Rating: M

Warnings: Language, bickering, faint angst, bones being treated casually, large cliffhanger, etc.

Word Count: ~4900

Pairings: eventual Kakashi/Kurama, past Sasuke/Naruto

Disclaimer: I don't hold the copyrights, I didn't create them, and I make no profit from this.

Notes: It's past midnight here, so I'm calling it Tuesday and posting. Sorry for the miss last week, but my work life just got hectic. Things start rolling here, though, and I'm very excited for what's to come!

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Chapter XXXVII: Reptant

[reptant / rep ´ tənt /, (of an animal) moving stealthily; moving with a creeping or crawling action. From New Latin reptant-, reptans, present participle ofrēptāre, "to creep".]

The forest around the Mountains' Graveyard is silent, still, and entirely devoid of life.

Kurama was expecting creepy, given that this is Madara's personal lurking spot. He honestly wasn't expecting this much creepy, though.

"There's nothing moving here," Momiji says quietly, padding along at Kurama's side with his tails all bristling and his ears pressed flat against his skull. Kurama can see a hint of bared teeth, but doesn't say anything. He's pretty sure his own are showing, too. "Not even carrion birds."

"Thank you so much for being a ray of goddamn sunshine," Shisui mutters, following close behind with Sharingan activated and ready. Knowing those eyes are directed at his back is not helping, Kurama thinks sourly, but he's not about to tell the kid to put away one of the few weapons that can match Obito just because it's making him twitchy.

Momiji huffs and pointedly flicks his tails, smacking Shisui in the face. The Uchiha yelps, not expecting it, and stumbles backward. Tenzō catches him with a roll of his eyes, shoving the younger boy back to his feet.

"Can't you at least pretend to be a skilled shinobi?" he complains quietly. "Keep crashing around and everyone will know we're here."

"I'll give you pretend, you little—"

"Can it," Kurama growls, and the words resonate in his throat, deeper than he intends them to be. There's a sharp click as two mouths snap shut, but Kurama can't spare the brain space to be grateful for the renewed silence. His nerves are strung tight, all but twitching, and he just wants to move. No more sneaking, no more planning, no more time away from Naruto wasted with caution instead of actually doing something, because this is it.

This is what his Naruto sent him back for.

He's almost done.

Kurama has no idea how to feel about that. The thought of accomplishing the task Naruto set him should be a relief, should be a happy thing, but—once that's finished, what next? There will be no driving force, no best friend's dying wish, no guiding hand. Just a life without any purpose but the one Kurama himself decides to give it.

It's been a hell of a long time since Kurama chose his own path. It's not that the idea scares him, it's just…strange.

Of course, they've still got a lot to do before that becomes an option, Kurama knows, turning his attention back to the landscape. Massive bones, from creatures as big as or bigger than his bijuu form, are scattered across the valley, and Kurama can vaguely remember Kabuto leading Naruto to a handful of secret entrances to Madara's base in the cleanup after the Fourth War. Hidden under the bones, mostly, and given the way Shisui is shying away from them finding that out is just going to make his day.

Kurama is totally definitely one hundred percent not being petty about Shisui almost using his Sharingan on him. Even if it's slightly conceivable that he could find one of the other entrances.

"Impressive," Kakashi murmurs from next to his left elbow, casting one assessing glance back at his now-silent team. "Can you teach me to do that?" The tone of his voice and the slant of his eye says amused, while the line of his shoulders and the careful, calculating sweep of his gaze both say wary.

Kurama snorts a little, touching a hand to this throat and the human vocal cords that shouldn't be able to produce such a sound. How the hell he even manages, he's got no clue, but chakra and willpower are pretty much the go-to explanation in the shinobi world. "I don't think it'd work for you," he answers. "Just set your dogs on them or something."

For a moment Kakashi actually looks goddamned wistful. Then again, Kurama can understand it—two days with this team and he's about ready to drop-kick them off something high. Hell, he was ready to do that halfway through the first debate about which shinobi division would win in a fight, factoring in blackmail and underhanded shinobi styles of winning. They kept it up until Rōshi decided to make them drop it with force, but Kurama now knows more about the personal lives of all the jounin and tokubetsu jounin than he ever, ever wanted to.

