Living Twice

I'm back on this fic. Need I remind you that every fic gets an update in turns?
No matter the viewership, faves, likes, communities and reviews that vary with each.
But it is good encouragement, nonetheless.

Last time, we saw Naruto get locked up in a cell deep inside an abandoned ROOT base. He's been there for fifteen days (last recorded day) and he's having his seal cracked by Orochimaru in an attempt to release the Kyuubi during the Chunin Exam Finals since Gaara is dead. Oh, and he's been treated like a Political Prisoner in Cuba during the 1980's. Yep, just like that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. All of the rights belong to Studio Pierrot, Viz Media, Masashi Kishimoto and the like.
I'm just a humble fanfiction writer. I'm here with this fic to implement a 'Time Idea', and to ship an uncommon girl (Kin) with the Uzumaki protagonist.

21.

The sky was dreary, and cloudy, indicating a sure heavy deluge of coming rain. All around him, he could see was the suffering of a multitude. People all over wept in grief, wept in fear, wept in anticipation.

They cried for the loss of loved ones.

They cried for their lives.

They cried knowing what would happen.

The village was in a state that had never been seen by one as young as he, although he was as old as the last time a catastrophe of this magnitude had occurred.

Everything he knew was being razed. Everyone he knew was dying. Everything he was aware of was burning.

He alone remained here to see the end.

The end.

That fire wasn't there.
But he was smelling the burning people.

That blood was fake.
But it ran red in the streets.

Those screams weren't existent.
But he was hearing their woes.

This couldn't be real.
But it was.

The ending was nigh, and was all because of his blunder. He could accept the consequences of his actions, if it only affected him. Why were the consequences making everyone else pay for it?

Well. He tried to protect his teammates, protect Kin. But it only went to show that you couldn't save everyone.

He plodded though the crimson streets and tried to ignore the seeping of the lifeblood that was shed from others that dripped from his sandals with every step that he took. He meandered among the burning and crumbling rubble as he made his way to the Exam Stadium, completely on autopilot. He had no idea what kind of force pulled him here, but he kept his unblinking, bloodshot eyes open. The whole way, black and red bled in a gush from his belly, the Kyuubi gone rampant and destroying the village around him.

He lost count of the number of riddled, flies-infested corpses he had stepped over once he made it inside the Stadium. Still in his trance, he heard the familiar voice in his mind speak once more.

It was that of a man's, and what he had to say made no sense, yet complete sense at the same time:

It's tragic and horrible, isn't it? To see trouble coming and yet not being able to do a thing about it. You just have to wait and watch it happen. Son, I'm sorry.

Naruto said nothing. He let the voice continue to speak. It didn't sound unkindly, but the matter-of-fact tone to it reminded him of himself. He disliked that; it could very well be someone like him speaking right now, and he couldn't help but think that it was his father.

I saw how to defeat the Kyuubi. I tried think of other ways, believe me. But my visions showed me how, and it turned out to be the only solution in the end. To give it my best. Heh. This sounds corny, but my best…was you. I gave it you. And after all of this, you manifested powers over time like I could too, and even better than I could. How I could defeat entire battalions in the blink of an eye, how to make other people move faster or slower and giving myself the best reaction times when using the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Naruto kept listening as he carefully went up the cracked steps, up to the Kage Booth and the rooftops above. His father was speaking; he heard. It was as simple as that.

I wished for better outcomes, but wishing isn't enough. Son, you're better than me. You take chances now. You deviate from the set paths now. It takes a brave man to venture off into the unknown. Anything could and can happen and you took the dare. There's nothing wrong with what you did, trying to help others. In fact, the only flaw…

The voice trailed off as Naruto finally got to the roof. It was there that he saw all the Hokages-

The Shodaime, The Nidaime and The Yondaime, alive…yet…dead.

The Sandaime, however, was well and truly dead. He was impaled by a long, double-edged chokuto that had its glimmer dulled by scarlet. A trail of the self-same blood ran from between his pallid lips, and it served to signify that there was no life in him.

"The only flaw", The Yondaime now stated with deep conviction to his son now that he was within earshot and gazed at him with blackened eyes. "Was giving up faith!"

