Assassin's Legacy: Chapter 13

Pain and Madness


"Kurama..."

Kurama raises his head to look at Naruto when the boy calls him. There is something off about Naruto's tone and when Kurama sees Naruto he is immediately worried.

Naruto is standing at the doorway, his clothes in disarray and eyes red-rimmed, clutching at his shoulder in obvious pain.

"Naru!" Kurama rushes to the boy frantically just in time to catch Naruto as he crumbles to the floor.

Kurama cradles the young boy close and is going out of his mind with worry when Naruto starts sobbing. Kurama has never seen the boy look so obviously vulnerable despite being only ten years old. The boy looks like someone had ripped out his heart, wailing uncontrollably.

"Naru, what's wrong? What hurts?" Kurama asks frantically. Noting how the boy flinches when Kurama's hand comes in contact with his back, Kurama carefully moves the boy to the couch and lays him on his side.

"It hurts Kurama... It hurts so much..." the way Naruto's voice cracks with each word reminds Kurama just how you young the boy is.

Kurama knows that the source of pain is the boys back so he carefully tries to look all the while soothing the boy with soft words of comfort.

"It's alright Naru... It's alright. Shh..." Kurama had never comforted a crying human before but with Naruto it comes almost naturally. By the time Naruto's cries have faded to soft whimpers Kurama sees Nagin and Yuki enter the room both worried. They look at Naruto horrified at his plight.

"What happened Kurama?" Yuki asks softly.

"I don't know, but I am going to find out."

Saying that Kurama gently lifts the back of Naruto's shirt. Nagin whose standing behind him lets out a sharp gasp. Kurama only barely manages to hold on to his curse. Beside him Yuki is watching with a horrified look.

They had all seen the Mark of Eien in Naruto's back before but it was vastly different now. What used to be blurred vague lines were now sharp black lines that depicted the cloaked skeletal figure holding the Sword of Eien. Two tattered wings extended from the cloaked figure, feathers twisted and lost and horrible looking but each feather was now defined in sharp black lines that left no doubt about what they were.

None of them had any idea what to do. The silence was broken by Naruto's soft words,

"Am I going to go crazy Kurama?"

Kurama held Naruto close.

"Its a curse Naruto... And trust me all curses can be broken."

That's all Kurama said as Yuki and Nagin joined in hugging Naruto.

They all stay like that Naruto falls into a fitful sleep. Once they are sure that Naruto is asleep Nagin asks softly,

"What does this mean?"

Yuki has no answer to that question neither does Kurama.

"I am not sure," Kurama says, "I... I think I used to know but now..."

Yuki understands Kurama's frustration. The knowledge lost when he became human was a lot.

"I think its the sword. It's just the theory but maybe the sword is calling for its wielder..." Yuki says thoughtfully.

"But why now? Why did the mark become clear like that?" Nagin asks worriedly about what this means for Naruto. All of them are worried.

"I can try to summon something that can tell us more" Yuki suggests.

"I don't think we have many options. We have to find out what this means for Naruto. I know the location of some demonic scrolls still, maybe I can try and collect them to take a look."

Nagin nods, "I'll get the scrolls if you can share the location with me. Whatever is happening we need to be prepared."

None of them moves from their position around Naruto and surrounds him in their warmth and tries to sleep.


Minato, Kushina and Jiraiya are sitting in the office discussing something when Menma storms into the room.

The doors are opened with such force that it strikes the wall and bounces back twice.

"Menma!" Kushina yells angrily but then it turns to panic when she sees the red creeping into his eyes and his wild appearance.

"Menma, you need to calm down," Minato says softly.

"Did you know?"

The question confuses them.

"Know what Menma?" Kushina asks.

"Menma whatever it is, we can talk about it after you have calmed down," Jiraiya says because agitating the boy more won't help with anything.

Menma turns his gaze to Jiraiya, "No. We're talking about this right now!"

"Then talk," Jiraiya says calmly, "whatever it is you want to talk about."

Menma is already looking back at Minato and Kushina, the anger in his eyes so potent that they flinch back.

"Did you know the truth about the pranks?"

Jiraiya is confused by the question, "what pranks?"

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees realization dawn on Minato's face followed by apprehension.

Menma sees it too.

"You knew didn't you? You knew!" He screams.

"Men-"

"Shut up!" Menma shouts when Kushina tries to speak.

"You knew the truth and you disowned the only decent person in this twisted family for no reason!"

Jiraiya sees when Kushina understands the gravity of the situation. He sees when she too comes to the same conclusion as Minato, whatever that is. Jiraiya is more than a little confused.