"Too noisy," is Kakashi's regretful verdict, after a long moment of consideration. He casts a look ahead of them, towards the looming bones of something big with a lot of teeth, and asks quietly, "Have the others found anything?"

Kurama huffs, annoyed. "We're not radios," he snaps. "It doesn't work like that. But I'm sure if Han and Rōshi find anything, they'll let me know."

"Maa, maa, Kurama, it was just a question." One eye crinkles in a smile that's only about fifty percent likely to be genuine, and Kurama snorts, looking away. Bastard.

"The kid's going to be fine," he says gruffly, speeding his steps a little. "He's a scary little bastard, and he's got two jinchuuriki and the perverted sage with him. Worry about us more—we're not just playing distraction."

It's probably too much to hope for, that Akatsuki will split their forces evenly, leaving half in the base and half out trying to capture Han and Rōshi. Kurama really doesn't want to hope the members all go after the other team, even if it would make his job a hell of a lot easier, because there's no way even two jinchuuriki, the Toad Sage, and Itachi can stand against them for long. The kid might be a genius, but he's only eleven, and he doesn't even have his Mangekyo yet.

Annoyingly, Kakashi keeps pace with him, even though the length and speed of his steps doesn't appear to change. He hums lightly, studying the bones ahead of them, and then raises his voice slightly to say, "Shisui, why don't you jump to the top of—"

"No!" Shisui hisses back, looking for all the world like a cat who's just had his fur stroked in the wrong direction as he bristles. "Those are giant bones, Captain! Do you want to offend the spirit of something that big? With that many teeth?"

Tenzō sighs, pressing a hand over his face. "You are superstitious at the strangest moments," he complains, then glances between Kakashi and Kurama. "I can—"

"No need." Kurama cuts him off. "We're not going over them, we're going under them."

"Oh, fantastic," Shisui grumbles, giving a theatrical shiver even as he eyes the skeleton warily. "Don't mind us, giant flesh-eating monster, we're just going to dig up your resting place—"

Kurama growls again, letting it rumble through the eerily still air in clear threat, and adds pointedly, "Stop. Talking."

It only partly works this time, but Shisui's follow-up grumbles are quiet enough that only Kurama's hearing lets him pick them out. "Someday. Someday that will not be terrifying, and I will forget that you once threatened to eat my corpse, and then. Then, Uzumaki, it will be on."

Kakashi muffles a cough that's definitely a laugh, and Kurama glares at him. Bastard.

Momiji snickers, too, and bounds ahead, nose close to the ground. He circles a section of ribcage that's mostly standing, leaping lightly over a bit of spine that's easily twice as tall as Kurama, and then reappears on the far side. "Over here," he calls. "This part smells like people."

"He's right," Kakashi agrees, and the tenseness slides out of his body. It's the exact opposite of relaxation, though—this is a veteran shinobi's readiness, the ability to move in any direction the moment it becomes necessary. A few quick steps have him in front of Kurama, following a scent trail, and he joins Momiji, crouching beside the weather-worn vertebrae to inspect the ground.

Kurama doesn't need to scent the air to know that several people have passed here recently—probably Obito and Kisame, since they're the ones who would need it. Zetsu has other ways to get around, and this is one of the more obscure entrances, so Pein and Konan likely used a different one.

"I hope you're not feeling squeamish," he tells Shisui with no little amusement, eyeing the way the bone is half-buried in the ground. "Makes a convenient tunnel, don't you think?"

The way Shisui blanches is the most entertaining thing Kurama has seen since the last time the kids trussed Jiraiya up.

Tenzō is staring at Shisui a little disbelievingly. "I've see you gut a man," he says, as though he's been personally betrayed. "With a stiletto heel. Why is this a problem?"

Shisui makes a face at him. "These are bones," he protests. "I didn't kill them, and they're a hell of a lot bigger than me, and I really don't want to spend my afterlife explaining to a giant monster why I desecrated its bones, okay?"

