A/N: Next chapter slightly ahead of schedule to make up for being a touch late on the last one.
Enjoy!
Chapter 7: Two If By Kitsune
~I I I~
Since the time of her birth and her subsequent emergence into Hanyou status, Ginkōtaigō Kurogarinumatani had been the spitting image of regality. She carried herself with dignity and polish even during her first century as a speechless pup. Even now as she stood upon the dais of her clan's place of power with her body trembling in the throes of rage, she exuded royal presence.
Tall and slim of build like all her clan, the metallic highlights to her silver hair and fur gleamed brightly in the dimming light of day. The blue-silver orbs nestled in the smooth plane of her face pinched in displeasure, even sparkled majestically, as her seven tails writhed back and forth behind her slender frame.
She was bred to rule. In her very bones, she knew this. It seemed, however, that her ears were having a disagreement with her mind as they listened to her first-born and second eldest tell her of Hikari-chan's celestial imprisonment inside of a human child, a boy child no less. It was news she did not wish to entertain.
It was news she would not, could not tolerate.
Looking around for a male to thrash as she vented her displeasure, her eyes settled once again on Toru, the last male of her clan, and sighed. If she killed him in a fit of rage she would have no one left to send hither and yon and she would not risk her precious daughters. They held binding powers of alliance and could not be so carelessly risked.
With a pitiful sigh, she let the moment pass until his nervous eyes began to flicker about without permission.
As she once again reconsidered removing Toru's head from his shoulders, Himedoro moved to rest on her smaller seat next to her mother's throne.
"You saw this seal, Hime-chan?" Her eyes never left her somewhat competent son, never turned to fully address her daughter by blood.
The younger golden-eyed clone of the powerful Kitsune performed a seated bow. "Hai, 'Kaa-san. It is beyond my meager skill in sealing to decipher and is of exquisite complexity and design."
The Shadow Matron nodded once and focused her fury on her most reliable, and only remaining, male child and sighed. She could not stay angry, not truly, as he had succeeded where all others had failed her. He finally found their wayward Hikari-chan even if it was in the clutches of evil human men.
It was always men.
They would need to free her at some point.
The older figure with the aged perfection of a woman in her late twenties sauntered down the four steps of her dais, each slippered foot ringing loudly in the Kitsune male's high-functioning ears until she stopped with the top of his head nearly resting against her knees. Toru clenched his teeth and focused with all his might on the pointed toes of her footwear.
"You are certain of his lineage?"
Toru knew exactly to whom she was speaking, the tone and timbre of her voice indicating her desire.
"Hai, 'Kaa-sama. It is undeniable among the humans." He took a shuddering breath before continuing. "Their leader, the Hokage, asked me to hide the records in a new location just last week."
The brief silence that followed his declaration was unnerving and poor Toru began to fear for the worst. When her hands clamped down on either side of his head, Toru's eyes snapped closed as he whispered a quick prayer to Kami asking forgiveness for his failures in this life.
As his head was slowly lifted from his view of the floor, he flinched when something soft touched his forehead. Not nearly brave enough to open his eyes just yet, he waited until he heard her soft feet traveling along the dais steps before he opened them making sure that the ground at his boot was all he focused on. When they opened, and he saw no blood, he began to breathe again albeit in short panting breaths.
"Well done, Toru. Return to your post and continue to study the vessel. I will confer with the scholars to see what can be done with the seal. Be sure to send as detailed a drawing as you can."
Recognizing the dismissal, Toru bowed until his forehead kissed the cold stone and body flickered still in that position to the nearest portal reconnecting him to the human world.
One did not press their good fortune with the Shadow Kitsune Matron.
~I I I~
Naruto was standing in front of his window, his only outlet other than a scheduled hour of wandering around the hospital park this afternoon with Miko-chan. Absent was the goofy smile that made his eyes disappear instead replaced by a neutral mask of contemplation.
Jiji had already left and told him that his entry into the ninja academy would have to wait until he completed his civilian education. This would put him into the academy fall after next meaning he had a year and a half before he could start his dream. He wasn't happy about it, but it made sense as he didn't have a clan or family to teach him the basics prior to the academy.
It still sucked. It sucked quite a bit.
Neko-nee-chan came by a short while after that saying that she would take him on a shopping spree once he was closer to entry into the academy. It didn't make sense to buy shinobi clothes now only to throw them out later because he outgrew them. They could take care of all that next year.
It made sense the longer he thought about it, but it also entailed more suckage since his clothes, the ones he wore now, had been destroyed when those bastards trashed his apartment - Inu had let him know about his home. Naruto huffed out a heavy sigh. When he mentioned that, Neko-chan giggled stating that she had a pleasant surprise for him when they left the hospital. The boy only raised an eyebrow in response.
It did little to alleviate his sour thoughts on his short life in Konoha.
First off, now that he had the mental ability to evaluate key events from his brief past he also had the ability to realize that he'd been, and would most likely continue to be, robbed blind by the merchants that claimed over and over again how they were doing him such favors in the bargains they offered. Time and time again, images of milk past its expiration date and overly ripe produce made his face bunch up in painful grimaces. It was a miracle that he hadn't died from food poisoning before the attack that nearly took his life. The more he thought about it, the more reason he had to be thankful to Kyuubi-chan.
As he looked fondly down at the area of his stomach where the seal rested, the hospital garments he wore brought his thoughts to the other reason that nagged at the back of his mind constantly; his bright orange jumpsuits that he loved so much, mostly out of ignorance, now made more sense post-attack.
