Naruto woke to a shadow drifting across his face. His room was dark save the harvest moon light pouring in through the windows. In the silvery murk came a chitter, a scratching on the floorboards. Bits of dark flickered at the far corners of his room, beneath his dresser, curling out from beneath his bed. An inexplicable chill raised the hairs on his neck.

Something wandered out of his bathroom. Something soundless, hulking. Naruto felt fear; the sleepy, sickly fear of dreams seep into his back, and he drew the sheets tight around his shoulders. But what good would fabric do against those claws, those gorilla-thick arms brushing along the floorboards, Naruto wondered.

Slowly, ponderously, the thing thumped over to his bed, the silhouette a swirl of moonlight and thick tar as it crosses the cone of light from his window. It eased down then, fingers like spider legs curling around the bottom bedpost, and slid beneath the rusted frame. When the last of its bulk fell beneath the edge of Naruto's futon, Naruto took a gasping breath, and let lose the fart he'd been holding in.

"Thank god that was gonna kill m- OH GOD BLARG-

It all happened so quickly. The beast was upon him at once. Naruto shed his covers and drew up his lamp from the nightstand to his left, the bulb sparking once as the cord tore from the wallsocket, a flicker of light dancing up a heavyset body; all glistening oil and nails.

Naruto struck. The moth-eaten lampshade flew to pieces over the beast's shoulders, bulb popping, tossing glass over its head. It gave a cry like two boulders rubbing together. A sound Naruto more felt than heard, like the rumble of a distant earthquake. One massive arm drew back and dashed him against the wall, then closed around his midsection and tossed him back, where he bashed against the far wall and fell to the floor, breath knocked out of him.

Naruto stumbled up, one arm cradling his gut, the other holding the bottom half of a five-dollar lamp. The beast started towards him, blood like jelly oozing from a wound on its temple. Naruto cried out and hurled the lamp at it, but the lack of breath and pulsing double vision must have been affecting him more than he expected because the porcelain curved right and exploded through his one good windowpane.

"Monster! Asshole!" Naruto retreaded to his bathroom - at least he tried to, instead the doorframe ran up and smacked him in in the face and knocked him back on his ass. He gasped and flailed over onto his side as the inky darkness rose up and crashed down where his face used to be. He pushed himself up and hopped back, and it must have been the adrenaline or the bowel-clenching terror pulsing in his ears because Naruto somehow managed to lift his entire four-drawer wooden dresser and hurl it like a Frisbee. The thing spun through the air, ejecting drawers like escape pods full of "clean" clothes, wadded up socks, empty beer cans and slick plastic tops from instant ramen packages. Was that his wallet? A clump of wadded up coupons and weathered yen flashed in the moonlight and was gone.

"Oh fuck you!" He had a brand new door right next to his first one.

The beast grew then, in the dark. Tired, frustrated. So much rage. Eyes boiled up along the face, shoulders broadened and hunched, brushed the ceiling as the legs thickened and stretched. Still blood drew from the wound on what passed for its temple, and oozed to the floor. The stench of it, of all of it made Naruto take a step back, and he felt the wall press against his shoulder blades.

Was this it, Naruto wondered. Not a bad way to go. Fighting, screaming, make it earn every drop of his blood. Maybe give it some interesting new scars to explain to its fellow monsters. His death would become legend, his corpse the stuff of campfire-stories. The thing drew closer, slowly, always slowly. Not due to the measure of its bulk, there was a steady confidence, an arrogance.

Mashijo the Strangler left three prostitutes in the gutters before AnBu tracked him down, black weeping lines around their necks, eyes bulging. Couldn't get it up unless he watched. Was Naruto giving the monster a rock hard boner? Fuck, now that was all he could think about. His death would be much less heroic if he was raped to death. Then it would just be sad. No one would talk about it. No one would applaud his sacrifice. They'd just act mournful and pretend he meant something for a few days and move on with their lives. Well fuck that. Fuck all of that.

