No Chakra Strings On Me

by Sivaatasi

Kurama is bored. It has been 4 years since his sealing into his new vessel but he's only been awake for the last 2. Sitting in a wet cage with no interaction and very little to entertain him is beginning to get very old so, as the true embodiment of foxes everywhere, he looks to see what mischief he can cause. What could go wrong? Oneshot! Puppeteer! Kurama.

[No Chakra Strings On Me]

Summary: Kurama is bored. It has been 4 years since his sealing into his new vessel but he's only been awake for the last 2. Sitting in a wet cage with no interaction and very little to entertain him is beginning to get very old so, as the true embodiment of foxes everywhere, he looks to see what mischief he can cause. What could go wrong? Oneshot! Puppeteer! Kurama.

~III~

Quick Note: Okay, I know that I should be finishing No More but this stupid story idea just wouldn't leave me alone and I kept mixing up ideas with the latest chapter of my main fic. So this just had to be written.

I looked to see if anyone else has done something like this but I couldn't find a similar story anywhere. The puppet fics I saw either had Naruto as the wonder puppeteer prodigy or Kurama has taken over completely. So, after a particularly caffeine-heavy writing binge and a movie night where the family watched "Ratatouille", this idea was spawned.

If anyone knows of a story like this one, send me a PM and I'll add a pointer to the author to provide proper credit.

Also, the thumbnail for this story was provided by a young artist trying to make a name for themselves and they do commission work, if you are so inclined. Give them a look on the Gram #Mystic_shadow51.

Final Thought on the Mask:

- History of the Oni Mask: The oni masks are a symbol of protection for those who believe in the spiritual world. According to tattoo experts, Oni Tattoos represent the devil's ability to punish any evil or unjust act. The demonic mask shows trolls and ogres among other evil creatures you may or may not have in history.

~III~

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Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Ratatouille, more's the pity.

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Story Guide:

"Girls are icky." - Normal Conversation (for a 5-year old).

"I'm going to eat your liver with good wine and a side salad!" Angry Bijuu/ chakra-enhanced voice

'Purple hair isn't that bad' / 'Now where did I put that remote...' - Normal Thinking' / 'Bijuu Thinking'

"Iiiiiiii've got a lovely bunch of-" - Kurama speaking through host's chakra-enhanced voicebox

---

Oneshot: Rude Awakening

~Iiiiiiii've got a lov-e-ly bunch of co-co-nuts~

CLA-CLA-CLA-CLANG!

~Here they are, all standing in a roooooooooow!~

~Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head...~

~Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist~

~That's what the showman said...~

With one human-like hand propping up a head large enough to swallow whole squads of shinobi at a time, we find the world's most powerful entity lazily swinging a metal drinking mug to and fro to the irritating little ditty they'd had self-inflicted upon themselves for that past hour. It wasn't like the six-story tall, reddish-orange, rabbit-eared fox had much else to do given that they were stuck behind bars... again.

The details this time as to how they got here were a bit fuzzy and they may have involved hookers, booze, and dancing baby elephants - hey, that's the bijuu's story and they're sticking to it - but the bijuu itself was going to claim self-defense the moment he appeared before the magistrate. Yup! Self-defense all the way.

Let's ignore the fact that Kurama was a chakra entity that could not get drunk.

Yup, let's totally ignore that fact.

Let's completely ignore the fact that, as a being made purely of chakra, that he was neither male nor female. He may have spent a few decades as either gender when disguised among the worthless creatures called humans but it did little to change the fact that Kurama could be whatever a chakra entity wanted to be.

Yup, gonna absolutely tiptoe around that little explosive chakra tag.

Maybe Son could spring for bail? Early parole?

'Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!'

Casually, the hand holding the mug tossed it away not even caring as it dissolved into red motes of light before joining the billowy cloud of energy blanketing the wet floor of the ever-so-comfy prison cell the bijuu called home. The fingers of said hand now busied themselves by tapping rhythmically along with the annoyingly catchy tune its owner was humming in a bone-shaking baritone.

How long had it been? One year? Five? Ten?

So close to freedom! So close if not for the selfless nature of those foul humans! How dare they be... heroic... and crap!

The happy humming stopped as the mountainous bijuu surged to his paws in frustration, fangs bared and chest heaving. The frustrating part of it was that it couldn't fault the hateful humans for trying to protect their newborn. Kurama was literally trying to kill it at the time to prevent being sealed again.

"Stupid noble humans!"

Great. Now he suffered from orphan guilt!

Trying to shift from the depressing thoughts of how low the mighty bijuu had fallen from their father's teachings about "all life being worth saving, blah-blah-blah," large red eyes panned the entire span of their domain. Wasn't much for space but the bubbling miasma of bijuu energy made it less dreary... wait... what was that?

The bottom of the metal bars had a lip to keep out small creatures. The human mind was a disgusting place but at least the seal's creator put in the effort to keep small pests from wandering into the cage, perhaps in the hope to keep its immature jailer from wandering inside the bars and getting eaten.

Too bad, really. A snack sounded nice right about now...

Pushing aside happier thoughts of "human tartare", the bijuu pressed its face against the bars and swiveled one massive eye downward to get a better look at what unusual phenomenon caught its attention.

The eye in question ballooned in pleasant surprise.

Low and behold, seeping from the teeny tiny seam where the bars met the walls of his prison was a single tendril of bijuu chakra. Kurama watched entranced as it snaked its way along the floor for about three seconds before it faded away into nothingness, absorbed by the ambient mindspace, but the occurrence brought an enormous smile to the chakra entity's fanged muzzle.

Glancing quickly along the lower edge, Kurama looked for more instances of the same and found another in the opposite corner of the gate and smiled.

It wasn't much really. In comparison to the bijuu's now halved (...ugh!) chakra stores, it was the equivalent of a single human hair but this was something to work with! The seepage was soo small that Kurama would never normally have noticed the loss but it did provide an avenue for something the bijuu most desperately needed - entertainment. Who knew. Maybe some information about where and when they were could come along with a little fun.

Sage knew there had been woefully little of that along the way the past hear-hundred years. Prison life was incredibly dull and the mightiest of the Bijuu was beginning to feel like a criminal recidivist.

If given the choice, the bijuu would have chosen a lifetime of sleep but its host had ruined that plan in repeatedly spectacular fashion. The very first time had been world-altering, the mindspace shaking as if the sky were falling, everything had turned a pulsing shade of red reminiscent of the bijuu's chakra, and all of it accompanied by the most annoying pounding sound preventing sleep.

More than once he'd cursed the empathic gifts his father had blessed him with. Something about being able to sympathize with the worthless monkeys his father loved and cherished...

If anyone ever asked, Kurama would have been more than happy to share what he thought of being able to feel the emotions of another living creature. It was no picnic! Before being sealed the first time it was hard enough to be able to turn off the ability since no predator wanted to feel the panic and pain of the prey it hunted as it died.

'Yeah, good going pops! Way to curse your child!' And people wondered why the Nine-Tails settled on rage as a dominant emotion. How else could he counter all of the pain the world constantly wanted to drown him in? To make matters worse, now he was sealed into a rather miserable creature that seemed to radiate nothing but suffering, emotional pain, and woe.

It was enough to repeatedly shake the bijuu from any restful nap, the bijuu's one haven from a world of anger and violence. When he could sleep, it was filled with flashes of terror from the perspective of a small human child making it not restful at all.

He could almost feel the chakra bags forming under his great red eyes.

Kurama desperately needed sleep if the great chakra beast wanted any hope of regaining his depleted reserves. A quick glance back at nine sweeping tails showed only three had regained their brilliant orange-red luster, the rest dull and listless, but those that remained would take forever without a good rest.

Now if he could only get his host from having those nightmares. The pounding of the monkey's heart made rest impossible and the content of the creature's nightmares didn't help either. They were all from the perspective of a small, helpless... thing, smaller than the other worthless humans and, if what Kurama saw was true, there was even less reason to care about the disgusting race that would treat what could only be a child that way.

Is this how humans felt when they fought the bijuu?

Harsh words, angry glares, isolation, and the occasional slap could be just as deadly as a mob beating a small child. Not even the bijuu would treat a child that way.

It was easy enough to match the cacophony as the sound of its jailer's heart and, from there, the final pieces fell into place: the child was afraid but that mattered little to the ancient chakra beast. All he knew was that the bijuu was now awake and irritable but no matter how hard Kurama tried, they couldn't break through those damnable bars. Also, he couldn't push energy through them despite the seal slowly leeching its energy to feed its host.

Sometimes the drain would increase but never more than Kurama naturally replenished, nowhere even close, so the phenomenon was largely ignored. Despite being bigger than the first two prisons, the boundaries of his new cage were far tighter further restricting chakra flow from the bijuu to only what was drained by the seal.

Kurama shook his head to clear the mental image of a child's oversized fox-flavored juice box and instead focused on his chakra dispersing slowly into the mindscape.

For even this minuscule amount to leak out from the cage meant that... the seal was gradually loosening over time!

The large chakra beast cackled like a small child and flopped down comfortably in the center of his, er... room? No matter what he called it, it wouldn't be his home much longer if he could help it. A leaky seal could provide some access to the mindspace. Access to the mindspace could provide some measure of influence over the host. Even the bare minimum could lead to something beneficial.

As they say, "Idle hands are the bijuu's plaything."

With a heavy sigh, the enormous crimson orbs slid closed and the heavy body settled. Most of the time he ignored the excess chakra wafting about his cell but Kurama's chakra was always Kurama's chakra. Each mote of energy was inexplicably tied to the bijuu's consciousness and could be molded, pushed, or recalled so long as it was connected to its conscience.

The best part? This was raw bijuu energy unfiltered by the seal and unfiltered bijuu chakra wasn't directly absorbable by humans. In fact, it was toxic in large quantities unless he metered it. Provided he didn't outright kill the creature it would linger in his system and whatever it touched he could affect and influence.

Bijuu energy remained a part of its owner and under the bijuu's absolute control.

With a second sigh, Kurama searched and sifted until the tiny tendrils slipping through the cracks of the seal were under the chakra monster's command. Then he began to funnel a steady stream of energy into both leaks.

An easy feat this was not, especially given decades of inactivity locked up behind bars or pinned to the ground with your energy suppressed. It took several tries as Kurama either fumbled the amount of flow forcing the seal to react to the amount of bijuu energy leaking out breaking the connection with a violent pulse of its own. By the time Kurama managed to regulate his flow enough to prevent fluctuations from the Shiki Fuin, it took another unbearably long time to gather enough control to maintain the flow beyond the bars of the cage.

Being free of the cage, even the teeny tiny filaments of the bijuu's psyche being stretched beyond the unyielding barrier garnered almost overwhelming sensations of freedom. It was like the universe opened up just beyond those metal wardens. Artificial or not, to be able to stretch beyond the cursed bars of his prison nearly shattered the massive chakra being's concentration on numerous occasions nearly driving the ancient being to fits of ground-pounding rage.

But he kept trying. And trying. And trying until a thin, fragile connection took hold and the bijuu's consciousness expanded infinitely outward.

