Chapter Five:  Taming the Beast

Sometimes he dreams of dreaming:

He is running leisurely across a vast desert, his paws digging into the pale sand and leaving craters that will resist the wind's cleaning efforts for months to come.  Without effort, he is crossing the suicidal breadth of the largest desert on the planet; beneath his paws, the sand passes by like water in a fast-flowing current.

Soon he reaches the outskirts of the desert, where the vast sea of sand gives way to scraggly undergrowth and stubborn brown patches of grass.  Before long he has arrived at the edge of the village.

To him, they are not much more than ants with clever and elaborate facial muscles.  Even now, they gaped at him, horrified, as he bounds over their village.  From below, they stared up at him in a rictus of horrified fascination as the shadow of death eclipses their village.  He clears the village in a single bound, one of his nine tails brushing slightly against something.  He continues on, his mind not registering the destruction left in his wake.

He is aware of a growing hunger in him, a savage thirst that resonates both in his throat and his fangs.  He wanted to feel something—something struggling!—between his teeth.  Occasionally he would go into the forests or into a village to hunt for large animals or humans.  He did not particularly like humans; they were weak and did not put up a fight, hardly worth his attention.

That was before he discovered the shinobi villages.  If regular human were mere ants, then surely the shinobi would be fire ants.  They were still pathetic, but much more entertaining than regular humans.  For one, they actually thought they could win against him.  That amusement alone was worth the effort for him.

In the second village he raided, one of the shinobi conjured up a youma.  He did not know what surprised him more: the fact that a human could have the capacity to conjure a youma, or the fact that any of his kind would willingly be subject to the rule of a mere human.  In his disgust, he destroyed the youma and the entire village without much toying around.  As to be expected from such a pathetic creature, the youma died without putting up much of a fight.

Eventually he found that human-controlled youma were more abundant than he realized.  In every village he visited afterwards, there were at least a couple of shinobi who controlled youma.  Soon it became his habit to seek out these youma; he enjoyed the taste of their blood spurting in his mouth, the waning struggle as life left their bodies.

They had no chance.  They were pathetic creatures, gods that wallowed in the mud of humankind.  Creatures such as they could never compete with him, a free and pureblood youma who would never be controlled by any human—

Until…

Until a certain blond brat showed his face.  First the blond brat who proclaimed himself Hokage, now a blond brat who says he'll become Hokage.  Maybe they are the same person.  If he killed the one, wouldn't the other die as well?

But wait…the other was already dead.  Well, if so, why isn't this one dead as well?  Not one after all, but two…two brats.  But they might as well be one.  Cut one and the other will bleed as well; the blood that flows is the same after all.  Hurt one and the other will die a thousand times over.

Kill one…

Naruto woke up gasping, his body covered in cold sweat.  He licked his dry lips and ran his hands over his face, making sure that it was the same as he remembered it.  He flexed his fingers experimentally, feeling strangely detached from the motion.  Somehow, he felt less than human.

He'd been dreaming again.  He could not remember what the dream was about, only that dreams like these always made him feel scared and uneasy upon waking up.  He'd been having them more and more often since the incident three years ago, but his mind cowered away from that subject, refusing to attach the two issues.

Naruto got out of bed, his sore muscles protesting.  He felt tiredness seeping all the way into his marrow.  If Jiraiya were here, he'd be in big trouble for using so much chakra.  If Jiraiya were here—Naruto pushed the thought away.  The old man wasn't here, so there was no point thinking about it.

What was important now was that he did not drain himself any more than necessary by using chakra.  Kyubi seemed to have calmed down, so perhaps he didn't need to keep up the chakra barrier anymore.  In any case, if things kept up like this, he wouldn't last more than another day before collapsing.  If Jiraiya were here he could trust himself to sleep and replenish his energy, but Jiraiya wasn't here and he had to be on guard at all time against an attack.

His position had already been discovered, so chances were that word was already spreading.  If prior experience could be trusted, he'd probably be attacked three or four times today.  Naruto sighed inwardly.  It was already a bother fending off bounty hunters, but now he had to think of Sasuke and Sakura as well.  Having friends sure was a burden.

But still better than none at all, he thought to himself.

A polite knock sounded at the door, "Naruto?  Are you awake?  It's almost noon already.  Come out and have some lunch, sleepy-head!"

"Lunch?  Wah, you guys have food out already?"  Naruto jumped out of bed and flung the door open, "Good morning, Sakura-chaaaaan!"

Sakura sighed and pulled him back as Naruto rushed out the door, "Oi, oi, at least wash your face and brush your teeth first before you come down."

Naruto looked at her blearily, "Why bother?"

"Eww, Naruto!"  Sakura made a face and pushed Naruto towards the bathroom.  "Is this what you've been living like?  I would have expected better from Jiraiya-san."

"Why?"  Naruto asked, puzzled.  He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the tap water, dunking his head into the water filling the sink.  He gasped and rose from the water, shaking his head and spraying water from his wet hair like a dog.  He tied the wet strands back into a ponytail with a leather thong.  "Why would you expect anything from that old pervert?  I sure don't."

