Chapter 20

Hell Fox

It was nice to have eyeballs again. Sensing fear was good. But seeing it—seeing color leave skin and eyes grow wide—was so much better.

It was also nice to be able to smell again. He drank in the scents of the moist air, decaying leaves, and the sweet perfume of terror. Even though there was the rancid stench of unwashed human tainting everything, he still greatly enjoyed the ability to smell.

Hearing their shouts and screams was a music that he'd sorely missed. The tactile sensation of tearing the boy's arm open was thrilling. And the taste of his blood—metallic with a sickly sweetness—was divine.

If only this could last forever…

Unfortunately, the return of his five senses would only be temporary. The avatar that he'd managed to possess was too young and impure to survive becoming a new vessel for his mighty soul. If only a Kitsune with at least five tails had come to him things would be different.

But what felt like eons after being reduced to a blackened skeleton and sealed with a small forest, a dirty little hanyou would do for a bit of fun. If only he had the time and resources to purify the pathetic thing of its crippling human blood the way that he'd purified himself so long ago… It was really unfortunate that the hanyou was so immature and frail.

With wild joy he hurled his fleshy puppet at the other little humans, leaving the maimed boy to suffer a bit. One of the females tried to poke him with needles but his cloak of raw power easily stopped them. Ignoring her, he struck out at the skulking boy who had tried to harm him with sound waves. Extending an arm of pure chakra he slammed the boy into the base of a tree yards away and started squeezing.

See this power? he cooed to the frightened mind of his hanyou host. This is but a tiny fraction of what I can give you. Train hard, grow older, and come to me again, little fox. I will burn away all your worthless human blood and forge you into a true demon!

…You'd cure me of being a werewolf?

He paused, confused. As a powerful and intelligent demon he was knowledgeable about every race of supernatural beast that roamed the continent. But he'd never heard of anything called a "werewolf" before.

With a frown he turned inward to examine the hanyou-child's memories for information—

BOOM!

A spectacular blast of air pressure sent the meat puppet's body cartwheeling—half because of the blast itself and half because of the loss of traction from the destruction of the dirt underneath its feet. The shock slightly disrupted his hold on the hanyou, but he refused to release it until he absolutely had to. When the dust cleared, he found that the boy that he'd maimed had managed the use his undamaged arm to unleash the attack.

He resolved to tear that pristine arm out of its socket.

The children fled. He bellowed and gave chase, intent on gaining as much pleasure as he could from their suffering. But they zigged and zagged through the trees and his chakra threads were stretched to their absolute limit as they tangled around the forest's trunks, which forced him to abort his hunt much too quickly.

However, his disappointment was short-lived. As he worked his way back to his bones, he found that the fourth human child hadn't run with the others. She sat on the ground, trembling, and fingering a clump of pink hair that had been ripped out or cut off.

The human child was female. His hanyou avatar was male. These facts made him smile.

What are you doing?

He crept up to her, his pulse (it had been a long time since he'd had one of those) picking up in anticipation. It had been much too long since he'd enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh. Hopefully his control would last long enough to use her up and then end her.

Leave Sakura-chan alone!

Ignoring the hanyou-child's protests, he slunk closer and the girl noticed his presence. Her green eyes grew very round but the weight of his awesome aura kept her thoroughly paralyzed. He bared his fangs in delight and he crouched before her for a minute to admire the girl's terror.

Why should I leave her be? he sneered as his host continued to complain. She's just a human. She's weak, she's stupid, she's fragile, and she has the lifespan of an insect. I have every right to do as I please with her…as do you.

He got up and closed the gap, reaching for the girl's shoulder with a clawed hand.

You desire this female, don't you?

Not like that!

The hanyou fought him, tried to expel him, but the child's efforts only made him laugh. There was no way the little hanyou could hope to resist his power. The boy's human blood made him far too weak—

A foot slammed into the side of his avatar's head, causing the hanyou body to flip end over end until the base of a tree stopped it. The attacker turned out to be a fifth human, a boy dressed in tight-fighting green clothing with a face that was bizarre, even for a human. Strange face set in determination, the boy started loosening the bandages wrapped around his hands and wrists.

"Beast of the Forest of Death," the boy barked. "You will not harm the beautiful Sakura-san! I, Rock Lee, will not allow it! With the strength of my Youth and through the power of my hard work, I will defeat you!"