He had been sold on them by a particularly nasty vendor saying that he needed clothes cheap enough, durable enough, and roomy enough that they would allow him to grow and not need to be replaced every year. Never mind that they stood out in any crowd like a bright neon orange beacon. No wonder he couldn't escape those mobs that night.
He literally glowed in the dark.
That was just one glowing example of how people tried to sabotage his development, his shoddy school education just adding more bitter pickle juice in the crappy tea that constituted his life.
The more he thought back on his interactions with Konoha villagers, the angrier he got and the more his gaze hardened. Eyes…
The flash of a kunai shot through his mind's eye and he shivered to shake it off.
On the bright side, he still had his original eyes. So far, he hadn't seen anyone else with better even considering the platinum blonde Yamanaka Clan and their sky-blue peepers. His face contorted into another scowl (a disturbingly frequent habit lately) as thoughts of Yamanaka Rikuto popped unwelcomed into his mind.
That bastard wasn't even sorry for what he did but he'd get his soon enough. Kyuubi had promised that much. They all would. First, however, he had a lot of work to do starting with his release in three days.
Naruto's fingers idly played with a tangled mess of yarn compliments of Nurse Tamako. It was a child's game, one he'd seen other kids play when he was smaller being a whopping six years old now, but Kyuubi had wanted him to begin working on his fingers making them faster and stronger. She had mentioned watching his mother, Kushina, doing similar exercises when she was much smaller, the benefit being increased manual dexterity and finger strength. When they were free of the hospital, she also wanted him to find some rubber balls, playing cards, and a few other items, all of which would go to increasing his manual dexterity.
Naruto mentally shrugged and began unknotting the string for the fifth time.
The fact that they "talked" more often now helped to pass the time. His new link with her allowed them to share thoughts mentally without the mindscape but it tended to make him appear as "zoned out" forcing others to pester him until he responded. They tried to be sparing about it when he wasn't visiting her.
Deep inside he had to admit that it was becoming his favorite hangout spot (Kyuubi was there after all) but it left his physical body unprotected. Given how much everyone hated him that was something neither of them could afford to let him do too often and never in public. It was just too risky.
Mornings between breakfast and lunch were spent in his mindscape with Kyuubi working on core academics. All he had to do was pretend to nap until they were done. He was impressed by his ability to recall information, often whole pages of information simply by closing his mind and calling up the book or scroll mentally. He was also very disappointed with what he discovered were large amounts of information from his distant class days that were incomplete or intentionally misleading. It was almost as if someone wanted him to be ignorant his whole life.
He tried not to dwell on that. No more "special bargains" on school books from now on either. He understood on a fundamental level that his relationship with his home was flawed in many ways encouraging this level of on-going sabotage, perhaps even to a degree beyond his capability to repair without assistance. He would have to cultivate the few positive relationships he had and take others as they developed.
It was during one of those morning study sessions that Naruto altered his relationship with the nine-tailed vixen with his usual aplomb and heartfelt honesty.
He had been reviewing feudal history and opened one of the many textbooks that now sat upon the many bookshelf rows in his dreary mindscape. The book showed cutaway architecture drawings and beautifully-detailed photos of castles surrounded by cherry blossoms and rock gardens. After spending an hour studying the text carefully, the boy looked up at his demon sensei and stared for several minutes into her ruby orbs.
Kyuubi blinked once, then twice, opening her mouth to ask if she had something on her face as the boy pointedly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. At that moment, his mindscape changed, the walls and ground flowing away from their study area, the dingy grays and browns bleeding into Cherrywood flooring in a large central room with rice paper walls and sliding shoji panels framed in the same luxurious dark cherry tones.
The bars of her cage, those imposing and unyielding titans of metal, withdrew into the floor without a trace. As they faded, golden kanji symbols appeared along the band of her choker matching seals that appeared above the doors to the room.
The room was easily forty meters across with high ceilings made from more of the dark timber beams. Heavy columns inscribed with runes and symbols lined both sides of the rooms. Where he sat, the entrance into this room was just off to his right, his quadrant of the room converted into a place of study with his desk, easel, bookshelves, and other requirements. There were door panels on each of the other walls, large double panels with kanji placards above the door panels for the word "seal" that used to hang above her bars, which were now wonderfully absent.
In the center of the room rose a platform made of more cherry wood, a squared dais surrounded with three steps. In the center of the platform lay a traditional table with mats for kneeling on opposite sides. Sunken into the wood to the left of the table lay a small fire pit with a teapot resting on metal grating.
The other three quadrants of the room had shelves available to hold more literature, but nothing planned for space. Overall, the room exuded warmth and sinful luxury.
Kyuubi was stunned, her jaw hanging open as she spun in circles to take it all in.
Naruto frowned once more to really concentrate and focused on the opposite corner of the room. The bookshelves there vanished, and a large fireplace spiraled open from the wall. Above the hearth, tendrils of vines snaked their way up along the wall to form a mahogany picture frame three meters in height while smaller tendrils danced and weaved their way inside the frame. When it was complete, a charcoal sketch of Kyuubi seated on an ornate chair swirled into view with Naruto standing just behind and over her left shoulder, one hand resting on the gentle slope of her trapezius. The picture was done in the style of Michelangelo Buonarotti, a shadowed charcoal drawing with most of the detail shown in their faces. The detail was exquisite enough to clearly indicate the two subjects.
Beneath the picture, just a few meters from the warming fire, blossomed a circular mattress a meter thick and ten meters in diameter made of crimson velvet resting on a cherry wood platform. The silken sheets were made of gold with a burgundy comforter to snuggle under. To the right of the bed nestled next to the wall sat a human-sized privacy screen with soaring cranes and prancing foxes.