"You'll be fine. I'm sure they won't eat you more than once," Kurama says without sympathy, stepping up to the edge of the tunnel made by the center of the vertebrae. Momiji slides past him in a brush of fur, shrinking down to the size of a regular fox, and disappears into the darkness. Since he's clearly gone to scout, Kurama stays put, ears trained for any sound beyond the faint click of nails on bone and then the pad of paws on packed earth.

"Who are they likely to leave inside when Han and Rōshi start up?" Kakashi asks, almost too softly to hear.

Kurama glances at him, then back to the darkness of the tunnel. "Tobi," he says, and…well. Not telling Kakashi that Tobi is actually his not-dead best friend turned insane puppet out to conquer the world seemed sensible back in Kiri, but right now that decision is looking a whole lot more questionable. Still, this Kakashi isn't the one who's already been exposed to Team 7 and gone through a lot of adjustments. This is the version still reeling from Rin and Minato's deaths, broken to the point where he avoids Naruto completely. Kurama can't predict how he'll react to knowledge like that. And the odds of them unmasking Obito during a hit-and-run attack are fairly low.

A shiver of foreboding slides down Kurama's spine, and he closes his eyes and curses silently to himself. Sage take it all. He just jinxed them, didn't he?

The clatter of claws draws his attention back, and he straightens as Momiji trots back out of the darkness, once more full-sized. "No one I can see," he reports. "And there aren't any voices, I think, but the tunnel branches off, so sound carries strangely."

Fantastic, that's exactly what Kurama wanted to hear. He swallows a sigh, shoving his hair out of his face, and checks the position of the sun. They still have about half an hour before Han and Rōshi start up their distraction, so he sinks down to sit on his heels, trying not to tense up. He can't sense Bee's chakra anywhere, and Gyūki hasn't tried to contact him again, so he's assuming they're not here.

Either that or they've already started the ritual and Gyūki can't reach him because he's been stuffed into a statue and Bee is dead.

Kurama runs a hand over his face and orders himself to stop thinking.

With a quiet hum, Kakashi sinks down next to him. "Just Tobi?" he asks, and it takes Kurama a second to remember the earlier question.

"Zetsu too, probably," he admits. "Maybe Kisame as well. Kakuzu almost beat Han by himself already, and Orochimaru will probably go along just because it amuses him. If they think it's just the two jinchuuriki, and don't see Itachi or Jiraiya, they might think it's an easy win for them."

"Easy," Tenzō repeats, pained. "Two jinchuuriki."

Shisui makes a noise of agreement, entirely disbelieving, and Kurama just shrugs. "This is what Akatsuki is for," he says. "Hunting and capturing jinchuuriki is pretty much their thing. Pein is the best at it, but the others aren't exactly terrible."

"You seem…weirdly calm," Shisui points out, eyeing him a bit warily. "I was expecting more growling and breaking things?"

Kurama glares at him. "What I want to break," he says slowly and clearly, "is that goddamned statue at the end of the tunnel. Your head takes close second, though."

Shisui scowls right back, opening his mouth to respond, but before he can Tenzō slaps a hand over it. "No," the older teenager says firmly. "He's bigger than you, and your mother asked me not to let you pick fights with people like that if at all possible."

With a grunt of effort, Shisui peels Tenzō's hand of his face and glares. "You need to stop collaborating with my mother," he hisses. "That is not fair, you bastard! And I'm like ten centimeters taller than him, so it doesn't count!"

"Yes, but he has about ten times as much chakra and has already kicked your ass twice," Tenzō points out with a ghoulish smile, faux-reasonable and entirely too cheerful at the memory. "That makes him bigger than you."

"Oh, be still my heart," Kurama says dryly. "Just what I've always wanted: a brat defending my honor."

Tenzō huffs, clearly offended, but Kakashi snorts softly. "You'd better get used to it," he says dryly, eye crinkling in a smile that Kurama suspects is, for once, entirely genuine. "Now you've got four to do it, at least."