Naruto's will tempered, then, in the dark. He tossed his shoulders back, drew up his fists, his chin held high. His target was in sight. He would not be forgotten.


"Holy shit, you guys!"

Eight in the morning and already Naruto was up and shrieking. The June bugs that had, until that moment, lulled Sasuke into a silent, vacant-stared complacency, cut out as though they'd lost power. The boy shuddered deep in his spine.

"You guys, holy shit you guys seriously!"

Kiba, not two chairs away and balanced horribly on the rear legs of his chair, sighed and clapped down to earth. Akamaru continued to seize on his head in that peculiar way dogs do when unable to find footing, smushing Kiba's cheeks and jamming his paws in the boy's mouth as he spoke. "Goddamnit."

"Seriously you guys, you don't even know! You don't even – fuck you! Just fuck you guys! Oh my god seriously!"

Naruto wasn't even halfway to the academy, how he managed to project was nothing short of miraculous. Shikamaru, off to the side in the one window-row chair with shade, made a nasal, sort of phlegmy noise from his throat, and rubbed his face into his crossed arms. "Why." He said. "Why is this a thing."

"Youguysdon'tevenohmygooooo-" Naruto wasn't even saying words anymore, just making noises that built and built until they muddled to an incomprehensible shriek with pitch and volume like a bandsaw chewing through linoleum. Sasuke crinkled his brow down at his hands, and balled up his fingers in unhealthily repressed rage. God did Sasuke hate Naruto. He'd make sure to tell him that when he arrived.

"OOOOOOOO-" Naruto exploded through the newly repaired window in a shower of glass and landed square in his seat, as was his morning ritual. Then he turned and said without pause, "I caught a goblin!"


"I hate you." Sasuke said.

"Hi Sasuke." Naruto's selective hearing whipped into action.

"Bullshit." Said Kiba. "Just no."

"I know, you're skeptical. Captain Skeptic. skiba. Skiba the Sk-"

"Shut up."

"I was skibtical at first too, but I know what I caught, and I caught a goddamn night-monster goblinpants." Naruto spread his hands imploringly, "Seriously, guys, come on. This is big news."

Kiba started laughing. "You are an idiot."

"He's right, you are." Sasuke said.

Naruto deflated a bit, and then swelled up once more like the endless tide, "Perhaps you aren't understanding me. I'm telling you I literally caught a goblin. In my house. I have a goblin in my house. There is a go-"

"You know, Sasuke." Kiba said, "with you, I figure just looking at you, if I'd never met you, I'd assume that you're the child of a dysfunctional marriage. But Naruto… you quite clearly have no parents. That has never been more obvious to me than at this moment, right now."

"You guys, there is literally a goblin tied up in my living room right now." Naruto figured if he repeated himself enough things would just work themselves out. "You have to come see it. Right now."

"At best you have a raccoon tied up." Sasuke said, "A raccoon that is completely losing its shit."

"Worst case you're in for kidnapping." Kiba said. "Which would be cool because then you would go away for a while."

"Oh you." Naruto flapped his hand good-naturedly. "But seriously you guys, I literally caught a goblin, and I tied it up with my least favorite shirt. I also might have beaten the shit out of it."

"Naruto," Kiba began, "even if goblins were actually a thing, which they aren't, you are just not physically capable of that. A goblin would wreck you. You would die, horribly. A horrible, painful goblin death."

"Like you can talk," Naruto scoffed, "I beat you every time we spar."

"Cause you fucking fart all the time." said Kiba, "There is something wrong, something seriously wrong with your digestive system."

"Look - you guys are missing the point," Naruto said, and stood; a breeze from the window saved Kiba from another unfortunate experience. "I am not lying. Look at me. Completely flaccid, you guys know I get hard when I lie. I fought a goblin to submission, tied it up, it is in my house right now. We are all going to look at it and mock it. Right now."

Kiba glanced down at Naruto's pants for a few moments. "… Holy shit he's telling the truth."

"Occam's Razor: you're an idiot." Sasuke said. "You eat nothing but ramen, all that salt probably shriveled your brain."

