It's that time again. I've reached number ten. Rate and review for me, and I'll have more to read. I'm the starving artist type…who's studying mechanical engineering.
Naruto awoke in a brightly lit hallway, dry as a bone, the floor seemed freshly waxed and the fluorescent lighting was humming away obnoxiously. As Naruto walked nonchalantly down the hallway he could hear voices arguing.
"You infernal fox, untie me this instant! I'll come for you and tear you from this boy just to store you in a battery to power my television!"
"Shut the hell up. If I could let you out I wouldn't. I'd stuff you in a smaller box and then shit in it, now that I can!"
"Kyuubi how's our little prisoner?" Naruto questioned.
"Oh, as bitchy as expected. He doesn't look too good. This little piece of soul has been degraded into a worthless worm. Either way, he should be stuffed full of everything Orochimaru knew up until this point. We'll know everything he knows in a month. This little device of yours is interesting." The Kyuubi liked Naruto, he'd had quite a good sadistic streak when younger, tearing apart small animals in the woods to release anger, tearing apart the landscape. Once he'd gotten a little more mature he'd turned into a silent brooding type, which didn't really sit well with the Kyuubi. But he knew ninja, he knew how they worked. T & I was far sicker than anything he'd done yet, and he wanted to know about it.
"How are the new digs suiting you? Everything up to snuff?"
"When I said the most Hellish place you could think of I didn't think you'd pick a hospital-type setting but yes, it's clean, not full of water and I can wonder around a large constantly changing place. I'm glad you learned to fuck with your dreamscape. It's much cleaner this way."
Naruto had fought the Kyuubi already, and won. With the shakiest tactic anyone had ever imagined. He cheated. Naruto had fought the Kyuubi in his mind, and it was his mind. He pulled out all the stops, manipulating the landscape, using shadow clones, jutsu he could never pull off in reality, techniques he had learned from the Uchiha clan complex and library, cheating the reality of the real world with the reality in his mind. He'd even developed special storage seals outside to store up all the mind chakra he could so he wouldn't run out. After six months of storing up all the mind chakra he could spare and still function as a student he'd done it. And it took him three weeks. It left him a bunch of new scars on his body that the Kyuubi refused to get rid of. He didn't mind, although his dark tanned skin and his bright white scars did give him a pretty horrified tortured look. He heard girls dug the tortured soul thing though, and he took that to a new level.
"I'm still looking for a way out when you die, you know." Kyuubi said, looking at Naruto out of the corner of his eye.
"I know, that's why I'm looking for a way to live forever." Naruto replied smirking. He knew he couldn't live for eternity, he didn't want to, but he did plan to keep the Kyuubi trapped until he'd found a good, long-term solution. He knew it might take a long time. He planned to have the time.
"So he's found a way to store his body, which I'm betting he cloned, and a portion of his chakra here, which as you know by your research into Yamanaka clan techniques, the mind will return to the nearest intact chakra source. I'm betting he's spread these throughout his followers, letting them tap into his chakra for power, but his body will just make more for them to use over time. Basically he's just passing out get out of death free cards." Kyuubi summed up his findings. The good part about living in a medical mindscape, instant testing on anything Naruto knew about. The downside was exerting himself in the mindscape to keep Naruto's will from interfering with the tests. It was delicate, but it was efficient.
"I'm betting it's not that easy. Foreign chakra is dangerous, and Orochimaru's is as unique as a tailed-beasts. Forcing it into adults with developed chakra systems probably isn't giving him a good success rate. But he probably just sees it as a way to weed out the weaklings."
Naruto mulled this over. He didn't know what to make of it. He'd have to take this new data to the Hokage, but that meant telling him he knew about the Kyuubi and that he'd been not entirely honest about his relationship with the big old beast. Of course, it didn't look like a big old beast right now. It decided to take the image of its most hated enemy, the one who claimed to be Uchiha Madara. The Kyuubi knew the chakra and it knew it would sense the signature long before Naruto saw it, but better safe than sorry. It planned to burn the image into Naruto's mind. Kyuubi knew one day Naruto would meet that man, even if he had to drag him back from Hell itself to kill him again. He would have his revenge.
