Oh what a surprise, another chapter! ^_^ Anyway, here you go, enjoy!
Chapter Nine: Cur's Identity is Revealed
Wait a second… Cur? Just who are you…? Why do you even exist… Tanira suddenly realised.
'I'm surprised it took you this long to question me. I will talk to you after training, okay?' Cur responded.
"Congratulations Sasuke and Tanira, on winning your matches." Sensei congratulated, "We'll see if you're as good with kunai. I assume you all have your weapon pouches, fully equipped with the standard weapons that were handed out at the graduation assembly?" Kakashi asked, and all four nodded.
"Good. I have set up some posts while you were sparring for you to practice. For now I want accuracy shots. This is the boring part of training; I just want you to throw a single kunai, collect that kunai, and repeat the process.
"Long and tiresome, but completely worth it. When I see twenty bullseyes from each of you, you can go. So, the worse you are, the more practice you'll get in." Kakashi grinned and moved each of the Genin to face a target each at an equal distance.
Tanira watched as Sasuke threw one and missed the bullseye by a centimetre. It was a sloppy throw, so Tanira wasn't surprised. She watched as Sakura hit a little further from the bullseye, and as Naruto missed the target completely. He was so hopeless.
Tanira turned to her own target and grabbed a kunai from her weapons pouch. She didn't need to check the weight; Tanira had used her kunai so often that she needed to merely to pick the kunai up and her arm would position itself automatically.
She practiced the flicking motion and drew a deep breath, before releasing both it and the kunai, watching with satisfaction as it hit the bullseye dead-on.
"That was a lucky throw. I'll get those twenty bullseyes first, just you watch!" Naruto grinned before throwing his kunai, and his grin turning slowly into a frustrated frown as it missed again.
Ten minutes later, and Sasuke had hit fourteen bullseyes. Sakura had hit ten, but Naruto hadn't managed to hit anywhere close to the center of the target. A loud cheer from Naruto told Tanira he had finally hit the center.
Her herself had hit the bullseye eighteen times, as she was trying to take it slow and was purposely missing a couple. She hadn't planned on delaying the conversation, but she was almost scared to find out that she was right in her assumptions, for the first time ever.
Distracted, she missed drastically and then shook her head furiously. She could think about Cur after training. At this point, both Sasuke and Sakura got two more, whilst Naruto was still failing dismally.
Deciding to just get it over and done with, Tanira threw the kunai perfectly, retrieved it and threw it perfectly again. Now that she was finally done with her training, she could confront Cur and find out the truth before fear consumed her.
"You're going already? Aw, come on!" Naruto groaned as Tanira started walking away. For some reason, his arrogance made her a little mad, but she gathered her composure quickly, gave a brisk nod and walked off, further into the training area.
She did not know what her encounter with Cur was going to do, so it was a good idea to go out of harm's way, especially if Cur was the creature she believed him to be.
Deciding she had gone far enough, she sat in a nearby clearing and closed her eyes. If Tanira was going to communicate with Cur, she was going to do it properly.
Thinking nothing had happened, Tanira opened her eyes and was shocked to see herself standing on invisible ground, with only black all around her. Far to her right, she could make out a large red, wooden gate that had some kind of seal on it.
She approached the gate wearily, having realised that this dark place she was in was her mind. As she neared the gate, her fears came true. Hiding on the other side of the gate and watching intently with one large, red eye, was none other than the nine tailed fox.
"Cur? Is that you?" Tanira hesitantly spoke out, letting her mask slip on, despite the fact the beast knew everything about her.
'So you have finally come. I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Ten years, in fact. Yes, it is me." Cur replied, turning his large head to face Tanira.
"But… Even I was certain that Naruto was the nine tail Jinchūriki!"
The nine tails gave a deep laugh, his whole body shaking.
"How much do you know happened on the night that you were born?"
"All that I know is that Minato and Kushina were outside the town limits so that Kushina could give birth to me with little risk to the village. At some point, you managed to escape and then you terrorised Konoha.
"Then my father fought you while mother ran and hid with me and Naruto. I'm not sure what happened between then and part of, well, you, getting sealed inside of whom I believed to be Naruto."
"Why did everybody assume that it was Naruto that they sealed me in, and not you? You are clearly the more powerful."
"Ah, but you see, before I went to the academy, many people did not even know I existed. Or at least, if they did, they just thought I was a very close friend of Naruto, and hated me for that.
"As for the people who did know me, they never gave it a second thought because they all believed that a newborn wouldn't be strong enough to contain you."
"Well they were obviously wrong."
The two sat in what could be called companionable silence for a couple of minutes, until Tanira thought of something.
"Cur… Can I still call you Cur?"
"You can. My true name is Kurama, if you would like to call me that. I do not mind." The fox replied.
"Kurama, then. If I may ask, what will you do if I released you from this seal?" the fox went quiet as he seemed to mull it over for a minute.
"I have no hate towards you. The only hate that I do have, you seem the share." He eventually replied, and Tanira's face adorned a large grin.
