Beta'd by Aerae
Part Nine
The name of Neji's sister – Sasuke's cousin – was Hinata, as Naruto had soon picked up. Her information was vague at best, and given through sobbing stutters. There was no doubt that she had no idea what was going on, but the tense atmosphere in the household of her uncle was getting to her. Her younger sister locked herself into her room.
Neji was all over the place, running errands for their uncle.
"Then Sa-Sasuke came home and they h-had this hor-horrible fight on the basement staircase." Hinata said.
Before Naruto could lean forward and demand details, he felt Shikamaru put a hand on his shoulder.
Hinata cleared up her throat. "Uncle was saying something about you, Naruto. But I couldn't – it made no sense." She shook her head, as if trying to shake off the heavy words.
Naruto, idly wondering whether he would get used to random people knowing who he was, asked, "Then what happened? Was anyone hurt?"
Anyone meaning Sasuke, of course.
"I don't know. I hid, I didn't want them to know I heard all that. But there was some noise, like – something heavy falling and… Uncle came back alone and there's no other way out, so I'm pretty sure Sasuke is in the basement. I tried to go and see later, but it was locked. So I – I panicked."
"Domestic violence is never pleasant." Kiba told Hinata seriously.
But Naruto had heard all he needed to. He stood up.
"You're not going there." Shikamaru sharply said from where he was standing behind Naruto.
"Of course I am. His father has him Sasuke locked in the basement."
"And it just so happened that Hinata was there, that she heard everything and is telling anyone who wants to hear about it. Don't be stupid Naruto. This is clearly a trap."
Naruto looked back at Hinata, who was staring at the two of them with confusion and fear. She didn't seem like a – a spy, or whatever Shikamaru was suggesting. She was honest, he could feel it in his gut. And she was getting upset again.
"Wha-at are you talking about?" She asked weakly. "What's going on?"
"It's just too much of a coincidence, for you to come to us." Shikamaru said. "I think your uncle used you to lure Naruto in. Even if he wasn't here, the story would've reached him quickly."
"But… Where else was I supposed to go? Kiba was so nice to me these last couple of weeks." Hinata returned, with her cheeks coloring. The excitement reduced her stuttering considerably. "I didn't know what else to do!"
"You did good, I'm glad you came." Kiba cut in. He smiled at her – a smitten, wide smile that in spite of everything made Naruto want to smile himself – before glaring up at Shikamaru and him. "You two, if you have more arguing to do, do it outside the kitchen."
Naruto took his words as his cue to leave. Only once he got to the front door, he realized Shikamaru followed him after all. "It's what they wanted, Naruto. You can't go there. I'm sure Sasuke would've told you the same thing."
"I'll ask him after I make sure he's okay." Naruto snapped. The expression on Shikamaru's face was worried, so he regretted it a bit and sighed. "Look, I'll be careful and quick. I'm good at that, I promise. They won't even know I was there."
"It won't do any good, not if they are expecting you."
"I am really good. " Naruto insisted. Courtesy, he realized a second later, of the thing inside him. There went another thing he had been feeling proud of, something else that he thought his and good but it wasn't. "There's just no way am I leaving Sasuke there, so..."
"He is with his family."
"And his family is hurting him!"
Naruto opened the door. The sun blinded him for a moment. Shikamaru sighed again.
"I guess I can't stop you. But may I show you something first?"
"What?"
"If I could explain it, I wouldn't have to show it, now would I?" Shikamaru said with some annoyance, but that didn't stop Naruto to give him his most skeptical look ever. "I have promised you information on the spirits. This is a part of it."
Naruto hesitated. He wanted to know more about the thing inside him, but… "How long would that last? I don't want Sasuke to get hurt while I'm wondering around with you."
"Actually, it's in the direction you'll be taking anyway. The forester's cabin is half way to the Uchiha Manor."
Naruto squinted suspiciously. How convenient…
"Fine, well, let's go." He finally agreed. "But you know you can't take me to the wrong direction, right? I know exactly where their house is."
When the thought conceived in his head, Naruto meant it as a bluff. But as soon as those words left his mouth and he actually gave a thought to which direction would be best to try first, he realized that it was the truth. He knew exactly where Sasuke's house was. He could practically see the shape of the rook in his mind's eye, the statues in the garden behind the house, high iron gate and the long path that lead toward the front door…
Shikamaru shrugged and gestured Naruto to walk out. There must have been some sort of air-conditioning working in the house, because it seemed like the difference in temperature was twenty degrees at least. They picked up a pace and Shikamaru, Naruto soon realized, was walking to the right direction. From the bridge, he took a dirt path left, through the forest. That was off for a bit from where Naruto was sure he should go, but not enough to cause alarm. The Sun, even as high as it had gotten up in the sky, couldn't reach them though thick treetops. In some other situation, it would be pleasant to walk that path.
