By the time the team finally stopped practicing, it was already dark out. They were forced to practice late because Kiba's transgressions were spread throughout the whole locker room. Naruto stayed for the entirety of it, just listening to Sasuke's voice even while all the other girls finally gave up and headed home. By the end of it, it was just him and the team remaining. He was forced to finally give it up, however, when he noticed what time it actually was. Kyuubi would be getting home soon and he would get mad if his dinner wasn't ready for him. Naruto was always home by now and, having already made dinner, was usually in his room hoping that Kyuubi wouldn't come up to see him that night.
It was nearly 9 o'clock at night by the time Naruto finally got back to his house and Kyuubi's car was already in the driveway. Naruto winced at the sight of it. He almost didn't go inside, he knew what would be waiting on the other side of that door, but he also knew that it would be worse if he didn't return for the whole night. Kyuubi might not even notice him come inside. Yea right. Kyuubi always noticed when he did something wrong. It seemed to be the only thing that Kyuubi ever noticed about him, but he supposed that he must deserve it since he seemed to always be doing something or another wrong. Kyuubi only gave him what he deserved as usual.
The door was, thankfully, unlocked. Naruto had a key for the door, but Kyuubi had installed a deadbolt that had a second key. There were a few occasions where Kyuubi locked the door before he got home thinking that he was already there and he was forced to sleep outside. Then Kyuubi would punish him for staying out all night.
Naruto entered the house as quietly as he could. Maybe if he could just sneak up the stairs to his room and start doing homework, Kyuubi wouldn't be too mad at him for forgetting to make dinner. If he had any luck, Kyuubi would have already eaten before he got home and he won't ask Naruto to make dinner at all.
But apparently Naruto was not lucky at all.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Kyuubi hissed. He had been waiting at the top of the stairs for Naruto to return and now he was glaring at the boy who was only two steps below him.
"I was just going to my room to do some homework," Naruto tried to say.
Kyuubi replied by reaching out and grabbing Naruto's hair so hard that he almost lost his footing on the lower stair. "You think I'm stupid?" Kyuubi hissed. "I know you just got back and you know that it is way past curfew. You're supposed to come home right after school and make me dinner before I get home."
"I have been," Naruto cried out.
"Don't lie to me," Kyuubi growled. "You think that I haven't noticed that you've been coming home late every day. I'm not an idiot."
"I'm sorry," Naruto sobbed. "Please let me go!"
"Fine," Kyuubi's evil smirk was not reassuring at all as he loosened his grip on Naruto's hair.
As soon as he let go, Naruto fell back down to the stair he was on, but he lost his footing and found himself tumbling down the stairs. When he finally reached the bottom, his whole body hurt. Luckily, he didn't think he had any broken bones or severe injuries, but he was in so much pain that he couldn't even move from his spot. A moment before blacking out from the pain, Naruto wondered if it was really lucky at all that he survived the fall. For a moment he wished that the fall had killed him and then everything went dark in his mind.