Naruto inflated with an ultimatum. "If there is not a goblin in my house I will pay each of you twenty bucks."


"You better goddamn pay up." Sasuke said. They crossed the halfway point in the stairwell and rounded a corner up ahead. The further up they got the better the condition of the complex, less footprints, less wear and tear, but more dust and more nature. Dead vines curled around support struts, scratches like the death-scrawl of a fatally wounded raccoon appeared here and there on the walls. On the fifth flight, they rounded the corner and stepped over a homeless man hanging over the stairs, completely limp and oblivious but for the hand clenched around a wide-mouth bottle of liquor. Naruto spoke.

"So, it was last night. I was sleeping, and then I woke up and it was there, coming out of my bathroom. And it just attacked."

"You probably farted or something." Kiba said. "I'd attack you too."

"No I did not." Naruto said. "…So we're squaring off, and I'm just a total badass just goddamn ninja'ing all over the place-

The beast fell upon him like a great wave, a sea of tar and teeth and stink. Naruto leapt to the side, back, eyes barely following the streaks of movement in the dark. Something caught him in the gut and hurled him back, but he dropped low and caught himself, falling into a runners pose. He launched, ducked under the punch, rolled over the kick, found himself beneath the beast.

"I get under it -

From there the beast seems to dwarf him. The legs as thick as his torso, hips towering above his head. But that didn't matter. His post-mortem reputation was at stake. Naruto saw his target above his head. He hunkered down, building elastic tension for the longest moment of his life.

"and I take that fucker out."

Naruto punched the monster in the dick like it was going out of style. It tensed, struck dumb. Naruto continued to wail away, and started screaming a bit, though he would leave that part when he recounted this adventure to his two children, Naruto and Naruto. Naruto screamed and flailed away until the sun rose, then tore his least favorite shirt to shreds and went to work. Then he took a nap because he was so goddamn tired.

"How does that work. Like you took out the knees? Sweep the leg? We're missing an important step in your takedown." Said Kiba. "Like, the most important step. The only step." Kiba made sure to step on the next drunk the passed. "And good lord do you live on the moon?"

"Eighth floor jackass." Naruto said. "it's called cardio. Also, I just punched the shit out of it. Not that complicated. End of story. And then I tied it up I mean, then end of story."

"We're here and you're both idiots." Sasuke said. "Naruto, open the door and you better pay up."

"Oh ye of little dick." Naruto said. Then laughed at his wittiness. "Oh me, and my wordplay," he said, "anyways, yeah you're an idiot. C'mon in dipshit." Naruto opened his door in the same way he always did, by mashing a closed fist against the nob and pretending he had a key. So far, the fact that anyone watching would assume his door locked had deterred any break-ins, and he was not about to mess with success. Naruto made a clicking noise with his mouth and ushered them both inside.

Sakura laid out on the floor clutching at her crotch and weeping, a strip of orange fabric tied around her ankles.

Kiba started cackling. "Naruto, you jackass."

"What did I tell you." Naruto said, chest puffed up with pride. "Goblin. Right here."

Sasuke could only shake his head. "Naruto, you jackass."

"What's with those shitty reactions?" Naruto said, "A goddamn goblin is right here guys."

"That's Sakura." Said Sasuke. "That is literally just Sakura."

Naruto furrowed his brow at Sasuke, then at Sakura's weeping form, then back at Sasuke. "The fuck are you playing at? It's a goblin. The hook nose-"

"Sakura."

"The crazy gibbering language and crinkly skin-"

"Sakura, man." Kiba said. "The hell's the matter with you."

"But- but the pointy ears and the insatiable mining lust-"

"Still just Sakura." Sasuke said.

"The DICK! The fucking DICK!" Naruto said. "I punched it like twenty times!"

"That's not even a thing here." Kiba said. "You're just an idiot."

"You're an idiot." Sasuke said.

Naruto crossed his arms and huffed. "Well screw you guys anyways."


END