"It's not Sasuke we should worry about." Shikamaru said after the road could be seen any longer in the direction they came from. "They won't hurt him. Fugaku is counting on your friendship for Sasuke to awaken protectiveness so he wouldn't have to come to town to pick you up himself. They want that thing you have inside."
Naruto attempted to ignore the ease Shikamaru said that with and failed. "I told you, they won't even…"
"It's Hinata's sister, I think. There's no one else in the family who isn't too old already."
"They want to transfer the demon into Hinata's sister?"
"It's not a demon." Shikamaru repeated what he said when Naruto arrived at Kiba's earlier. "But yes, I think so."
But Itachi had some sort of plan to stop it. Naruto took comfort in that.
"I have to go there anyway." He admitted. "I can't just sit and do nothing, I'll go crazy."
"It would be better if you could." Shikamaru said. He wasn't trying to persuade him anymore, though, Naruto realized gratefully.
"What are you showing me?" He asked.
Shikamaru pointed out a sign so entangled in vegetation that Naruto would have missed it. "We're almost there, just wait a minute longer."
"Are we even allowed to be here?" Naruto asked, remembering all those warnings to keep out of the woods. Grass was so high it was almost covering the dirt path from both sides. It looked deserted.
"Of course we're not. But I have keys, my father used to work as a forester. So did my grandfather. It was a family business."
The cabin came into view finally. It was pretty, made of wood. Even though all the windows were whole and clean, and there was firewood lined up next to the door, it still gave out the feeling of desertion and loneliness. Naruto followed when Shikamaru took out a key and unlocked the door.
The insides were dusty but bright with sunlight. Behind the cabin, someone had cut out just enough of the forest to allow day light to break through. Shikamaru stopped in the middle of the room. Naruto joined him.
"Well?" He asked curiously.
Shikamaru walked around him, murmuring, "I'm sorry Naruto. I can't let you mess this up."
"What?" Naruto asked. Shikamaru was retreating toward the door. "What are you…?"
An invisible wall stopped him in place as he tried to follow. Naruto hit it with some force, so it bounced him off.
"What is this?" He demanded.
"It's just restrain for the spirit." Shikamaru said from near the door.
"You tricked me!" Naruto yelled, lunging forward only to hit the invisible wall again.
"I couldn't let you walk into that trap. I'm sorry. We are fighting, trapped in Konoha, for generations now. Against that thing inside you, against what the Uchiha family did to twist it so much. This is our chance, finally and I can't allow it to slip though my hands just because you are rash and stupid."
Naruto kicked the wall. "How did you do this?"
"There is a sigil under the carpet. It was one of the things I prepared, just in case. It's not meant to hurt you, but if you try to mess with it, it will burn you."
He turned to the door.
"You are just going to leave me here?" Naruto demanded. "What am I supposed to do?"
"You shouldn't do anything right now. That is sort of the point." Shikamaru returned. "But I will be back soon, with some food. I need to make sure if there was something else Hinata can help us with."
"And if I have to go to the bathroom? And I can't even sit down, this place is filthy!"
Shikamaru hesitated. After a minute, he brought a chair and an old pot to the middle of the room. Naruto tried to grab him, but Shikamaru knew exactly where the barrier was and avoided crossing it. He was annoyed at Naruto for trying it, though and he left without another word.
He should have known. Shikamaru gave in too quickly. He should have seen though the deception.
Naruto approached to the barrier again. He pressed his hand into it. It wasn't exactly like a wall, though it felt just as hard. There was something in it, something that was almost alive, buzzing and swirling under his palm. It didn't hurt at all. If anything, the sensation was pleasant, calming. Naruto wasn't ready to calm down, so he moved his hand off the barrier and kicked it again. His shoed foot couldn't feel the nice parts, it only confirmed that it was just like a wall in its harness.
Fired up by the pain in his foot, Naruto continued to kick and push and hit the barrier. There was just no way he could stay there and wait. Sasuke was locked in a basement - how could Shikamaru ignore that? Who gave him the right to decide for everyone else, who gave him the right to make decisions in Naruto's name? And also that girl, whatever her name, Hinata's sister. She was in that house also. Someone needed to get her out of there, right?
No matter how many times Naruto attacked the barrier, it wasn't giving way an inch. He was trapped, seriously trapped. In his stomach, panic rose, and it took him a couple of long seconds to realize that the fear wasn't his.
