When Naruto gets back to his apartment it's late morning. The knot in his gut is a heavy weight, but he's not anxious about getting caught. He'd cleaned up, wiped down his fingerprints, left all the keys in their respective places. This weight is something constant, a singularity in his chest that gives him vertigo.
What he's thinking of is crazy.
Insane.
He's never been that far out of the village before.
But he's desperate, and he's scared.
So scared.
Kids who haven't passed the academy exam aren't even allowed outside the city limits by themselves, and Naruto failed it. Twice.
But Iruka's words are still bouncing around in his head. Faith he hadn't expected gives him hope that this might not be as impossible as it seems.
"I think it's your Will of Fire."
The pain in his stomach is spreading, chasing up to tongue along his sides, though the intensity of it has subsided somewhat. When he goes to change the bandages he finds that almost all the gauze has been eaten away, leaving the cloth as nothing more than powdery ash pressed against his skin by the final layer of gauze.
He tests his seal one more time, finds the door open.
Dread rising like bile in the throat, he dives down.
He opens his eyes knee deep in muck, but instead of being angry and boiling it's cold and slimy, thick like mud or tar. It smells horrible, like sulfur gas and rotting tissue, but the air no longer chokes him as it burns down his throat. The space is darker than it's ever been– the only ambient light seems to be coming from Kurama himself. It radiates from the bijuu's middle, a warm reddish gold glow pulsing out in soft bursts that radiate along the fox's limbs and down his tails. It's steady and slow and comes in twos, like the beating of a heart.
Kurama is still, body motionless just beyond the bars. The inner light falters the further out it goes, flickering and dying towards the tips of his tails and the ends of his claws. In contrast Naruto can see purplish veins encroaching beneath the Kitsune's red fur, corruption given form. He wades forward, reaches out for the bijuu, running his fingers along the fur of Kurama's nose in that familiar gesture.
Tears threaten his eyes when some of the lush crimson fur, now darkened to burgundy, comes off in his palm.
"Kurama?" He asks, pleading. "Come on you stupid fox, wake up."
But it's no use, Kurama remains unconscious, his breathing slow and labored, and Naruto is alone again. He rubs his face against the chakra fur, tears pouring down his face. "Please…"
But no matter how hard he cries or how much he begs, the Kyuubi's eyes stay closed. Naruto's not sure why he thought it might be different, crying has never solved anything for him, never turned so much as a pitying glance. So when his tears have run dry he just sits, indifferent to the disgusting toxic feel of the rotten chakra around him. He keeps a hand in Kurama's fur, and lets a different emotion replace despair.
He calls up every memory he can, from every corner of his mind.
A warm nose on his back, nudging him away from a fall.
Tails curled around him, comforting and protective, as he's told stories of powerful creatures and old battles and the family he never knew.
Red eyes that warm from cold and callous to keen and mischievous.
Gentle corrections and grudging affection.
Intention surges up Naruto's spine, his jaw tightens, his eyes flash to diamond hardness, and he makes up his mind.
He has work to do.
He wakes to the smell of rain trickling in through the open window. He levers himself up, shakes the last of the weariness from his bones, and goes to check his packs.
The wind picks up as he throws his old bag over his shoulder, fingers of cool wind pulling through his hair. He takes a deep breath of it, letting the cool chill his lungs. He's always loved the smell of rain.
He leaves his note for Iruka-sensei on the counter. He hates lying to his teacher, but he'll be back before he can be missed.
He hopes.
Outside a soft drizzle is soaking the earth and grass. The sunset is both gorgeous and dangerous, shafts of rich red and purple light emboss the dark clouds ahead with a colourful warning.
The rain may be light now, but it won't stay that way.
By the smell and feel of the wind and air, Naruto knows the coming storm will be massive. He can feel it in the charge that's building in the atmosphere, in the pressure against his skin as it starts to drop, in the hush that's fallen over the usually noisy forests.
And he's headed right for the middle of it.
He has no idea if he can do this, no idea if he'd make it under normal circumstances, let alone with this monster monsoon on the horizon.
