Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine

Flashback

Naruto nodded in agreement and found a nice spot on a hill to lie down. He kept moving until he found a comfortable position and allowed his mind to drift.

The first thing Naruto noticed after a long period of wait was that he was somewhere else.

"My mind is a sewer. That's just great, if anyone finds out I'll be mocked forever" Naruto grumbled to himself, looking around to try and find the Kyuubi, walking through water which he hoped was sanitary.

It didn't take as long as he expected to find a big cage with a seal on it.

"Kyuubi" he called loudly. The area behind the cage lit up to reveal the giant, red, fox-shaped chakra mass which condensed into a solid red fox that sat in front of him moments later.

"What do you want container?" it asked him, growling. "We're in the Village of the Moon and really weird things are happening" he told the fox, getting straight to the point because he didn't want to have to stay and deal with the demon for very long.

The fox growled slightly, "and you want my help? Why should I?" he asked, correctly interpreting the reason for his container's presence. "Because, some ghost says we're going to die" Naruto said.

Kyuubi's tails swished as he thought. "Fine, show me this village, think about what it looks like" he ordered.

A second later Naruto had to take a step back, "What the hell are you doing in the Village of the Damned?" the Kyuubi roared at him.

"We were sent here on a mission to find why the people vanished" Naruto said nervously, sweating as the red chakra moved outside the cage rapidly and swirled everywhere due to the Kyuubi's agitation.

Kyuubi stood up in the cage and started to pace. "You stupid kit, the Village of the Damned is cursed by an evil spirit. One hundred years ago it was summoned. After the spirit killed the people living there it was powerful enough to come back and kill the survivors. You are here two months after the anniversary where the spirit would be three times its original strength" Kyuubi growled.

"Right you are Kyuubi" they heard and turned to look at the owner of the voice. Kyuubi roared at the man now present in Naruto's mindscape.

"That's no way to greet an old friend Kyuubi, I just wanted to visit, tell you that you're going to die, that sort of thing" the man said with a small smile, walking closer.

Before he'd been hidden in the shadows but now he could be seen clearly. His open white eye glowed in the dark and he wore the tattered cloak like the doll had. There was a scar across his left eye and his razor-like teeth shone as he smiled.

"You can't kill me nameless one, you lack the strength" Kyuubi growled back, mostly bluffing. The man seemed to know this and laughed. Naruto shivered at the sound.

"If I'm right then killing this boy will kill you in turn, you shouldn't have allowed him to enter into this village if you wished to survive. You still have a little time left until I kill you though, that should give you a bit of comfort" the man responded in a slightly condescending tone. "Leave" Kyuubi roared and a small amount of his chakra leaked through the cage again, rushing towards the man, he disappeared from Naruto and Kyuubi's sight, laughing loudly, before any of Kyuubi's chakra had reached him.

A few seconds passed before Kyuubi rounded on Naruto, "He is right, he can end my life by ending yours, you need to get out of the village" Kyuubi ordered.

Naruto shook his head, "I can't, he said that he could track us past the village and in one of my dreams he did exactly that with a couple of people" Naruto argued.

"Not to mention our friend was taken by him and we don't know where he is or even if he's still alive" he added.

"If what you say is true then it's less than three days before the full moon and we will most likely die here. As to your friend I have no idea and I don't really care to think of one" Kyuubi told Naruto. "Can you help, at least with the escaping then?" Naruto asked slightly pleadingly.

He knew asking about Shikamaru wouldn't get him anywhere if the fox wasn't interested in assisting. Kyuubi thought for a moment. "I'll give you full access to my chakra. You can't use more than a tail at this point without injuring yourself and becoming an easier target, but if need be take as much as you can. There's a great chance that you will heal from the injuries with me being inside of you if injured by normal means. Find everything you can on the ritual that released the spirit. I can assist you more after that. Use my chakra to return yourself to me. You'll figure it out if you need to" Kyuubi told him, knowing he would have no choice if he wanted to continue his existence and taking charge of the situation quickly. Naruto nodded and slowly went back into awareness.

Everyone was standing around him staring. "I said nobody watch me" he shouted angrily, blushing slightly. "Sorry, but you were out for several hours, we wanted to make sure you were okay" Kakashi explained.

Naruto glared, "I'm fine, anyway, Kyuubi told me this is a place called the Village of the Damned." Naruto relayed the rest of what Kyuubi had said to them.

"So he'll definitely be back then, like Shikamaru predicted. Shikamaru said that the ritual contained the symbol for the Blood Moon. That's probably something you should tell the Kyuubi about. I think that it's the main part of whatever ritual was being preformed because of when the spirit appears" Kakashi told him.

Naruto nodded and quickly sunk back into his mind to find the Kyuubi.