Naruto started laughing. He didn't sound very sane even to himself, but there as that irresistible urge to gloat, to taunt the thing inside him, to laugh at its fear of imprisonment.
He sobered and stopped the stupid fit, though with some effort. He also hated being bounded like this. Shikamaru could leave him there, in this obviously deserted cabin, to die. He didn't have to come back. Naruto could die of hunger and rot, right there on the old carpet that was not even red as it was before all the years and dirt that it took in.
Naruto stopped the pacing he wasn't even aware he had started. Hadn't Shikamaru said…?
He kneeled down and pulled off the carpet. It was heavy and Naruto's hands were in pain, bruised all over – he hurt himself far more than he realized when he was assaulting the barrier. But he eventually uncovered about a half of the drawing underneath it. There were a couple of points of some sort of circled star visible. It was done in plain white chalk, with some small, unreadable letters along the lines.
That was what was keeping them trapped? Naruto snorted. It was just chalk!
He could feel his stomach stir violently, and he could almost hear the voice in his head – both clearly carried the warning in them. But it was too late, Naruto was already trying to wipe a line drawn on the wooden floor with the tip of his shoe.
It did not start with his foot; the hot, very painful sensation coursed though his entire body at once. It felt as if his blood had suddenly become molten metal that was rapidly cooling in his veins. Naruto dropped down until his forehead practically hit the floor, but the burning quickly wore off. Nothing was left behind it, even the bruising Naruto had earned earlier was not flaring any longer. Naruto panted in effort to make up the lack of breathing, still down on his knees and with his head between his elbows.
Right, then. Lesson learned: do not mess with the chalk on the floor.
Still breathless, his muscles trembling all over, Naruto sat on the chair, after dragging it until it was completely within the circle. He put his head in his hands, hating helplessness of the situation he was put in. Shikamaru knew what he was doing; Naruto was… properly restrained.
Trapped. Bound.
Unable to hurt anyone.
Between his hands, Naruto's lips stretched into a small smile. Silver lining, huh? But this wasn't a solution. He couldn't stay there forever. He'd go crazy. Or die hungry.
It was a lovely little cabin, though. There was only one room, grimy but clear and spacious. There was a bed that looked slightly newer and less dirty than the rest of the furniture in one side of the cabin; there was a low table and a very old looking wooden burning stove with several beaten cast-iron pots and pens lined up on top. The middle of the room was obviously cleared up; there was no furniture aside from Naruto's chair nowhere near the carpet in the middle. There was a row of empty or almost empty wooden shelves from the door left, and on the nails at the corners of it, there were hangs and wreaths of several kinds of dried plants, most unrecognizable to Naruto.
No matter how much he was staring around, nothing gave him any ideas on how to escape. The best he could do is to think up exactly what to say when Shikamaru comes back with the food.
If he did come back.
Shikamaru did come back. Unfortunately, he came back while Naruto was sleeping. Well, either that or the tray of sandwiches and bottle of water – and to Naruto's short-lived but excessive puzzlement, toilet paper – snuck into the cabin and inside of the circle on their own, which was unlikely.
Naruto considered not eating, and even kicking the package. It was not that he thought Shikamaru would poison him – he only didn't need to come back if he wanted Naruto dead, after all. But his stomach was making loud protests on its own; it was well past lunch hour – almost evening - when he had woken up. The crumpled carpet was not the best place in the world for sleeping and even though Naruto couldn't quite say that he had worse, it did suffice. It was warm and once the sun climbed over to the other side during noon, pleasantly dim inside. He'd exhausted himself while trying to break out and the shot of pain that resulted in him messing with the chalk on the floor was anything with helpful. Sleepiness had snuck on him while he was thinking up the things he wanted to say to Shikamaru and once he'd decided that there was no harm in taking a bit of a break, he had the most restful nap in days.
There were traces of headache behind his eyes, though…Maybe it was just stress. Maybe while he was napping, the thing inside him had tried to make its own way out. It obviously failed, so it was okay.
Naruto unpacked the food from plastic foil. There was no doubt from the first moment he had smelled it that it was chicken between slices of bread, so he bit into it without checking inside. It was as succulent as the smell had promised, spicy and rich – even better then fired chicken legs at the corner near his last apartment, where all the pretty waitresses wore pink aprons and big smiles. Naruto loved that place and enjoyed the vision of it while chewing.
The ancient doorknob squeaked as it turned, startling him. Naruto swallowed the mouthful of sandwich and got up on his feet. The door was opening slowly, with a lot of noise, as if the person outside dreaded what they would find inside. Naruto barely resisted the urge to yell when they stopped opening and everything fell silent.