No time.
No choice.
The rain helps conceal him as he dodges the patrols on his way out of the village proper. The forest outside Konoha is dark and maze like, but Naruto's eyes are sharp enough to cut through the inky darkness.
He forms a concentration seal and starts to body flicker, darting up into the trees to leap from branch to branch. He feels tension snap tight in the air, feels the atmosphere grow heavy, and the storm breaks overhead.
In only a few minutes it goes from a sprinkling to a shattering, every drop slicing like needles, stinging his skin and ripping leaves off trees. Branches smack and drag against his arms, the bark of the trees becomes slick and hazardous. He loses sight of the path he'd been following almost immediately, but he knows, instinctively, which way is east.
So he forges his own.
He draws his chakra up with Kurama's. The bijuu's power is heady and toxic, but chakra is still chakra, and if he mixes it with enough of his own he keeps the true acid burn of the rancid energy at bay. It keeps him moving, and has the added benefit of draining some of the sickness from the bijuu's blood and slowing the corruption. He thinks.
He hopes.
Time starts to bleed together. The storm is like a living thing around him, swirling wind and pelting rain, blinding lightning and roaring thunder. His central chakra runs dry and he grasps for anything he can use, forces earth chakra into circulation because it's the first thing he can grab. The sensation is different, the wood beneath his feet and hands rumble at his touch as the power rips forth along empty channels, surging along his limbs and filling him with undaunted strength. It feels almost the same as when he first drew it forth, but the feeling is fuller now, rumbling energy that turns his bones from granite to steel.
When that strength bleeds away he draws on the next, pulls water chakra through in earth's place. A burst, a moment suspended in time, and the rain stills against his skin, shielding him for a moment from further downpour as it races through his system to give him the energy he needs. His blood sings in his veins with it's passing.
He draws fire up through him next, feels it scorch along his throat as he pants into the damp air, temporarily confused by the flashes of warm light he sees out of sync with the lightning strikes until he realizes he's literally breathing fire.
He draws on wind when fire dies and feels the gales around him twist to whirl around his feet and launch his steps further than he's usually capable of.
He saves lightning for last, the strongest of his chakra, and of all the elements it answers the most readily. It burns along his skin and through his veins with such potency it sears away some of the corruption, allowing him to breathe through the burning again as the electricity replaces that pain with it's own. It turns the rain to vapor the second it touches his skin, leaves his footprints charred like lightning strikes, his breath charged like a thundercloud.
The darkness of the sky doesn't subside, the rain doesn't let up.
Only when he notices the trees beginning change and drift apart does the rain ease from cold shearing to warmer fatter droplets. The soaking softens further to a drizzle and then a sprinkle, and then the dark clouds pull apart and light filters through the cracks as if through stained glass– in vibrant reads and regal golds– and Naruto stops in his tracks.
It's a sunrise.
Colours spill like water paints across the landscape below him, shining against tall grass, moving to dip and smudge over a cliff face that drops sharply into a swirling sea.
The coast?
Everything he'd read told him that it would be at least two days before he would reach this far. He's only been traveling for one night.
He drops down into the soft plant life beneath him. Aching and cold as he is, the sunlight is a balm on his skin. The sea wind grabs at his sodden clothes, wiping droplets of rain from his hair. He walks to the edge of the cliff, gazes down a perilous drop towards bright reefs and sharp rocks. Other than the inherent danger of a fall, the edge is shielded by thick trees on all sides. A safe enough place to rest.
He pulls his clothes over his head and hangs them to dry on a branch in the sun. As he does he looks down to see spiderwebs of black veins crisscrossing his skin from fingertip to shoulder. They pulse uncomfortably, like there's too much pressure in his blood, but the more of it in his system the less in Kurama's, and the more time be buys himself. He does his best to ignore the creeping ache of the corruption and pulls something to eat out of his pack. He's starving.
He spends the rest of the day napping on and off at the cliff's edge, recuperating from his rabbit race away from Konoha. He knows to go north from here, but that's all he does know– he has the crude map he drew based on the ones he found in the archives, but he's no artist, so it's a rough estimate at best.