Kyuubi tried desperately to steady her breathing as she turned to her jailer, eyes wide in shock. Naruto merely smiled (the first honest one in his entire life), rose from his desk, then approached the powerful demon to kiss her on the forehead.
As a result, Kyuubi blinked and turned a shade of red that almost matched her hair.
Before her gaping could get any worse, Naruto hugged her, laid his right cheek against hers and said, "You have lifted the darkness from my eyes. I thought it only fair that I share some of that light with you."
At that, she melted in his arms.
The boy released her and went back to his desk to finish reading his interesting book on the ancient Edo period. Kyuubi had been shocked into paralysis never once returning the hug as she stared intently at the child before her.
His mind was too young to work this way. Most kids his age "played ninja" and chased each other in the park with sticks. Then again, most kids his age were not dodging angry mobs or assassins by their sixth year either. No, his innocence was lost long ago and his mind, now unencumbered by limiters, was beginning to catch up with his already much older soul.
Kyuubi mourned this realization… then set about exploring her new home with a happy titter. She squealed like a fangirl when she opened one of the side doors and saw the exquisite rock garden complete with koi pond and sakura trees. Her statue of Naruto rested on a marble platform in the middle of the pond.
She nearly went back in to kiss the boy when she opened the other side door to see the large meadow complete with forest a few hundred yards off in the distance. The wildlife scampering about made her heart race with a long-forgotten thrill.
Being a prisoner with this host might not be such a bad thing after all.
~I I I~
A gentle buzzing interrupted his study session. With a smile and a quick nod, Kyuubi sent him on his way, his vision clearing to see a gloved hand waving up and down in front of his face. Naruto apologized sheepishly to Inu who waved it off seeing as the boy was clearly lost in deep thought. Naruto gave another sheepish smile to the Hokage and quickly detached his hands from the yarn looped around his fingers. Inu raised an eyebrow behind his mask at this but made no outward comment.
"Naruto," the boy focused on the old man, "we'll be sending a message to Jiraiya that you're being released from the hospital soon. You should know that he will be wanting to visit with you upon his next visit."
Without missing a beat, Naruto responded listlessly with, "Hai, Ojii-ossan."
As unenthused as the boy sounded, he did perk up when Inu bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood, ran quickly through a series of five hand signs and then slammed his palm on the floor. A ring of kanji symbols linked into a circle fanned out from his feet, then condensed into a cloud of smoke. What appeared in the smoke was a small dog wearing a blue jacket and googles.
Naruto blinked a few times in shock.
Inu reached into a pocket and handed the dog a small scroll with instructions to, "…deliver this to the toad sannin." The dog responded in a very deep voice with, "Hai!" before clamping down gently on the scroll and vanishing in another poof of smoke.
Naruto blinked three more times in rapid succession.
The dog-faced ANBU stood up again and looked down into the shocked face of Uzumaki Naruto. "You okay Naruto?"
Naruto nodded his head very slowly. "Yes, but I'll be even better if you show me those hand signs again." Inu chuckled softly.
"Sure, I can show you again, but it won't do you any good unless you have a summoning contract and those are difficult to come by."
Naruto shrugged it off. Ten minutes later he was going over the quick five-seal sequence again and again until it was engrained into his mind. Over the next three days in the hospital, he would have it to an almost reflexive response.
He could always get Kyuubi to teach him how to manipulate chakra for the summons after the fact.
~I I I~
Afternoons were spent on physical training…when he could get away with it. Hospital staff once found him doing sit-ups and pushups and the scolding and "tsking" had been truly monumental.
Since physical development didn't stick with him in the mindscape, the best he could do was to learn how to mold chakra and meditate, two things Kyuubi said he needed desperately to improve upon, but he had no other way to contain the overabundance of energy stockpiling in his limbs.
Everyone knew Naruto was a walking dynamo. The boy had so much energy he nearly vibrated in place if he sat still too long. Naruto attributed this to his normally cheery disposition and most believed him. Kyuubi attributed this to his abnormally large chakra coils and chakra reserves, which were always overflowing thanks to her periodically flooding his chakra network while he slept. His fun meter virtually stayed pegged on full.
Kyuubi figured it was about time to teach him how to tap into those vast pools of energy and they had almost a year and a half to get prepared.
She explained the nature of chakra and it's four sources, mind, body, spirit (thanks to her) and nature. The first three he had ready access to but needed to be developed. The fourth had to be trained in by specialists as overexposure was lethal (despite some Kitsune being naturally able to tap into it with limited success). Only the toads of Mount Myoboku regularly engaged in its use making their toad sages extremely rare and exceptionally dangerous.
Kyuubi was quick to shut down his fevered dreams of becoming the next toad mega-sage; overusing nature chakra tended to turn you to stone.
Naruto gulped and swore to focus on his primary three and, if he could get a chance to train on Mount Myoboku, then he would do so. As it was, Naruto already had huge reserves of chakra thanks to Kyuubi's effect on his body.
Early attempts at corralling his uncooperative chakra ended up with his mindscape avatar spontaneously combusting or ethereal shoji panels being blown apart. One "accident" even blew Kyuubi's yukata clear off her body resulting in an indignant squeak followed by a frantic scramble to get behind the changing screen.
The fierce blush tomatoing his entire head at the sight of her bare bottom nearly floored him.
After apologizing to the Kyuubi from the other side of the screen and repairing the mindscape damage, they decided it was a nice day "outside" and that they needed to train in the meadow before the forest.
Kyuubi made sure to stay behind him so she didn't lose any more yukatas.