He snorted and darted in, intent on destroying the foolish human so that he could get back to his pink-haired play-thing.

The green-boy was fast, but he was faster. The green-boy was strong, but he was stronger. The green-boy was skilled, but that didn't matter much against such a superior opponent.

But the stupid little human just didn't give up, and through a mixture of luck and skill managed not to die. And the strain of fighting took its toll on his living puppet. The hanyou was young and its flesh was inferior. Simple exposure to his power was slowly destroying it, and the fighting only accelerated the process.

And then his chakra cloak started to lose coherence…which allowed the green boy to successfully lasso him with his dangling arm bandages.

"Now you shall experience the power of the lotus!"

The last thing he was aware of before his chakra threads snapped and the hanyou was torn away from his influence was a stomach churning spiral straight down into the dirt.

Sakura was sure that she was trapped in some sort of dream that couldn't decide whether or not it really wanted to be a nightmare or not. A corner of her mind actually started listing events that qualified as "dream" and "nightmare".

Dream: Kakashi-sensei had entered their squad in the Trials and they had passed the first part of the tests with relative ease.

Nightmare: Naruto and Sasuke's fight, the encounter and fight at the giant Kitsune bones, Naruto's disappearance, Sasuke's mysterious injury, and the attack of the Oto-genin.

Dream: Team Ten's timely arrival and then Rock Lee's even more timely arrival (with a cute little squirrel riding on his shoulder, no less).

Nightmare: Team Ten breaking off, Lee disappearing, cutting her own hair, getting the daylights knocked out of her, and the attack of that…that…thing.

Dream: Lee's second timely arrival and—against all odds—defeat of that horrible creature that had trounced the Oto-genin and come back to get her too.

So…when was the next nightmare segment going to start?

"Sakura-san, are you alright?"

The girl blinked dazedly up at Lee, who was exhausted and battered but still standing.

"…Yeah," she managed to croak. "I-I think so."

"I am sorry that I was unable to adequately protect you," the boy in green spandex apologized. "After the Trials, I will run 100 laps around Konoha as punishment!"

"You-you don't have to—"

"I must!" Lee insisted, his odd round eyes aflame with determination.

A cracking twig made the girl jump.

"That-that creature…did you really beat it?" she asked nervously, her green eyes flickering towards the distant crater that Lee had created with his final devastating attack.

"Yes," Lee nodded sharply. "He has not moved since my attack succeeded and the chakra connection to that cave was broken."

"The…what?" Sakura blinked. "What cave?"

Lee gestured in the direction from which the chakra-shrouded demon had first appeared.

"There was a small cave set into the hillside thirty yards that way. He emerged from it shortly after Dosu incapacitated me with his sound abilities and remained connected to it through chakra threads. He must have some source of power hidden inside that cave."

The pink-haired girl struggled to her feet and squinted at where Lee was pointing, but there were too many trees in the way. She hesitated and then staggered slowly towards the crater where the monster lay. She didn't doubt Lee's strength, but she just had to see it to be sure…

Without the shell of bubbling red-orange chakra and the aura of absolute malice, the core of the monster was very unthreatening. It looked like an ordinary genin-level shinobi curled up and unconscious in the center of the small, shallow crater. He was dressed almost entirely in a gaudy shade of orange that was made even more eye-catching by his yellow-blond hair and…and…

…Naruto?

"Lee, there you are!"

Sakura flinched and turned her head to see the bun-haired girl she'd seen from before the first official test and another genin their age drop down from the trees. She thought that Lee's second teammate was a girl at first glance because of the long straight hair, but after a short inspection she found the person to be a boy. His eyes took most of her attention as soon as she really looked at them. They were white and didn't appear to have pupils—the complete opposite of Sasuke's black eyes.

"Tenten!" Lee beamed. "Neji!"

"You didn't meet up with us on time," Tenten complained. "And when Neji finally spotted you, you were fighting…something."

"Did you acquire the type of box we need?" Neji asked coldly.

"No," Lee replied. "My battle was not to gain the box, but to defend Sakura-san, a comrade."

"This is not an ordinary mission where wasting time to aide another member of Konoha would be acceptable," Neji chastised his teammate. "In this case, she is competition, and you should not have offered her assistance. Does she have the box we need?"

"N-no," Sakura managed to squeak out. "My team…we lost our box, we don't have either one," she lied.

