Chapter 12: Kyuubi's Anguish
Sakura stopped, hesitating, in front of Naruto's room.
They had had a pleasant evening dinning with Princess Fuun, in which Naruto and the lot of them told Fuun and Shikamaru's students as much of a true story as they could – although a lot of aspects had to be changed: they hadn't even mentioned Kyuubi, for example. Still, Sakura was fairly confident that they had given the kids enough information to keep them from trying to spy again. At the same time, Princess Fuun deserved an explanation, and got it.
She rocked back and forth, hesitantly, not exactly knowing what the hell she was doing there. She raised her hand to knock at the door when a sudden thought stopped her just a millimetre away from the rosy wood. What if he was with Kyuubi? What, a stupid thought, Sakura thought. Of course he would be with the vixen, they were bound to each other. But what if they were having some sort of conversation she wasn't supposed to butt in? What if she would interrupt a private moment? Those trails of thought made her feel cold inside, although she couldn't quite figure out why. She receded a little, preparing herself to go back to her quarters. But then, a voice came through the door: "You can come in, Sakura-chan. It's not like I'm naked or something..." and a snicker.
'Busted!' Sakura thought. She kept forgetting about his new abilities.
Sakura released the breath she didn't know she had been holding and opened the door.
Sakura's head appeared sort of suddenly, from the small opening the door made.
"May I?" She asked.
"I already said yes, Sakura-chan. No need to hesitate!" Naruto answered.
Sakura entered the room and closed the door, quietly. Then, she turned around and found herself looking at the most surreal image she had ever seen.
Naruto was sitting on the bed, in a lotus stile, with her hands crisped on his knees, and his arms making a most sharp angle, as if he was trying to get up by applying force to the said knees. Droplets of sweat ran down his neck and exposed torso. The front of the torso was concealed in shadow, perhaps from the position he was in.
Kyuubi had assumed her human form again and was sitting in a very similar way to that of Naruto's. Except she was upside down, floating in the air.
All around them pieces of furniture floated lazily across the room.
"I-I'm sorry for interrupting! I'll be going now..." Sakura managed to blurt out before feeling a pull somewhere on her body and felt her feet living the ground.
"WHOAH!" She half-screamed in surprise, wiggling her arms and legs around, trying to balance herself.
"Don't squirm!" Kyuubi said, turning her red eyes towards her, "If you do you'll only make things harder for him."
Sakura stopped moving and looked at Naruto. His eyes were closed in deep concentration, and she could see one of his eyebrows twitching in effort. A vein throbbed on his neck.
Time crawled and Sakura was actually starting to enjoy the feeling of levitation when Kyuubi decided to spoil the fun, announcing that "that was it" for the day. Sakura felt herself being put on the ground and watched, as he same happened with Kyuubi. Then the furniture started moving around, returning to their proper places.
"By placing us, who are far heavier and large than the other objects on the ground first, it's easier for him to return everything to were it was." Kyuubi commented to her. Sakura was a bit startled. The Vixen Goddess had made no attempt to communicate whit her. Made no attempt to communicate at all with anyone besides Naruto ever since they had met. And now she was offering her explanations on what they were doing.
Sakura didn't know why, but there was a small feeling of hostility between her and Kyuubi. But it seemed the other girl was trying to ease things a bit, so maybe she should try the same.
"Uff!" Naruto sighed heavily as the last piece of furniture - his bedside lamp, which happened to be stuck on the wall by its cable and didn't flew to far away – landed where it was supposed to be. "Finally! Take a sit you two, come on!" Naruto invited, making room for them in the bed. He moved until his back was against the wall, and leaned towards it. He looked like he had just accompanied Lee on one of his running sprees around Konoha.
It was then Sakura realised that his torso hadn't been concealed in shadow but was actually darker. What seemed like a most impressive tribal tattoo with the shape of a fox muzzle began from the end of his navel. The ears almost got to the neck. Twelve bold, curved lines shaped the tails of what was, undoubtedly, the representation of the Twelve-Tails.
Naruto noticed her stare and said: "This is the proof of the contract between me and Kyuu-chan, Sakura-chan." he smiled, "Rather cool, huh?"
"Is..." Sakura hesitated, "Is it a seal?" She sat down next to him, while Kyuubi settled on the other side.