So long as her clothes stayed on, the basics of his chakra control went fairly well. He learned how to feel for his chakra, how to pull it down into his hara, the core of his body, and either trickle or flood it to different parts of his body. He had already mastered entering a meditative state, the ability to enter and depart his mindscape at will and was trying to funnel minuscule amounts of chakra to his ears when he heard sniffling and soft-slippered footsteps approaching his door.
Cutting off the flow of chakra, he spun his body to face the door to the hallway and waited.
Doctor Yamakishi, Nurse Tamako, Nurse Miko, and Neko-nee-chan entered his room not a minute later. The sniffling was coming from the two nurses.
Naruto was touched by their tears. With the exuberance of the average six-year-old, he hopped off the bed and ran to Tamako-chan's waiting embrace. Breaking away slowly, he moved over to Miko-chan and repeated the tender farewell trying to ignore the annoying way the woman's breasts rested on his forehead. She didn't seem to mind so he tried not to draw attention to it instead stepping back to take the hospital sweats offered by the good Doctor.
Kyūbi, the only one partial to his inner thoughts, chuckled at his annoyance – she imagined in another half dozen years when puberty hit he'd be missing that sensation of cushiony pressure on his head or any other part of his body.
With a friendly ruffling of his hair, the doctor turned to leave with his nurses, Neko taking a seat in the room's only chair to wait for him to change clothes.
Naruto's clothes from the night of the attack were shredded. The clothes left in his apartment (along with everything else) had been destroyed so the sweats became a parting gift to the orphan with nothing to return home to. Once changed and released into the bright morning sun, Neko began the process of buying new clothes for her small charge and getting him settled into his "new" place.
Naruto, kind soul that he was, tried to save her a little frustration and warned her as they stood before a gleaming storefront reading "Matsumoto's Fine Apparel." He didn't even mind her helping him with the pronunciation – it was the angry store owner inside he was concerned with.
With the friendly chiming of the bell above the door, a chunky man sporting a tacky, pencil-thin mustache and shiny head lacking any hair that she could see glanced up from his countertop, his eyes squeezing nearly shut as his fake smile spread from ear to ear.
"Ah! Welcome to Matsumo- WHAT are you doing here de- brat?! I thought we already addressed this?!"
It must be the masks all too efficient at hiding ANBU facial expressions. Mr. Matsumoto never noticed Neko's eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits behind it but she saw every angry twitch of his sweaty face once Matsumoto Kondo's beady black eyes slid from her ANBU mask to the child's downtrodden whiskers. He was so outraged at the child's presence that he never bothered to note the change in her body posture as she prepared to gut him like a fish at his near slip to the Third's Law.
Matsumoto did notice the gathering of customers in his very popular storefront as they gathered to watch the man "heroically" throw the demon brat out of his store yet again.
"Ne, Neko-nee-chan," Naruto was gently tugging on her cloak, "let's just go. This place doesn't have the kinds of clothes I like anyway."
He was trying to be helpful and end the encounter before things could turn ugly. "Old Man Matsumoto" didn't want to end the show, unfortunately, nor would he allow the "Demon Child of Konoha" to end the encounter with the upper hand, and inhaled a double lungful of air to let loose another verbal tirade at the small child he knew would never lash out at him.
His impending barrage seized up with a tea kettle-like squeak as Neko's standard-issue ninjatō, the blade singing with a high-pitched ringing sound as it hissed through the air, stopped mere millimeters from Matsumoto's neck.
She casually noted the boy's wince as one of his fingers shot up to rub an abused ear and made a mental note to share that discovery with her Hokage.
In the meantime, she turned her attention back to the snarling shopkeeper trying to lean back and away from her blade much to the shocked gasps of his customers and employees. It only spurred on her growing sense of rage despite the even tone of her voice.
"Are you forgetting something?"
Kondo's eyes darted between the ANBU's inhuman mask, her gleaming blade, and the partially-hidden face of the boy standing behind her left hip. He may have gulped nervously but his disdain never faded – he knew his rights under the Council's law.
"I forget nothing! You cannot force me to serve it no matter your station, ANBU-san."
Neko knew he was right despite still wanting in her heart of hearts to gut him like a fish.
"I am not required to serve it," he flinched as her grip tightened on the pommel, "and so long as I don't violate the law, you cannot do a thing about it!" He raised his chin smugly in victory despite having backed up as far as he could behind the counter to avoid having his throat sliced open.
With her teeth gnashing beneath the porcelain of her mask, Neko gently reached behind her to grab onto Naruto's shoulder right before they disappeared into a swirl of leaves, which settled calmly to the floor of the owner's shop.
It only took four separate instances after that first unpleasant one, four more owner encounters ending with the ANBU threatening to arrest a civilian vendor, to get him the things he needed. By then, Neko was incensed.
Naruto merely took it as a better than average day.
By the time they reached his apartment, the special Jounin was nearly ready to slit someone's throat with her nails. Naruto thought she was too angry to realize where they were as she exited the stairwell from the highest floor of his apartment building (his old apartment was on the middle floor of the three-story building), turned left and put a shiny set of new keys into the lock. She opened the door and stood off to the side so that he could enter and look around for himself.
"Hokage-sama pulled some strings and moved you to a new place," she started off. "It was becoming too much of a hassle to keep hiring out genin teams to clean your old apartment after drunks and degenerates kept breaking in and trashing it." Naruto smirked just a little.
"No one is to know that you live up here now and ANBU are to increase their patrolling of this area."