Neji stared at her for a moment. Then he ran through a short series of hand seals and his white eyes bulged outwards slightly, along with extra pulsing veins around his eyes. His featureless white orbs now looked unnerving, inhuman, like cracked glass orbs. It made the older boy twice as intimidating as before.

"She has no box," Neji said after studying her closely for a short eternity and he relaxed his frightening eye technique. "We need to move on."

Lee didn't look happy, but he didn't disagree either.

"Farewell, Sakura-san!" he said with a bow. "I hope to see you again soon!"

"Good luck," Tenten told her with a little smile. "You still have three days for your team to find the boxes that you need, so don't give up yet."

Neji said nothing to her, and simply led his companions back up into the trees and away…leaving her alone again.

Sakura shivered and almost flopped to the ground. Her green eyes aimlessly drifted around at her surroundings before landing on the crater again. She bit her lip and then slowly, cautiously edged closer until she could examine the limp body with her trembling hands.

The distorted features she'd noticed when he'd still been enshrouded in the evil chakra remained. The stripes on his cheeks, the fangs in his mouth, the claws on his fingers, and the points on his ears hadn't gone away. The only thing she couldn't check was his eyes. But in spite of it all she was left convinced that this was Naruto.

Who else would wear such an awful orange outfit anywhere?

"Naruto…what happened to you?"

As he was unconscious, he didn't respond.

She lingered there for a while, battered and numb until Inner-Sakura returned to snap her out of it.

Enough sitting around! New enemies could arrive at any minute. Let's grab Naruto-baka and get back to our Sasuke-kun, cha!

With her head throbbing and her body aching, she grabbed Naruto by his ankles and awkwardly dragged him back to where she'd stashed Sasuke (and their black box). It was slow, painful going, and she ended up having to pass by the creepy, overgrown, giant demon skull. As she pulled him along, Naruto's ugly orange jacket rode up and formed some odd bulges…

Wait a minute…

Sakura looked over at the buried skull…and noticed that some of the vines and roots that grew through and around it had snapped. Some of the moss looked charred, revealing more of the bone underneath. And…it looked like wisps of smoke were curling around the pointed teeth of the lower jaw.

…Lee said that he came out of a "cave"…

A sharp chill infused her body and Sakura redoubled her efforts to drag Naruto back to the little tree-cavern where Sasuke was.

We had better pass this trial because I am never coming back to this place ever again!

Fugaku left his office in the headquarters of the Military Police for his lunch break. The Trials always put him in a foul mood. Allowing genin from other countries (it didn't matter how small or weak) into their village was just asking for trouble. The only good thing about the situation was that genin from the greater villages like Suna and Kumo weren't invited as their own villages were large enough to host separate tests for chuunin rank.

His bad mood was further enhanced by the lack of new information that Itachi had been able to provide him with on that Naruto boy. He'd hoped that his elder son would be able to find some scraps of information that would either support or destroy the possibility of the boy having inherited lycanthropy from his father (looking at a picture of the boy, there was little doubt as to his paternity). But there was nothing in any record that Itachi had access to that gave any hint on the issue.

If only Sarutobi hadn't been so squeamish about Itachi's age when he first applied for ANBU service… Fugaku ground his teeth. The highly classified files and information sources that he'd have access to would surely shed light on this situation.

It looked there was only one way to settle the issue. As soon as Sasuke's team was released from the Forest of Death, he would have to track Naruto down and administer the werewolf test on him. If the boy's skin burned from silver contact, Fugaku would have to arrange for the child to be dealt with.

As the Uchiha leader approached his home in the heart of his clan's territory, he noticed a stranger conversing with his wife. He frowned deeply and activated his Sharingan briefly to get a good look at the intruder. The strange man had dark brown hair, pale blue eyes, a short sword, black clothing, a dull gray flak vest with a blue spiral set into the back…

A foreigner, the vest suggests Uzu.

Now scowling he picked up the pace. Even though the Uzu-nin was clearly not that wretched woman, Fugaku didn't trust him. He was a completely unknown quantity and that could be very dangerous.

"Oh, Fugaku!" Mikoto greeted him, breaking off her polite conversation with the stranger as he approached. "The new liaison from Uzu is here."

The stranger turned fully around and bowed respectfully to Fugaku.

"I am Biyokuchi Kasshoku. It is an honor to meet the head of Clan Uchiha."

