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Chapter 9: Reversal
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"We could blow them up." The kyuubi suggested from behind the bars.
"No."
"Or… maim them a little?"
"No."
"Brat! They are completely irredeemable. Why on earth would you NOT want to kill them."
Naruto felt his teeth clench and smoothed his facial expression. Though both his prisoner and the humans in the physical world were both tempting him to murder, he had to remain calm. "And that is why these measures need to be implemented." He finished. "Thank you councilors."
"Yes, Hokage-sama." They replied, knowing it was a dismissal.
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"Go away."
"Kakashi, I just wanted to…" The kitsune tried, before being cut off.
"I have been ordered to not destroy any more of the village. And for that, you need to leave." Kakashi looked up at the kitsune with a sharply focused gaze… and two eyes.
"Er… actually, in the spirit of not destroying things…" and because this particular ninja might actually be able to kill her… "and because it was too easy to trick that old pervert…" Kakashi's gaze turned slightly from purely murderous to somewhat interested. The kitsune dug out the respectably sized stack of manga and presented it to the ninja.
Kakashi stared at the pile warily for several minutes. The kitsune just held it out steadily. Finally he took the books and looked them over. "Icha Icha Paradise, special edition series?" He read dubiously. But he still cracked it open to the first page.
The look of utter shock was priceless. The kitsune decided then and there that she had to do random acts of kindness in between her pranks. The ninja looked like his entire world view had come crashing down about his ears.
"Signed by the author?" Kakashi whispered, quickly paging through everything quickly to confirm that they were all the real deal. His hands were trembling slightly.
"I'm getting pretty good at repair of buildings burnt down by fire, too, if you want some help." The kitsune smirked. "I can't guarantee that you'll think the end result is the workings of a sane person, however. Because, well, it's probably not…"
"Thank you." Kakashi said, looking up at her with his Sharingan closed.
"It was a pleasure." The kitsune added honestly. "I don't suppose the originals survived the fire…"
She ducked instinctively out of the way of the thrown kunai.
"You had to ruin the moment." Kakashi muttered, shaking his head.
"Are they, though? I spent a long time on… whoops!" That one almost cut her! "They are a work of art." The kitsune protested hotly. "Eep!" She dodged this last one, but noticed that it wasn't aimed nearly as well as the previous ones. She snuck a glance back as she leapt away and saw that the ninja had his nose firmly in the crease of the book and was giggling a bit to himself. She cackled gleefully as she skipped away.
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"Hey, brat." The kitsune hoped to startle Naruto, but he simply waved a hand behind him. She looked over his shoulder to look at what he was doing. It seemed to be some sort of seal thingie. Since she only knew the one she was currently employing, and only by its chakra patterns, she had no idea what he was drawing. "What are you doing, kit?"
Naruto finished a sweeping line with his brush and then set it to the side before turning around. "I'm researching how to make a contract. The old pervert says that if I can, he'll teach me dad's spinning ball technique!" The kid grinned up at her, eyes squinted closed in happiness.
"Contract?" She asked, hoping he didn't mean what she thought he meant.
"Yeah! I want to make one with the foxes, like you said to do, Musume-chan!" He crossed his arms over his chest proudly.
"I see." He meant exactly what she thought he meant. "Isn't it a bit dangerous to be working on something like that?"
Naruto's happy smile turned to a thunderous scowl. "Not you, too!" He huffed. "The lecherous sage wrote his own contract, and so did his two teammates."
"Aren't they some sort of legendary ninja or something, brat?"
"Sure. But I'm the number one ninja of all time, so I can make one, too. And it will be even better than theirs." Naruto said proudly.
"Uh huh." The kitsune said dubiously.
"And anyway, we're staying here for a bit so we can read all the stuff in the library about it." Naruto said with a sour look on his face.
"That's great!" The kitsune cheered.
Naruto squinted at her. "I don't see why that's so great."
"Don't pout, brat." The kitsune grinned. "I just wasn't up to letting you go just yet."