"Menma you have to understand that it was Naruto's choice to leave," Jiraiya tries to reason with the boy even though he is not sure about what is happening. The only thing he is sure about is that if Menma gets anymore angry, they would have to subdue him.

Menma growled, "No. Its what we all pushed him into! Mito and I were horrible siblings and we pushed and pushed him away. Taunted and treated him like trash and these two," Menma gestures at Minato and Kushina, "they let it happen because that was convenient."

"Convenient..." Jiraiya mumbles and understands that this all is much worse than he expected.

"You don't know what you are talking about," Minato says with a blank face.

Menma sneers, "oh I know. I know 'father'. I know you wanted him away from us. You both did. You didn't actively try to keep him from us, no, but when I began the rift you didn't try to fix it... Instead you encouraged it, you encouraged Mito and me to keep ostracizing him because you wanted him gone!"

"Menma you don't understand," Kushina says with a weary look.

"Then make me understand, make me understand why you did it. Why you acted like you knew nothing when you knew, you knew that every time we accused him of something that it wasn't him but us. You knew and you did nothing but take our sides and bolster our pitiful egos because you wanted that rift between me and my brother."

Kushina and Minato have nothing to say to that. They both look on wearily as red creeps into Menma's eyes and the temperature of the room increased fractionally as the Kyuubi's chakra made itself known. Jiraiya was worried and he knew that they needed to try and calm Menma down before they would have to resort to more drastic measures.

"Menma please try to calm down."

From behind him Menma hears a sharp gasp and sees Mito standing there with a scared and betrayed look on her face. The sight somehow lets the Kyuubi's chakra recede but Menma doesn't appear any less angry.

Menma sees Jiraiya look at them, "What are you talking about, Menma?"

"So you didn't know?" Menma asks Jiraiya who still looks confused.

Minato and Kushina are silent for a moment then Kushina surges forward and grabs a hold of Menma's hand and pulls him along.

"That's enough! I need to speak with you privately before you come to any more stupid assumptions from wherever you heard that nonsense," Kushina is pulling a protesting Menma along when someone else grips her wrist stopping her.

Kushina looks back and sees that it is Jiraiya holding her.

"Let him speak. I want to know what his 'stupid assumptions' are," Jiraiya says firmly and Kushina looks at Minato who nods.

Kushina lets go of Menma and Menma glares at her while rubbing his wrist.

Kushina looks like she wants to apologize seeing the bruise forming on his wrist but she stays silent.

Menma looks at his father and mother before turning to Jiraiya and Mito. He gives Mito an apologetic look before speaking to Jiraiya.

"We always thought that nobody knew," there is a self-deprecating smile on Menma's face, "I was just high on the feeling that we could fool two Kage level shinobi so we did it again and again until it becomes a habit..."

"Did what Menma?" Jiraiya asks with trepidation.

"Pranks..." Mito says near silently.

Jiraiya's eyes widen when he gets what the kids are saying.

"We blamed him for every prank and every mistake we did. We thought that we outsmarted mom and dad and... it was fun because they were supposed to be smart and strong and we outsmarted them..." Menma says ruefully.

Jiraiya could understand where that feeling led.

When Menma stops Mito starts speaking. She speaks softly like it's a confession that had been festering inside her.

"So we did it again and again. Then the other kids started doing it too and we didn't' stop it because it was something we did and Naruto got used to taking the blame. It wasn't such an important fact but then they disowned him," Mito stops speaking and the tears that were held at bay until then start spilling and she starts sobbing.

Menma holds her hand and comforts his sister, "We didn't want that to happen to him. I mean, we didn't like him all that much because we never got close to him... But he was still our brother. I don't know..." Menma looks frustrated, "I didn't know that the way I was treating him was bad. I didn't know that it was wrong to treat our brother like that because they," he points accusing at his parents, " never told me it was wrong and I thought they would correct me if I was wrong. I trusted them and they manipulated us."

"Menma we did not manipulate you," Kushina says softly.

Menma scoffs, "Really? Because do you know what Sasuke told me the other day?"

"What did he say?" Jiraiya asks.