"No. It's a binding contract that connects the Avatar, or Bijuu, to the human and permits the contractor to access the Avatar's chakra. At the same time, his or her body undergoes a transformation, adopts the foreign chakra and develops what you call a bloodline, while absorbing the Bijuu's chakra as his or her own." Surprisingly the answer came from Kyuubi.
"Err... What she said." Naruto smiled at her, scratching his head.
Sakura didn't understand: "What's the difference between that and a seal?"
Kyuubi leaned to her and said, "The difference is that it is made willingly, unlike the seal witch hold no agreement from any of the involved parts. He can brake it whenever he wants."
"And you can't?"
Kyuubi blinked, for a while, and Naruto said: "Of course she can! Can't you?" he asked uncertain.
"Of course I can." Kyuubi agreed.
"So, Sakura-chan, what brings you here, to this corner of the world?" Naruto asked.
"Oh, I was just wondering if you" she said pointing at the vixen, "wanted to get started with those Genjutsu lessons. If it goes well, you could start wearing them here, for training..."
"Great! Then while you girls do that, I'll take a quick nap, if you don't mind!" Naruto promptly laid down and stared at the two of them.
"Right..." Sakura started, ignoring him and turning to Kyuubi, "Right! You'll need a very good chakra control to be able to do this. Since you have so much chakra, perhaps it is better to start with some control exercises first..."
"I have perfect chakra control." Kyuubi interrupted her.
"Oh... But I thought..." Sakura hesitated. Her attempts to start a good relation with the other girl wasn't going very well. "I mean, Naruto has huge chakra reserves and until he spent time on these exercises he could barely make a Bunshin..."
"Naruto hasn't been alive for thousands of years." Kyuubi's head tilted to the side in just one hint of amusement, "I thank you for your consideration, though."
"Oh... O.K.!" Sakura exclaimed, "So, let's begin!
The two of them promptly started basic illusion-creating exercises. Soon after they began, the training session became accompanied by the rhythmic snoring of Naruto. Sakura actually found it soothing.
The night was advanced, well on its way to dawn, when they finally saw fit to stop the Genjutsu training. Naruto was, at this time, now snoring without restraints and Sakura could swear she could feel the edge of the bed, where she was sitting, vibrating slightly with every snore he gave.
"Does he usually make this much noise sleeping?" She asked, somewhat bewildered, "How do you manage to rest at all with him by your side?"
"He only snores this much when he is specially tired. Or when he is sure he does not need to keep an eye out for enemies. Today was a very trying day for him, with the levitation, the saving of that lazy one's student, and the telling of his story to you guys..." Sakura couldn't quite figure out what that had to do with all the rest and was about to voice it when the Vixen Goddess turned from the window where she had been sitting, feeling the gentle night breeze on her face, and faced her, opening her eyes slightly for effect: "Not all efforts are physical ones."
In the darkness, Sakura couldn't make much out of her silhouette. Not even her red slit eyes. Which wasn't surprising. Her training as a medic ninja had at least supplied her with enough information about the human body. Her eyes wouldn't see colour at all, since they could only perceive blues and greens in the darkness. Red wouldn't stand out without a source of light.
"Is it really true?" She asked, breaking the silence that had settled between them.
"What?" Kyuubi asked, apparently at lost as to what subject the other girl was addressing.
"The Contract." She clarified, "You can't really break it, can you?"
The white haired girl turned around once again to face the outside world, across the window. Sakura saw as her ears dropped a little, before she answered, "No."
Sakura checked carefully to see if Naruto was truly asleep, before asking the next question: "Why did you lie to him?"
The vixen girl spoke in a constrained, hollow voice: "Because the only way for a Bijuu to become once again free of the contract... is when the contractor passes away."
"I-I see..." Sakura hesitated.
"No. I don't believe you do." the other said, turning to her with a carefully inexpressive face, "I don't think you understand at all what it is that it means for us."
"Oh? Maybe you should try me." Sakura challenged, her temper starting to get the better of her. She was getting tired of Kyuubi's supposed superiority. "I can't understand what? It sure must be hard for you to lead an easy life, without a care, while your container struggles for survival! And the only thing you do is taunt him, and mock him, and making his life a living hell! Sure that must be hard- gh!" Sakura never got to finish the sentence, as she found herself against the wall, with the fingers of Kyuubi around her neck.