For chakra entities, this tiny sliver of chakra was the equivalent of a single human hair. Maintaining such a small flow was neither impossible nor unusual and the cramped existence behind the cage blossomed into the expansive blue-tinged horizon of his host's mindspace. It was almost like the night sky only brighter in color.

Several times the sudden sensation of freedom from the confines of its own chakra body caused Kurama to lose the connection slamming his mind back into the harsh corners of his cage but Kurama did not give in to despair. He'd been locked away for many years with little to do but fester and simmer in his own rage. Now, now he had an outlet and was loathe to give up the all-consuming sensation of liberty through the mind's eye of his host.

So, he kept working at establishing then maintaining the connection. Time lost all meaning and the dark sewer of the child's tormented mind repeatedly gave way to the bright blue cosmos of the upper mindspace.

Eventually, with practice comes familiarity, and with that familiarity came the bijuu's burgeoning awareness concerning the body of his host and the surprising sound of... static?

~III~

---

Rabbit cursed under her mask for the tenth time in the first hour of their patrol.

Being in ANBU will be fun.

Being in ANBU will be an adventure.

ANBU masks are badass!

No one talked about how routine patrols were the most painful things they did. No one talked about how those patrols worsened when it rained. No one mentioned how those "badass masks" leaked in the ra-.

Rabbit came to an abrupt stop on the roof, her remaining squadmates reacting almost immediately as they circled back to land next to her.

"Report."

Bear, her Taicho, liked the rain even less than she did and it showed in his clipped tones and terse commands.

"Potential hostile, Taicho. Nine O'clock."

Three emotionless masks turned to glance in the indicated direction and the unspoken message resonated three times: deeper into the slums.

"Why do bad guys always pick the really crappy nights to be stupid?"

Monkey's comment garnered a couple of scoffs but no one disagreed. It wasn't like bad guys acted up during bright mornings after a respectably social spot of tea and biscuits. No, why would they?

But they could overanalyze that point later. For now, three masked faces focused on the impressive figure that was their leader, their Taicho.

Bear towered over her. There were times when she swore she could hide inside the enormous man like a closet, and, when he was cranky like he was now, Rabbit made it her goal in life to keep COMMS short and sweet just the way he liked them.

Less chance of him taking a verbal chunk out of her rear that way.

Bear nodded once and barked off a growly, "Take point. Form-V. Monkey has 'Anchor'."

All four were gone with the next lightning flash, Rabbit at the front with her squadmates to either side like a small brace of geese flying in formation. Bear took his station on her immediate right one step behind. Monkey took up position to the right and behind Bear, his job to cover their six in case of hostiles.

Squinting through her annoying mask, the squad's sensor ignored the rain now coming down in sheets hoping that her water-resistant cloak wouldn't fail her any more than her "water-resistant" sandals had so far.

Ten degrees left, another three degrees back to the right. As a deadly flock of birds, they bounced their way through the sleepy village along rooftops until the slender ANBU kunoichi touched down in one of the more dismal alleyways of the poorer section of town. It was stronger here, this sensation she was feeling, even if that wasn't saying much.

The first wave of nausea hit her once her feet touched cobblestones but she pushed through it.

A quick glance through the dark alley showed piles of trash and broken crates. Nothing moved which was unusual. In places like this, rats and small animals picking through the trash for scraps were commonplace and, wherever there were small animals there were usually homeless.

Hey, even the destitute needed a source of meat from time to time.

Even though the alley appeared to be abandoned, the angry pulse of energy pulled her on like a siren's song even as her abdomen convulsed once more in discomfort. It wasn't very strong but it was potent. Oddly enough Rabbit felt that she might have completely missed this if the streets had been filled with people as they usually would be on a clear night.

The rain drove them inside clearing up the ambient chakra of people mingling en mass.

Her stomach clenched as another wave of vile energy washed over her, one more toxic and, for lack of a better descriptor, greasy feeling slammed into the young sensor ANBU.

The three figures at her back tensed and drew kunai, her Taicho's voice probing in concern. They weren't true sensors but shinobi trained to detect chakra emissions couldn't ignore this sensation.

It was everywhere in this small alley. Hatred and malice, anger and pain all clung to the stone ground and walls like a battlefield.

"Rabbit?"

"Solid, Taicho." She tried to force down the bile trying to crawl its way out of her throat and into her mask. Retching in your own mask is one of the worst things an ANBU boot could do and tended to get you laundry duty cleaning other fouled masks until it didn't happen again.

Once the wave of turbulent energy passed, Rabbit quickened her pace to the very back of the alley until she stopped just beyond arm's reach of a large box turned on its side, the flaps partially closed to protect whatever lay inside. With a shaky breath, she reached out to grab the topmost lid even as Monkey stepped forward with his palm providing the only available light in the foul-smelling corner of a great village.

All four of them froze at the sight of the grungy, emaciated child curled up into a fetal position inside the box, the rags he wore hanging off the child's thin frame in near tatters. All of them tried to ignore the steam pouring up from the child's drenched frame. Rabbit turned from the box and stepped quickly to the opposite corner in time to lift her mask just enough to empty her stomach.

Even with the mask filters working just fine the stench and image of the vagabond were too much for the fresh agent.

"Taicho! His eyes..."

Rabbit paused mid-hurl as she tried to listen to their voices over the heavy rainfall.

That was Dove's voice. Running the sleeve of her uniform across her lips, Rabbit turned around just enough to see Monkey reach into his robes and pull out a small square of paper. The noise of overflowing gutters spilling tiny rivers onto cobblestone couldn't mask the group's seal expert as he slapped paper to flesh, most likely to the child's, with a tersely uttered, "Fuin!"

Rabbit blinked even as the malevolent energy that led her here faded rapidly from her senses.

What the hell-.

"On me, newbie!"

Despite the bark in his tone, Rabbit could hear the edge of humor in Bear's voice. Biting back her embarrassment, she trudged over to glance down at the disturbingly bright shock of sun-yellow hair matted to the unconscious head of the homeless child living in utter filth and despair.

"Dove," Bear barked out gaining everyone's attention. "Bring the child. We need to report this to Hokage-sama."

Rabbit could see the other female of the squad bodily flinch. If a human could have animalistic hackles, now would be the time for the slender framed medic to get them up in a bind.

"I need to take him to the hos-!" she began and Rabbit could feel the passionate medical energy spooling itself to a frenzy.

"DOVE!"

Everyone flinched that time. They knew that tone, the one that brooked no insubordination. The tone that promised pain unless you followed orders to the letter.

"It's going to be hard enough explaining to the Sandaime that his unofficial grandson has been living in dirty alleys for months without having the boy with us. I'll be damned if the child gets hurt worse at the hospital under our watch before Hokage-sama gets to look him over."

Wow, just... that was the most he'd spoken all watch.

"Stabilize him so we can go."

Rabbit's eyes flickered to the limp body shivering in the night's unforgiving air and many thoughts started rolling through her confused brain.

Most importantly she wondered why Monkey felt the need to slap a full-body chakra suppression seal on what could only be a three-year-old and why Bear was acting like this grungy toddler was more important than the Forbidden Scroll of Seals?

~III~

---

Kurama's eyes snapped open even as what little chakra it'd expended was forcefully slammed back inside the seal.

"Owie..."

One paw came up to rub the bridge between scrunching eyes. Chakra backlash was always worse for entities made entirely of the stuff, even if his own supply was augmented by nature chakra.

That opened up several questions even as it confirmed several more suspicions.

With a simple wave of the paw, the one no longer pinching the bridge of his nose, Kurama manipulated the billowy mass of red chakra swirling lazily about his body. In response, a healthy portion twisted and manipulated itself into an orb large enough to show images no matter how blurry they seemed. In it, the chakra beast could see the last image right before every drop of bijuu chakra was forcibly suppressed: human fingers holding open one of its container's eyelids while another gloved hand, standard ANBU issue, zoomed in with a Fuin tag held in its palm.

And the entire image was fuzzy...unclear.

'Hn, not enough energy filtered into the child for a solid connection. I'll need to alter my approach...'

The images inside the swirling ball of bijuu chakra shifted, paused, shuddered once more, then began to fade in some areas as color bled into others. Kurama shifted the image playing it forward just enough until the image froze making out the picture as seen through a single eye.

Kurama spent several minutes tweaking the image to gain as much granularity as possible but eventually had to accept there just wasn't enough fidelity - yet. Highly condensed chakra had many benefits, including chakra imprinting, but even that had limits when the connection just wasn't resilient enough to give the needed details.

The connection needed to be stronger. Much stronger.

Something would also need to be done about sensors picking up the bijuu's very malevolent chakra.

He played the short scene from beginning to end and back again until the sequence of events was firmly fixed in his mind. There could be no doubt if he was to move forward from here. While Kurama wasn't overly fond of humans, this seal was different from the previous two and it afforded some measure of contact with the outside world so long as certain measures were taken to limit the risk of detection and exposure...

The question wasn't whether or not he cared if the child suffered from prolonged exposure to unrefined bijuu chakra. It was how much he could be bothered to interrupt the enjoyment of his new plaything.

It was clear that even the minute traces of his chakra being pushed into the child produced enough raw Killing Intent to alert a passing ANBU patrol. We were talking almost non-existent levels here, certainly not enough to even produce a Level I Bijuu cloak.

Pathetic.

The child clearly wasn't old enough to contain such energy given the size of the hand in the image blaring up at the ancient chakra beast. At least Kurama could understand the "static" he'd heard as it was apparent even before the patrol found the child and opened its eye to check on the child's health: It was raining and, from what he could see in the image holding three masked humans huddled around his host, it was a torrential downpour.

It could just as easily have been the poor connection but that would imply a lack of skill on Kurama's part.

He'd settle on the rain instead. That made it, the cause of the poor audio, as forces outside the bijuu's control. Acceptable.

This storm had more than likely driven the other cowardly humans into their warm shelters even as the child froze near to death all alone in what appeared to be a filth-covered alleyway if the large human in the middle lifting the cardboard flap was any indication. The bijuu thought that his dislike of the foul creatures could plummet no further but apparently had been wrong.

The child was living in the gutters!

Worthless Ningen or not, the child was Kurama's host and the great bijuu refused to be treated in such fashion even if by proxy. Someone would pay for this outrage!

Deep sigh. Cleansing breath.

It wasn't like Kurama had feelings of concern for the worthless creature's pitiful existence. Nope! Not at all, but it was still a helpless child. Even demons nurtured their young... before they ate them.

What? Young demons are excellent in barbeque sauce.

Moving the frozen image forward just a bit it froze once more as another palm entered the image from the upper left corner, a small sheet of glowing paper held in its palm.

Kurama's palm flexed and the image expanded just enough to make out squiggly lines of script making the bijuu curse bitterly. More seals! What was worse was that this also confirmed what he'd suspected about the seal that made up his prison.

Someone out there understood just enough about Nature chakra to be a problem. One had to look no further than his cursed cage. His previous two hosts were of the Uzumaki and those idiot-Fuinjutsu savants knew enough to filter forced transmission of bijuu chakra to the host to prevent catastrophic failure of the seal. They did not know enough to limit or restrict Nature chakra, or at least didn't include it into the seal passed from the first vessel to the second.