As his last words were uttered, the three undead Kages collapsed apart into dust, revealing the corpses of Zaku, Dosu…

And Kin.

He trudged over to her, tears welling up in his eyes for the first time since the beginning. This wasn't the first time he had seen this. He had seen it far too many times…far, far too many times. The waterworks turned full as he made it to where she laid among the dust and ashes from the Kages.

She didn't deserve this.

SHE DIDN'T DESERVE THIS!

She didn't deserve to be in the service of Orochimaru. She didn't deserve to be a pawn for him. She didn't deserve to have to fear for her life. She didn't deserve to be used in such a horrific jutsu!

He collapsed unto his knees, and ever so gently, scooped her up into his arms, her upper torso rested against him. His blurry vision rested on her face; what was previously a bonny one was now ashen, and dead eyes stared up into his.

Slowly, he closed them over with the palm of his hand.

As his tears ran like a waterfall, he didn't even observe his world around him swirl with black, white, gray and red and begin to crumble away like the ruin it was, and even Kin herself faded away with the rest of reality, making him clench his eyes shut in apprehension. Soon, it was just him who remained, kneeling in the center of infinite nothing.

Then he opened his red, slitted eyes and roared into eternity.

Naruto blinked.

The Uzumaki blinked again and realized that it was another daydream. But this reoccurring daydream was horrific…perhaps it should be called a day-mare, as in the fashion of nightmares, he wondered as he tried to gather his bearings.

Not that he wanted to.

The second he re-grasped his position in the land of the waking hell he was in, he regretted it. He was assaulted by the stench of the toilet behind him in the cell he was in. While he was fortunate not to have any sort of skin breaches like cuts and bruises, he still despised the things that would have given him deadly infections and septic illnesses like the stagnant water in his cell, the dark corners that invited pestilent roaches and flies and whatnot.

He tried to take his mind of things by thinking about his vision. It was baffling at first, but now, it was just getting old. The baffling factor was still there, though.

It had been nine days since his birthday in this filthy place, and a grand total of twenty-four days. The exam was in six more, and he was no closer to getting out. Sitting here in the cell, whiling his days by annoying his jailers (Tayuya and Zaku, for instance), quietly converse with Dosu and Kin whenever a chance happened by, eat sandwiches for meals and wait for Orochimaru every five days to make his life harder to bear.

Considered suicide? More than once, but he was too much of a coward to go through with it. Even if he did, he had no means of doing it, short of pissing off one of his guards enough for them to kill him themselves.

Ever since Orochimaru started tampering with the seal from day one, his abilities to control time in his vicinity had started to go haywire. It had nothing to do with chakra, but still, it did so nonetheless. There was something about the Kyuubi's influence that was….well, influencing it. On some days, it lasted longer when he experimented, other days, it wouldn't work at all.

It worried him.

Now, all he had left that he could rely on were his nightly fore-experience and the same vision in his waking hours over and over again.

The ghastly sights, symbolic gestures, the warnings from his father-…what was up with that? Seeing this, his eyes were open to the normal viewpoint and yet, seeing these visions. They were always the same thing. He was prepared to ignore that he was seeing his father and realizing that his suspicions were right, but the message was applying to the here and now.

At least he knew that it was his father that was the one with the ability. The Yondaime. It perfectly explained the man's prowess with the ability, and how he could use the Hiraishin so well. Knowing what to do, when to do it and slowing time and stopping it while zipping around with the technique was a sure-fire way to become known as a man that should 'not be engaged, FLEE ON SIGHT'. But why tell him the vague things that he did? Why tell him that he had 'given up'? He hadn't! Right?

Yet, he was still in the cell. He had given up. He had done so once he had stopped thinking of ways he could possibly escape, to start believing that no one was coming for him, to find and release him.

Suffice to say, it was that bleak.

"Naruto? You alright?"

"Huh?" Naruto did a double-take to clear his mind of cobwebs before he turned to face whoever was present. "Dosu? What do you want?"

