Chapter 2: The Boy and the Beast
After a while the pain does not matter anymore. It is an ocean teeming with minute life, surging and breaking waves across the shores of his consciousness. He is floating in its warm water, surrounded by it on all sides. He feels it but does not mind it; its myriad hues fascinate him with their complexities, so that the pain is a distraction unto itself. He knows that he should be fighting the pain, struggling to break above its enveloping blanket. Something important is going on, something that needs his attention, and he needs to wake up and deal with it.
But he is tired and wants only for it to end, whatever it is.
He is afraid of opening his eyes. There is a monster out there, lurking just beyond his eyelids with its gaping maw wide open, baring sharp teeth dripping with steaming saliva. It is hungry for him, and the moment he opens his eyes, he'll fall victim to it. So he stays still and quiet and prays that sleep will take him away. And he lets himself sink.
In the ocean of pain, he can hear his own heartbeat. It is beating very fast and very hard, so that he can see the water rippling and shaking to its rhythm. It disturbs him to see it. He knows it means something bad is happening.
Above the water, a dark shape looms, looking down at him. He knows it is not the monster that awaits him—well, not the monster. This is another monster. It also waits for him, patiently, like a spider waiting for the fly. It plunges its head into the water and grins at him with its giant teeth, red eyes flaring like live coals.
"Hello boy!" It reaches for him and snatches his wrist with its clawed paw. Above the water, its nine tails slashes at the air like hungry snakes. "Isn't it about time you stopped sleeping? If you don't wake up now, you'll never wake up."
"I don't want to wake up," Naruto said in a trembling voice. "Just leave me alone."
"Ah, I wish I could," Kyubi hisses with sardonic amusement. "If I had the choice, I'd leave a little brat like you to die on his own any day. Unfortunately, we're bound together so if you die, that means I die as well. I'll be damned if I die at the hands of that little worm that calls himself a snake."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want you to get up, boy, the way you always do. What's the matter? Are you finally ready to lay down and die? After driving everyone crazy with all your mouthing off?"
Naruto remembered it then, the fights with Neiji and Sasuke. How had he found the strength to get up all those times? He did not know, but he knew that it had been nothing like that with Orochimaru. The man had radiated an absolute malice towards him, a desire to wipe out his existence so strong that Naruto felt himself being erased slowly and deliberately in the man's mind. How could he possibly be expected to face someone like that?
"I can't get up anymore," Naruto whispered. "He's too strong for me."
Kyubi narrowed its wicked eyes at him. "That he is, but that has nothing to do with it. If you don't get up now, we're both dead. And your friend and village will be soon to follow."
"I can't," Naruto whimpered, but he kicked himself towards the surface anyway. Names and faces came to him, unbidden. Even if he could not win, if he gave up now, he would he handing them up to Orochimaru on a plate. He would be essentially murdering them all, like the cowardly failure everyone thought he was. "I can't do it by myself."
Kyubi seemed to shrug at him. "You still have to try. For my sake if nothing else."
Naruto grabbed onto Kyubi's paw, his fingers digging and tangling into the fox's mangled fur. He grinned at the fox through a mouthful of blood, "I told you I can't do it by myself. If you want to keep living, it's time you start earning your keep."
Kyubi smiled at him like a fox that's just gotten into a henhouse, "Boy, do you even know what you're asking? You've got some nerve, asking the devil for a favor."
Naruto did not look away. He held Kyubi's flaming eyes with his own blue ones, seeing the terrible choice he would have to take and its consequences. "No matter what it takes, I won't back down."
He gave one more kick to the surface, the bitter water of that ocean filling his nostrils and stinging his eyes.
*-*-*
"He'll get up," Sasuke whispered to himself frantically, looking at Naruto's prone body. Five minutes had already passed. It was a new record for Naruto, but Sasuke knew that was all it was—a new record. Naruto would surely get up. Naruto was a guy who did not know the meaning of defeat. Naruto would not—could not—die. Not here, not like this.
Orochimaru bent and picked Sasuke up by his collar, dragging him along like a bag of fruit. "I'm not very happy with you Sasuke-kun. You've made me go through a lot of trouble."
"He's still alive," Sasuke insisted, ignoring the man's words. His eyes were still fixed on Naruto. "You can't kill him that quickly. He's not that kind of guy!"