The third seal, the one the Yondaime used, was a problem in that it cut off the bijuu from its most ready source of chakra replenishment greatly slowing down his recovery. Kurama felt it was probably part of the seal design - drain the bijuu's energy, filter it, then pass it to the host eventually subjugating the bijuu making it a chakra battery type of weapon.

Kurama snarled at the arrogant supposition but could work around the limitation. The child was still young and even if they tightened the seal, which they most certainly would now, it would only delay the inevitable. The seal would begin to loosen again to allow a greater flow of the bijuu's chakra toward the host.

It would have to otherwise the seal would never overtake Kurama's natural chakra regeneration.

Yes, someone had a much greater understanding of nature chakra but clearly not enough given the natural flaws in the seal. If not the Yondaime, who was by now deep in the belly of the Shinigami, then perhaps his adolescent teacher - the one with the white mane of hair. Kurama had seen enough of its previous host's memories to recognize humans to be concerned about and the Yondaime's teacher both radiated and embraced Senjutsu. It only made sense that he would teach another and, with his pupil dead, apply himself to keeping his new host suppressed. That he would provide the ANBU with tools to do so was...unfortunate?

It didn't matter. Now it meant that there was more time to master a skill he'd perfected with his first host. It wasn't that he cared for the child. Of course not. It was that he couldn't be bothered to have his fun interrupted by nosy humans afraid that he was taking over the new host.

That would be... troublesome.

A great bulk settled to the uncomfortable floor of its dark, dismal cage. Large paws crossed as the head of its massive owner shifted a bit to get comfortable. The soft humming of a jaunty tune slowly gave way to slumber as a pair of glowing red orbs flickered out as a prelude to the multi-year nap the owner felt was more than earned for keeping the child alive this long.

Let the humans deal with their own for a while.

~III~

---

Shikaku sneezed violently mid-meeting, several dozen pairs of eyes turning to him with inquisitive, blinking stairs.

He waved it away and motioned for the speaker to continue as they started going over force projections and training schedules needed to rebuild their forces as quickly as possible. There were too many discomforting rumors filtering out of Kumo to suit the Deputy Jounin Commander and he wanted the most efficient plan in place to brief to the Hokage in the next seventy-two hours.

~III~

---

Hiruzen released an expansive burst of air even as the soaking wet patrol departed his office to continue their rounds.

'How had it come to this?'

Glancing down the pitiful waif on his office couch wrapped in layers upon layers of blankets, Hiruzen felt the weight of his office bearing down on his shoulders and discovered that the power and prestige of his office had lost some of its golden luster. He'd dealt with the orphanage matron four months ago when it became clear that the child went missing. He'd now have to find a way to deal with the many search parties he'd sent out to find the child and that would be another nightmare filled with overtime vouchers.

How could all of them fail so spectacularly?

No, he didn't believe in coincidence and it was only because of the professionalism of the village patrol that brought the child back to him that kept his carefully laid plans in place.

Thank Kami for small favors. Thank Kami for demons unwilling to die amid the harshest living conditions. Of course, he'd have to execute the worthless caretaker since they weren't supposed to kick him out just yet.

'How can he take the lesson to heart if he's too young to remember it all?'

Perhaps the next matron will learn from her predecessor's example and stick to the script.

"Neko."

His words were soft as old eyes scoured the freshly scrubbed face of the four-year-old shivering every so often under a mountain of blankets. They still carried enough and the slender kunoichi kneeling at his side was living proof as he took in the slender shoulders draped in ANBU cloth.

"Find Jiraiya. He should be in the village for another three days."

The slender ANBU operative shuddered before nodding once from her kneeling position then vanishing in a swirl of leaves and lavender.

Old eyes turned back to the couch to watch the sleeping child shiver once more.

"It's time we move forward with your future, neh, Naruto-kun?"

The old man bent over to gently touch the child's forehead.

"You have very big shoes to fill, young man."

The child shivered once more but not from the chills wracking his malnourished body.

Almost thirty minutes later, a visibly annoyed Neko swirled into a kneeling position before her Kage with both hands clenched into tight fists, one at her hip and the other with the knuckles pressed to the floor. Hiruzen noticed the tension in her shoulders and released a heavy sigh even as he acknowledged her with a gentle wave of the hand. Like the professional that she was, the cat-faced agent disappeared into the secret compartments lining the rafters with a rush of wind.

"I thought I warned you about harassing my ANBU, Jiraiya?" The old man's eyes were narrowed to almost slits as the white-maned Sannin lazily slipped in through an office window, his shoulders shaking with chest-quaking laughter.

"Then they should have joined another profession if they couldn't hack it, sensei."

Hiruzen promptly ignored the KI oozing from the overhead hoping his office wouldn't become a battlezone this time around. One day the man would push things too far and one of his highly-trained female assassins would end his stupidity. Instead, Hiruzen diverted his gaze to the now peacefully sleeping child with a simple nod.

Jiraiya's brow wrinkled in confusion as he followed the older shinobi's gaze.

"This Minato's brat?"

Hiruzen's brow knotted up in concern. "It is."

"I thought you had him tucked away in some orphanage?" The white-maned pervert lifted one calloused paw to idly scratch the back of his spiky head as the post-question pause drew itself out a few seconds.

"We had a few... complications at the orphanage."

Jiraiya's only response was to raise a single eyebrow to ask a silent question his sensei had no intention of answering aloud.

"Jiraiya, I need you to check and re-tighten the seal." He waited for half a second as the larger male's chest expanded to ask another annoying question before cutting him off. "Do not ask why or what happened. Just know that foolish people nearly ruined our plan and have been dealt with."

Without another word, Hiruzen Sarutobi spun silently on a well-sandaled heel and returned to his desk and its never-ending mountain of request forms, reports, and policy.

"Hnh, good thing I was never good with kids," the Toad Sage mumble-answered taking a good long look at the hunched shoulders of his former master. Time had not been good to the reinstated Kage and he resolved once again never to get roped into the job should the old codger keel over.

The perverted shinobi shivered once before turning his attention back to the sleeping child at his side.

Jiraiya couldn't help but feel relief that the brat's parents couldn't just pop up out of nowhere to make them suffer for what they were doing to the kid. Dead people didn't care what happened among the living.

With a mild shoulder shrug, Jiraiya summoned a specific green and tan toad to the office then turned his attention to the stomach of the unconscious child patiently unwrapping the multiple blanket layers before finding the skin and bones huddled beneath a tee-shirt four sizes too big. He spent all of three seconds noting the scrawny pile of limbs before lifting up the tee-shirt with one hand while the fingers of his right hand began to pulse and glow with vibrant sky-blue chakra.

He completely ignored the fact that the child's piercing blue eyes were half opened and he was whimpering in fear. It wouldn't matter anyway as the tightening of the seal would chakra shock his system and send him back to sleepy time land.

Ten seconds later, and without re-wrapping the visibly shivering child, he dismissed Gerotora, turned without hesitation, then sauntered back over to the window through which he entered the room.

"Done sensei but I don't think this was important enough to interrupt my research. Next time have the barrier squad slap him in a stasis cage and I'll get back when I get a moment."

A disgusted "tsk" filtered down from the roof but the spiky-haired pervert ignored that also.

"I'm off to follow a 'hot' lead!"

Hiruzen's snort of amusement did not cover up the angry teeth grinding from Neko as the pervert vanished from the office, the Kage ignored the child on the couch instead focusing on a particular page of paperwork that held his full attention, while the now steaming Kunoichi left her post to re-bundle the poor child.

Hiruzen blatantly ignored her also as she resumed her post swearing under her breath the entire way.

~III~

---

Two Years Later: Naruto Age 6...

"~I've... BAM!... got a lovely bunch..." BAM! BAM!

"SCREW THE COCONUTS!"

Hunched over in front of an ancient tube-filled television set two stories in height was the great Kyuubi no Kitsune, the dreaded nine-tailed fox. From the annoyed hitch in the great bijuu's voice (and the way he kept slamming one paw into the side of the wood-encased device while the other kept yanking back and forth on one of the rabbit-eared-style antennae), things weren't going so well at the moment.

'Stupid... annoyed grunt followed by another love tap*... never could get a good picture on one of these...'

True enough the oval-shaped screen was filled with flickering white lines occasionally interspersed by shadowy images. Kurama would just manage to get a fleeting image before static took over and obliterated anything worth watching. Every once in a while he could hear scratchy voices but it was never enough to make out a decent conversation. Besides, what kind of stimulating conversationalist was a six-year-old?

A six-year-old was his container. 'Oh...BANG!... joy!'

It was child's play for the multi-millennial chakra entity to piece together the child's history once it woke up. There was plenty of material in the form of dreams, nightmares really, as the child was able to understand and retain more being a bit older. From what Kurama had seen a lot happened while he slumbered and not all of it was good.

From what he could tell, the child had been kicked out of the orphanage at the tender age of three years ten months, right before his fourth birthday. Having lived in the gutter for five to six months, Kurama's little chakra stunt had actually been a blessing in that an ANBU patrol - having already been ordered to be on the lookout for the child - detected Kurama's infinitesimal chakra release, which to them came across as Killing Intent just short of rancid.

That stunt more than likely saved the child's life even with Kurama's chakra being purified by the seal to keep him breathing.

As far as the patrol was concerned, the child was losing control to the demon and, per the Hokage's standing orders, suppressed his chakra and delivered the child directly to the Hokage himself. From there, the weak vessel was subjected to all manner of tests (once he'd been reluctantly washed, fed, and clothed) to determine if the seal had weakened and the demon was in fact taking control.

Kyuubi thought that the directive to go to the Hokage vice the hospital was odd but that thought was pushed to the side for further study later. Something just felt... off?

Instead, Kyuubi focused on what happened afterward and how it could be prevented a second time as the first thing the white-haired monkey did was summon a rather slimy toad which unfurled into a scroll containing row upon row of tightly-packed sealing script. That script as viewed through the terrified dreams of the child - who was awake at the time and completely without any understanding of what was going on - turned out to be the key to the Kyuubi's cage.

A cage that was immediately tightened up to its original state brutally breaking the connection he'd managed to establish only nights before.

Kyuubi's brow knitted up in concentration and irritation.

"Nope," its tongue lolling as both hands started to manipulate the old-style wire antennae, "can't let them tighten the seal up again now that things are getting interesting. The seal is just starting to loosen back up."

And the seal had indeed begun to loosen again, this time faster than before, and Kurama was very much ready to be entertained once again. His previous seals gave very little to no freedom. The first kept him chained to the ground, which was very uncomfortable even for someone that liked to sleep a lot. The second kept him staked to a floating island in the middle of a large void.

Also, mildly uncomfortable.

Here the great bijuu monster shuddered at the memory and resolved to never go back to that again if he could help it. No, he was enjoying the greater movement that this cramped cell afforded and, above all else, the limited creativity his untrained host provided. While the seal was a masterpiece - no matter how much he hated to admit it - it wasn't perfect and that gave something Kurama hadn't had for at least the last hundred years.