Kurama rolls his eyes, but can't quite suppress the faint smile that comes along with it. He misses the kids, and even though he'd expected to, it's…surprising. He's spent so long with only Naruto precious to him, and now that number has expanded so sharply that it's all but left him reeling.

"I'll leave it to the other jinchuuriki in the future, then," Tenzō says, crossing his arms over his chest. A pause, and with a wince he adds, "Momochi, too," as if it physically hurts to say.

It would be more offensive if Kurama weren't so amused. He snorts loudly. "Kid, if my honor ever were in danger, Zabuza's the one you'd have to defend it from."

Momiji snickers, hunkering down next to Kurama's thigh. "Not the right mate to settle down with," is his opinion, probably at least a little for the way the word makes Tenzō grimace. A press of a cold nose against Kurama's knee, and he adds judiciously, "He made you happy for a little while, though."

"Can we change the subject?" Kurama complains, burying his fingers in the white-tipped black fur that makes Momiji look a little like he's covered in frost. "I'm not taking relationship advice from someone who hasn't even thought about it for himself yet."

Momiji huffs, black ears pressing flat to his skull, and chitters a quiet warning. "Just because I only have five tails so far—"

"Fox summons aren't born with multiple tails?" Shisui interrupts curiously, eyes on the reynard. "I thought it was just a thing, like hair color."

Kurama and Momiji both shoot him disbelieving looks. "Like hair color?" Kurama repeats incredulously. "Foxes gain tails with age and power. It's a sign of status."

"And technically I'm just a kitsune right now," Momiji adds, ignoring the way Kakashi's eye narrows slightly at the term. "Kurama-sama didn't summon me, or my sister either. We decided to help him on our own."

"I was wondering about that," Kakashi says mildly, though his gaze is sharp. "That first fight—you were just as surprised to see the fox as we were."

"Foxes," Kurama corrects shortly, looking away, though he doesn't stop stroking Momiji's fur. "There was a little red fox, too—he's the one that led Fuji to me in the first place. Considered it payback, since I'd helped him out of some thorns."

There's a moment of silence, and when Kurama glances up, a little confused, two and a half sets of eyes are staring at him with visible disbelief. "What?" he demands grouchily.

With a low groan, Shisui buries his face in his hands. "We've been chasing a fairy tale hero," he complains. "Oh my god, is that even a thing that happens? You rescue a helpless little creature and it repays you in your hour of need? Should I go around putting birds back in their nests and helping snakes across rivers?"

Kurama rolls his eyes, entirely unimpressed with the theatrics. "Go ahead," he says dryly. "It's not like the only special animals are the ones that talk like humans. Chakra isn't unique to shinobi—there's natural chakra in everything, and animals have a lot of it."

"Fairy tale hero," Shisui repeats, and even Tenzō is shaking his head in disbelief. "That's it, I give up. We never had a hope of catching you, did we?"

Momiji gargles an eerie fox-laugh, licks Kurama's hand, and pushes to his feet. "You never did," he agrees, adds, "I'll go watch the path back," and then stretches long and low and bounds away, vanishing into a thicket of bushes. Kurama snorts, watching his silver tail disappear, and—

A flicker of chakra, dark and subtle, approaching fast. Kurama reacts without thinking, hurling himself forward into Kakashi and knocking him right into the bone tunnel as he snarls, "Move!"

For all his joking, Shisui is still a shinobi good enough to make ANBU when barely into his teens. Green chakra flares, leaves whirl, and suddenly he and Tenzō are high up, crouched on a protruding rib bone. In the same moment, thick vines burst through the ground, grasping like tentacles, only to find nothing.

"Zetsu," Kurama growls, rising back to his feet. His fingers curl like claws, nails ready to rip and tear, and he can feel a snarl rumbling up through his chest.

Another flicker of green, and too fast to follow Shisui is suddenly beside them, chakra starting to gather like a thundercloud edged with fire. "Go!" he orders, settling himself squarely in the center of the tunnel. "We'll hold him here, just finish quickly!"