"He told me how much of a shitty brother I was to Naruto. It was the first time he ever spoke about his family and that was to tell me how Aunt Mikoto always thought mom was doing a bad job at disciplining us. He told me how Itachi was to him, he told me how I was supposed to be to Naruto. My first thought was why you never told me I was wrong. I thought Sasuke was wrong then he mentions that his parents knew. There was only one time Sasuke played a prank with us and that time too we blamed Naruto. You punished him as usual. Do you know what Aunt Mikoto and Uncle Fugaku did? They told Sasuke that he wasn't old enough to fool them. Mikoto talked to you didn't she? She came to talk to you about how it was Sasuke's fault and you said you understood. You said that you knew. Sasuke was there, he wanted to apologize to Naruto and you convinced him that Naruto understood that it was a prank and was playing along... You said all that in front of him but Naruto still got punished. You never told him or us..."

Minato is staring at Menma with a blank face but Kushina looked worried. Jiraiya however had a grim look on his face.

Menma didn't mention how it was Aki who prompted him to question Sasuke. Somehow he didn't think that his parents would take too kindly to that.

The hand in his palm was shaking and Menma looked at Mito who kept her face down not letting anyone see what she was feeling.

"I wanted to know if it was a one-off thing so I went to my other friends," Menma sneered, "And guess what? All their parents, at least the clan heads, knew and they said that you knew too. But you had them all convinced that you were dealing with it, that Naruto was never punished and it was all just fun and games. Children playing pranks and trying to outsmart shinobi... I always wondered how we managed to fool you but as it turns out we were the fools. All of this and by the end of it our brother hated us. I have a feeling that that's exactly what you wanted..."

Jiraiya turns to Minato, "Is this true? Wait you don't need to answer I already know from the look on your face. I have to say Minato this is far from what I expected from you but I can't say I am surprised either."

Jiraiya doesn't look or sound accusing instead he sounds tired. Knowing that at least part of this mess was his fault. He couldn't blame his student either because despite it seeming like a bad choice, Jiraiya knew that Minato and Kushina didn't do this without thinking.

It was a bad twist in all their fates.

Menma sneered at them. He looked at Mito when he felt her tugging at his hand. From the expression on her face, she didn't want to spend another second in front of their parents. Good because neither did Menma.

Just as both of them turned to leave Minato stopped them.

"Are you leaving already? Don't you want to hear our reasons Menma? Don't you want to know why we did what we did?"

Menma paused. It was Mito who answered for him.

"Why should we? It's obvious isn't it, Naruto had no special powers, no bloodline, no heroic duties so you wanted him gone from your perfect family."

All of them were surprised by the amount of venom in her words. Mito never was one to shout or talk like that.

Kushina closed her eyes and held her tears at bay. How were they going to fix this mess?

"No," Minato chuckled mirthlessly, "Do you believe that? No Mito. If Naruto wasn't special, we wouldn't have to do this."

Kushina and Jiraiya looked at Minato with shock.

"It's time we told you guys the truth."


In a casino in lightning country

"Lady Tsunade its time to leave," Shizune tried for the hundredth time that evening but Tsunade seemed too involved in her card game to go just yet even though she lost every round so far.

"One more round, Shizune," Tsunade said angrily.

Shizune shook her head, "That's what you said for the last ten rounds. So no. No more rounds."

The guys Tsunade was playing with were laughing at the blond woman.

"Let her play, girl." One guy hollered.

"Yeah yeah let her." Another shouted.

Shizune paid them no mind and proceeded to drag Tsunade out of the casino before the men realized that the money Tsunade gave were all lifted from their own pockets.

"One day Lady Tsunade, one day this habit of yours is going to be the end of you." Shizune scolded.

Tsunade was about to say something when someone crashed into her from behind. Tsunade stood her ground with all the grace of a kunoichi but the person who crashed into her wasn't that lucky and ended up sprawled on the ground.

"What the hell are-"

Whatever Tsunade was about to say got stuck in her throat when she saw the heavily pregnant woman on the ground.

Shizune was shocked for a moment before helping the woman up, "Are you okay?"

The woman had a pained look on her face and she was panting heavily. She quickly tore her hand out of Shizune's grasp and moved out of Tsunade's hold that was steadying her.

"I apologize," she muttered quickly before turning around and running into the crowd.

Shizune stared after the woman worried. It was obvious that the woman was in pain and worried.

"I think she needs help..." Shizune muttered. That's when she noticed Tsunade shaking beside her.

"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune turned to look at her mentor.

Tsunade was looking down at her hand which had been gripping the woman, the hand that was now covered in blood.

Shizune was alarmed at the sight of it and quickly looked down. The ground where she had fallen was also blood-stained.

Shizune looked around trying to spot the woman in the crowd but she was long gone. As much as she wanted to look for the woman she couldn't leave Tsunade in this state.

Shizune closed her eyes and silently prayed for the woman before grabbing hold of Tsunade and taking her back to their hotel room.