Hope.

You see, Kyuubi woke up six months ago from its self-imposed slumber complete with five tails worth of chakra, and immediately set about trying to re-establish the broken connection. The boy hadn't had the chance to build some skills or generate enough of a mental bank to help pass the time so cheating his way around the seal made up the most interesting pastime the bijuu could come up with.

Who knows, maybe it could lead to more than skylarking through the child's eyes.

Before he could get back to the really interesting part of his whole science experiment, Kurama needed to first perfect another skill.

Despite his first host being very controlling and restrictive, Mito Uzumaki at least tried to bond with the enormous bijuu. Admirable, to be sure, but what impressed Kurama the most was that the powerful Kunoichi refused to steal his chakra. Even when it came to the point that he offered up its use to heal the dying woman and prolong her life, she politely refused.

Even when she lay on her death bed awaiting Kurama's removal and reinsertion into another host and he proved that he could separate the toxic side-effects that came with exposure to bijuu chakra, she politely refused with a warm smile on her lips and a gentle request to help the next host.

A small, angry, afraid little girl that was wholly unprepared for her coming burden.

As far as Kurama was concerned, Mito Uzumaki was an original entity among her petty, childish, and wrathful kind. To the bijuu, there would never be another like her after having seen humans at the proverbial best for the last few thousand years. Furthermore, her never-ending kindness confused and frustrated the ancient bijuu and, as he watched her slowly wither away and die, he swore he'd never let another human get under his fur. Never again.

Then this small abused child entered his life and watching the child wither away was like another painful kick in the gut no matter how hard he tried to hate it. And the great bijuu tried. Oh, how he tried to despise the innocent child's existence.

If only it weren't for the cursed nightmares. The overly realistic, full-detail, horrifically tragic nightmares that starred the slowly dying child as the central actor.

Kurama snarled as he angrily twisted the wiry antennae atop the old-style TV cabinet paying no attention to the golden glow infusing his paws, the screen finally shimmering into a fuzzy, frozen image. As the images started moving on their own, the mindscape shuddered hard enough to rock the wooden TV cabinet on its unlevelled base, a horrific scream echoing through the empty sewer-like halls beyond his cage.

'Hnh, another nightmare.'

Taking a step back to fall into the bijuu-sized bean bag cushion, Kurama settled in to watch the show. He couldn't tie into the child's waking senses yet but that was only a matter of time now. Soon the connection would be strong enough to observe his day as it happened.

Then he could worry about moving on to the next step: suppressing the boy's senses so he could directly influence things. Soon it would be time for Konoha to get a taste of its own medicine.

Maybe then he'd feel less guilty about all the pain he brought the child by being sealed into him.

For the moment, however, the old bijuu was confused by the frozen image on the TV screen wondering as to why the child would be dreaming about brushing his teeth...

~III~

---

"I can't believe we have to keep 'pretending' to chase the boy after his pranks," a panda-faced female ANBU groused as they moved through the messy apartment of their unofficial ward.

Neko snorted in amusement as she finished clearing the child's equally cluttered bedroom. 'I'm going to have to get on him about keeping his home clean once again.'

Neko refused to pick up after him. Again.

"What are you so happy about?"

Neko gently shook her head in amusement but did not stop cataloging the child's rats nest of an apartment, politely ignoring her new partner's rant for the fifth time in as many days.

"You of all people should be angry for being demoted from the Hokage's personal cadre to this babysitting detail," the churlish Panda mumbled as she moved on to inspect the bathroom for hidden military-grade paper bombs. There had been far too many of those just lying about lately for comfort in a civilian home.

Neko merely shrugged her slender shoulders in response. It wasn't like Panda was wrong in that all ANBU hated feeling like nursemaids. They were agents trained in the highest order to demolish, kill, infiltrate, and assassinate. They were better suited to corporate espionage than what was affectionately referred to as "diaper detail" but she didn't mind since her current detail kept her close to him.

Speaking of which...

The front door clicked loudly as a key turned in the tumbler, the two ANBU females vanishing into the overhead without a sound.

Safe in the recently-installed cubbies large enough to conceal lurking ANBU agents, the two kunoichi watched the door fling open with a bang followed shortly by the whistling form capped by blindingly golden hair whistling a very familiar tune. Neko actually turned to glare from beneath her mask until her bubbly partner stopped humming along to the chipper child below.

As soon as Naruto closed and locked the door to his apartment, his attitude changed. The child's shoulders slumped, his back bent, and his head hung until his chin nearly touched his tiny chest. The bright blue eyes dimmed as moisture began to trail down still-rounded cheeks. At one point, his gaze turned to the small kitchen corner of his apartment where he still had a few instant ramen cups to tide him over until the weekend when he would get his orphan stipend but he appeared to think other than to partake. Instead, he slogged off to the bathroom to change into his pajamas and brush his teeth.

He'd had enough disappointment for the day and just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep.

Going through the motions with his favorite monster sleeping cap on his head, he fumbled his way through his nightly routine spitting out the mouthful of toothpaste with relish as he was nothing if not proud of the shining white teeth that filled his mouth. He was especially proud of the extra-pointy fangs his Jiji called "canines."

He thought they made him look intimidating when he flashed them at people.

Everything was coming to a peaceful end to an already crappy day until he stopped up from the sink bowl to admire his handiwork (he hadn't eaten much today so it didn't take as long to make them bright and shiny) only to see a pair of glowing golden eyes staring back at him from his own face.

He blinked and the glowy sun-yellow eyes blinked back.

He waited two seconds.

Then he screamed at the top of his potent lungs.

Immediately after his terrified shriek, two mask-wearing people appeared behind him in the mirror.

So, he turned and screamed again after chucking his still frothy toothbrush at the panda-faced one only by then he'd failed to notice that the golden glow in his eyes that originally spooked him had by then faded.

Then he realized that there were strangers in his home and opened his mouth to scream for help.

The one with the cute cat mask slapped a gloved hand over his mouth and quickly whispered, "Let me explain before you wake up the entire neighborhood and start making our ears bleed again."

"Nmmgummf?" he mumbled through her leathered palm.

"Yes, it's your Neko-nee-chan."

She could see him relax before his deep blue eyes flickered over her shoulder to the person behind her.

"Gmmm neee mmmmgnnnn?"

"She's my new partner but no one is here to hurt you."

The panda-faced kunoichi could be seen blinking in total confusion at the one-sided conversation.

Mouth still covered, the small child raised a disbelieving eyebrow as his head cocked to the side.

"Well, we aren't here to hurt you at least."

He growled through her palm. Then the really awkward conversations started...

~III~

---

Kurama knew a major kunai or three had been dodged with that little slip up the previous night. Plus, he had to hand it to the purple-haired female in her attempt to talk the already animated brat down from his, "How dare you sneak into my place like this!" rant. Not that it did him any good and both agents slipped away into their hidey holes the moment his back was turned.

Their presence did pose a problem though, one the chakra beast would not have been aware of until long after he'd gained enough control over the child's body to detect them himself: privacy to practice better motor control over his host while the boy slept.

This was important for the natural vulpine trickster otherwise he'd be back to the "same old boring routine" of staring out from behind his bars.

Ack. Boring! Dull!

Somewhere in Kumogakure, a silver-haired shinobi sneezed violently blowing the froth from his drink into the partially concealed cleavage of his date which promptly ended said date when the woman retaliated by throwing her drink into his still shocked face. Said individual swore off beer and promptly went back to sake as a safer option.

Back in Konoha, Kurama opted to play it safe knowing that his earlier clumsy attempts at manipulating the child during his sleeping hours could have been written off as sleeping walking or bad dreams. Sage only knew that the small one had enough justification for his nightmares, Yami take all humans.

Kurama learned through that week, as he was reluctant to do more than circulate more of his purified chakra through the child's body or pry into his host's memories, which he'd learned over the past six months was easier to do the closer he looked to when the memories were made. Fresh memories tended to glow brighter in the jumbled mess piled up before each door and the more chakra Kurama filtered into the child's mindspace, the easier it was to travel through it.

Finding the memories immediately after the female ANBU burst into his bathroom followed by the next days' visit to the old liar had been child's play.

First came the inevitable eruption into the Hokage's office. Naruto had burst in with a full head of steam complaining about "Jiji's faceless hentai" peeping on him when he was in the bath or getting ready for bed. Kurama nearly burst a tail watching the old man trying to keep from swallowing his pipe whole. It was worth the shock and awe value for that alone.

However, the old Hokage did exactly what Kurama figured he would and tried to talk the boy into letting them stay saying that they were there for his own protection. The old liar kept explaining that they needed to be close enough to respond should someone try to hurt him and making them leave his apartment would only put him at more risk.

To his credit, Naruto countered with all of the times the ANBU stood by and did nothing when the occasional villager harassed or assaulted him and how the ANBU always let the situation build up before they ever intervened. True, he'd never been mauled by a mob but the fear was always there. He also pointed out that a full-on slap by an adult hurt a child more than it would another adult and, if he or the ANBU didn't think "a small case of child abuse" was so bad then what else would they be willing to let people get away with when they were just "harmlessly dealing with their hatred and fear?"

Why was Naruto expected to continue to forgive the villagers for their hate yet none of the villagers were ever expected to control themselves or apologize for how they acted? That went counter to everything the old man taught him.

"Forgive those who wrong you, Naruto."

"Don't give in to your anger. Always be the bigger man, Naruto."

"Mercy is the hallmark of a powerful shinobi, Naruto."

Why did those rules apply only to Naruto and no one else? It didn't seem fair and, at that moment, Naruto connected the dots leading straight back to the man that made the rules: If the Hokage did nothing to stop the violence, then that meant that he, by doing nothing, allowed it to happen, right?

He wasn't stupid. He knew that no one could be everywhere all the time to stop every bad thing but... the old man had ANBU specifically assigned to watch him for some odd reason so... if they didn't intervene until things started to get really out of hand then that meant that their boss said it was okay... right?

In that sort of light, it made things very clear in Naruto's mind.

No, Naruto couldn't trust the ANBU to do their job correctly, and if he couldn't trust the people that worked for his Jiji, and his Jiji was responsible for their behavior, did that mean that he could continue to trust the old man?

Kurama enjoyed watching the old liar's face contort in consternation as he felt his control over the village jinchuuriki begin to slip away. In a forced move to maintain some influence, he conceded the point and ordered the teams watching over Konoha's worst-kept S-ranked secret to fall back to intermediate observation posts near this apartment voiding the close protection perimeter they'd been using since relocating the child.

Kurama hadn't known that this small victory would further force the monkey to alter his conditioning program for his host. While the fox could feel the dishonesty oozing from the old Ningen, he could not read the sneaky human's mind nor could he know how that would affect follow on cases of increased violence against his host. He could only see that they would get worse as an attempt to force the child to allow a return to ANBU breathing over his shoulder at every opportunity.

All he knew was that he now had the necessary breathing room to practice and that practice picked up the moment he could verify there weren't mask-faced peepers lurking in the walls.