Fugaku nodded in response.

"What brings you to the Uchiha District?"

"I have recently arrived and I feel that I should introduce myself to the important clans," the Uzu-nin answered. "It has been a while since any of my comrades have come to your village."

"I see," Fugaku replied neutrally.

"I was asking him if he could tell me anything about Kushina," his wife told him. "I haven't heard from her in so long…"

"I don't personally know her," the Biyokuchi shrugged apologetically. "I can't explain her silence."

Fugaku internally debated whether or not to send the man away. He'd come and introduced himself and the Uchiha could always send a trusted officer to feel the foreigner out more thoroughly later in some location other than the District. But this man was from Uzu and while he might not know that woman personally there was a good chance he would know something (even just a rumor) about her offspring…especially if he had turned out to be a werewolf.

"If you have time, would you like to have lunch in my back garden?" Fugaku offered.

The Uzu-nin looked surprised, but very pleased at the invitation.

"I would be most honored to join you."

Whispering a few instructions to his wife, Fugaku led the man around the side of his house and into the back yard where there was a small garden and koi pond. He settled his guest on the back porch by a small table that was often used to play strategy games. Mikoto brought out some light fruit juice and the framed photograph of Sasuke's genin team.

"Do you have any children, Biyokuchi-san?" Fugaku inquired.

"No, I don't," the Uzu-nin replied.

"I have two sons. Itachi serves me well in the Military Police and I am sure that he will mature into a fine leader for my clan. His younger brother, Sasuke, is slightly less talented, but he is tenacious and highly driven and I have no doubt that he will excel greatly as a shinobi. Sasuke is currently participating in the Trials and I have great confidence that he will gain chuunin rank."

Fugaku displayed the picture and pointed Sasuke out to his guest.

"A very handsome boy," the Biyokuchi remarked as he studied the photograph. "I'm sure that there are a lot of girls after him."

"My wife was close friends with Uzumaki Kushina and she was quite excited to be having Sasuke at the same time as she was going to have her first child," Fugaku said. "You may not know the woman personally, but have you heard anything about her or her child?"

"The less said about either, the better," the Uzu-nin said with a grimace.

"I never cared much for the woman myself," Fugaku replied. "But anything at all about her would mean a lot to my wife."

"There's really nothing good to say," Kasshoku sighed and shook his head. "Your wife would be much happier knowing nothing."

Annoyed at the man's tight-lipped responses, Fugaku tried a different angle of attack.

"This boy," he said, pointing to the team picture again, "Naruto…he reminds me very much of Uzumaki-san."

It was a lie, of course. He'd never met the boy, and Sasuke had never said much of his teammate's personality. Sasuke had a purely professional relationship with his team as was proper of an Uchiha.

"Does he?" Kasshoku muttered as he studied the blond boy's image. Then the Uzu-nin's expression visibly darkened. "Hmm…"

Mikoto came out the back door and brought out a simple lunch—the same lunch that Fugaku had expected for himself doubled to feed their guest. She took the picture back inside with her, leaving them alone again. Fugaku selected an onigiri from the plate and raised an eyebrow.

"Well?"

The Uzu-nin hesitated a moment more before answering.

"Uzumaki Kushina birthed a son with strange markings on his face. And soon it became clear that he had inherited lycanthropy. The village demanded that the creature be disposed of, but she delayed and refused. Eventually, long after the problem should've been dealt with, Clan Uzumaki claimed that the creature had been taken care of."

Kasshoku paused to select an onigiri and bite into the stuffed rice ball.

"That name and that face, though… I'm very sorry to say it but seems like Clan Uzumaki may have lied." The foreigner gave him an apologetic look. "And, should this boy test positive for lycanthropy, I hate to ask you to clean up my village's mess."

"You weren't the ones to sweep the problem under the rug," Fugaku said, his mind chewing through this new information.

"It should have been dealt with swiftly and properly," Kasshoku frowned. "That boy could've bitten someone and spread the disease."

"The Uchiha will take appropriate action," Fugaku promised.

"Thank you," the Uzu-nin sighed gratefully.

"It is no trouble," the Uchiha responded. "It is the duty of the Uchiha Clan to deal with such problems. And we will do our duty."

The Biyokuchi nodded and the two men settled into more mundane small talk as they ate.

It seems that I may have to sharpen my silver knife…