"It's not like we're not coming back." He huffed.
"Yeah, but you kits grow up so fast. Next thing I know you'll be all tall and wearing something respectable and not wanting me to do… this!" She pounced on him and started ruffling his hair.
"I already don't want you to do that!" He yowled in protest, trying to shove the cackling kitsune off of him. "Don't you have some new family you're supposed to be bugging?"
"Aw, you spoil my fun, kit."
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The kitsune stayed long enough to pressure Minato into feeding her lunch. Which was, much to her pleasure, ramen. The reason why, however, was less to her liking.
"How did Danzo get out?" Jiraiya growled, biting into his ramen like it was an enemy ninja.
"He has a lot of members of the ANBU and the council that are loyal to him." Minato sighed, rubbing his head distractedly.
"That's treason!" Jiraiya growled, slamming his fist down on the table. The kitsune rescued her ramen, but some of the older ninjas' spilled over.
"I know that, sensei, but I don't know what I can do about it, short of sending everyone to Inoichi." He held up a hand at the look on the older man's face. "Which we cannot do."
"What about the Uchiha, then?" The kitsune asked curiously.
"Fugaku has woken up, finally." Minato said with a look at her that was somewhat uneasy. "And now the whole clan is fighting."
The kitsune frowned. Maybe she shouldn't go back there. On the other hand, it would stir up a lot of chaos…
"Please don't do anything to make this worse." Minato almost seemed to be begging.
The kitsune looked him over- he was rather haggard. She twitched her nose contemplatively.
"Please." Minato asked again, quietly.
"I have recently resolved to disrupt as many constants in this life as I can." The kitsune declared. Minato looked positively ill, and Jiraiya was starting to look at her like an enemy. Time for the reversal then. She grinned cheekily. "And it has recently come to my attention that acting outside of people's expectations is the best way to do that." Now they all looked confused. "Hence- this week, I am practicing random acts of kindness." She concluded. "So I shall honor your request, Hoakge-sama." She slurped her soup.
"Really?" Minato looked pathetically like a child who was told that he actually could have the candy, after all.
"Sure. Aren't I generous?" She chuckled into the broth.
"Depends on one's basis for comparison." Jiraiya muttered. She stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, if Danzo does try anything, I'll be here for a while. And Orochimaru will be here soon…"
The kitsune choked on her soup. Say what now? The snake was always an enemy of Konoha. What the hell had happened to change that?
"Are you ok, Musume-chan?" Naruto asked in concern. She waved him off and soothed the things in her throat that were trying to make her cough.
Minato sighed and pushed his ramen away, causing the kitsune to feel a bit worried about him. But not worried enough to stop her from stealing his leftovers and finishing them off, over the protests of Naruto, who she had beaten to grabbing it.
"Speak of the devil!" Jiraiya boomed, going to the patio door and throwing it open. There stood a sight that set fear and anger rushing through the kitsune.
It was Orochimaru! The one who had almost defeated her with nearly half her tails out, the one that had messed with her seal to make her almost completely sensory deprived. The one that was even more creepily proficient with the body hopping than she ever hoped that she would be.
The snake sannin looked over at the kitsune in some surprise when he felt the rush of killing intent roll off of the relatively small and innocuous looking woman. Although, she did have the look of an Uchiha, and they were known for unreasoning hatred and violence. Orochimaru moved to brace himself against the oncoming attack.
The kitsune, meanwhile, was a bit confused. This Orochimaru looked almost… relaxed? Even in the battle stance he had slipped into, there was a certain amount of peace in him. She cocked her head to the side and studied the ninja. There was something else that was very off… something… he looked similar to many humans, so she wasn't quite sure what it was. Until she noticed the streaks of grey in his hair, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He looked… not old really, but certainly not the prime of youth his body switch technique always left him in.
"Musume." The kitsune felt an arm on her shoulder and turned to Minato, though she kept part of her vision on the not-quite-missing-nin. "This is Orochimaru, he is a friend of Konoha."