Therefore practice Kurama did.

~III~

---

One Year Later: Naruto Age 7...

Konohagakure's night air in the Fall was crisp and clean. For such a large village, this would be impossible were it not for the way the Senju brothers had mapped out its growth nearly a hundred years before. In that growth had been the seeds for a heavily forested metropolis and it was that greenery that assisted in purging the air of unwanted pollutants. Good plumbing and sewage didn't hurt either.

Despite his natural hatred for humans of all shapes and sizes, Kurama had to at least admire their ingenuity and foresight... in most cases.

Landing lightly on the back end of a two-story commercial property, Kurama paused to take in a deep breath reveling in the fresh, clean night air.

"Aaaaaah."

He couldn't stop the happy sigh that followed. It felt too good to have some control no matter how temporary or quasi-real.

From his shadowed perch, the bijuu puppeteer checked to make sure there was uninterrupted chakra flow to the sections of the child's brain that needed to be controlled. He made sure flow to the cerebellum stayed steady and smooth as sections of it controlled movement and reflex. He couldn't afford to overstimulate the sensory areas of the brain, controlled by parietal loves of the cerebrum, but he needed more than the child was capable of on his own. Not being overly familiar with human anatomy, it was blind luck that discovered Kurama could increase his sense of touch, among others, through stimulating the temporal lobes.

None of this came second nature and, once he'd figured out how to channel his purified chakra through the child's network to utilize his own illusions - a tricky thing to master over three months of grueling work - he'd snuck into places that held books and other references to help increase his knowledge of these disgusting humans. It was all very enlightening research that led to him being able to generate realistic transformations as he'd once been able to do before being sealed in his first host. It also made getting around at night considerably easier as his new disguise used an older, and taller, version of his host with darker hair.

That was very helpful in reaching things beyond the reach of an under-height Ningen orphan, something very appropriate to his activities tonight.

Just then a gentle breeze wafted across what little exposed skin and hair he had open to the night, the much smaller frame of his seven-year-old host disguised as a mid-teen human perched like a gargoyle atop the large department store below. Softly glowing golden orbs closed as Kurama cherished the muted sensations shivering up and down his "borrowed" spine.

It was an opportunity to enjoy the little things in life that mattered and Kurama intended to enjoy them to the fullest.

The Hokage's withdrawal of his ANBU was quickly followed by nightly experiments to first suppress the boy's natural response to be jostled in his sleep. As described earlier, that process involved a complicated cocktail of enhanced chakra to both suppress and stimulate different sections of the child's brain.

At first, moving limbs and trying to roll out of bed either snapped the boy awake immediately - thereby severing his fragile connection to the child's chakra network - or tumbled them both uncontrollably out of bed and onto the unforgiving floor.

Kurama learned very early on that whatever lumps and bumps his host took while he was mentally connected to the child's body through their connection, he felt even if it was at a slightly reduced level due to their remote connection. It didn't matter as it always woke the child severing the connection and forcing Kurama to suffer through a nasty case of chakra whiplash.

It took a month of dedicated effort through trial and error to learn how to mostly suppress the child's mind and keep it that way so that he could stumble and fumble his way through the darkened apartment. The stumbling and bumbling was made worse by the rough control he had trying to move the boy's limbs, much like a Suna puppeteer, made even more difficult due to the ridiculously small amounts of chakra he could feed through the child's system without overloading and burning out his rapidly-growing tenketsu. Early efforts to practice control over the child's limbs without waking him inevitably failed, of course, leading to awkward conversations in the middle of the night with alert ANBU now convinced the child had a severe sleepwalking problem.

What was worse, if it could even be considered worse, were the changes he knew were happening as he exposed the child to purified bijuu chakra as even the smallest amount of his more malicious chakra would summon an entire squad of ANBU armed with chakra suppression seals. He still shivered from that first chase across the rooftops of Konoha grateful to avoid being caught and eventually suppressed once again.

Since then he'd put a lot of thought into improving his control over the child's body to include the continually advancing control systems he'd created to fine-tune his chakra projection into the child's mindspace. Gone was the clunky tube-style TV enclosure replaced by a streamlined one-hundred-eighty-two-centimeter projection TV pumping audio through his Bijuu Surround Sound amphitheater speaker system, all of which could be low-jacked into this Kitsune 4000 gaming headset-mic combo whenever Mata-chan decided to come up on the gaming net for a quick game of Virtual Hunters 2.0.

With his paws wrapped around his Ningen Gametroller and a three-hundred-seventy-liter Big Gulp on standby (Monster Go-Go juice in Jungle Rabbit Berry flavor of course), Kurama was ready to take on Konoha finally.

Kurama had worked entirely too hard to get to where he was and was beginning to enjoy his "Night Prowls" as he called them. They'd been the source of great entertainment and the ancient bijuu wasn't about to go back to being chained up in his stuffy old cage if he could help it. Therefore, it only made sense that he carefully control how much he affected Kit, er... the child - not that he cared about the miserable human's well-being, no not at all - as noticeable changes might draw the old liar's attention to the child and result in him being locked away for another few years.

Yes, that was it exactly.

He could care less what happened to the child.

Yes, that was most definitely it.

Still though... the child was widely known as the bijuu's representative. Therefore, when the miserable humans treated the vessel horribly, that meant they were treating the greatest of the Bijuu horribly and that simply could not stand. Absolutely not at all.

This brings us to the building he was perched quietly atop like a new statue and the first message among many Kurama wanted to deliver to the ignorant and bigoted masses of Konoha.

~III~

---

"He's up to something."

At the aggravated sound of her partner's voice, Neko suppressed a groan of internal suffering. The nights were beginning to cool bordering on uncomfortable. Neko hated the cold almost as much as she hated the standard ANBU winter gear they'd have to wrap up in like human Tamagoyaki.

"I tell you he's up to something."

Knowing that she'd regret it, Neko engaged her partner without taking her eyes off the sleeping form in their charge's bedroom.

"He's sleeping and you're being paranoid," Neko bit back in a very put-upon tone. She made a point not to meet Panda's long-suffering mask stare. She knew the civilian-born kunoichi resented their assignment, especially for this child.

"Am I?"

"Yes, Panda. You are."

Neko shifted her weight slightly from her left leg to her right. Ignored the faint tingling, she sent just a hair more chakra to her new support limb hoping not to lock up and pass out. Only rookies did that anymore.

"I'm being paranoid that the village's resident prankster since Kushi-chan retired isn't up to something?" Panda carefully noticed her partner's full-body twitch at the familiar name and enjoyed her casual poke at the woman's pride. She pressed on anyway as she had a point to make.

"I find it very unusual that he'd randomly develop a sleepwalking problem only to have it disappear four months later without a trace."

Neko could feel Panda's eyes zero in on the side of her mask but kept silent.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was up to another no-good prank using us as his alibi," Panda grunted in frustration.

Neko had reached her limit. Unloved though he was, Naruto Uzumaki wasn't a horrible child. At least he wasn't as bad as he could have been. She'd heard stories of a real nightmare over in Suna and seen reports on how their jinchuuriki turned out. Those reports still made her spine shiver uncontrollably.

"Focus on the job Panda and we'll be fine." Here she did turn away from the window to lock masks with her partner. "What harm can a seven-year-old do to anyone?"

~III~

---

Kojima's Merchantile was one of the largest in Konoha and it prided itself on its fair values and equal treatment among all its customers, be they clan big-shot or downtrodden street urchin. Unless, of course, that urchin happened to be a certain fox demon brat, as one Naruto Uzumaki had been labeled on the few times he'd been unceremoniously ejected from the store.

The rest of the time he'd been robbed blind by the arrogant weasel that ruled over his merchandise empire like some robber baron. To make things worse, he'd pulled together a collective of like-minded store owners, all supported by equally like-minded stand owners, to further torment and isolate the village pariah. While not every member of the village council supported such behavior, there were enough that they could get away with such villainous behavior with impunity. So, they did and those that did revelled in their horrible conduct and illicit profits.

There were dozens upon dozens of cases where Kurama witnessed second hand the filching of his vessel's meager stipend at the hands of Seiua Kojima and his associates, therefore, Kurama figured it was time to balance the books, so to speak.

Once he moved beyond the basic control and manipulation of his host's body parts, Kurama began to push his control to the enhancement of Kit's-the brat's limbs. Pulling upon the memories of his previous hosts, walking became walking along the walls and ceiling of his apartment. Meditation turned into meditating while standing on his head then meditating in a full handstand until he could keep his host's body upside for an hour without fail to improve his sense of balance without helpful items like a fox tail or whiskers. Simple eye-hand coordination drills, like juggling, turned into shadowboxing with the child's horrible kitchen knives, which were blunted butter knives since the child couldn't buy decent kitchenware at the ridiculous prices he was being charged in stores and that led to the first great retaliatory prank in what would become Konoha's great Prankster Legend.

Kurama would make them pay and get his Kit-HOST the things he needed and had been denied as that meant that Kurama had also been denied by proxy. This type of behavior by weakling ningen simply could not be allowed to stand.

It took three months of practice to be able to successfully control the child's body and chakra without interruption. Another month to figure out how to manipulate both of their chakras in teeny tiny amounts so as to not overload and destroy the child's chakra coils - because a horrible death was an inconvenience to be avoided at all costs. Plus another two months of practice to be able to perform the most basic of skills, civilian and shinobi, through his human puppet to get to this point.

Petty revenge!

Old Man Kojima wasn't stupid by the normal stretch of limited human intelligence. weeks of watching the store after hours confirmed that the old man knew the value of a good lock and some basic alarm seals. He didn't sell shinobi merchandise but he did sell all the things you might need to outfit a new home, things he'd been scamming Kit-the disgusting Ningen Kurama was sealed into- out of.

Every door was reinforced and bolted. Every window was secured and reinforced with bars.

Could he pick the lock? Probably, but he didn't have the necessary tools to do so as those were sold in the more specialized shinobi outfitters and that was a separate problem to solve. For now, he'd focus on Kojima and his partner at the Mega-Market, Old Man Nao Okamoto.

Both men shared the same love for security.

Both men shared the same love of large, warehouse-style buildings.

Both men ignored the security risk provided by small vents near the rooftops and neglected to secure them. When you thought about it, this wasn't an unreal assumption even in a village run by shapechanging shinobi and it wouldn't normally be a problem since very few of those shinobi could perform an actual shapechange technique capable of altering their size.

Kurama could, much to their immediate misfortune.

A quick shuffle using chakra to cling to the walls of the building. A few quick flicks of the wrist using one of those dull butter knives wrapped in dark cloth unbolted and pried open a small vent cover near the back of the adjacent alley ended with the cover temporarily hidden behind a rooftop vent pipe. A minor application of chakra was made to return to his host's natural size and he was in.

Kojima couldn't by village law sell shinobi quality equipment. He did sell everything the Kit-disgusting urchin needed to prepare for using shinobi materials once his body and reflexes were properly trained up.