Naruto didn't say a word to dissuade her. Doubling nothing still meant nothing so, as far as he was concerned, he was still on his own. He'd have to be careful about protecting his new home though and the first thing he noted was the reinforced door with extra locks.
Those would come in handy.
His new apartment was basically two apartments joined as one with the dividing wall knocked out. It was a nice touch. The wooden floors weren't super high quality, but they were sturdy and recently stained and polished. The kitchens had been joined into one with a large island, complete with smaller sink and hanging pots and pans in the middle plus a real stove instead of the sad hotplate in his last place. The bathrooms had also been joined to save plumbing costs but what was once a tiny shower closet now had a two-person onsen for steaming. To wrap it all up, the bedroom of the second apartment had his new bed and amenities; the living room near the door had been changed into a living room and small corner study. If he added an easel, it would be similar to his corner in Kyuubi's new cell.
He could hear her trilling in his mind with delight at the surprise. The Sandaime may have earned a few points of respect in her book with this gift.
Neko closed the door as she entered and handed him the keys. After they dumped his purchases in the bedroom, she walked him through the apartment, showed him the restocked kitchen and pointed to a list on the refrigerator of places she found that would sell food to him without trying to screw him over.
Her body stiffened when the blond juggernaut nearly tackled her to the floor in an exuberant hug, his face buried in her stomach while his shoulders shook with his tiny sobs of joy.
She gently rubbed his head until he released her then set about finding out how well off he would be without her.
"Can you cook Naru-kun?"
Naruto pointed to the cereal and instant ramen cups. Despite the cheeky "thumbs up," she blew out a heavy sigh and rolled up her sleeves. It looked like dinner with her new boyfriend would have to wait.
"Not good enough little guy. Twice a week you and I are going to start having some cooking lessons." And so, they did.
By the end of the current school year, Naruto went from complete kitchen novice to a "barely survivable kitchen disaster." At least Neko didn't feel as bad leaving him alone. The fact that he seemed to remember whole recipes without having to refer to books, even correcting a few of her measurements (which she double-checked anyway), greatly reduced her concern.
His freakishly adept talent with kitchen knives did worry her a bit.
He also learned a few helpful things like the fact that he had a bank account in his name. It had been established on the date of his birth and had been receiving regular stipend payments every month. These monthly payments were considerable adding up to a tidy sum after six years – even if he couldn't get into the bank without being thrown out. When questioned about why he wasn't more thrilled about this news, Naruto simply threw the paperwork back into the new fireproof safe buried in the bottom of his closet with a snarl – the very large numbers from the trial compensation brought back unhappy memories.
"So what if you're wealthy if you can't enter shops to spend the money or even get into the bank to get to it?" He'd worry about that later.
Neko blinked at his larger-than-six-year-old vocabulary and decided that information concerning the ongoing campaign of discrimination would need to be brought up with the Hokage.
He also learned that he actually liked real food. Not hard to discover once you've had homecooked food. Oh sure, ramen was still his favorite but now he had access to healthy foods on a regular basis even if it meant traveling a bit for it.
Ramen was cheap, accessible, and required absolutely no talent to make. He looked forward to his cooking lessons with Neko-nee-chan and often apologized for taking her away from her boyfriend, something she routinely and casually dismissed. To make up for it, he spent many hours beforehand pouring over cookbooks and trying new dishes for his nee-chan when she wasn't off on missions and feeling down. This led to a fairly comfortable routine, that is until summer hit, and Neko had to go on an extended patrol.
Resigned to a horrible two-month break, Naruto woke up one day to find his whole existence was going to change.
'Rise and shine sleepy head.' Naruto groaned and stretched.
'Five more minutes.'
While the new two-way communication without the dreamscape was nice, it did make things a bit awkward first thing in the morning going through the morning routine. It almost felt like he was being watched.
'Sorry Naru-kun,' he winced at the nickname,'…but we need to take care of a few things today.' Naruto grumbled but detached himself from his blanket's mummy-like shroud and stumbled through his morning ablutions. Kyuubi's catcalls in the shower didn't help much.
Once he was done, he flopped down at the desk in his corner office, a fresh cup of tea in his hands and his eyes half awake. Kyuubi's next sentence snapped his pretty blues open like a parachute at four thousand feet.
'Today we summon your den mates.'
Naruto froze with the cup still to his lips and, as calmly as he could, set it down on the desk before leaping from his chair and dancing in frantic circles.
'I take it you approve then and I have your atten – NARUTO!'
He slammed back into his chair at full attention.
'Good. You remember the hand seals for this?' A quick nod.
'Don't forget the blood sacrifice.' Another quick nod.
'When you complete the summons, you are going to say, 'Kuchiose no jutsu: Gōruden Tsuinzu!' Can you remember that?' Another quick nod followed by happy bouncing in place.
'Sigh…. Alright. You may begin.'
Despite the excitement rolling off the boy in waves, he was nervous. Extremely nervous. Kyuubi had hinted to this first summons, this very special summons, as the twins would be forming a very special bond with the new Kitsune summoner. He was to be the equivalent of the Kitsune Taichou, their General, just below Kyuubi in rank with regards to the horde of fox summons at his disposal and the Kitsune nation, which by the way quasi-resided on this plane.
Scrolls she had shared even eluded to a rather sizable force of Kitsune warriors bred specifically for war but it would be a while before he had the strength to summon them from the Kitsune plane of existence. No, his first summons would be special, but she hadn't said how special or what that would entail. So, he was understandably nervous.
He began to build up chakra in his hara, located in the pit of his stomach, until she chirped in his mind that he should have enough for the summons. Peripherally, he could feel the warmth spreading out from his seal as he did this, a sensation he'd learn to associate with Kyūbi mixing her special blend of chakra and youki with his own.