"I didn't realize you had taken a new wife, Minato." Orochimaru said in his raspy voice. "Though now it makes a bit more sense why you are so concerned about the Uchiha." He nodded toward the kitsune.
She forgot a good portion of her wariness of the snake at her renewed anger at the Uchiha clan. "If it's really that obvious, what the hell?"
"You are having a secret affair, then?" Orochimaru asked, looking surprised and impressed.
"No!" Minato growled. "She meant that it was obvious that she is an Uchiha. We are not having an affair, nor are we married."
"As much as everyone keeps saying we are, though, we might have to get hitched." The kitsune mused, leaning back. Minato just gaped at her, at a loss for words.
"You better watch out for that one!" Jiraiya chuckled. "She's definitely a vixen."
"Thank you." The kitsune said, her smile wide. If the toad sage kept complimenting her, she might have to start liking long grey hair. She eyes his main contemplatively, to Jiraiya's evident unease.
"So how have you been, Chi-chan?" Jiraiya asked, deciding to ignore Musume.
"Don't call me that! I told you what I would do to you if you did." Orochimaru hissed (more than usual).
"Yes, set poisonous snakes in my bed to chew off my manhood." The hermit replied easily, slapping the former (alternate future?) betrayer on the shoulder.
"You missed my graduation." Naruto pouted.
"Ah, you did make it this year? Too bad." Orochimaru said as the two sannin moved to sit around the table. "If you failed again I was going to get you as an apprentice."
"Yeah- snakes are cooler than toads." Naruto mused, making Orochimaru smirk happily and Jiraiya frown. "But I like foxes best, so I'm going to make my own summon just for them!"
"I told you, kid! You can't summon foxes." Jiraiya looked annoyed.
"Foxes are… demons." Minato said calmly. "You should pick another animal."
Naruto's face twisted into a petulant frown. "No. I want to do foxes."
The kitsune's face twitched, both at the defiance and the unintended double entendre. "At least he doesn't want to summon tanuki." The kitsune imagined that scenario and couldn't quite figure out if the whole Jinchuuriki would come, just the demon, the demon in the person's body… her attention snapped back to the table when Orochimaru leaned forward to Naruto.
The snake sannin sat back slightly and looked the kitsune in the eye. "What exactly is your problem with me?" He asked.
She reached over the table and pinched him on the cheek, so hard and fast he barely had time to recoil before she withdrew. Not a fake skin. It seemed to be his real flesh. The kitsune was intrigued.
"What the hell?" Orochimaru asked, moving as if to stand up.
"Easy, friend." Jiraiya put a hand on his teammate's shoulder.
"Musume, you cannot attack my guests when you are one yourself." Minato said sternly. Naruto giggled a bit at the red welt on the older ninja's face. "Orochimaru is a trusted advisor." He slid a wry grin to the other then smirked. "Besides, I've already beaten him to a pulp. You don't need to attack him as well."
"It was a lucky shot." The snake sannin scoffed, relaxing.
"I'm always up for a rematch." Minato replied easily. Orochimaru only sniffed.
"When did you fight him?" The kitsune asked, curious. And where? A fight between the two of them would take out half the village.
"It was before you came to the village." Minato said, grabbing at his ramen bowl only to find it missing. He sighed, then continued. "A lot of people had ideas on what to do in the aftermath of the kyuubi attack." The kitsune tried to not shift at the mention of the almost-start of the nearly endless repeats of her imprisonment. If she never did anything twice anything it would be too soon. "But the crux of the matter was, there was no damage to the village at all, and very few casualties. So I just demonstrated that my ideas were the best."
"By taking out Chi-chan in under a minute and defeating half the council before they could properly process the battle." Jiraiya chuckled.
"Indeed." Orochimaru grated, looking, if anything, bemused. "And you have since proven that you were correct with less… violent persuasions." The snake sannin didn't comment on the nickname, though his thumb was twitching like he wanted to bite it. "I have since learned from the snake sages about the virtue of patience." The kitsune was now almost unbearably curious. As far as she had ever seen, the only sages were Naruto and Jiraiya- both of them of the toads. What would a snake sage be like?