Hidden behind the counter were clerks could always keep their eyes on them were civilian storage scrolls, or Grade One seals as they were known amongst those in the know. Kurama snorted seeing that the sliding glass doors on the far side weren't even locked at night as Kojima apparently felt his empire unassailable.

Kurama scooped up every scroll in the case and, with a small burst of bijuu-enhanced chakra, summoned three Shadow Clones who immediately spread out to begin gathering the first of many items on Kurama's long list of reparations.

Behind the counter, the muscles of Naruto's mouth spread his lips into an uncharacteristically evil smile. There was just the small matter of a money box somewhere nearby...

The next morning, a very surprised Naruto Uzumaki would discover that his closet and drawers were filled with new clothes neatly folded and organized in a brand new - and slightly larger - dresser to hold them. He would cautiously remove and discard the bright red ribbon and bow stuck to the top of it with the snarky note advising him to blend more color (besides orange) in his wardrobe.

The note would promptly be discarded with the ribbon as anything dissing the "Almighty Orange" was blasphemous at best and should be properly removed.

Following his surprisingly warm shower and brand new fluffy towels that were regretfully not orange, he would later stumble across a fruit bowl on his small dining table filled with fresh fruit and not the normally rotten stuff he had to pick and scrounge through. It would be a few minutes after he'd chewed his way through the peel of a really juicy orange (something he'd never had before) that he discovered the brand new knife rack, also crested with a smaller red ribbon, filled with cooking cutlery of all sorts - including a really sharp paring knife to peel fruit with.

The couch was new - also bedecked with red ribbons.

His wallet, Gama, was surprisingly stuffed with fresh Ryu, which he promptly checked the calendar to confirm whether or not it was the first of the month since he could have sworn Jiji gave him his allowance just last week. It wasn't and the Old Man did, which was promptly filed away as an odd occurrence to ask about later.

The fridge didn't look like it had just survived the Second Shinobi War (and was filled to the brim with fresh milk, dairy, fruits, meats, and a wrapped bento with a note to not forget his lunch).

There were even several small tubs of various types of ice cream and frozen popsicles in the bottom drawer freezer that caught his attention, something he'd never been able to buy before.

It was several minutes later than Naruto shrugged off his good fortune as Jiji being very generous - something he'd thank him for later - and snatched up his lunch and backpack on his way out the door. Using his keys hanging near the new coathanger hooks by the exit, he tried to carefully close his door in the way he'd learned to make it catch (the lock never worked and the villagers knew it) only to be surprised when the door caught the first time. Shocked, he tried to lock it and blinked in complete surprise as the tumbler "clicked" into place.

So he pushed on the door and blinked again when it didn't open.

Turning with a pleasantly surprised shrug to his shoulders, Naruto headed off to his first day at the academy humming by now what had become a fairly familiar tune about hard-shelled fruit growing from palm trees along the coast.

~III~

---

Hokage Tower Council Chamber, the Following Day...

Hiruzen was trying very hard to control the urge to bury a kunai into the brain of every civilian yelling at the top of their lungs at that moment.

"This is an outrage, Hokage-sama!"

"The monster needs to be caught and brought to justice!"

On the outside, his face was calm. Both palms were resting on the well-polished table in front of him. The fingers of the right hand had been tapping in time with the hidden tune to the silent melody stuck in his head like some angry earworm.

"The demon needs to pay!"

His tapping fingers stopped at that last one and the entire room went deathly silent as if someone just ripped the needle off of an ancient phonograph.

"Excuse me?" The Hokage's voice was soft as gravel wrapped in silk."

"I-I-I mean... what I meant was..."

Hiruzen overrode the now stumbling Okamoto. The fat purveyor of overpriced rice and daikon always did have an eager mouth to accompany his unreasonably short temper. Both underweight and almost as round as he was tall, the bald man with three chins was sweating like a stuck pig in his over-perfumed silken finery, the pastel blue scarf he normally carried in one hand now fluttering frantically in front of his face as it normally did when he was trying to hide something or cover up a slip during trade talks. Despite not needing to lock eyes, Hiruzen did, knowing full well that the fat merchant's beady little orbs would close to mere slits as his nerves gave out leaving the rooster-thin Kojima to do the rest of the talking.

He preferred the somber skin-flint over the pig-like squealer simply because the man was less of a coward. It didn't mean Hiruzen would kill them both eventually but it did make them easier to handle.

"What my companion meant, Hokage-sama," Kojima began trying to redirect the powerful shinobi's ire, which succeeded.

Hiruzen's coal-like orbs flickered in Kojima's direction and the skinny used every bit of his willpower not to shiver and release his bladder. For a second, the mercantile figure of prominence felt the icy hand of the Shinigami brush its fingertips along his spine and he swallowed to moisten his suddenly dry throat.

"What he meant is that we are fairly certain we know who the culprit is and would very much like to hire your shinobi to obtain proof." Kojima's bravery increased the longer they went without becoming gutted corpses on the floor, his spine stiffening as a cruel glint entered into his equally beady eyes.

What was it about dishonest businessmen having beady eyes? It was bad enough that Kojima possessed an abnormally weak chin to go with his sharp over-pointed nose, a chin that disappeared into the saggy waddle beneath it giving him the general appearance of an overly tall rooster. The tiny flecks of black in his pale face did not disabuse the notion of poultry sired heraldry in the man's gene pool.

Hiruzen's right eyebrow rose enough to show curiosity. Their clumsy attempts at terrorizing the weapon only helped when it fit his timetable but he'd never let these fools know that. "So, you have tangible proof of some sort?"

Kojima blinked in surprise. "Well, um, no Hokage-sama, not yet but we-."

"Oh, so you have some credible eye witness to the crime then?" Hiruzen interrupted, both eyebrows raised in patient expectation.

This time both merchants currently leading a small gaggle of business proprietors claiming to have been robbed over the same night blinked in apparent shock, all six of the offended men in the middle to late years shaking their heads left to right. They knew lying to the Hokage could get their licenses to operate storefronts revoked and every civilian knew that shinobi knew how to read minds.

No, only the absolute truth could be spoken in this chamber.

"Let me understand this situation," Hiruzen countered. "You want me to authorize investigators from my shinobi to actively target a seven-year-old civilian for crimes he may or may not have committed while sleeping in his substandard apartment on the other side of the village and already under twenty-four-hour surveillance of said shinobi."

There was a very pregnant pause as the once angry merchants considered the Hokage's words and the Council stared back at them in utter disbelief.

"Well Hokage-sama," Okamoto began, "it sounds pretty bad when you put things that way but, um... yes?"

Hiruzen promptly adjourned the meeting, rose from his chair, then walked out signaling for a very specific shadow to walk alongside him on the way back to his office.

"Deer, I have a job for your particular talents."

The ANBU in question didn't say it but a familiar word flickered through his head at his next assignment.

Across town, Shikaku (at home) and his son (in the academy) both sneezed in their disparate locations.

~III~

---

Nine Months After Kurama's Big Heist...

A single ANBU stood atop the Hokage Tower, the dark brown eyes hidden beneath his mask staring intently out across the village he was proud to call his home. It was growing late and the wind always picked up just a little bit at night, especially when things began to cool as they often did in the Fall. Still, he stood proud on the not-too-chilly night as the gentle breeze-.

"Hey! Deer-san!"

The stoic ANBU tried to ignore the snarky voice passing by, one of several snickering as the fifth patrol in fifteen minutes sailed past on their nightly rounds. Too many of his own kind laughed at his work. Their ridicule stung but he'd hold firm for Hokage-sama. Unfortunately, the arrogant knew no restraint and his torment continued unabated.

"Are you going to finally catch your nemesis, Deer-san?"

Several hearty chuckles, the ANBU equivalent of full-blown laughter, burned his ears but he ignored them. Sure, they laughed now but he'd have the final laugh in the end. Eventually. Maybe?

Sure, he wasn't the smartest Nara to ever join the ANBU but he had sufficient skills for his posting and, to him, a career to be proud of. He made ANBU after all, didn't he?

Deer stood just a bit taller, his shoulders drawing back as he let the wind flutter his cloak majestically.

Let them laugh. He'd get the final laugh in the end just wait and see.

Down below his lofty perch, the Hokage was sharing a brief smoke with his new Jounin Commander, one Shikaku Nara.

"Well done on your recent promotion, Shikaku."

The lanky Jounin and veteran of the last great war bowed sufficient enough to be respectful but just shy enough of being troublesome and inhaled deeply of the special tobacco blend he favored. "Thank you, Hokage-sama. Also, thank you for..."

The Clan Head trailed off even as his eyes flickered to the rooftop above their balcony smoking area.

Hiruzen nodded his head once indicating that he understood and chuckled softly at the private joke. It was no secret between the two that the often over-eager ANBU wasn't much of an elite agent but he was relatively harmless provided he had some "urgent mission" to occupy his time. He was at least able to meet the minimum standards for ANBU membership. Hiruzen was insistent upon that much.

For the most part, Hiruzen kept him as part of the Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau, which consisted solely of him, and answered directly to the Hokage. Or Ibiki if he was unavailable.

Ibiki hated the boy with a passion but respected his work ethic.

Ibiki also promised not to burn the old man's Icha Icha so long as he didn't have to deal with Deer too often.

So far the agent's record was 3 of 7 successful investigations, most of them petty larceny and home invasions in the poorer sections of the village where no one really expected much success if any. The poor never expected much help from those in power so what harm could an incompetent ANBU cause by himself?

So far they'd been right and, on three separate occasions, improved relations in small pockets of the slums of Konoha through the actions of one well-meaning idiot.

Too bad he hadn't developed the Nara's hereditary laziness as well. Hiruzen would see him far less than he'd like. Some of those cases might even still be open to keep him distracted.

Shikaku smirked up towards the roof before exhaling another puff of the sickly-sweet mixture. "Do you think he'll actually catch the Night Demon?"

Hiruzen's only answer was to chuckle yet again before turning back in towards his overfull inbox he called a desk.

"Yeah, I guess it might be a long shot after all," Shikaku commented off-handedly before snuffing out his own kiseru pipe and leaping off towards home where his loving wife and her deadly frying pan awaited his return.

~III~

---

Deep in the shadowed confines of the jinchuuriki mindspace, the frantic clicking of keys and mashing of buttons could be heard. The lights within the cage itself had been dimmed to the barest minimum to allow navigation of the supporting console plugged into the large screen. Flickering light accompanied by the occasional flash of bright color highlighted the enormous muzzle wrinkled up in concentration, one incredibly long tongue lolling to the side of its owner.

"CLICK-CLICK-CLACKETY-type-type-tappity-type"

Odd that other than the clicking sounds of an engaged occupant no other sound escaped the dim chamber, that is until a shadowy figure sidled up next to the bijuu and tugged on bright orange-red arm fur to get its attention.

"Yes?" the bijuu offered using one human-like paw to snatch off the ergonomically correct headphones revealing blaring guitar rifts driving hardcore rhythms over deep bass tempos.

"You said you'd give me a turn."

The voice was small, like its owner. Its tone was almost petulant.