Naruto nodded once then bit open his left thumb spreading the blood across his right palm before firing off the five hand seals chanting, "Ino, Inu, Saru, Tori, Hitsuji," and parroting, [Kuchiose no jutsu: Gōruden Tsuinzu!]
Slamming his palm into the floor (and secretly happy that no one else lived in the building), Naruto watched the runes shoot out in a circular pattern for three meters before erupting in a cloud of golden smoke. Since it wasn't clearing out right away, he walked over to the stove and turned on the fan to help pull the smoke out. When he finally turned around, the sight awaiting him took his breath away.
Bowing on the floor were two full-grown women in different modes of dress, one in a dark blue kimono and white obi trimmed in white and pink sakura petals, her golden blonde hair fanning out on the floor in waves of silk. Her long ears of soft golden fur, tipped in black, matched the two extremely fluffy tails waving gently from the back of her…. wait… what?! He blinked and rubbed his eyes and looked again. After pinching his arm…ow…. he walked over and squatted down to get a closer look ignoring the suddenly very sleepy sensation he was experiencing.
He could sleep later, must examine now.
He could tell that she noticed his approach, but her face stayed focus on the floor a hair's breadth from the tip of her nose. That meant she never saw his finger gently stroke her left ear from the base to the tip. The ear twitched slightly but she fought to keep it still as if she was afraid to offend the summoner. The result was that her breath came out in shivers and her body shuddered at his touch.
Naruto had spent some time in those ancient history books and reviewed some of the great periods of art. From the view he had, this Kitsune had a figure to make the great sculptors green with envy. Besides, it was cute the way her tails curled like that.
"Hnh, cute," he giggled out too engrossed in the fact that she had long fox-like ears on the side of her head to notice the surprised twitch of both female's bodies, their eyes flickering over briefly to meet in confusion followed quickly by defensive apprehension.
Oblivious, he hurriedly - but gently, took her hands and asked her to rise. For a young lad not quite aware of female sexuality, the front view was nothing less than spectacular – from a purely artistic perspective.
Her face was almond-shaped and brushed by honey, now with healthy doses of pink slowly fading from her cheeks. Her green eyes were like creamy jade, eyes that never strayed from his face, and the kimono flowed over her very curvy figure. With the initial shock of her ears and tails gone, he turned to the second figure still prostrate on the floor. Gently lifting her from the floor as well, Naruto took stock of both Kitsune females and was rendered speechless.
The second was a touch shorter by perhaps three or four centimeters. She had similar facial features but less oval and more angular. The eyes were the same beautiful shade of creamy jade though. Her clothes were patterned more after some of the shinobi he'd seen and consisted of dark blue trousers that hugged her body and a dark blue flack vest kept closed by hefty snaps and buckles, all of it covering a tight-fitting mesh shirt underneath. It was enough to show a healthy dose of cleavage but secure enough not to move. She had a face mask to cover the lower half of her features but wore it loosely around her neck. She carried a tanto strapped to her back, several pouches around her waist and a thigh holster for shuriken on her right thigh. On her left thigh, she had a mini bandolier holding three kunai within easy reach.
Both wore the same dark blue and open-toed sandals but only the one in the kimono had painted toenails. Oh yeah, they both had the same two tails of downy fur.
"P-P-P-Pretty…very pretty," he whispered out. Then the room grew dark as he fell backwards to land flat on his back, out like a light.
The shorter of the two women turned on the other immediately.
"You said it was her chakra! THIS," she paused to gesture with both hands at the unconscious boy, "is NOT Kyūbi-sama!"
The slightly taller and much curvier Tamami pursed her lips in concentration as she evaluated the small (and clearly human) child. It didn't make sense. They were both exposed to the new nine-tailed host not more than two hundred years ago so it couldn't be that she'd forgotten the energy signature so quickly. Besides, she was the only trained sensor of the pair and she was certain that their new liege lady had finally called them. It finally happened!
She pointedly did NOT squeal like a small child when the summons came. Nope!
Whatever was going on now made absolutely no sense to either of them.
"Well? What have you gotten us into now, sister? More importantly, how do we get out of it with our tails intact?" She seemed concerned but not panicked despite being trapped in what appeared to be a human village. Humans did not react well to Kitsune... unless they were perverts.
Somewhere deep in the forests of Taki, a white-maned shinobi traipsing through the greenery in old-fashioned geta sneezed loud enough to send birds into flight across a square kilometer.
Tamami looked up at her sister in confusion.
"She's in there." Her tone was flat but confident.
"Who? Who is in where?" Tatsua was beginning to think her beloved sister was a bit touched in the brain.
"Kyūbi-Ōjo. She's in there," Tamami cheerfully chirped as she squatted down next to the gently snoring boy and poked his stomach. She giggled again when his leg reflexively twitched at the sudden sensation.
Tatsua could only blink in shock. "No, nonononononono… Not possible!" Tamami noted that Tatsua appeared genuinely upset despite the calm certainty of her sibling. "You're absolutely certain she's in there?"
Her sister giggled even as she stroked his rounded cheeks drawing out that wonderful purring sound much to her delighted surprise.
"Positive." With a gentle shuffle, the longer-haired fraternal twin lifted the back of his head until his blond mop and shoulders were just as gently settled onto the warmth of her lap, the crown of his head pointed to her stomach.
"Oh, no you don't!"
Tamami looked up with confusion clearly written on her face. "No, I don't what? What are you talking about?"