"Good, I can work with this. The spirit is easy to predict, at least up until the Blood Moon. Every night it has full range of the village, it can't harm you directly until the Blood Moon is present though but it might be able to harm you through your friends. During the night I'm assuming it's also able to possess the dead bodies of those it has already killed like it did yesterday to take your friend friend so be more careful if you know a dead body is near. I'm assuming it was able to possess you during the daytime because of your lack of sleep because it isn't strong enough to usually do so. That won't happen again with me blocking it out, not even during the night. If you have three days left then I would suggest starting on it now. You need to find out what those symbols were. If you see any of them in the village I'll need to see them later, they'll be circling the border of the village, remember them or write them down," Kyuubi ordered.

"Be careful about what you say, all of you. Try and keep as much to yourself as necessary and don't mention the need to see the symbols either" he added. Naruto nodded in understanding and went back to the group. He didn't want to just keep following Kyuubi's orders, but Kyuubi had also explained that if he told the others about the symbols then there was a chance that the spirit would be drawn to them and start to hinder the process of discovering them all before it was too late.

Naruto refused to speak about what Kyuubi had told him to the others surprise. "I can't the spirit may be listening, Kyuubi told me not to say anything to you guys" he said.

Kakashi frowned at how easily Naruto was listening to the demon but reluctantly accepted the fox's logic.

He sighed, knowing it wouldn't be wise to force it out of him. "We have roughly five more hours before nightfall so we need to split up and do our searching again. Did Kyuubi give you any hints for where to look at least?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto nodded, "The outside of the village, on the border, but he says that I should search alone" Naruto said. At that Kakashi shook his head, "No, I can't allow that at all Naruto. We won't watch whatever you're going to be doing, but if that man gets you as well we'll all probably die" Kakashi told him.

Naruto pouted a bit but finally agreed to Kakashi's terms. "We'll meet back here to eat and discuss sleeping arrangements again" Kakashi decided and they all left to do just that.

Naruto stuck near the group and finally found his first symbol. He had swiped a notebook that Sakura usually carried and was drawing the symbols out carefully. Kyuubi had said that one wrong symbol would ruin his part in the plan.

He'd gone halfway around the village with the notebook when he got called by Kakashi. "The sun's setting, we need to get to the others" Kakashi shouted. Naruto had gotten further and further away from them as his search had progressed and they were nearly a block away now.

"Give me another hour" Naruto shouted back. "No, we have to get somewhere safe" Kakashi told him stubbornly. Naruto sighed, "Fine, one more minute here and I'll be ready" Naruto called. He finished the symbol carefully and closed the notebook, sticking it into his jumpsuit and racing to catch up to his team.

The location they chose was a small shop. They had thoroughly inspected it and found nothing there that they deemed dangerous.

"We found nothing," Asuma said with a sigh when they started sharing, getting more and more worried about his student as time wore on. "Neither did we, it's like all the things we were seeing before just vanished" Kurenai said.

"Same with us, Naruto found some things, but he won't share them with me" Kakashi said. Naruto glared, "Kyuubi told me not to, besides, I don't even know if Kyuubi's plans going to work. You work on something else and I'll work on this" Naruto told him in slight irritation.

Kakashi sighed, "Fine, fine, do you know when you'll be done?" he asked. Naruto shook his head. "I'm halfway done right now though" he said. "Well, you'll work on that tomorrow morning. We're going to get up right at dawn" Kakashi said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Sensei, what's this?" Ino asked suddenly. She'd been looking for something in her pocket and fished out a small golden amulet. "That's the thing that you were supposed to be guarding earlier" Asuma said, taking it from her hand.

"It wasn't in my pocket before, I had some of a ration bar left over and that was the only thing in my pocket" she said in confusion. "What about this then, I definitely didn't have this before" Chouji added, holding up a large red orb, it had been in Chouji's backpack and was about the size of a softball. "I have no idea Chouji" Asuma told him.

"Everyone else check your pockets and bags" Kakashi ordered. Nobody else found anything, except for Naruto. "It's a piece of paper, it says 'beware of sleep'" Naruto said in confusion.

Asuma had seen it and his eyes widened, "That's Shikamaru's handwriting" he said. Ino and Chouji immediately crowded him, looking at the paper as well. "But why didn't he just tell it to me. Why did he write a note?" Naruto asked, really confused.

"Because he wrote it after" he heard echoing in his head, "After? Kyuubi?" Naruto asked. Everyone looked up at that. "Correct, he wrote it after he was taken, the boy put it in your pocket when you were copying the last symbol" Kyuubi said.

"That's not possible, Shikamaru wouldn't have been able to do that without me noticing. Besides, he wouldn't have kept hidden like that in the first place" Naruto argued.

"You did not see him, because you do not have my eyes" Kyuubi said. "What the hell do your eyes have to do with seeing Shikamaru or not seeing Shikamaru you stupid fox?" Naruto demanded, getting pissed off that Kyuubi wasn't just coming out and saying something.

There was a long pause. "You didn't see him, because you do not have the eyes to see the dead" Kyuubi finally said.

For clarification purposes I'd like to explain that at the beginning the spirit was able to possess only those who are weak, or at night when he is stronger. He was able to possess Naruto during the day because lack of sleep had made it easy for him to bypass Naruto's defenses. The Kyuubi wasn't blocking it out before but now is so Naruto cannot be possessed, even at night.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review