Kurama freezes, torn, because below them is the Gedō Mazō but it's Zetsu rising from the ground like a twisted Venus flytrap, already grinning.

"What's this?" he mocks, and it grates along Kurama's nerves like a saw-toothed blade against bone. "A little nest of vermin gathering on our doorstep? How unfortunate."

This is Zetsu, the manifestation of Kaguya's will, her desire to destroy given form. Kurama doesn't think he's ever wanted anything as much as he wants to throw himself right at the construct and tear Zetsu into tiny pieces.

Before he can move, though, a strong hand grabs his wrist. Kakashi turns and dives deeper into the tunnel, dragging Kurama after him, and the earth rumbles. A Doton jutsu that's heavy with Tenzō's chakra rises to block the path after them, and an instant later they hit a branching tunnel.

"Which way?" Kakashi demands, and without hesitating Kurama takes the left one, leading down. He snarls, pointless, ineffective, undirected, and swears to himself that if Tenzō and Shisui leave any bits of Zetsu behind, he's going to crush those pieces into paste and set them on fire.

Before he can get far, though, Kakashi uses the grip on his wrist to pull him to a halt and then around so that they're face to face. "The others?" he asks, and this isn't the slightly distant, lighthearted man who plays tricks on his subordinates and reads porn in public. This is the jounin shinobi with more ANBU missions under his belt than most people twice his age. When Kurama snarls at him in frustration, he growls right back, and Kurama is so startled that he stops trying to pull away, blinking at the man.

Kakashi takes a breath, centering himself, and then repeats, "The others? We can't barge in there when we don't know whether the entirety of Akatsuki is waiting for us."

That's unfortunately true. Kurama grinds his teeth, fighting down the urge to just throw a bijūdama down the tunnel and see how much of a distraction that proves, and closes his eyes, leaning back to brace his shoulders against the wall. The world wavers, sliding towards the blackness of the bijuu's shared mental plane, but Kurama doesn't dive all the way in, lingers on the borders so that he's just close enough to feel the crackle and snap of Son's lava raging like a tide beneath the moon. They're fighting, definitely.

"Well, someone is out there with them," he says, opening his eyes and pushing away. "That enough?"

For a brief second, Kakashi looks like he's going to argue before he finally inclines his head. "I don't see a better option," he agrees, still wary, and casts a look down the tunnel they're in. "Where will this come out?"

Kurama doesn't want to talk, he wants to bolt back to the surface and sink his claws into Zetsu. He wants to kill Zetsu, destroy him utterly and completely, break Kaguya's will because she killed Naruto, this is a piece of the woman who murdered his best friend—

A deep breath, another, and Kurama forces himself not to move, not to run. He stays where he is through sheer force of will and tries to think back to when his Naruto followed Kabuto down here, wary and braced for treachery, to clear out the remainders of Madara's hideout.

"The labs," he says, fairly certain that he's correct. "Beneath the main area where the Gedō Mazō is. There's…" A wall of creepy stolen Sharingan in tanks, he almost says, but that's not right. Not yet. Those were the eyes that Obito stole after the Massacre, and here and now, the Massacre is nothing but a dark possibility born of Danzō's whispers.

"Yes?" Kakashi prompts, eye narrowing faintly. Suspicion, and not a suspicion that the truth will help.

"A door," Kurama finishes, and it's not a lie, even if it's not what he was originally going to say. "Hidden in the wall. It should take us up to the main level. I don't know where Tobi will be, or if he'll be waiting, but if he is, that's probably where he'll try to ambush us."

Kakashi makes a noncommittal but faintly unhappy noise, not that Kurama blames him. No shinobi likes walking into an ambush, especially when they know it's coming—it's against every trained instinct they have not to avoid it, turn it around on the ambusher. Unfortunately, Kurama doesn't know of any other ways to get to the Gedō Mazō short of blasting a hole in the floor; his memory's decent, but it's not as if he'd thought to memorize the layout of this place last time he was here. There had been no reason to—as far as he knew, he'd never have to set foot in it again after they cleared it out, and even if he did, Naruto was there as well, and it was his responsibility to pay attention anyway.