He's not sure what drives him to sleep right at the line of the bluff, but something about the sight of the ocean calms him down, eases some of the lingering anxiety and soothes his frazzled nerves. He sleeps there until he feels like himself again, until he can stand with confidence in both body and chakra. He scrapes to his feet, stooping to pick up his pack, and stands toe to toe with the precipice. He takes a last fortifying breath to chase the fog from his eyes and arm him against the pain, and turns to go.
As he does, something in the wind changes, softens from the regular ocean gusts to something that whispers across his cheek like a greeting. He turns his head, but the wisp of feeling is gone as fast as it came.
Just my imagination.
He runs north as the sun reaches its zenith, chasing the gales that rise off the water. The land begins to change from dense forest to steep river valleys, and the sight of ocean currents whirling across rocky shoals marks the end of Fire country and the beginning of Whirlpool. He sees no people, but every once in awhile he'll catch a glance of abandoned villages through the thick, bright greenery or across the ravines at a river's edge. They're simple and small; clusters of wooden houses overgrown with saplings and ivy. He gets the feeling he's the first human being to be here in a long time.
As the day winds down into afternoon, he comes across such a village, nestled into a small bay pressed against the cliffside. He stands on a small ledge overlooking the array of crumbling houses, dark mossy browns offset by the cobalt brilliance of the sea beyond. It looks like a fishing village, or maybe a port– extensive docks lie stretched across the harbor in disrepair.
He slides down the steep incline towards it, oblivious, through the ache in his veins and the wonder in his eyes, of the easy grace in his movements now.
He's unaware of the grace and confidence of his movements as he leaps from stone to stone when the drop becomes too steep, heedless of how readily his chakra answers his call on even the barest of instincts, how it rises to his aid the moment he has need of it. It lies ready in this time of crisis, prepared now to do whatever he asks of it.
He skids to a halt at the edge of one of the larger buildings, a barnlike structure with most of the roof caved in. The ruin is all sharp broken edges softened by the crawl of nature over the debris, taking back what's hers. He walks the ruined docks carefully, moving slowly in case some of the planks don't feel like holding his weight. It's surprisingly solid construction for a bunch of wooden boards suspended over water. Something feels missing though, absent among the remnants. He leans over the edge of one of the docks, scanning the crystal water.
It's the boats…
More specifically, the fact that there aren't any.
Through all the ruin and rubble, there's no sign of anything that might have once resembled seacraft. For all the obvious care that was put into constructing the docks, there isn't so much as a broken dingy– in the water or in the debris of the village.
Now that I think about it, I don't remember the reports mentioning Uzushio having ships.
He'd just assumed that they'd be like Kiri, that they'd have the same kind of armadas Kurama had told him were a staple of the Hidden Mist infantry. But he sees no evidence of masts or curved planks that might have once made up a hull, just draped sheets of old and torn fishing nets.
Standing at the edge of the dock, he finds himself captivated by the sea again. The warm sun of afternoon has turned it from the cool greyish blue of early morning to a warmer tropical cerulean, hinted with greens as it winds along the shallows and deepening to a darker navy as it marches off towards the horizon.
Naruto reaches down, leans over the edge and drags his fingers through the water. It parts like ribbons around his fingers, warmer than he'd thought, swirling in tiny whirlpools against his palm. The water flows back against him as he pushes through it, an odd little current that swirls up around his wrist for a soft moment before sloshing back to normal level.
Another strange, elemental hello. Maybe he hadn't imagined the first one.
What is going on here?
Like some kind of chain reaction, the wind kicks up suddenly around him, twisting to whirl around him once, twice, then chase past him in a playful glide, dancing off along the surface of the water.
Something pulls at him, tugs sharply at some kind of old instinct in his chest like a chain yanking taught at a place just below his heart. Something deep.
Something animal.
It draws like a magnet to north, fixes his attention across the sea. He takes a step off the docks onto the water, and if this was part of the ninja village then it suddenly makes sense that Uzushio didn't have any ships. They hadn't needed them.