"I'm glad you could make it here so quickly." Minato said.
"It's always a pleasure to conduct some genetic research." Orochimaru hissed, with that familiar gleam coming to his eyes and making the kitsune tense. The bastard was sitting next to her kit!
"What research?" Naruto looked more excited about the prospect than he ought to. "Is it like dad's where there are lots of lights and explosions?"
Minato gave his son an embarrassed look.
"No, it's to see what is going wrong with the Uchiha clan that they are having such low birth rates and so few females." Orochimaru replied.
"They're all inbred pricks." The kitsune replied in confusion. "What more is there to know?"
"Ah." Orochimaru said, leaning forward. "There is everything to know. They are inbred- absolutely. But inbred how, exactly?"
The kitsune cocked her head to the side. "When two people love each other very much…"
"Musume!" Minato snapped, slapping his hand over her mouth.
Orochimaru let out a hissing laugh that sent shivers down her spine.
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The snake sannin had taken over an outbuilding by Minato's house. The kitsune stayed away for a bit, wary of walking in and getting experimented upon (especially considering his unhealthy obsession with bleeding her) but eventually the temptation was too much.
She snuck in a window and clung to the rafters with toes and fingers, observing Orochimaru going about his mysterious tasks. There were devices of metal and mirrors, tubes of things, odd shaped bottles of glass, various seals and notes strewn about...
"If you have satisfied your curiosity, you may leave." Orochimaru rasped.
"Eep!" The kitsune yelped in startlement, losing her grip with one foot and one hand and almost crashing to the ground. She regrabbed the beam with her hand and dropped gracefully to the ground. "I haven't." The kitsune replied honestly.
The pale man turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised.
"I like the white in your hair." The comment came out without her realizing she had actually been thinking it. Mostly because the whole concept had been running about in her head since she first saw him in this reality.
"Thank you." Orochimaru drawled. He pulled something from under the contraption he was fiddling with and picked up a tube and started twirling it.
"Weren't you afraid of getting old or wanting to be immortal or something?" She asked finally, unable to think of a more subtle way to ask how Konoha's number one enemy... well, ok, maybe number two, but certainly an enemy ended up like... this.
"Immortality is a myth and impossible."
"Not if you phase out of this plane of temporal reality." The kitsune muttered, leading Orochimaru to give her an odd look. It was a bit ironic, really, that the man who had in other timelines been searching fanatically for a way to keep himself young and alive was now denying the possibility to the body that had actually managed it, prior to being taken over by a demon (who was also immortal). Getting his ass handed to him by Minato and not meeting Madara and joining the Akatsuki had changed him so much. The kitsune cocked her head and regarded the aging man in front of her. Those were some fairly large life events, but even so...
"Tsunade fixed the part of my brain that was making me think such things were valid possibilities. Perhaps she should take a look at you as well." He raised an eyebrow in her direction when he felt her continued stares.
"Heh heh. I think I'm a bit too crazy for anyone to fix." Besides the fact that she wasn't human and thus had completely different mental processes.
"Hm." Orochimaru went back to looking through the contraption of metal, glass and chakra. "Besides." He continued, not looking up from his work, "I realized that there was too much in this world for any one person to ever know fully, and even should they be able to, there are many other realms to study." He stopped and looked up at the ceiling. "I think I like the search itself better, anyway. There is always something new, and a change in one's way of thinking."
"You learned all this from the snakes?" If so, perhaps she had to give them a bit more credit. Perhaps missing all your limbs meant that you had time to think about stuff other people didn't bother with?
"Not all." Orochimaru said calmly, moving to the other side of the room.
The kitsune snuck over to the contraption, looking through where Orochimaru had been looking. She saw lots of little round things with something inside... she hmmed and extended her other senses to the contraption in front of her. "Water filled fat bags?" She asked in surprise.