"I've got your breakfast right here. Bread and egg." He pushed forward an egg sandwich on a sheet of cardboard, and checking to see if anyone was about, also pushed inside a plastic cup of orange juice. "So…"

"So…" Naruto parroted as he took the food, and appreciated the Oto nin's gesture of giving him something he wasn't allowed to, that is, the beverage. He drank the juice first-…he knew it was alright.

"You must know why I'm here. Can you tell me about it? Is it a good thing?"

Naruto shrugged as he picked up before the egg sandwich. "No. He marked the three of you out because he thinks you're expendable, or that's what I'll hear later on 'cause Kidomaru's talking too loud. You're going to die," he said nonchalantly, before he bit into it. He tried to ignore the teen's reaction to the news while he chewed his food, but it was too disturbing; he had to stop. "I've seen things. I don't know much of the details that are really going to happen, but if I'm right, then the three of you are going to die from what he has planned. He's going to sacrifice you. You, Zaku, and Kin-chan." He tried to sound as if it was nothing big, but to him, the fact that Kin was going to perish was killing him inside.

"Hmm…Kin-chan, huh?" Dosu mumbled. "Are you that familiar with her?"

"I've been using the affectionate for more than a week, so…yeah, pretty familiar."

"So…she's going to die...I'm going to die... We're going to die, you're going to die. We all die, and you probably know how and when it happens."

Naruto nodded sadly in answer. What could he say?

"How can you live like this?!" Dosu lost his temper and yelled at the scruffy boy who lived in his cell.

Said boy only sighed. "I've been like this for years now. When you get to know how everything happens, nothing surprises you anymore. It sucks the joy out of the good things in life, and doubles the trouble you have to go through. You think I like it? Sure, I can appreciate the warnings, but at this point, it's safe to say that I haven't been in here for twenty-four days. I've been in here for practically forty-eight days."

The Oto nin tried to calm himself, seeing the boy's apathetic nature. "I've seen you two, getting all cosy and whatnot with each other. If you care so damn much, why not try to do something that'll stop this madness for her sake?"

For once, Naruto didn't know what to say for what should have been an easy answer to a simple question. Wasn't it in the affirmative? But one thing didn't sit right with him. Why did Dosu care so much about this? Was he also as eager to live as Kin? Coward men keep sound bones; the adage was true, but for her sake?

He was going to deviate from what he was meant to do today. He went out on his own terms, and spoke out of the turn he was supposed to.

"I was in Wave with my team. We were supposed to guard a Bridge Builder. His name was 'Tazuna'." Naruto settled in to regale his tale to the teen jailer, and he went on and on until he reached the part where he had encountered Haku. He was careful to leave out the criticalities that would lead him and her to never have met each other, and his error in un-adhering to the fore-experience. He also left out how he killed her...such a thing should never be brought up.

"So, imagine. She's basically like Kin. Senbon needles, complexion. Hell, even the same hairstyle. But no one's really like Kin. If it had to be one physical trait that Kin has that no one else has, it's the hair length, dattebayo."

"I get that." Dosu answered, while urging him to continue. 'Mine was going to get there, but it's not growing any further.'

"I was lying down on the ground, asleep. Call it a way of showing blind faith that she'd wake me up. She didn't. She tried to stab me through my neck. Maybe she would've succeeded if I hadn't known that she'd do it."

"If you knew she would have tried to kill you, then why'd you even let her get close to you? Dumb move, if you ask me."

"Exactly why I didn't ask you. Any sane person would say that I had lost my mind by doing something like that, and Haku was behaving as if she lost hers. Working for a master who didn't really care for her. She knew, too. She called herself 'his tool'. She knew she was being used by him, and she didn't care. She just wanted to get the job done to stay in his good graces, although Zabuza didn't really have any."

...

From where she sat and leaned backwards against the closed door, concealed from view and detection, Kin listened to her teammate and her 'friend' converse with her eyes closed in contemplation. She was eavesdropping, but she supposed it was alright; they were talking about her. But then again, there was a proverb about those who listened at doors and from behind trees; it taught the lesson that people who eavesdropped heard bad opinions about themselves.