"You are NOT falling in love with it! I'm not going to allow that to happen again just like what happened with that urchin back in Degarashi!
The younger of the two (by two minutes) blushed a bright shade of red.
"You promised to let that go, nee-san." Tamami's voice was soft and sad enough to make the battle-hardened Tatsua wince just a bit. That didn't mean she was going to let up on her soft-hearted sister.
"Normally I would but," she gestured again with both hands to the still unconscious Naruto snoring in her lap, "here we are again! What? Do you just love picking up strays? You can't save every pitiful creature that crosses our path, sis! We need to find her and soon. The Thirteen are growing anxious." Tatsua ended her rant and began pacing back and forth, her teeth worrying the nail of her left thumb while her sister idly ran her fingers through the blond's spiky hair.
"He's not an 'It;' he's the current vessel of the Kyū-bi." Tamami's emphasis on every syllable was extra clear despite the recalcitrant mumbling of her voice.
"Well, I'm not buying it but I know a way we can confirm it," Tatsua nearly growled out as she drew a kunai from her thigh holster.
Tamami's reaction was immediate as she leaned forward crossing her arms over the defenseless boy's chest hoping to protect him with her own body, her lungs barking out a sharp, "NO!" as she did so.
The buxom Kitsune didn't notice the boy's frame jerk at the sharp sound of her voice nor his hands beginning to twitch as his body reflexively fought to suck in air past the woman's kimono-wrapped bosom smothering his face. Tatsua did and decided some fun was in order.
"What are you honking about, silly goose? I'm not gonna off him." She waved her blade about casually indicating his lower extremities. "I figure I'd stab him somewhere non-vital and see if Kyūbi-sama's chakra healed him." Tamami's indignant rage was making her eyes pop open and her mouth drop lower and lower with each word.
"What, Tama-chan? You don't approve?" She was trying to hide her smirk as her sister gasped like a dying fish.
"How dare you- HWAAAH!"
Right about that moment, poor Tamami's face blushed a brilliant shade of red and her mouth shot open as wide as it could for a completely different reason.
Minutes later, a very red-faced Naruto was in full kow-tow before an equally red-faced Tamami apologizing for his wandering hands. Never mind that he was out like a light and suffocating under the weight of her rather heavy chest – he was six and embarrassed that he tried to lift the awkward weight from his face.
Tatsua's cackling laughter really wasn't helping ease the awkwardness much.
"Sua-neeeee!" Tamami's whimper, reinforced by her hands still crossed defensively across her chest, did manage to help the elder sibling gain some semblance of self-control, her final hiccupping coughs sputtering to a slow halt as she focused on the back of the blond creature's head.
"Okay, okay." Wiping away a final tear she squatted down next to the child and rapped on the back of his skull.
A muffled sound answered back.
"Look, kid, we need to figure out where we are so we can get back to our home and try again."
This time the boy did look up, despite the bright red hue to his cheeks, to lock eyes with her.
"Get home?" he asked showing absolute confusion.
"Yeah, home. You know, that place where people live when they're not out doing stuff?"
His face wrinkled up at her sarcasm and Tatsua resolutely refused to believe he was cute in any way, shape, or form. Nope, not at all, damnit.
"I don't understand. Kyūbi-nee-chan said you were here to help me." His face scrunched up in confusion.
"Well, you see kid, it's like this-." Tatsua was cut off by her now excited sibling's next outburst.
"Who is your Kyūbi-nee-chan?!"
Naruto was still having a hard time meeting her eye until the kimono-wearing woman grabbed his cheeks and forced him to.
"This is important…uh… what's your name?"
"Nawbuto," he garbled out past smooshed lips.
"Huh?"
Tatsua slapped the other woman's hands away from his face so he could talk.
"Ah, ahem, cough, my name is Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto."
Tamami nodded once. "Well, Naruto, it's important that we verify who your Kyūbi-nee-chan is. If she's who we think she is, we've been looking for her for a very, very long time."
Tatsua still looked unconvinced, her snort saying as much.
"She's the nine-tailed fox that attacked Konoha six years ago," he blurted out with almost zero emotion.
"Six years ago?" Both women looked at each other having been briefed of that occurrence by the senior collective of the Thirteen. "You're sure it was six years ago?"
"Yup, she attacked on the day I was born and the Yondaime sealed her into here," he promptly stated while lifting his shirt and forcing chakra to swirl in his core bringing the seal to the surface. "I should know. I'm six now."
Tatsua could only glance to her sister, who, after spending a few moments marveling at the seal, slowly reached out to touch it only to find herself drawn into the mindspace before the very Kitsune they had been searching for over the last eighty years or so.
Outside, Naruto glanced up at the clearly zoned out female hovering less than a foot from his face then back to the still-standing one holding the kunai in her left hand then back to the zoned-out woman again.
'Awkward…'
Tatsua stared at them both as she waited to hear if she could finally stab the poor boy so they could be on their merry way. Things to do and all that.
When Tamami came to with a start, she did two things.
First, she leaned forward and hugged the surprised orphan. Naruto found it warm and soothing, something he only got to enjoy when jiji embraced him but this was different and it made him all squiggly inside as his tiny arms reached out to embrace her back. It was overall too soon when the very pretty lady kissed his cheek and released a now very shocked Naruto.
Secondly, she stood up, walked over to her sister, and slapped her full on across the jaw. Surprise, and not a few tears, began to fill up the older woman's face as she gawked at her sibling with her mouth hanging wide open. What's more any soft-spoken or shy commentary from her normally placid sister was obliterated by the woman's next statement delivered with narrow-eyed resolve.