"They're called cells." Orochimaru supplied.
"Cells." The kitsune mused. "Why are you looking at cells?"
"As part of my workup."
"These are part of the blood, yes?" She asked. They had felt quite a bit like the things that were constantly racing about her body.
"Yes." Orochimaru replied, looking surprised.
"Is there one of the little smaller-than-cells things that is making the Uchiha sick?" She asked, feeling a bit excited. Was it one of the flat ones that liked to hide in the bags? Or the ones that just touched the outside?
"Yes." Orochimaru looked even more surprised now, though he also was starting to look thoughtful.
"What is it then?"
"It's one of the ones that stops bleeding."
The bleeding thing would explain a lot- like the manky eyes when activated in the non-eternal form causing tears of blood to run down the face. The kitsune wasn't a medic nin, but even before her foray into the healing arts, the demon would have known that bleeding from the eyes wasn't normal. It was about as subtle as projectile vomiting.
"Are you willing to give me your blood yet?" Orochimaru asked slyly.
"No." The kitsune refused. Who knew what her blood said? Probably 'demon here! And not really who she says she is!' in big, bloody letters. Besides- her blood wasn't so much blood anymore as it was some sort of chakra/ biological hybrid. "What's this thing for though?" She deflected.
"A protein separator."
"What's a protein?"
Orochimaru let out a long suffering sigh. "I need to get this work done."
The kitsune grinned, especially at seeing the former nuisance so put out. "What happened to 'the joy of discovery and changing beliefs' and such? Teaching is the best way to see things in a different light."
The snake sannin gave her a dubious look, but replied to her question. "A protein is one of the things that circulated in blood. And I believe it is the thing that is deficient. It would be a lot easier if I had an affected sample from a female, however..."
"Nice try." The kitsune smirked. "The answer is still no." She easily dodged his almost body flicker fast attack and danced away, barking laughter. "And you'll need to be faster than that to catch me." She taunted. Though at the look in the older nin's eyes she also took the precaution to make her skin as hard as she could to avoid needle penetration (just in case).
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The kitsune landed next to Itachi's perch on the roof overlooking the main Uchiha meeting grounds. "So." She said.
"Hm." Itachi replied.
Some Uchiha or the other was ranting down below. "This is ridiculous! Some outside can't come in here and tell us what we have to do! Especially who we fucking marry!"
"Or just fuck in general!" Someone called, eliciting some laughs. But the mood quickly became deadly serious again.
"What's up?" The kitsune asked.
"He said the Sharingan was carried on the part that makes someone a woman, but that men have it, too." He looked dubious about that. "So a woman needs two copies in order to have the Sharingan, but men only need one. Because it is masked by the non-Sharingan copy." He stopped and looked up at the sky, trying to remember. "And he said that there was also a problem with bleeding that was trapped with the eye technique. It kills all the girls, but there is something on the male copy that compensates for it a bit, the rest is mitigated only by male children with enormous stores of chakra, which go into replenishing the blood. He said that it could be separated with taking wives and husbands that aren't Uchiha"
"Ah." Hence, the impromptu pre-riot. Orochimaru had explained the whole blood bit, but the sannin and the kitsune had gotten distracted talking about his research (or trying to draw blood or avoid needles, respectively) and he had never gotten around to actually tell her his recommendations. He had managed to dispel seventeen clones, however.
Itachi looked at her sideways. "Which brings up the question of how you have the Sharingan, as that would mean that any daughter of Madara's would have the normal copy blocking it."
"Yes, it does bring that up, doesn't it?" She replied, not answering. If her observations on Minato held true for Itachi, she would just have to keep the blank face for… aha! At Itachi's dawning look of horror she turned away abruptly. Both because it confirmed whatever theory he had just come up with and so that she wouldn't laugh in his face.
"Oh… I…"
"Just… don't" The kitsune said. If he said one more word she was going to lose it and crack up. She felt his gaze, though not his attention, shift back to the crowd. When she had sufficiently contained herself she turned to look at the crowd as well. Her eyes were moist from holding all her mirth in, though she was pretty sure Itachi was interpreting it differently.