Now, as she heard about this 'crazy Haku' and connected the similarities between Zabuza and Orochimaru, Haku and herself, she decided that the proverb was true. Was she really like that?

It was only her and Dosu who were here today. Everyone else had gone about their own business, deciding that they had better things to do than keep the company of their prisoner. It was almost like a rule; workers only made themselves look busy when their bosses were around. When they weren't, they just did their own thing. Thus why Dosu and Naruto could talk in peace about sensitive subjects.

Talk about her.

If she was more loyal to Orochimaru, she'd shut them down, maybe even drop a hint to the rogue Sannin and he'd finish them off. If she were more loyal to Naruto, she'd spring him from his cell, and they'd make a run for it, somehow, somewhere.

As it were, she was straddling the fence between the sides, and it was getting extremely painful to see Naruto day in and day out rotting in his cell.

It was also getting frosty between her and the rest of the Oto ninjas when they heard about how Naruto tried to get chummy with her. And now, to hear what he said to Dosu that their number was up, it was all she could do to keep her heart from becoming tremulous while her mind tried to leap the borders of insanity.

...

"I keep on trying to give her chances. She kept going all out, and I kept pulling my punches. She was wicked strong, too. She was a Kekkei Genkai holder, too. She had the Hyoton; she could make anyone respect the Ice Release. I was just showing blind faith; I kept hoping that she'd just take my offer of peace and just leave. I was on the defensive, but sad to say, it didn't really end that way. It's a sad, sad thing when you offer up the best things about yourself, and the person refuses to give you theirs."

"Oh?" Dosu squinted his visible eye. "And the best thing you have to offer was...?"

"We don't live in a safe, perfect world that makes sense. We live in a world where we kill people for a living, and the only way to be guaranteed safety is to be the strongest. We live in a world where we're always vying to destroy one another, and the good human traits are dying out. As it is, I only have one good human trait in me, and it's faith."

"That's your best?" Dosu lifted an eyebrow in confusion now.

"Yeah. Sad to say, I'm starting to lose it." Naruto tried to picture Kin in his mind's eye, but kept recalling the sight of her dead from his haunting visions. He shuffled over to what he believed was the cleanest corner in his dirty cell, the one farthest away from the toilet and the pests. "I'm starting to lose it."

From her vantage point, Kin realized that it had all come to a close. Quietly getting up, she dusted herself off and walked away, truly lost in thought, and the desires of conscience.

=X=X=

"Well, damn. I still don't know how I die," he muttered. "At the end of it all, I just see everything happen. Doesn't that mean that I'm alive to see it? How the hell am I supposed to live if the Kyuubi escapes? There's no way to live after that, right? Am I a special case?"

"Well, do you think that if you keep asking yourself, that you'll suddenly figure out the answers?"

Naruto was startled into awareness; his eyes took in nearly everything at once before it settled on the Oto Kunoichi who stood outside of his cell. However, unlike most times, she stood within arm's reach of the bars, when she was always just out of reach. Although he had become familiar with her, it had been a sort of unspoken rule. To stand within arm's reach of a prisoner in his cell was always a volatile situation. Something was up. "Oh. Hi, Kin-chan. Why do I have the pleasure?"

"Hey Naruto. Um...you look like you've lost weight?"

"Well, that's a hell of a polite way to say that I'm malnourished. Thank Kami for Dosu's small graces, though. The only reason I get real food from time to time, besides the crap from Zaku and the Sound Four."

She rolled her eyes at this with a smirk. "Whatever." However, her smirk fell when he got up and came out of the dark region of his cell and approached the bars where she was, and the light of the lone bulb was cast on him. Her heart lurched when she saw how emaciated he looked; his naturally tanned-looking complexion was starting to pale, and his ribs were beginning to show. His cheeks were starting to sink in and other such evidence showed that he would soon be on his last legs, but other things were pressing. Very, important things.