"Don't even dare finishing that sentence!" she spoke, in a dangerously low hiss, "I was not myself in the past, but I will kill the one responsible for it! And stop talking about 'easy life'. You have no idea of the suffering it is to be like this." She released her and backed away, back to her spot on the window. Sakura rubbed her neck. She was having some difficulty breathing; Kyuubi was unexpectedly strong.
"We have no body without a contractor." Sakura gave a little jump at the vixen's voice, "We feel nothing. Not the wind on our skin, nor the ground around our paws. We only feel pain. And hunger. An uncontrollable hunger for contact.
We bond with humans because it is the only way for us to lead a life, in the true sense of the word. You may have an happy life right now, leading your little ninja affairs, and bothering with nothing but what to dress in the next morning. You should try to live for thousands of years without any sort of contact from another person." She said turning to her with a gleam of... madness on her eyes, "Without the touch of a male on your skin..." Kyuubi's voice went down until it was nothing but a purr, before she gathered herself again, "We bonded to feel again, like any normal human would... And to try and ease the Lust that consumes us! - Don't make that face!" She snapped at Sakura's expression, "You may not feel it yet, because it's not been too long. You're only 17 at most, right now! Try and reach the thirties without sex, and well see how good you fare then! And then multiply it for hundreds of times for a pale imitation of what we feel. Of what I feel!
Yes! We bonded for sex! For physical lust. It didn't matter, as long as the ninja had good looks. That is why only males bond with female Bijuu and women with male ones. And it was ultimately my downfall! I couldn't help it. He was handsome. Attractive. My need blinded me, kept me from correctly assessing his intentions. He flattered me, told me he felt love for me. That was something no one had ever told to me! You don't know what it is like! For the first years after the bonding, the human does everything to pleases us, practically lives for us. Adores us, even if just for the bloodline we give them. But inevitably those blissfully pleasant days come to an end. Because with all our power, we cannot give humans a family! And we are ultimately cast aside, gradually becoming less and less important as some other female takes our places!" Kyuubi looked now positively insane, pacing silently back and forth, speaking in low, fast, whispers, "And we are all but forgot. And then the day comes when the contractor ceases to exist, and Hell comes over again!" She quickly closed the distance between her and Sakura, grabbed the pink haired girl's arms and shook her frame slightly with each suffered word, "Do you see? Do you understand my pain? And he said he loved me! He offered me a position by his side, as his mate! I should have known he was just using me but I was blind. I lost my tails for that! And then Naruto got them back for me!" She let her go and strutted to the bed, hovering before Naruto's sleeping form.
"Look at him! Isn't he beautiful? So strong and handsome. So cute. So caring and loving! How lucky the one who gets him" She lowered her blushed face almost to the point of touching his. Sakura was petrified, watching the developments in a transfixed haze, mystified, "I wish I was the one! How I wish I was her! But I cannot!" She said, raising herself suddenly and angrily backing away from him, "I cannot! I can't even satisfy my lust! I can't bring myself to it! It feels like I'm using him and it disgusts me! I never felt this before, what's happening to me?" She sat on the window again, her back turned to Sakura. But she could swear she had heard a muffled sob.
"I-I..." Sakura tried to find something to say, but Kyuubi didn't even gave her a chance.
"Leave me alone! Let me be." Please allow me some dignity, were the unspoken words.
Sakura forced herself to move and made a motion for the doorknob, before being stopped by Kyuubi's voice once again: "What is Naruto to you?"
"I... I don't know..." She replied honestly.
"I might not have been myself, but I was able to 'see' everything that happened to him, the first fourteen years of his life. He might not say it, but Naruto really died, that day. And he died because of what you made him do, he died for you. If you ever hurt him again..." the remaining of the threat went unspoken.
Sakura nodded, more to herself than to anyone. She opened the door and exited the room, but not before saying one last thing to the vixen girl: "the same goes for you..."
Sakura undressed herself like an automate and made it to her bed in much the same state. What she had found about Kyuubi was still running around in her mind. She had no idea of what it was like to be a Bijuu.
At first, when the Vixen finally boarded the topic as to why they bonded, Sakura had feared she would take advantage of her team-mate. An unacknowledged part of her even feared she would take him away from her. But maybe she didn't have to worry about that.
