Summer Wind
Chapter 20

Hinata left not long into the morning, as she had a mission that afternoon, and barely a moment after she had left did Kyuubi walk in.

Naruto looked up at Kyuubi and tried to stop from letting his utter joy show on his face. Kyuubi's fiery hair was a mess and his coat was rumpled. Naruto wondered where he had gone that night, and what the nearly faded symbol on his chest was, but said nothing, merely looked at Kyuubi questioningly.

"I have to talk to you." Kyuubi said, stepping inside and going to the bed, where he sat heavily and gestured for Naruto to come sit beside him as well, which the boy did obligingly.

"What is it?" Naruto asked, sounding vaguely worried.

"I had a visitor last night…" Kyuubi told Naruto of the circumstances. That he had the chance to go home the next night, and what that required.

"Do I need to go get that scroll again? That'll be hard…"

"No, Kirie can do it."

"And…if I release your power, you'll just be going directly back to your home world?"

"Yes. I will do nothing more here."

"All right."

Naruto's blind trust in Kyuubi's honesty made Kyuubi smile despite himself. It was so true to Naruto's character.

"I would like to do the un-sealing today, and spend tomorrow as a last day with you."

Naruto looked up at Kyuubi with wide, childishly surprised eyes. "huh?"

"I…I have…enjoyed myself, living with you these past several months. I was hoping we could forget everything awkward between us and spend one more day just…together."

Naruto nodded mutely, and Kyuubi smiled then rose to get Kirie from where he waited. Naruto sat where he was, letting his breakfast become cold.

One last day. There was a time when one day at all with Kyuubi actively present would have terrified and disgusted him. Now he found himself in shock and distressed by the thought that he would never have one again. In a kind of re-booting process Naruto thought over the last few months. When he had found that jutsu never would he have imagined such results, and had he imagined them he never thought he would be thankful for finding it. He reminisced over the trauma of the first few days of Kyuubi living with him, and how Kyuubi had revealed himself to be surprisingly tender and how their relationship had grown so strangely and quickly. He came to the realization of just how much Kyuubi had taken care of him. Kyuubi had been the cause of much of his childhood depression it was true; but the work he did in healing him was so much more incredible.

And what would he do without it?

Just that morning he had been afraid he would never see Kyuubi again, and then when Kyuubi returned such relief and happiness flooded him he had almost cried out in joy. And now it came full circle, as he was smothered again by the thought of Kyuubi leaving—no, the factthat Kyuubi was leaving.

The door opened again and Kyuubi led a tall and imposing figure into the apartment, and Naruto thought for the second time that morning that his apartment was really a disgraceful mess. He was almost ashamed to let such a regal being set foot in it.

Then they made eye-contact. Naruto knew hatred, but never of such intensity. The pale demon's face was impassive, but as his eyes lingered on Naruto's the boy was overwhelmed with the sensation of being judged and despised. He dropped his gaze and hoped Kirie would not stay long.

Kirie told Kyuubi and Naruto to lie on the floor with their shirts off and they did so, and Kirie bit his thumb open again and wrote a circle of demonic symbols around the two of them, and then covered their chests with similar markings, finally drawing two very slightly different symbols on their stomachs. He then pulled his robe of his shoulder, letting it hang around his waist, revealing his lean tattooed torso on the sternum of which he wrote another symbol and then kneeled between Naruto and Kyuubi, a palm on each of their stomachs.

He did not warn Naruto of the pain he would feel as the chakra ripped from his stomach and flowed up Kirie's arms, to swirl and then settle along the pattern of his tattoos, making them glow red as more and more of the demonic chakra poured out from Naruto, leaving white hot pain in its place. Naruto bit his lips till they bled, and held back his agonized screams. Finally the chakra stopped flowing from him, and instead remained stuck along the tattoos, swirling and burning as Naruto's ears stopped ringing enough to hear Kirie muttering and hissing long, dark words. His vision was blurry as he looked over at Kyuubi, and found the fox demon staring at him with worry, and he gave a weak smile to assure him that he was fine, at which Kyuubi gave a crooked smirk and closed his eyes. Then the chakra began migrating towards Kirie's other shoulder and down his arm, pooling over Kyuubi's stomach and then sinking in. Naruto heard Kyuubi's teeth grinding against each other, and his nails sunk into the wood of the floor and Kirie's words came faster, his voice becoming hoarser, as his tattoos slowly settled back to black. The last bit of chakra slipped out of his fingertips and into Kyuubi and with a flash of red light the symbols disappeared and Kirie's hands snapped away from both of them, and they gasped for the breath they had never intended to hold.

Kirie stood then as Kyuubi sat up, panting, and Naruto rolled onto his stomach.

"It's done." Kirie said. "I'll see you tomorrow at midnight Kyuubi."

His gaze shot sharply at Naruto again, making him tremble, and then lingered over Kyuubi. Then he left.

As the door closed behind Kirie, Kyuubi asked; "how are you Kit?"

"Ugh, I feel weak, what about you?"

Kyuubi chuckled. "Better than I have in a long time. It took all the will I had not to go back to my fox form."

"So, is that like your real form?"

"Demons have no one real form. Just ones that incorporate their power better or less."

"Huh. Still so much random shit to learn."

"You'd never learn it all…even if we had time."

There was a moment of silence, as they both acknowledged the sentiment behind that and then Naruto muttered that he needed food and got to his feet and wandered over to the kitchen.