His eyes were red and slitted, like a cat's pupil. Even his cheek whiskers looked farm more deeply etched, and his teeth, of more specifically, his canines, were fangs. The seal on his gut which was of a spiral with complex kanji now looked horribly twisted. No doubt about it; Orochimaru was getting what he wanted. The seal was breaking, and it didn't take even a sealing novice to know that a seal looking like that could ever function properly. It could even be in a state past the hope of repair. Even his voice sounded like it had a demonic strain to it.

"What're you staring at?" He asked innocently, as if he didn't know how he looked. In actuality, he really didn't know.

"N...nothing!" She cried hastily, not wanting to worry him. Maybe he really was right. They really were doomed. But just now, he was startled when he saw her. "Hey, do you know what's going to happen for the rest of the day? Damn, I mean 'night'? Sun's about to set."

"It's almost night? You can't ask me that, 'cause I got no real sense of time in here." He answered plainly, trying to doge her question about his current ignorance of what could and would happen. "But it doesn't matter, anyway." He looked away and sighed deeply. He could tell that he was close to his breaking point. Not physically, because he was sure that with a bit of sustenance, he could bounce back easily. He was breaking mentally. And his frequent vision of the Exam Finals was close to pushing him over the edge. "Kin-chan, you need to get out of here. Get out of this hideout, out of the village, out of Orochimaru's clutches; I don't care how you do it. You just have to," he pleaded.

So yeah. He was giving up. But he wasn't giving up on her. At the very least, he'd sleep more soundly knowing that-

"No." She said flatly.

"What? Why?" The Uzumaki was dumbfounded. Did he have to tell her the reason? He didn't mean to come off as ordering her, but she had to realize that he was warning her! This was all for her!

She had a strange look on her face, and he had to ponder what was going on. "Kin-chan? What's wrong?"

"I overheard you and Dosu talking today. You were going on how I was like this 'Haku' girl. Was that what this was all about? Trying to stop a repeat of her when you saw me?"

"That's another reason, sure." He shook his head violently. "But never mind that, you need to get out while the getting's good!" His eyes shifted to her neck where it levelled off between the shoulder-blades, where he saw some sort of tattoo, depicting the kanji for 'EMBODIMENT'. He shivered; she was as good as dead, and the path had already been set for the occurrence of the events of his vision. "Kin-chan, I've seen how this all ends, and it's not changing! We've...no...you-"

"I get it. I'm going to die." She cut him off. "Funny. This whole time, I've been afraid of it, and now that I'm hearing about it, I feel strangely...at ease about it. Maybe because..."

"..." He waited on her with bated breath.

"I know it's not going to happen today..." She said determinedly. With complete decisiveness, she removed the tag off of the key lock and removed the key for the cell from her pocket and stabbed it into the lock. Naruto's eyes widened as she spoke again, repeating what he had said earlier, and altered certain words to suit her purposes. "Naruto-kun, I don't need to get out of here. I don't needto get out of this hideout, out of the village, out of Orochimaru's clutches..." She unlocked the cell, stepped inside and seized him by the shoulders. There, she looked deeply into his eyes, and told him the finisher. "We are."

Apprehension grew in him, although this was what he had wanted all along. "But I don't know what to do..."

"For once, I guess you're going to be the one who'll have to go along with whatever someone else planned. Now c'mon!" Her right hand fell to his wrist, and she used her left one to gesture to the wooden door that signalled the exit. "Let's go!"

He yielded easily to her as she pulled on him. Not just physically, but also mentally; only in a more deep-seated manner. This had been the first time in nearly a singular month (without fore-experience) that he had felt the touch of another human being. For the psychological bit, he had hardly had anyone to ever be concerned about him. Their fellowship in his 'chrysalis' for Kekkei Genkai evolution, quiet conversations leading up to the exam's beginning, camaraderie in his days of imprisonment and...his birthday! She was the first person to help him celebrate his birthday, even though she had known about the Kyuubi.

Was his meeting her a matter of chance? Or was it predestined? With such a thing as his talents, he supposed that destiny and fate was real.

And now, despite her fear of their common enemy, she was setting him loose from his death-row.

He was allowing himself to be pulled by her, just focusing on moving his legs, on autopilot. Her direction would dictate the rest-...besides; he didn't really know where he was going. He had woken up unconscious in his cell from day one, after all.