Orochimaru hesitated and looked at Sasuke with amusement. He changed direction and started walking towards Naruto's body. He nudged Naruto's prone body with the toe of his boot, then kicked it so that Naruto rolled onto his back. Still, the boy did not move. Sasuke could not even see his chest rising and falling.
"Are you happy, Sasuke-kun? I think your friend is thoroughly dead," said Orochimaru. Sasuke thought he could detect a hint of relief in the voice.
Orochimaru turned towards the border, but halted suddenly in his tracks. Sasuke looked up wearily to see what was the matter. The man's normally pale face had gotten even paler and a sheen of sweat covered his skin. His lips were ashen. Without ceremony, he dropped Sasuke to the ground.
That was when Sasuke saw the hand clamped around Orochimaru's ankle.
"Hey, you," said the familiar voice. "I'm not done with you yet."
Sasuke could not remember the last time he felt true relief like when he saw Naruto begin to slowly stand. Relief was cut short, though, when he saw that there was something…odd about Naruto. It was the same feeling he had felt during Naruto's fight with Gaara, the presence of an overwhelmingly powerful Chakra that made the blood pound dizzyingly in his temples. His throat was dry; his tongue had shriveled up in his mouth.
The Naruto that stood before him was surrounded by a vortex of chakra. It streamed from him so profusely and violently that it seemed to come from an unlimited source. And Naruto was not so much a boy as he was a beast shoved into the ungainly body of a boy. His fingers were tipped with sharp claws and his posture was that of an animal tensed and ready to pounce. He looked at Orochimaru with blood red eyes, and he smiled.
"I think I've got something that belongs to you," Naruto growled. The kunai that had pierced his body now slowly retracted. Red chakra filled the wound and the flesh re-knitted, leaving his body unscathed. Red chakra wound around the kunai and enveloped them completely.
Then they seem to have disappeared. Sasuke did not see them again until he heard Orochimaru grunt in pain; they had all been flung at Orochimaru, propelled by Naruto's monstrous chakra. They'd all hit Orochimaru in exactly the same spots where Naruto had been hit, all but the kunai aimed at his heart. Orochimaru had caught that one; it impaled his right palm, its tip an inch away from his heart.
It was a simple attack, but the chakra that had fueled it was unbelievably powerful. Sasuke had not even seen the kunai move. He had not even seen the blur of color which signified their movement. They had escaped his eyes—his Sharingan eyes—completely. For all he knew, they had simply disappeared and then reappeared again.
"Annoying boy. I was careless. I should have made sure you were dead," Orochimaru muttered, but Sasuke caught the way his voice trembled slightly.
Naruto's red eyes narrowed into slits, but his smile grew wider. Fox-like. "I was dead."
Naruto dashed forward suddenly, his form disappearing in a blur of motion. He disappeared again by Orochimaru's side, his claws ripping at Orochimaru's back. The man tried to dodge, but he was no match for Naruto's speed. The moment Orochimaru moved away, Naruto was on his other side, kicking and clawing like a wild animal, his mouth still split into that manic grin.
When Orochimaru finally fell, Naruto pounced on him like a hungry beast and tore at Orochimaru's throat with his teeth. Sasuke edged away from the two of them, horrified and terrified. Orochimaru turned his panicked face to Sasuke and reached out for him with grasping fingers.
Pain seared into his neck as the curse mark burned him. He fell to the ground, the pain printing dizzying marks of red and yellow across the back of his eyelids.
"Stop!" Orochimaru cried at Naruto. "If you don't stop now, your friend is dead."
Naruto halted, his mouth dripping with Orochimaru's blood. "Is that a threat?"
Orochimaru inched away from the boy and towards Sasuke, who was writhing in pain from the curse mark. He smirked at Naruto, his face smeared with dirt and blood. "The boy is totally under my control now. He's got my curse mark at level 2. I can kill him."
"You need his body, you said."
"It'll be of no use if I die before I can obtain it."
Naruto settled back onto his haunches and cocked his head to the side, looking at Orochimaru. He licked the blood off of his lips and seemed to be considering something of vast importance. "Ne, Orochimaru. I think there's one thing you should know."
Orochimaru looked at him uneasily, his eyes flitting about as if looking for an escape route. "What's that?"
Naruto grinned at him and leaned forward, his palm flat against the ground. "A snake should never threaten a fox."
Naruto sprung off the ground and disappeared in a blur of motion. Orochimaru had only enough time to scoot backwards before Naruto pounced on him again, his teeth clamping around Orochimaru's throat.