Though the rather wide crack, something, an animal – a mammal? – squeezed in. Disappointed, Naruto watched as the head came in first, long muzzle up front and curiously erect ears on top. It was a raccoon. Naruto was sure of it; the black strap over the eyes of it was unmistakable. Its fur was so white it was almost gray, though the hair seemed to glow a lovely red along the back even after it moved out of the sun and deeper into the cabin. It was larger than Naruto imagined a raccoon would be.
It came right to the center of the room. It small, black eyes focused on Naruto instantly and it walked right to him, carefully slow but without wavering.
Busy staring at the animal, Naruto missed to notice all the hair on his body standing up. Once his skin started itching – almost hurting from it - he registered how the atmosphere in the cabin had shifted. It was like the air was thicker, richer in oxygen, like the wind breeze coming though now completely open door was full of electricity… And everything was brighter, more vibrant and in unearthly colors.
Naruto's skin might have felt if something was crawling over it, and his stomach might have been flipping up and down in a nameless emotion but he found that he was grinning widely in welcome anyway. He never saw a real raccoon before in his life, but it was very clear that this wasn't your normal specimen.
"Hello." Naruto whispered. The voice that came out of his dry mouth was hoarse and full of awe.
The raccoon stood up on the last two legs. It was tall – or was it still long? – probably a full meter, if not more. It titled its head and fixed Naruto with its shiny eyes even more intently.
"You are home."
For a second, Naruto was sure that he was the one who said it. It sort of… Sounded like him. It sounded like him singing, if he'd know how to sing. But it wasn't, he realized after a mere second of confusion. That was the raccoon and it wasn't really talking, it was more like its consciousness was echoing off the back of Naruto's skull.
He opened his mouth to answer and realized he couldn't. He couldn't push the words though, he couldn't make a sound. The raccoon was waiting though and Naruto realized with irritation and jealousy that it was waiting for the thing inside of him to answer, not him.
But the demon, the – the fox was quiet. Silent, even. Maybe because of the presence of the raccoon, Naruto could clearly feel it inside, fearful and sulking, without losing himself.
"We have waited." The raccoon boomed inside Naruto's head again. "We will help."
Naruto tried answering again. He felt compelled to. You want to answer something as sweet as that voice, you wanted to impress it or even just make it pay attention to you. You needed to try.
As if to shake him out of it, pictures flashed though his mind. The bathtub with the foot on the edge; bare and deathly blue. Carcass of something small and fragile; fingers going down into a blood puddle. Running. Teeth sinking into flesh. Sex, as it would be, violent and bloody.
And emotions.
And screaming, of a child and something else, something not human and much stronger. Cutting symbols into skin, strange words that hurt like knives and make tears burn hot from pain. Mouth full of boiling liquid, colors that made eyes blind. Death, that was same like freedom for just a moment before it all started again.
Endless walls, endless lashes. Endless imprisonment.
All that was followed by the hunger for revenge, so deep and raw it overwhelmed Naruto's every sense until he dropped down to his knees, almost as when he had when the burning shot though him earlier. This time the pain wasn't physical, though the time it took to build up was edging on forever. It was clear in his head like few things ever were. That was where it was all coming from, all the bloodlust, all the anger and cruelty. Shikamaru was right. No matter how dark it felt, the fox that was trapped inside of Naruto wasn't a demon at all.
It was something once bright, like this raccoon, but blackened and twisted until it changed beyond words. Poisonous mankind, it ruined everything within reach. Played with things that were beyond their comprehension, beyond their capability to tame and cultivate. But they'd always find a way to use it anyway, though torture of imprisonment and experimenting if nothing else worked. Greed, the greatest, most horrible human sin….
And they should be punished, Naruto added to the fox's strain of thought and something else came though him – gratefulness? Rightness? It didn't belong to him, though.
On his knees, he was eye to eye with the raccoon. They stared at each other, until Naruto understood that the pang in his chest wasn't leftover from what the fox showed to them, it was Naruto's alone. He was feeling sorry for the fox. He was sympathetic toward the vengeance plans, even as he was against them.
The raccoon fell back on all fours without a warning. It crossed the last two steps and used its paw to erase a bit of chalk that was making circle around the star. Then it turned and without a backward glance, left the cabin. The door was left open, swinging in the wind that was picking up.
Once the odd sparklesness of the air had disappeared, Naruto carefully tried to cross the barrier. He wasn't surprised when it worked. It just felt wonderful.
He was free.
Outside, the weather had changed at some point. Laden sky made the woods seem dark even though it wasn't nightfall yet. The wind was loud and harsh, but a lot of it was getting held back in the thick treetops once Naruto got out of the small clearing where the cabin was and into the forest.