The Kyuubi cocked his head to the side, as if listening for something in the completely silent halls of Naruto's mind. Then he smirked.
"You forgot."
"What? Fuck."
The Hokage and Shikamaru just stood there as Anko stirred. Naruto stirred almost simultaneously. The Hokage and Shikamaru shared a look. Shikamaru was used to this sort of thing by now, he was more worried about what the Hokage would say. Naruto's eyes snapped open for less than a second to look Shikamaru in the eye. Shikamaru walked up to Naruto, leaned down next to him and placed his hand on his shoulder, and began rubbing his neck with his thumb, drawing on him. First he drew an eye, then the letter R.
"Naruto, everything okay?" Shikamaru asked.
Naruto kept his eyes shut until he felt the excess chakra flowing into his eyes cease.
"Yeah, all good. Thanks for the warning but it seems we're fucked on keeping that particular secret from the hat now." The hat is what they called the Hokage when they were referring to his office, something he'd have to deal with in an official capacity. It sounded derogatory but saying the word hat didn't usually tip anyone off, no matter how you said it, and if they were keeping secrets of national security from the government not tipping anyone off is very important.
Naruto looked at the Hokage, knowing the talk coming was going to be a bastard…
Naruto sighed, "That wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be." He'd told the Old Man everything about the Kyuubi, their fight, his underhanded victory, the analysis of Orochimaru's chakra sans the soul piece, the way the seals were being used, all of it. They'd all stood in that courtyard for an hour. Shikamaru's and Naruto's seals had pulsed, letting them know they were wanted by the others, but they suppressed them.
"I'm glad you're not upset Naruto-kun but I'm going to have to try to verify what you're telling me about the tailed beasts and their containers. And while I do trust you Naruto-kun I also need to confirm what you're telling me about Orochimaru. If this is true and he's continued using this seal it seems to me that killing him will be exponentially more difficult."
"Well, the only way you're going to confirm what I've learned about Orochimaru is to take his body to a medic who can analyze everything without degrading anything else." Naruto summed up. After he said this he felt around inside his pouch and pulled out the scroll containing Orochimaru's body and tossed it to the Hokage, who caught it so quickly and tucked it into his robes the only visible sign was the hem of his robe fluttering.
"There are only two people I can think of who could analyze that body. One's Orochimaru, and I doubt he'd be very helpful with that. The other is Tsunade of the Sannin. I guess you'll have to recall her to active duty after all huh?" Naruto finished. He had meant to ask the Hokage about a reference to the names of the tailed beasts he had read about when researching great ninja of the past, but it seemed too late now. He'd just have to wait until later.
"Well, I'm sure your friends are wondering where you are. Go find them, we can show ourselves out," the Hokage then made a shooing motion, sending Naruto and Shikamaru on their way, effectively dismissing them. "Anko, what is on your mind?"
"Naruto, Hokage-sama. He worries me. If he and the fox are working together and Naruto is showing absolutely no signs of influence, I'm more worried than if he was. He could snap, and we wouldn't even know it. Even worse, if he decided that the village doesn't deserve his protection, would anyone be able to stop him with the full force of the fox on his side? I don't know…he'll either be another Fourth, or another Orochimaru, and right now, I think he's walking on a tight rope either way."
"Hmm…and with the renovations that the new genin have made here, they've turned the Uchiha clan complex into a fortress set up for siege. But is it to defend the village…or to defend against it…all we can do is wait and see."
The Hokage knew that he would not sleep well for quite some time, not until Naruto's plans were either proven benevolent…or unstoppable…because he knew Naruto would live up to his name…and be a force of nature.
And end. I had this nearly finished the day after I updated chapter 9. But forgot about it. Then I started writing chapter 10 under a different file name. So I didn't find it. But then I did. So ta-da! Oh, I'm 21 now, btw.