"The villagers." They said at the same time, and Tanira actually laughed. The laugh she let out would have chilled most people to the bone, hearing that sinister, insane cackle come from a small, seemingly innocent ten year old.
"I like you, Kurama. I think we could be friends. I just have one question."
"Mmm? What is it?"
"Would it be too much for me if I let you out of your cage? Would you help me keep your power under control? I don't want my mask to disappear quite yet. If you want free reign and the smell of the villagers' blood on your paws, you can have it, but later. When the time is right, you can have it."
Kurama smiled a fox-toothed smile and seemed to ponder over what Tanira had said.
"You will be able to handle it. I shall help you if my power becomes too much, okay? Now, go. I can hear someone coming. It seems that people have been searching for you. I will talk to you later, okay?"
Tanira nodded and broke the connection, opening her eyes. If she hadn't been warned that someone was coming, she might have jumped to see Naruto sitting in front of her, head cocked to the side.
"Hey Tani. I've been looking for you everywhere! What are you doing out here all by yourself? It's dangerous out here this late at night."
"Nar-Nar. So you finished your kunai training?" Tanira replied, faking a yaw. She didn't know how long he had been there for, so she decided it would be best to look like she had been sleeping.
"Well…" Naruto rubbed his head. So he didn't. "Kakashi came back about half an hour ago and let me go, even though I think I only hit the middle of that target ten times, maybe eleven. I'm not very good at that yet.
"But stupid Sasuke got to twenty right after you! It's so unfair. Why can't I be that good?" he moaned, and Tanira rolled her eyes.
"It's because you don't practice during your own time. In the academy, you were wasting your time hanging out with your friends instead."
"But I'm the nine tails Jinchūriki! I should be able to do this stuff in my sleep! I must be the lamest Jinchūriki in the history of forever!" Kurama laughed and Tanira secretly smiled. He was such an idiot.
"Have you ever felt the nine tail's chakra?" she asked, and Naruto shook his head.
"It's obvious that it hates me. That thing's never even made contact with me, or even shown any sign that he was there! If I hadn't been told I contained him, I never would have known!"
"Don't talk about the nine tails like he's an object!" Tanira exploded, absolutely furious at Naruto. Even though she was yelling at him about the nine tails, she was secretly yelling at him about every little annoying thing he had ever done to her.
She felt tremendous power as she grew angrier and angrier. Memories and her and her brother flashed through her mind; Naruto eating all of the food in the house, making Tanira go to the academy starving; him falling asleep a record ten minutes into the movie; him falling asleep during every single movie they watched.
Naruto complaining about every tiny thing; him never hanging out with Tanira; him always picking fights, drawing attention to himself and giving himself a bad name; him totally unaware of two separate occasions when the villagers attacked their apartment, because he was asleep the entire time.
"Tanira, are you okay? Tanira? Look, I'm sorry! I haven't felt his chakra. But why are you defending it-him?" Tanira barely heard Naruto. She saw Naruto start backing away, terror in his eyes.
"T-Tani? C-calm down. Please? Your eyes have gone a funny colour. They're all… red and your pupils are slitted!" Tanira gasped.
'Yes, this is me. I grow stronger when you feel hatred. I am sorry that you are losing control. But doesn't he deserve a bit of punishment?'
I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. I should save this for another time.
'Why save it? Why not just destroy him now?'
Because… Because I haven't learned all I can here yet. If I destroy him now, my cover will be blown too early, and they'll have me destroyed before I've grown strong enough to take them on.
'I see that even when you are absolutely seething with red hatred, you can still think logically and intelligently. That is good. Now, calm down. You are right. But I fear if he questions it that you will have to tell him the truth.'
No I won't have to. He's an idiot. He'll buy into anything I say. I just need to think of something that will work…
Tanira closed her eyes and sat down, taking deep breaths and thinking of comforting thoughts, which included crushing the village under a mountain, or setting it on fire and hearing the blood chilling screams of dying villagers and Shinobi.
"Tani? Are you okay? What happened? You really scared me! Why did your eyes go red? Why did you defend a demon? Why are your eyes closed? Do you feel sick? Do you want me to take you to hospital? Should I get someone? Yeah. I'll go get someone-"
"I fooled ya Nar-Nar! You thought I had gone all weird!" Tanira let out a quiet laugh, stood up and hugged her brother. "Sorry for scaring you. It was funny though."
"But… Your eyes, they went all crazy and red…" Naruto just stood there rubbing his head. Tanira shook in fake laughter.
"I think it's your eyes going crazy, not mine. It's called hallucinating, big brother. I never had… What did you say? Red eyes and slitted pupils? Bonkers!" she slapped his back friendly and grabbed his hand. "Let's go back home. This day has been so busy, you must be almost as tired as me."
"Haha, yeah. I must be imagining things again…"
That was much too close. Tanira couldn't afford to lose control in front of someone again. Most people weren't as stupid as Naruto and would see through her lies. Keeping up her façade was becoming dangerous.
Tanira isn't doing to well there eh? Gotta learn to control herself!
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