Kyuubi obviously cared for Naruto. And she cared for him in a way that was clearly much more than just physical attraction or just survival instinct. And it was a strong enough feeling for her to almost feel repulsion at her own impulses.
Kyuubi was right. Sakura had never experienced anything close to what she had described but she had read medical books. And sexually induced stress was definitely a studied subject. It was no coincidence that there were so many... "stress-relieving" houses scattered across the ninja countries. Shinobi needed to "distract" themselves from time to time or else, the hormonal surges would induce a nervous discharge on the subject that would affect his or her behaviour during missions, often resulting in fatal distractions. Such cases where more often in males, mostly because the largest part of the Ninja population was male and women had usually no trouble finding a partner among their peers. It happened naturally. And when it didn't, clans would make sure it did all the same.
For Kyuubi to restrain her impulses out of fear of abusing him was a clear sign that Naruto was safe. At least for now.
Could it be that Kyuubi harboured feelings for her team-mate? She didn't seem to know it herself, but then again, the Vixen had said she had never had a romantic attachment to anyone before. It had all been physical. Such thought sent a cold feeling down her stomach and Sakura tried to force herself to think about other things.
Sleep did not come easily for her that night.
The next day was a day as awkward as Sakura had ever lived to experience. Kyuubi didn't direct her a single word at all and when their eyes inadvertently locked with each other, the both of them would look the other way almost immediately. Naruto, being his usual oblivious self, didn't seem to notice the building tension between the two of them, Kami bless his soul, Sakura thought.
She was forced to reconsider her opinion on his awareness, though, when, after dinner that day, he turned to both the Vixen and the pink haired kunoichi, after guiding them to his quarters, and said: "Look, I don't know what's wrong between the two of you, but I'll tell you this: I'll not have two friends of mine constantly avoiding each other in front of my face. So here's the deal: I'm gonna exit this room and I'm gonna have some late tea alone with Princess Fuun just as she requested. I will not return here for at least three hours. Until then, I trust you two will be able to figure yourselves out!" And left without giving them a chance to answer his remarks.
The two of them stood in almost polar opposite sides of the room, an uneasy silence settling between them, studiously avoiding each other's glare. Finally Kyuubi managed to break the silence.
"I... shouldn't have lost control yesterday night. I didn't mean to throttle you." And then with what seemed an Herculean effort, she added, "I'm sorry."
"It's O.K... I was probably being a bit of a bitch, actually..." Sakura said.
"Yes... you were."
"That was rhetorical!" Sakura snapped hotly, before realising that Kyuubi had now turned towards her and was sporting a teasing smirk on her face, even though still not at ease with the other girl's presence.
Sakura sighed.
"Look... All I wanted to know yesterday was why you hadn't told him about the contract. And when I said I thought I understood I was referring to you not telling him, not to your feelings about the contract."
"Ahh..." Kyuubi made a sound, "But I don't think you understand that either!"
"Of course I do!" Sakura said confidently, "For someone as powerful as yourself, it must be quite a blow to your pride not being able to get out of that situation alone. My master has some problems like that as well..." She immediately regretted saying that. She didn't know what it was but Sakura just seemed to have a knack for saying the wrong things to the Vixen. She hadn't even been trying to say what she had at all!
For a moment Kyuubi seemed to be struggling against anger once again, but then she seemed to calm herself.
"I knew you still didn't understand." She paused a little, eyeing her studiously, "Tell me: what do you think Naruto would have done, had I told him I'm not able to break the contract?"
"He would try to break it himself." Sakura answered immediately.
"But there is a catch to the deal. You see, in order to break the contract, the contractor must literally shred the Bijuu to pieces... by ripping it off its power." She paused. "I don't know the exact specifics of the process, even though I went through it so many times. Every time a new contract is made I forget everything about the previous. The reason I remember about Uchiha at all, was because of me being sealed inside Naruto when I was still under the effect of the treason" she spat the word, "The surge of power through the contractor seals the bloodline into his or her DNA and assures its transmission to the offspring. After that, the Bijuu disappears. To reform some time latter in another place. But I, as I am now, would die. I don't think Naruto would have wanted that. So that would leave him with the other option..."
"His death!" Sakura breathed.
"Yes... And he is not afraid of it, because he has already died once. And because he went through the Lifestream, he will one day return there, after passing away. But I digress. The gist of it is that, to free me, Naruto has to die."