"Kyūbi-Ōjo did not appreciate your juvenile attempts at humor nor your threatening of her new vessel."
The blood immediately drained from Tatsua's face as her eyes shifted to lock on the equally surprised face of the small child glancing up at them still in shock from the sensation of Tamami's soft lips on his cheek. He couldn't ever remember feeling that sensation before even with Jiji.
"But… but, he's human!" she sputtered out finally.
"Ours is not to question but to serve."
"BUT-!"
"SERVE!" Tamami appeared to have made up her mind.
It took several more minutes before the still shocked Kitsune mustered up enough courage to prostrate herself before the equally still shocked child and asked for forgiveness, something Naruto gave immediately with a hug and a smile.
He really liked hugs.
She was joined a minute later by Tamami as they sat across from their new… Lord-ling? Tatsua could not hope that this news would be well received by the Matrons. A male hadn't held the great bijū in over five hundred years and that was by design.
So much for tradition.
Regardless, she shook off the shock and began the tedious process of explaining what the boy had unknowingly been signed up for.
"Taichou, I am Akaihimura Tatsua and this squishy waste of fur," the taller Kitsune in the kimono cut a vicious glare to her sibling, "…is my sister Tamami. We are to be your guardians and den mates from this day forward...apparently." Tatsua mumbled that last part hoping he didn't catch it but knew her sister did judging by the increased glare she got back.
Naruto scrunched up his face in concentration for about five seconds.
"I understand guardians but what do you mean by den mates?"
Tamami spoke up for the first time, her blush mostly under control. "She means that we will live, die, eat, sleep, bathe, and have any other… manner… of life experiences with you so long as we share your life."
Tatsua bluntly chimed in with, "We are going to live with you, kiddo!"
Naruto promptly passed out again, falling sideways while at rigid seiza attention, and flopped over until he lay flat on his back, face up. He finally had a family!
The Twins glanced at each other with matching stares of blinking confusion.
"Is this going to be a recurring theme? Should we buy him one of those special helmets?" Tatsua chirped.
Kyūbi sighed from inside her luxury prison as she watched the three interact through her host's eyes (at least until he passed out again). Sua-chan's reaction she expected, to a degree, but hoped she would come around. She'd hate to have to cast her away after all the work that went into selecting her for the position of handmaiden.
"Well, might as well move on to the next part of this phase."
She calmly walked over to the large table in the center and waved one hand over the surface while funneling a mix of spirit (Reika) chakra and youki through her palm. The surface blazed with dozens of seals and symbols. Touching each seal that she wanted with a finger, she slid the tip across the table surface moving the desired images directly in front of her kneeling station. Placing her palms on top of the next two seals she burst large amounts of energy into the images and watched them sizzle and burn away. On the statue standing in the middle of the rock garden, she could hear the sounds of chains snapping before they vanished into glittery pieces of light.
Rising from the table as the remaining symbols faded away, Kyuubi walked over to the large bed and got comfortable. The next step wouldn't take much energy, but she needed to be comfortable to help with concentration. As floating images of human anatomy and DNA strings flitted before her face, she began pulling and tugging, erasing and adding, constantly resequencing protein strains and restructuring the peskier genome code better suited to Kitsune than humans. As the mindscape shuttered, Kyuubi smiled and glanced one last time to the statue nestled in the middle of the garden as its eyes morphed from round discs to slotted pupils and longer ears sprouted from the side of its head.
"He's going to love this next part."
Kyuubi's grin split her face in two as she returned to her partially spliced sequencing and began to neatly tie off the new coding. Leaking a constant stream of her energy through the four seal portals now open to her, the boy's body began to slowly pulse and change.
~I I I~
A/N: Behind the Scenes: The Twins
Originally in the storyline, the conversation between the Twins - this realization that they weren't immediately head-over-heels loyal to the new Taichou, didn't come to light until much later in the story. With the combined story, it just made more sense to bring it forward to where it actually happened, meaning the day of their summoning. It also serves to highlight that undying loyalty is not immediately won when it comes to Kitsune - it has to be earned.
Fanaticism is something entirely different.
This conversation also highlights a second reference to the mysterious Tenth Taichou of the Kitsune and the impact he had over the Skulks (a skulk is a pack of foxes, more or less). He will become important much later on - and those of you that read the first release know who he is so, no spoilers, please!
The Twins, the last of a rare breed of Honey Kitsune transplanted from the Land of Honey to the Land of Tea to prepare for their service to the latest bijuu vessel, were selected to be the Handmaidens of the new Taichou. They were supposed to be summoned following her Awakening, which was interrupted by Uchiha Madara, which then led to the legendary battle between the Uchiha-teme and the Shodaime.
When she disappeared (having been sealed away by Uzumaki Mito), the Kitsune panicked and went into lockdown mode waiting for her to reform so they could pick another Vixen host. Males, since the 10th was removed from power, are just not considered a viable option. Fast forward a bunch of years to the second Kyuubi battle in Konoha on the 10th of October and we have a Shinigami situation of the worst sort - direct intervention by a deity not Inari.
Toru, having discovered where she went, relayed that to his Matron who, in turn, passed it to the leadership of the Thirteen, who then told the Twins to standby. If the great fox had been discovered, it would only be a matter of time before they would be summoned to serve.
Imagine their (meaning Tatsua's) disappointment when the call happens years later and comes from a small male - human - child. Normally not a problem unless your clan was one of the ones purged by the last male Taichou of the Kitsune, like the Honey Clan were. There would be some bad blood there one would think.
Small conflict of interest, no? Whatever will they do?
~III~