"Wait!" Orochimaru cried, and his only response was the wet crunch of his trachea breaking beneath Naruto's teeth.
Orochimaru took a long time to die, and Naruto relished every moment of it. Sasuke watched as his teammate slowly lick the man's blood off of his lips and fingers. The curse mark had stopped burning him, but he felt more afraid than ever with Orochimaru dead and Naruto still alive. Twice Naruto had looked at him and grinned at him with bloody teeth, and twice Sasuke had turned away and gotten sick on the forest floor.
When Orochimaru was finally dead, Naruto got to his feet and walked slowly over to Sasuke. He crouched down next to Sasuke and smiled that fox-smile again, his eyes burning blood-red. "Well, Sasuke-kun, looks like you owe me a favor."
"What are you?" Sasuke had finally asked.
And Naruto had answered, half mockingly: "I am he who has eaten the devil's fruit." Then, almost as an afterthought, he smiled at Sasuke and added: "I'm still hungry."
*-*-*
Sasuke had dreams after that. In his dreams, he would relive the whole thing over and over again, though each time the monster changed its shape a little bit. Always it was a gigantic red fox with nine tails, but sometimes it had red eyes and a stupid, crooked smile and sometimes it had sad, blue eyes and rows of razorblade teeth. Each time it got a little bit closer to him, maw gaping or claws extended, kunai ready or chakra choking him. And each time, just when he thought it was dead, it would retract and strike itself.
Sasuke still is not sure if that happened that day really happened, or if it was a dream dreamt in delirium. All he remembered were the eyes. The red, crazed eyes as Naruto approached him, mouth still full of Orochimaru's fresh blood. And then blue eyes opened in pain and horror, and Naruto was scrambling away from him with a kunai stabbed through his ownpalm. Sasuke remembered that Naruto was crying and babbling hysterically, but he was too frightened to make any sense of what was happening.
He just remembered hearing Naruto screaming, "Kyubi! Kyubi! Kyubi!" And each time he screamed out the word he would twist the kunai deeper into his own hand, as if trying to keep an enemy at bay rather than his own flesh.
He remembered nothing after that. When he opened his eyes again, Sakura was there. Sakura with tears of happiness in her eyes and a white hospital room with the smell of flowers wafting sweetly through the air. He was wounded but still alive, scolded but still accepted, and totally free of the curse mark.
He had to stay in the hospital for a month to fully recuperate, and in that time the village celebrated the death of Orochimaru with vigor. Even stuck in the hospital as he was, Sasuke could feel their elation wafting to him. Orochimaru was dead. Peace was finally here. And it was all thanks to….thanks to…
But they never mentioned who it was all thanks to. The hero of the story was conveniently blotted out, hidden by their joyful celebration so cleverly that you'd never even know there was a hero. For all Sasuke knew, Orochimaru could have died of a heart attack. But Sasuke knew better.
He tried to ask Sakura, but she always gave him vague answers. When he was well enough to seek the answers for himself, he went to Naruto's house and found it empty. The clothes were still there, the bed rumpled, the table cluttered with ramen boxes and milk that had started to develop a life of its own. But Naruto was not there.
He checked the hospital and found no Naruto. He checked the ramen shop and found it empty and on the verge of going out of business. He checked the forest, the academy, the hot springs, the training grounds. Finally, he went to Kakashi-sensei to find out the truth.
And the truth was: Naruto was gone. He had left two weeks ago with Jiraiya and no one knew when—or if—he was coming back. He had not gotten permission from the Fifth Hokage, so by all rights he should be declared a missing-nin and hunted down (and there were some people in the village who fully supported this, even knowing what Naruto had done for them), but Tsunade had not issued the order so for the time being, Naruto was just…away on vacation.
The news and circumstances of Orochimaru's death had spread far and wide, as news of this import was apt to do. Customers surged into the famed Konoha, so that every available jounin and chuunin was kept busy from morning to night. The Chuunin exams were held again, without any problems this time. In Konoha, time passed.
About two years after the incident and one year after Sasuke passed his Chuunin exam, a business proposition was sent out to all the shinobi villages, as well as to famed mercenaries and bounty hunters. The reward was $100 million. The client was kept anonymous. And the mission was quite simple: to capture Uzumaki Naruto, dead or alive.
And thus, Konoha's #1 hyperactive ninja, became the famed $100 million Genin.
TBC