Kurama's face twisted up in confusion as they looked back to the screen to make sure his Kit-HOST wasn't about to land in a mess of trouble. Entering the commands to perch him on a handy roof ledge overlooking the night market, the ancient bijuu turned his attention back to the nebulous mass of dark chakra held together in a roughly human-shaped cloud.

"Yeah, I know... but, you see..."

It was almost comical to watch the seated chakra entity that still reached over thirty feet in the air gesture helplessly to the apparently paused screen. The camera was focused down at a street scene gradually growing tense. Two small females at a rolling fruit cart were surrounded by several large men.

Kurama's eyes took in the more panicked pair of soft brown eyes trying to hide in their older sister's apron.

"You promised!" the smaller figure whined. Two glowy red orbs blinked in apparent sadness.

The most powerful entity in the elemental nations winced as a shadowy foot stomped on the slightly flooded floor (good thing he installed the entertainment center this past summer to keep stuff out of the wet).

"Aren't you supposed to be, I don't know... sleeping or something? A growing... entity... needs its rest."

The shadow with two glowing red spots where its head should be growled.

With a heavy sigh, and one last look at the screen, Kurama plugged in a much smaller controller and passed it (and a smaller set of headphones) the wispy entity. Once they were properly geared up, he resumed motion on his still-subdued host just in time to hear a scuffle taking place in the alley below.

"So, I'm player two then?" The shadowy entity looks up with almost an excited glow in its eyes at the larger creature sharing its space.

"Hnh? Oh, yeah, yeah! Of course, you are kiddo. Just be sure to hit the A-B Execute combo when we get into a fight, okay?" Kurama tried desperately to hide the huge sweatdrop appearing to the far side of his head and focused on the small group of thugs surrounded the vendor stand below.

[Quiet pause]

"Hey!" the smaller figure opined. "Are you sure my controller is working?"

"Sure! Of course, it is!" He pointed to one of the smaller corners of the screen trying to yell over the thrumming music cranking through both their headsets. "Don't you see your health bars in the upper right corner?"

[Another quiet pause]

"Oh yeah!"

Both figures began to violently smash controller buttons as Kurama's Kit-FILTHY NINGEN HOST jumped down into the alley with a silent warcry.

A Few Minutes Prior to the Voices In Naruto's Head...

Machiko Hasegawa, and her younger sister Tomoko, tried not to grimace too much as three oversized gorillas in human skin "accidentally" dropped a third of their sweet pears onto the ground. To add additional insult to injury, the really oafish one stomped on the ones that fell cackling like a crazy person the entire time.

Instead of rising to the bait, they huddled together and stared at the ground so as to not incite further aggression. Usually, if you ignored them and acted meek bullies like this would eventually tire themselves out and move on.

"Oi!"

Machiko sighed quietly and gently patted her six-year-old sister's back trying to calm her thinking perhaps it might take longer for these bullies to tire out.

A thick finger shoved its way under her chin forcing her to meet the leering gaze and foul breath of "Snake" Shimizu, the only slimeball in the slums stupid enough to claim to have beaten the village's greatest traitor in an academy spar when they were young. She winced as the rancid odor of boiled garlic and onions washed over her face but did not buckle under his glare.

"Our boss wants to know where your payment is this week, young lady." His breath only grew worse the more he talked making the man bolder by the minute the more she shrunk away from him.

Machiko jerked her chin away and fired back, "We don't owe you anything!"

They clearly thought her comment hilarious because all three started cackling now.

"That's good little girl, real good!" "Snake," as he liked to refer to himself may have been all gangly limbs and greasy shoulder-length hair but he had enough strength to knock one of their hand-woven baskets filled with pears off the rolling stand and onto the ground. Once there, "Gorilla Man" promptly attacked it and the remaining pears like they personally owed him money.

"Boss said you're setting a bad example for the other 'customers'."

Machiko glared knowing how little their "customer base" wanted to pay extortion money to these small-time creeps.

"So Boss says we either gotta break sumpin'," here the walking bucket of filth paused to eye-fondle the sixteen-year-old brunette despite her bulky vendor smock and slender figure, "or take sumpin'."

The way he licked his lips made her shiver and want to push her sister to safety but "Snake" threw just a bit more oil onto the potential fire.

"I don' see why we can't do both."

This time when his goons started laughing, there wasn't anything comical about it. And they kept laughing until a horrible CRUNCH shut the Gorilla guy up as his body slammed into the cobblestone ground drawing everyone's eye to the commotion.

---

"Snake" caught the strangled GURRK! sound from his trusted right hand right before Noburu hit the dirt. At first, he was angry that someone would dare attack one of Boss Sasaki's boys. How dare they! Someone was gonna bleed before the night was out! Then he looked up from the swirling eyes of his biggest enforcer and nearly wet himself as he looked into the soulless mask of the slums boogeyman himself.

The Night Demon!

---

Before his host began the academy, Kurama had been very specific about not stealing from those that sold shinobi weapons and apparel. It was illegal for non-shinobi to be in possession of or use that kind of gear so he made do with basic clothes (usually of black, dark blue, or dark grey material) and hunting tools like filet or hunting knives. That lasted until they started doing the same thing that the commercial vendors did and overcharged or threw his Ningen host out of their shops.

Then everyone with a grudge against his host became fair game.

Still, he made a point not to wear shinobi apparel nor use kunai or shuriken as that would give the old liar a reason to get more involved. No need to have more than their ANBU shadow trying to give them grief.

There was, however, one thing he did pride himself on and that was the custom oni mask he'd pilfered from a small vendor that had gone above and beyond the call of duty when kicking Naruto out of his shop. The bloated bag of gas even threw a cheap Kitsune mask at the child as a snide insult to the mighty bijuu.

Kurama broke into the shop two days later, pilfered the recently finished mask, then set the shop afire with his high Katon affinity.

Then he made a point to wear the blood-red and ebony mask on all of his night prowls, the flowing silver mane more than enough to hide his hosts, shockingly bright golden hair (see the story thumbnail). Besides, the golden glow of his host's eyes when Kurama channeled his purified chakra was hidden nicely behind the colored lenses of the mask. Everything else was simple but sturdy cloth and a custom set of thieve's tools.

"G-Get him!" the one known as Snake bellowed and the second thug responded, the noise breaking him out of his shocked stupor.

Kurama needed to be very careful here as he was still technically controlling a seven-year-old child. He'd been very fortunate that these non-shinobi were both dimwitted and unobservant allowing him to literally land on the neck and shoulders of the largest goon like a rockslide. Even with the Bijuu's chakra enhancing his transformed fifteen-year-old appearance, these were grown men. Real damage could happen here.

And if one should get their hands on the transformed first-year academy student...

Furiously yanking on the controller joystick, Kurama dipped under the much larger man's lunge and sprinted around the corner of the alley opening, the larger man turning to take up pursuit.

CLANG!

As the second enforcer hit the edge of the alley, his skull met harshly with the side of a metal trash can. There was a brief pause as the brute tried to shake the cobwebs from his head only to catch a second can-induced blow to the head as the masked figure darted up the nearby wall, trash can in hand, only to plummet back to the ground smashing the now heavily dented can into Thug #2's head once again.

It was slow once it happened but the tree-like figure slowly fell over much like the image of a falling tree.

THUD

And then there was one.

Kurama tossed the damaged can aside only to chuckle as "Snake", now shaking in fear, drew a tanto-sized blade while settling into a very uncomfortable-looking fighting stance. Kurama looked at the shaking right hand holding the blade just out in front of his body alongside his open left hand, which was shaking just as much.

The ancient chakra monster couldn't resist.

He stood up straight and reached behind his back with one hand as the mask lolled comically to one side. Slowly, so slowly enough that the prolonged sound of a blade being withdrawn from its sheath forced "Snake's" eyes to follow the motion of his right hand as it revealed a hunting knife that dried out the man's mouth. The blade was black except for the silver gleam of its sharpened edge and easily an open hand in length. What made him uncomfortable was the serrated back edge of the blade used for cutting through gristle and bone.

Then the marked creature reached behind its back again with the other hand and withdrew another equally disturbing two-sided serrated blade and "Snake's" tan trousers suddenly developed a spreading pool of moisture around the crotch.

The two females, who'd done nothing but watch the spectacle and clutch each other for protection, tilted their heads in humor as they watched Snake wet himself then stumble off into the night.

Ignoring the fleeing crook's cries of, "Da Boss will make you paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" Kurama swiveled his host's head to center on the now smiling sisters. More importantly, the eyes behind the mask focused on little Tomoko-chan, which were smiling brightly at their savior even if the mask frightened her a bit.

It was unfortunate that Kurama knew he could not remove it. Machiko, the older of the two hated the boy with a passion akin to the other narrow-minded fools in Konoha focused far too much on the kunai at the expense of the scroll. He figured the child's parents and/or guardian were most likely to blame as she couldn't have been more than two or three years older than his host. She was far too young to have formed her own opinion during his attack, but it caused a twinge of shame in the chakra beast all the same.

At best, he'd picked up when watching over them on the odd night that the two girl's lived with a very sick mother and the fruits they sold grew on their small property, most of which had been given over to growing produce both for their own survival and for profit. They never spoke of their father and he'd never seen the woman they called mother but he'd bet even money that the cause could be laid at Kurama's furry feet.

His conscience pricked at the realization.

No, it was the innocent chocolate brown (Kurama had a real sweet tooth problem) eyes of Tomoko-chan as she'd given the starving boy one of the Asian Pears sold from their cart, even when the child protested saying he could not afford to pay. The smiling girl several years his junior only grinned and paid for it from her own meager savings to stop her sister's bitter objections.

Now Naruto made a point to stop by and pay for several every chance he got, a thought that warmed Kurama's heart as he wasn't completely miserable concerning all humans. Something about the forgiving nature of the younger child tugged at his ancient heartstrings.

Machiko, however, remained a bitter pill to take. The girl never spoke during any of those visits and clearly hasn't forgiven whatever grudge she holds for Kurama's container.

She didn't seem to have a problem taking him money though, the hypocrite.

Still, if not for Tomoko-chan...

Kurama's mind snapped back to the present and he swiftly rifled through the pockets of the two still unconscious thugs. Not ten seconds later (robbing greedy merchants taught him to be efficient in his thievery) he dumped a crumpled mash of bills into the change bucket of their cart.

Both girls goggled but only the older one tried to protest.

"Take it," he waved her off. "They most likely stole it from others so perhaps this will help balance out some of their really horrible karma."

Modulating his chakra through the child's voicebox had an odd undulating effect. Since he found the child's natural voice grating, Kurama learned to drop it a few octaves making it less painful to hear. Whatever his chakra did to his voice, it also seemed to make people less hostile and, in some cases, more agreeable.

He wasn't going to complain because the girl seemed to have stopped protesting and just in time.

"Oi! Oi! Demon-saaaan!"

Kurama tilted his masked host's head up to see that idiotic Deer ANBU waving at him from the same rooftop he'd perched on not ten minutes before.

"Well," Kurama began through Naruto's altered voicebox, "I suppose this is goodbye for now."