The sapphire sea is warm and clear and teeming with hundreds of colourful fish. They dart beneath him as he races over their coral homes, chasing his sandals, flitting this way and that beneath his shoes. Naruto wonders if they're used to this, if once upon a time they chased dozens of shinobi across the surface of their sea.
But the ocean is empty now, not a boat or soul in sight across miles and miles of uninterrupted water, stretching on and on until the blue of sea meets the blue of sky.
The wind comes out to play again, fluttering impishly, practically daring Naruto to chase it. He's never been one to turn down a challenge, so he bolts after it, bounding over the swells to move with it. Something bright and spontaneous wells up in him, something that numbs the ache in his veins and chest as he leaps over the waves in twirls and twists, bouncing across the water and laughing.
His chakra wants to join the fun, so he lets it switch from Yang to Water, feels the texture of the sea beneath him change under his feet. He starts to ride the waves instead of running over them, sliding up to crest the surges and then pushing off from the top, twisting like a gymnast on the way down.
The wind and water respond to him– the breeze tucks into little whirlwinds around him, cradling him as if to slow his descent. The water joins in on the game, reaching up to meet him as he falls and rising up to aid him when he leaps again. The ocean steals his sandals and he doesn't even notice, giggling madly as the sea tosses him again and the wind pulls at his fall, caught up in the strange feeling of camaraderie and welcome as the wind and water greet him like old familiar friends.
An island grows out of the distance like the back on an enormous turtle, a dark shape cresting over the horizon.
His companions turn from playmates into guides, urging him onward towards the shape. The pull in his chest gets tighter, a sense of foreboding warns him to be prepared for whatever he finds. The chakra in the water and wind is a tangible thing now, living things that grasp at his ankles and shirt, pulling him closer to what they must know is his mother's home.
The ocean pulls as his calves, an askance to veer south. He does as asked, following a broad curve across water that grows more and more still the closer he comes to the island. Most of the island is ringed by sharp cliff faces adorned with strange stone columns formed in the shape of hexagons. The reports he'd read called them 'basalt columns' though Naruto's not so sure what makes them special.
They halt their march to curve inward and form the entrance to a sheltered bay, which the wind herds him towards as soon as he notices it. He bounds over the threshold onto the glassy lake-like surface of the bay and something in the air changes, goes as still as the water beneath his feet.
Naruto can't sense anything wrong exactly, but it feels like he's somehow walked into the past, like the entire island is frozen, suspended in time. The only movement comes from the water and wind around him, and only then when it's practically touching him, like his mere presence is waking up something that's been asleep for a long time.
Decades.
He steps off the water onto the beach, a long crescent of sand black as pitch, as stark against the pale basalt stones as an ink spill on parchment. The sand ripples out from the touch of his bare feet against the warm granules, a pulse that leaves an imprint like a rock thrown in still water. The world around him is still and silent but for the subtle rush of air and lap of waves. Nothing moves or breathes; no lizards skitter and no birds sing, just empty quiet.
Yet the chakra in the bones of this place is palpable. It sings in the air, the water, the sand beneath his feet, and yet it seems to hold its breath.
As if still in mourning.
Naruto gets the feeling that he's been given some kind of honor he doesn't understand.
Breath held tight in his chest, he moves up the bank. The sand marks his passage across the beach, little ripples that erase his footprints as he walks. The columns are natural stepping stones, and he climbs them quickly, moves to stand at the crest of them. When he reaches the top, he understands.
The broken ruins of Uzushio lie stretched out before him. What must have once been beautiful towers of golden stone lie shattered across the valley like clay pots. Brilliant red tiled roofs caved in over the husks of buildings, warm cobblestones the color of butter lie cracked and upturned in heaps. No growth has occurred here. No new trees sprout between cracked walls, no moss crawls over upturned stone, no mold flecks wooden beams. Nature has withheld her reaching fingers. No new life has touched this place.
Out of fear, or out of respect? Naruto will never know. Either way, he can sense them, the reasons why he's been guided here.
The bones beneath the rubble.