"And he wouldn't think twice if that meant for a friend to be safe..." Sakura completed.
"Precisely." Kyuubi agreed, "So you see, I cannot tell him anything. And I trust you not to tell him too!"
It took Kyuubi exactly seven days to completely master the art of illusion. Such fact made Sakura more than a little bewildered, since it took her much more to be able to just catch the concept behind the theory, let alone be able to completely cover her body with an almost permanent Genjutsu.
Granted, it was a fairly simple one. All it had to do was to change the frontal appearance of her ears into hair-like, making it seem like they were simple bangs of hair tied together for effect. The just change the eyes so they weren't slit. Since she had white hair, the red colour of her eyes would be considered normal, even expectable.
Her tails suffered no Genjutsu at all. She just changed them to something that looked like what she was when in cloak form. Kyuubi looked now like she sported half a skirt, covering only her rear, like the tail of a swallow.
She had finally been able to wander around the streets without fear of being recognised. Despite herself, Sakura actually became warmer towards the other girl after seeing the mirth and joy she was feeling.
Naruto surprised them all by actually buying her some sort of uniform, white in color and not too much covering. He said he had based it on the clothing she had used in Berasylle.
He had been unusually strange, even for what Sakura remembered of the old Naruto, leaving the two of them alone, while he left to undisclosed places.
To Sakura's surprise, it was actually Kyuubi who first voiced her fears on the matter. They then both started to try to figure out where he was going, a feat that ultimately failed, since he always managed to loose them. Sakura had the suspicion Shikamaru knew what was going on, but the lazy ninja wouldn't open his mouth...
It was late in the evening that day, when Naruto returned to Fuun's castle. The sun had already gone down and stars were starting to appear, casting their twinkling light on Kyuubi's anxious face. He had never been gone for so long before and it was getting on her nerves. Despite saying to herself she was being stupid, the fear of rejection like the ones she had felt before kept growing inside her.
Kyuubi jumped from her favourite spot, by the window, at the sound of the door's room opening. A flash of yellow determined the intruder to be Naruto and nullified any need she might have felt of hiding out of sight. No one besides Fuun knew she was there, in the castle, and even the princess had no idea of her true nature.
"Oh... Kyu-chan... You're here..." he said, a little hesitantly, "I was hoping to find the room unoccupied."
Those words sent a cold feeling down Kyuubi's body. She had heard the exact same words from other contractors before. It was what they said when they spotted her while trying to bring another female in. She managed a shaky smile before saying uncertainly: "Oh, don't worry. I'll be gone right away... I... I don't want to intrude in any private relationship..."
Naruto made a confused face: "What the hell are you talking about?"
Kyuubi's startled face seemed to make him feel like she deserved an explanation, so he lamely explained: "Look, I was only trying to slip in here unnoticed so I could hide your gift where you usually sleep. So you would find it later." he sighed "I seem to have failed."
"G-Gift?" Kyuubi managed to choke out through the glimmer of hope that a started to shine.
"Well... yeah. Look: you told me in Berasylle, after the contract that it was customary for both parts to exchange gifts. I already have yours but I never got around giving you one. So I thought, now that you were occupied and had to train and all, I could use my time trying to get a good gift for you... Anyway, here it is."
Naruto gingerly produced a roughly wrapped package from his cloak and handed it to Kyuubi, which received it with nerveless fingers. She nervously unwrapped the cylindrical object revealing a beautiful armlet made of a crystalline material. It glowed at the newly rising moon light.
"It's beautiful! You made this?" she asked before sliding the armlet up her arm.
Naruto nodded: "I found a strange stone after seeing a falling star and took it to the towns blacksmith. I've been working on it since last week non-stop!" he said proudly.
"But, Naruto, Sky-Iron is very valuable! You could gain a lot by selling it! You shouldn't have wasted it on me..."
"The blacksmith said the same. But you're my important person, I place you in a much higher place than money!"
Kyuubi embraced him. She couldn't help it. Her last thought before she lost conscience in his arms was: 'How I envy the one who gets you!' A lone tear slid down her face.
A/N: Sorry it took so long for me to update. Something unexpected happened: Holidays, YEAH! Anyway, thanks for the reviews and sorry for the mistakes, as always. You guys rock!