"Fugaku was right! This village is full of Senju who want to see us destroyed."
The kitsune leapt from her spot. This was entirely too much stupidity for her to deal with right now. And besides, she was still acting under her random acts of kindness mission. Although the old ladies she was helping with groceries were no longer looking at her with suspicion and fear, so she probably should switch back pretty soon to destruction.
"What the hell are you talking about? The Senju wasn't even really a clan. There are none of them left except on old hag." The kyuubi growled from on top of the groaning body of the last person who spoke.
"The whole town is Senju! And now they are trying to make us like them- all watered down and pathetic."
The kitsune wanted to hit her head on something. That is, something other than the metaphorical brick wall that was this crowds' (lack of) intellect. "You can't have it both ways, either they are watered down to nothing, or they are conspiring against you." She said logically. The crowd shifted angrily. "And they aren't the problem- you are!" That got more angry mutters. "You're the ones that have made it so that all your daughters die in the womb! You are the ones making this clan shrink into nothing. Do you not notice the empty houses? Do you really want your children marrying their siblings?" She had the idea that this was a taboo- and from the looks of disgust she was right.
"Why should we listen to a retard like you?"
The kitsune felt her eyes twitch into the Sharingan and start to spin. Maybe a little death and destruction today… except that she didn't know who had spoken. "Perhaps you all would like to try being completely controlled by these eyes from the time you entered the world." She mentally applauded herself for her clever use of euphemism. "We'll see how well you function after I make you kill your family and friends, hmm?" The anger was dispersing, some people were coughing uneasily.
"You all need to choose." She continued. "Do you want to become a part of this village like you always have wanted to? Or do you want to stay with your current ways, die off as a clan and become obsolete? If you want to remain stagnant, you might as well kill yourselves now and save others the trouble."
"The Senju controll this village, there is no place for us! They keep tying to keep us down."
"Look around. Do you see any Senju? The last one is a drunken gambling addict that hasn't been seen in this village for years. Where is this clan that has been keeping us down? The Uchiha has survived when the Senju has become obsolete."
"You're not in our clan, outsider."
The kitsune felt the small human restraints on her rage snap apart as she rounded on the offending speaker. To her frustration, again she could not find him. She did feel some satisfaction that the Uchiha all involuntarily stepped back when her gaze passed over them, many of them gasping or letting out small shouts of fear. "I am your clan. I am the epitome of the degradation you can fall to. I know the depths to which you can sink and have come crawling back out of it, covered in the filth of your lives." She wasn't sure she was talking just to the Uchiha anymore.
She took a deep breath, looked up to the sky, where the Mangekyou Sharingan showed her the stars through the shielding blue and the clouds as specks of liquid. She turned her gaze back on the huddled clan. "I could kill you all where you stand. You wouldn't even have to feel a thing- it would all just end. I deign to allow you to live." There were shocked gasps and whimpers. "What's more- so far, this village allows you to continue your pathetic existence." She scowled. "So stop bitching like a group of pansies and take advantage of it. Live!"
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A/N: Answer to last week is Brilliant Dynamites Neon from Trigun! I love him as a bad guy, he's ridiculous. He is always calling things 'sparkly' and demanding that they be 'beautiful'. Some fun quotes (I had to watch the episodes again, hehe, oh twist my arm) "Let's find out just who sparkles the most between us" (in a duel to the death with Vash), "what glitters on this ship belongs to me" (because he's robbing it), "if it' not flashy and in high style, what's the point?" (talking about dying in an explosion), "I think I'll preserve you while you're still beautiful" (in a JTHM fashion, that is, kill him), and the one that was sort of quoted was "kid, you aren't being beautiful" (Kite's crying and carrying on).
This chapter has a less esoteric quote, hopefully. It's more directly taken from the source, etc. Hint: it's about being generous. So who said it and what movie are they from? Bonus points for the actor's name.