They ran up the stairs to a singular door, and she hurriedly turned the knob so they could proceed through. It was there that the Uzumaki's eyes widened as he took in the sight of everyone-...Dosu, Zaku, Sakon, Tayuya, Jirobo and Kidomaru, all slumped in various places around the room with spilled plates and bowls, but mostly centered around a rectangular table, one that anyone would presume was used for dining. "Did you poison them?"

"Yeah. Dosu was cooking." She said easily enough; the killing of her teammates was bothering her, yes, but she'd deal with that later. "I just dropped some arsenic from my poison cache in that stew he was making."

"You do realize that he tends to feed me whatever the others get to eat..." He commented lowly.

"I wouldn't have let anything happen to you, Naruto-kun. Now double-time it!" They hurried got through the room to the door on the far side, where they exited and ran up more stairs. "I needed the key from Tayuya anyways, and I couldn't have everyone walking and talking while getting it from her. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah. I know." He got a flash of a vision from the Exam Finals, and the Sound Four were still there, along with Dosu and Zaku on Kin still being used as the sacrifices. 'But they're dead. Something's not right..."

He saw the glint of moonlight through a crack in the ceiling, and welcoming the distraction from his inner turmoil, he smiled as the cracks became more and more frequent as he eyed what looked like a trap door in the ceiling that the stairs led to. 'Nah, who cares? I'll figure something out later! Damn, I took all of this for granted!'

He wasn't really living for a long time, but he was now.

They finally ascended the last tier of steps, and she pushed open the trap door. The light of a full moon washed over them, and his smile grew into a grin. His rescuer climbed up first on the small ladder, and once at the top, she lay down to stretch a hand inside to help pull him up. He didn't quite need it that much, but he didn't care.

He was free.

=X=X=

Kin opened her eyes, starting awake. She glanced around her room, trying to gather her bearings. "What the...that was… that felt so real. That was one messed up dream..." She got up off of her futon, and looked at herself in the mirror. This felt like a surreal experience. Was...was that some strange kind of vision?"

The door behind her was open abruptly, and Zaku stuck his head in. "Oi, Kin. Dosu's making stew. It's going to be done in a few minutes, and everyone else is going to go get some. If you don't go, you won't get any. You know how Jirobo gets when he's hungry."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved at him as he closed the door and left. She, however, broke out into cold seat. 'Damn! That's just like my dream! What the hell?! He said the same exact thing, did the same exact thing! I even answered him the same way!'

This felt so much like something was happening…again. Déjà vu slammed into her psyche. 'How...is this some kinda manifestation of Naruto-kun's ability? Wait...did I just say Naruto-kun? Holy Kami, I'm losing it..." She stroked her forehead. 'Something strange is going on.'

Then her eyes fell on her holster on the dresser tabletop where she kept her poison cache for her senbon. This was the same thing that happened in the dream right? She just gravitated towards it.

Naruto had spoken about how he just did what he foresaw was the right thing. If he foresaw the right thing, then...

She took out the liquid arsenic canister out of the holster. She knew what she needed to do.

Yeah, I just did that. What? You thought I wouldn't?

Well, the ending was crazy. I never saw it coming. Originally, it was supposed to be Naruto waking up in his cell and the first half of their conversation repeats before he realizes that he had dreamt it and that he was experience it for real. Instead, you're seeing that it was Kin that dreamt it...meaning...you guessed it!

Do you know how many STORIES I could write with the PLAN A's and the PLAN B's I do? I write a plot before hand, (by chapter most of the time) and yet when I start typing the chapter, it runs away from me and does NOT follow the plan, or exactly like it. Like Lassoed with a Rope-Dart. It ran away for the whole time, although people liked it. Only this fic and Breaking Limits had stayed (mostly) to the plan, but all the multiple deviations. Damn.

Anyway, I hope that this potential-plot-breaker is one you liked. Besides that, would anyone like to see me post author's notes in an independent fic that shows plans leading up to now for all stories and how they stuck to plan or deviated from it? Just let me know if you do.

Goodbye everyone/Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.