yet, but I look forward to making your acquaintance!"
The Fox allowed himself to be manhandled by this audacious speck of dust as he gazed down with half-lidded eyes. For the first time in its vast existence, it did not know what to do. So, it gave in to the insanity.
"Kurama."
"…?"
"My name… is Kurama."
It could always squash him later.
So, for all of you I know that are wondering, we just passed the lowest point. Congratulations. It's all uphill from here. Getting better, but a struggle all the way.