In the hurry to get away from the trap, Naruto didn't think about which way he was going. He halted a little to orient and realized that he was already walking to the right direction. Whatever Itachi had done to his memories, it was wearing off. Or maybe he was removing it. Either way, it seemed as if it was coming apart one layer after another, and memories were slipping back into his head so easily and naturally that he would only notice after reaching out for information he needed. He couldn't remember people all that well yet, but this place, these woods… They were now so clear in Naruto's mind, he was sure he could find Sasuke's house with a blindfold on.
On maybe fifteen minutes of walking from where he was now, he would pass an old oak. It was one of the largest trees in the area, one of those the townsmen called The Elders. Not long after, he would have to cross a small river that several miles to the south was uniting with the larger one. Names of both of them were still escaped him, but the delta with whipping willows so bent over water it sometimes broke and carried away their branches with it was vividly clear in his mind's eye. He had spent many summer days out there.
On the other side of the smaller river, very close, there will be standing, tall and stony, the high walls that separated Uchiha grounds from the woods. Well, the woods were also theirs, but the walls were old enough to remember the times what that wasn't so.
By the time Naruto arrived to the oak, it had darkened completely. The moon wasn't even up yet, but he could always see well in the darkness. The vegetation was different than he remembered. Many trees had dried out, with blackened branches sticking menacingly up, as if trying to pierce the cloudy sky. The humus was not nearly thick enough; the ground seemed hard, grass and bushes that should have been growing all over scarce.
The small river was practically dry. There was just enough water to make some mud. Naruto jumped over easily, not even bothering to look for the tree trunk that used to be somewhere close by, placed over the river to make an emergency bridge.
The walls Naruto remembered as huge and practically as unconquerable as a fortress had crumpled at some point. They looked dangerously aged and crumbled, as if they were going down any moment now. There were even holes in moldered concrete. Red from the bricks they were build from, some gaps in the walls were like open wounds that just stopped bleeding. Naruto carefully jumped over a part that appeared to be in a slightly better shape than the rest.
The house was not far, though the lights weren't visible yet. Naruto forced himself to slow down and step forward carefully. There was a lot of wild grass, weed and ugly, dangerous bumps on the ground. When he was a kid, there had been a lovely garden in that part of the yard. Cherry threes had been lined up on one side, apricots on the other the dirt pats were separated by flowerbeds. At some point, or maybe slowly over the years, this part of the woods seemed to have gone to hell. It was sad to see it had changed for the worse in such degree.
Finally, several lights announced that he was at his destination. Once upon the time, it was a simple, albeit large house. During the last hundred years, the Uchiha residence was built on until it became an enormous mansion. A discomforting lack of symmetry in the way the wings were added and odd circular windows that seemed out of place. It made it seem redundant for some reason, if that wasn't just the consequence of his newfound awareness that some horrible things happened in that place.
The house was almost exactly as Naruto remembered it. The outer walls were a slightly darker and shabbier, but everything else was in its proper place. There was the big window a bit to the right from the front door, the one that belonged to the library. No one was using it at the moment, if the lack of light was anything to go by. The solarium – a long area all in glass on the right-handed side of the house – gave the impression of being stable, Naruto noticed with relief. That was his way in, because Itachi's room was directly over it.
Naruto carefully walked all the way around the house. It would have been too risky to cross the main path, which was about the only part that was very well illuminated. He claimed up the leaders that were once installed to hold up a crawling rose and, as quietly as possible, got up on the roof of the solarium. Carefully, he avoided to step on the windows left in the roof to take in midday sun. Sasuke's window was almost within the reach, now when Naruto was the size of a twenty-year-old instead of a ten-year-old. But he was used to sneaking in through Itachi's room, because he couldn't reach Sasuke's and Itachi was always in the library anyway, studying.
Then it came the hardest part. Naruto had to break the window. There was no other way. He was planning on doing that and then hiding behind the corner, where he would wait until people inside established that it must have been the wind, or a bird, and leave. Back when he was a kid, Itachi used to leave it open, just a bit, because of course he knew Naruto would sneak out of his bedroom and come there. It was kinda creepy, now when Naruto thought about it. Someone should have put a stop to it; he was just so young. And the woods were huge and dangerous.
Naruto pressed on, trying to see if the glass was double and how thick. To his surprise, the window opened under his hands, hinges squeaking in protest but doing their job smoothly. It wasn't really closed; it was just pushed all the way so it would seem like it was. Naruto's already racing heart picked up the pace as he slid though the black gap silently.
That was it. He was inside.
A/N: Yeah, so it's been awhile… I guess the tone of the story changed some.
Hope you're having fun reading this story.