Kurama forced the child's body to take one pace to the side and away from the cart. The Deer ANBU took a single step along the ledge above to keep pace, then waited.

Kurama took another step. The ANBU matched it.

Then another.

Then another only to half step back and have the ANBU match him tit-for-tat.

"Don't get caught Oni-san otherwise who would look after us small people in the Red Light?"

It wasn't what was said that shocked so much as who said it and the worrying timber to her voice as she did so. She hated his host so he was sure that she did not know the Night Demon's true identity otherwise she would help the ANBU bundle him up in high-grade ninja wire and take him away.

Kurama did take his eyes off the ANBU for a split second just to see the slightly blushing face of Machiko peeking at him from above Tomoko-chan's head.

It nearly cost him.

Deer, being dumb but not that dumb, lept from his perch and it was only the sound of his magnificent fluttering cloak that alerted Kurama to leap away.

Just like that, the chase was on.

~III~

---

The first thought that flew through Deer's mind was, "Catch him quickly!" To be honest, it was the only thought at the time. He tended to be a bit single-minded and, while aware of the problem, found it hard to shake the habit.

He'd work on that tomorrow.

His dreaded nemesis, the Night Demon, was already on the move. Even as his foot touched the hardened ground, he was already shifting his weight and momentum. Tightened shoulders rolled forward dragging along his upper body to allow a shift in balance. Head down, eyes focused on the flowing mane of silver-ish hair.

He ignored the indignant sounds behind him for the moment. Something splattered on the ground far behind him but did not strike his magnificent cape - it was a token from Hokage-sama marking his role in ANBU. They could praise his effort later once he's captured the night fiend causing fear and worry among the people as told to him by the civilian council.

Yes, they would all praise him and that means Hokage-sama would be proud as well.

A short burst of chakra and he blurred after his prey. 'Fast.'

Across the street, they raced. The demon was trying to lose him but Deer only focused more. He couldn't stretch out his pace completely to close the distance. This demon was tricky... like a fox. Up one wall then across to another building they went. He ducked around a rooftop air vent where they played a quick game of "Merry-go-round"...

No! He couldn't lose focus now. Not when he was soo close! Hokage-sama was depending on him.

If only the Night Demon would stop trying to confuse him with words. What did he care if there were three criminal organizations working out of the slums? Hokage-sama never told him to arrest those guys and Deer always did as he was told.

What did he care of one group was stealing young children to feed the foreign slave market? Hokage-sama knew about that. He was even in the office delivering the latest report on the Night Demon no less when Hokage-sama was discussing the loss of revenue for those villains so clearly whatever Hokage-sama had done to combat them was working and Deer need not be worried about doing anything. The Elders seemed very concerned at it also so surely they would help.

His thought process paused as he had to avoid several closed-up semi-permanent stalls in the central market area of the slums. He knew he had to be careful around them otherwise the owners would complain to Hokage-sama and the Council and he'd lose pay to cover the damages. He had to admit it was very considerate for the Night Demon not to break them in trying to get away like last time.

And again, the chase was on.

More words. Deer sighed as he tried to block out more hateful speech against Hokage-sama. Hokage-sama was a good man!

But this Night Demon didn't think so and it was confusing Deer. At one point, they both stopped on the roof of a nightclub, one of the few that thrived in the Red Light slums.

"If the Hokage broke the law, would you arrest him?"

Deer blinked not understanding where this question came from. It almost distracted him from the Demon's failure to use proper honorifics when talking about or to the Hokage, almost. Instead, he tried to apply his limited intelligence to the question, so much so that he stopped moving while he thought it over, and the more he thought about it the less it made sense.

"Hokage-sama is a great and kind man," he began. His face was twisted up with the effort though no one else could tell.

The very frustrating Night Demon seemed content to wait while he did so and that seemed like a nice gesture. Deer would have to include that in his report after he caught him.

"The Hokage keeps everyone safe." His mask turned from the gravelly substance on the roof to the line of people waiting to enter the noisy building. The loud noises made Deer uncomfortable so he turned to look off into the distance where he knew the Hokage Monument was. The faces always calmed him and made it easier to work things out in his head.

"Hokage-sama's job is to enforce the law, not break it." He needed to sound con-Confident in his answer! Uncle Shikaku always said that confidence is important in law enforcement.

"That does not answer the question," the figure replied.

Deer noted that his nemesis seemed very confident so he mirrored his slightly turned stance and lifted his chin a bit. He liked how the pose made his cloak flutter in the night air just a little bit.

"I believe in Hokage-sama. He would never do this and force me to arrest him."

He liked that answer. It allowed him to be confident and show loyalty. Hokage-sama would never let him down, would he?

Then why did the sad shaking of the Night Demon's head sound like he was disappointed in what Deer said?

"Then you are no better than he is."

Then the masked figure exploded into a mass of golden-colored smoke and was gone.

For some reason, that made Deer's chest hurt. He'd seen some of the good things the masked man did in the course of his investigation and, while it also made him sad to have to arrest him, he could respect this masked avenger. Then why did the Demon sounding so disappointed in Deer's answer, bother him so?

For many moments after, Deer merely stood there on the roof staring at the spot where the Night Demon stood. There he would puzzle over the man's question for hours until the bass-pounding noise below that he hated so much faded away into the background. A small voice in the back of his head chided that illegal drugs were being sold below in that club, which was also against the laws of Konoha.

Unfortunately, an answer to the Demon's question would elude him long after the sun rose to greet him.

Back At the Small and Innocuous Rolling Fruit Cart...

Little Tomoko's entire chest was swelling and deflating with her burning fury. All of it, and the occasional smashed fruit, had been directed at the annoying ANBU that interrupted her time with Oni-nii-san. Too bad she'd missed his really big head with that last one.

She'd get him next time.

Even as she continued to glance off in the direction both shadows fled, worry gnawed at her little heart. The ANBU worked for the Hokage. This meant that the Hokage was unhappy with the Night Demon, didn't it?

Small lips contorted into a frown. Small fingers idly gathered more smashed fruit into the damaged wicker basket from which they came. Normally they'd worry over losing soo much fruit but Oni-nii-chan made the sleeping men on the ground pay for it and then some.

They would be fine but still she worried for him.

"Nee-chan," she began in soft words. Words filled with concern.

"He'll be fine, Moko-chan." Her sister seemed unconcerned as she hustled about. "Let's clean up and go home. We have more than enough money to get Doctor Matsushita to visit Momma tomorrow."

Little Tomoko smiled at this. It was very good news. Their mom was getting worse and it was getting harder to leave her every day to sell fruit. The messes they found when they got home must have been hard for Momma to bear.

No, this was good luck but still...

She kicked the big one again as she walked by happy with the small grunt he gave in his sleep.

"Still..." she began only to get cut off by a familiar voice that made her eyes boggle.

"Oh, I think he'll be fine."

"Nii-chan!" was all she could get out before her face buried itself into the dark figure's stomach. Her arms were wrapped as far around his ribcage as she could reach, small hands fisted in the cool cloth of his short kimono top. Then her head jerked back in confusion, eyes wide as she looked up into the faintly glowing lenses of his mask.

"If you're here, then who...?"

One finger touched to where a mouth should have been in his mask. "That's my secret. Can you keep it for me?"

Her head began nodding without consent or reserve. He had escaped and that was all that mattered.

"Be careful going home. I will escort you out of the district to make sure you are safe."

Tomoko couldn't help the smile that squeezed her eyes shut. This would give her something else to tease Mari-chan over once they got home.

Big sister liked the Night Demon more than she would admit. Thought, she was beginning to understand why when he did cool things like running straight up the side of a building like he was doing now.

Maybe someday they could afford to send her to the Ninja Academy like Poppa.

Hours Later on Another Rooftop in the Slums...

Kurama settled finally on his favorite lookout point (another three-story building several over from the Kit's-HIS WORTHLESS VESSEL's APARTMENT!). It had been a good night. They finally had the shinobi supplies needed to continue Kurama's training program. Little Tomoko-chan was safe and perhaps they could save their mother with the money he took from those idiot goons, not that he really cared for the little human.

All humans were equally worthless. Bah!

Dropping into a crouch (in case he needed to bolt), Kurama checked the lightening of the night sky to guess how long it would be before his Bijuu Clone would begin its day, leading the day crew off so that he could re-enter the apartment. Satisfied with a rough estimate, he turned his attention back to the now four ANBU chatting on the roof across from his host's apartment.

Soon. Soon he'd be able to curl up and let the child wander about its worthless daydreaming of Hokage-dome and ramen noodles. Kurama shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough the child's mother lived off that stuff. He'd done all he could to break him of the habit, and failed, but at least the child ate the healthier food he stole on a regular basis.

So long as he kept the sealing scrolls he'd stolen, there wouldn't be a need to restock more than once every three months. Hopefully, by then the malnutrition damage to the orphan's body would be corrected. He'd need to check the fridge to make sure the clone made a bento before faking a full night's sleep otherwise it would only delay his much-deserved nap.

It was hard work robbing the evil and foiling the truly despicable. Heavens knew there were plenty in this part of town to keep a Demon gainfully employed.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his apartment door opening, closing, then being locked. Sure enough, four sets of masked eyes locked on the happy blonde running out for his "morning training routine" which would lead them on a merry thirty-minute goose chase around the slums. Two leaped off to keep pace. Two turned off to head to the Tower and deliver their nightly mission summary.

Kurama waited ten minutes before slipping back in through the unlocked bedroom window, which he immediately locked behind himself. A quick glance to the fridge (good, the bento was there and he made a mental note to pick up more grapes on tomorrow night's patrol) then it was off to hide in the bathroom (where he stashed his Night Demon outfit in a stash spot above Naruto's normal reach) until his clone returned.

Clones were wonderful things.

Especially since they were made of chakra and need not worry about blowing their chakra coils to smithereens. They could even keep a subpar ANBU occupied while you made a strategic withdrawal.

With a tired yawn mirrored by his host, who oddly enough slept the entire night through unawares, Kurama closed the lid to the toilet and plopped down to wait for his clone's return. Yeah, the next few years were going to be interesting indeed.

He couldn't wait to see how the academy turned out come graduation day.

Let the games begin.

"..."

"Can I have a turn next time we meet Deer-san?!"

"..."

He tried not to facepalm at the smaller voice sharing the boy's head.

~III~

---

A/N: So, here is the Plot Bunny that's been distracting me from finishing the last 4 chapters of "No More." Hopefully, now that I have this posted up, I can wrap up what I need to then turn my attention to "Nature of the Savage Beast" and "A Daimyo's Tale" (yes, I'm thinking about finishing that story for those asking me to continue it). I'm going to not post "A Slave to the Game" until I get at least half of the story written out.

That said, although this is a very long one-shot it is intended to be just that. It was an idea that I think could easily be fleshed out into a full story and I haven't seen any along those lines so I kept it short and skipped a lot of possible content in case someone is feeling bold and wants to run with the idea.

Hit me up with a PM and let me know. I've left plenty of wiggle room for people to take this in their own direction.

At a minimum, I hope you found it to be a pleasurable distraction from your day!

~Siva'a

~III~