Clearly, Kurama needs to stop making assumptions where anything about Naruto is concerned.

"Let me go first," he orders, pressing past Kakashi in the narrow tunnel. At least he's had experience fighting Obito-as-Tobi before. Whatever Kakashi remembers of the cheerful chuunin who died is so outdated as to be laughable, and of no use. Not that he even knows he knows anything, and Kurama's going to stop that train of thought right there.

"If you insist," Kakashi agrees, mildly amused, but there's a spark of something that crosses his face too fast for Kurama to name it. He'd waste more brain power trying to figure it out, but four square inches of uncovered skin doesn't exactly give him a lot to go on.

Besides, there's a dart of light from the end of the tunnel, catching on the wall ahead of them, and when Kurama rounds the curve of the passageway he can see—

And feel. Malice out of nowhere, a surge of it thick and heavy enough to choke on, full of rage exquisitely contained, hatred directed at everyone and everything but somehow undiluted, undimmed for the vastness it encompasses. The sudden, heady surge of power is almost enough to make Kurama stagger, and he has to catch hold of the wall and breathe through the rush. Like a drug, like a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart, and there's only one person in all the world that it could possibly be.

"Oh! Oh! Oh my, intruders in the labs!" a light voice cries, complete with the sound of flailing arms and flapping cloth. "Oh, I have to alert an Akatsuki member! You might be here to steal stuff!"

Oh yeah. Kurama had forgotten about the acting-like-a-moron bit.

It's really fucking annoying.

It's also a little disconcerting, because the fury and malice don't abate at all, and Kurama has to practically wade through the force of it as he pushes ahead, stalking out the mouth of the tunnel to the sight of a familiar masked figure. Not the orange mask from when Obito infiltrated his own organization, but also not the white Sharingan-patterned mask from the war. Purple, instead, with a smooth white spiral curving out and away from the single eye-hole. Akatsuki robes, though, and that's enough to have the growl building in Kurama's chest again.

"Tobi," he snarls, so low and sharp it almost hurts his throat.

Obito freezes, long sleeves flapping over his hands, and tilts his head. "Tobi?" he repeats, sounding bewildered. "Oh, are you talking about me? Is that my codename? You gave me a codename? I'm so flattered!"

Fuck. Apparently he's not using that name yet, and that's going to be a fun one to explain when they get out of here.

"Get out of my way and I won't tear you to bits," he threatens, hoping that will be distraction enough.

"Uwah! Scary!" Obito cries, flailing his arms again, and really, Kurama is getting a damned headache trying to deal with the disassociation between how he's acting and how he's feeling. It's creepy. "Please don't hurt me! I'm just an errand boy around here!"

Kakashi slides up to Kurama's side, one eye trained on Obito. "This is the one who's an idiot?" he asks. "Maa, Kurama, I think we can take him."

"I said he acts like an idiot," Kurama retorts, because really, with Obito that's definitely a distinction that should be made. He takes a step forward, every muscle ready to move, and adds, "Get out of the way, or I'm going to make you."

Naruto might have been of the opinion that Obito's death redeemed every last one of his actions in life, might have said he died a hero, but honestly, Kurama doesn't give a damn. Right now, Obito is the biggest threat to little Naruto, to all the jinchuuriki. He's the one who's going to be responsible for Madara coming back, for Kaguya breaking free, and Kurama isn't about to let that happen. Not in this lifetime.

Never, ever again.

Obito skitters back a few steps, then stops and braces himself. "But Kisame-senpai will be mad at me if I let you through!" he bleats. "Kisame-senpai is scary! I can't let you go, sorry!"

Well. It's not as though Kurama expected to do this the easy way, not with Obito standing right in front of them. He slides into a ready stance, curling his claws, and breathes in the seething hatred Obito wears like a second cloak. It's like a lightning-strike to his senses, lighting them up, and he soaks in the power, the press of it.

"Fine by me," he growls, and hurls himself forward.