Sakura looked at the dripping Naruto with amusement and had to admit that he had a point.  "Ne…where is Jiraiya-san anyway?  I thought he was supposed to be raising you."

"Raising me?  HAH!  I'm the one raising him!"  Naruto shrugged, a dark expression covering his face.  "Anyway…he's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded and proceeded to fill his toothbrush with excessive toothpaste.  "He's gone to a better place.  I wouldn't wait around for him, if ya know what I mean."

"A better place?  You mean…?"  Sakura stared at Naruto, shocked.  The boy shrugged again, obviously not wanting to talk about it, and proceeded to viciously attack his teeth and gums with the toothpaste.

"I can't believe it…" Sakura said softly.  "I mean Jiraiya-san of all people.  I never thought that he…that he could…well…"

Naruto rinsed and spat with obvious disgust.  "Why the hell wouldn't you?  He's obviously that kind of man!  He just left without a thought of how it would affect me!  I'm glad he's gone.  He better not come back or else I'll kick him right back where he came from again!"

"Naruto!"  Sakura did not know what to say to the boy.  Naruto was obviously grieving over Jiraiya-san's death, and like the boy she knew him to be, he was masking it with anger.  He'd been with Jiraiya for three years.  The man was as close as anyone had ever gotten to being a father to Naruto.  Losing him must have been a painful ordeal.  "I'm sorry, Naruto."

Naruto shrugged again, looking confused and embarrassed.  "There's no reason to be.  I mean…it's not like it's your fault he's like that.  Let's go eat."

Naruto bounded happily out of the bathroom and down the stairs with a pensive Sakura in tow.

"Morning, idiot," Sasuke greeted Naruto as the other boy came down the stairs.

"Morning, jackass."  Naruto yawned and sniffed theatrically at the food on the table.  He surveyed the surrounding, noted the blood splashed on the floor and the sight of four shinobi gagged and bound on the floor.  Sasuke was using one of them as a chair.  Naruto tilted his head to the side and said with deliberate nonchalance, "Something seems different."

"Ah.  I decided to change the décor," Sasuke said and rapped his knuckles against his "chair's" skull.

Naruto sat down on one of the other shinobi, ignoring the groan that issued from the man.  He bounced up and down a few times until the man silenced.  "You have awful taste."

Sakura joined them at the table, rolling her eyes at the boy's game.  She nudged her chair out of the way and replaced it with a real wooden chair.  "Honestly boys, it's a little early in the morning for this."

"Che.  It would have been earlier if somebody hadn't slept in all day."

Naruto shouted something indignant at Sasuke, but due to the mouthful of food he was currently working on, it came out as nothing more than an indignant spray of soba noodles.  Sasuke held up a napkin to deflect as much of the half-chewed projectile as he could.

"Naruto has a point there, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said, trying to keep a straight face.  When was the last time she'd made a joke like that?

Even Sasuke looked like he was trying with all of his might to viciously slaughter the smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  "Well whatever," he said.  "I would have preferred we leave bright and early in the morning, that's all."

Naruto slurped a noodle noisily.  "Ah, you guys are leaving?  That's too bad.  I was going to take you to this great yakitori restaurant in the next town."

Sakura sighed.  "We can get yakitori anywhere, Naruto.  We can all go once we get back to the Leaf Village."

Naruto nodded.  "Yeah, I guess you guys can get yakitori whenever you want.  Well, have a good trip."

Sasuke exchanged a glance with Sakura.  Was Naruto being deliberately obtuse, or did he really not realize their intentions?

"Ne, Naruto…"  Sakura began slowly.  "You're coming with us…aren't you?"

Naruto looked up at her, his face blank.  "Am I?

"Of course you are!" Sasuke shouted, standing up.  "What kind of question is that?"

"Anou sa, anou sa…"  Naruto said with perfect innocence, his eyes as cold as the snow that fell outside.  "I never said I was going anywhere."

Sasuke sputtered indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to form a coherent sentence through his anger.  "W-Well what the hell are you going to do?  We've finally found you, so of course you're going to come home with us?  What else are you going to do out here all by yourself?"

"Oi, Sasuke," Naruto said, a smile playing across his lips.  "I was the one who decided to leave of my own accord.  It's not like I got lost.  I wasn't waiting around for you guys to find me."

"You…you arrogant…you…DOBE!"  Sasuke sat down heavily, much to the distress of the man beneath him.  He stood up again, pounded his fist against the table, and shouted.  "I don't care.  You're coming home with us."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto rose from his chair and leaned across the table, eyes begging for a fight.  "You gonna make me??"

"Boys…"  Sakura began nervously.  It was bad enough that her two teammates were arguing like seven year olds, but these two mad seven year olds had enough power between them to destroy an entire village, and being between them was definitely not a good place to be.  "Let's calm down…"

"I've been living on my own for three years now, no thanks to you, so don't you tell me what I can and can't do!"

"Living by yourself?  Living by yourself?  HAH!  If I hadn't been around, these guys would've skinned you in your sleep and you wouldn't have had any idea!"

Naruto winced at Sasuke's words.  It was true that he had not detected the shinobi.  He'd used up so much chakra the day before that his defense was crumbling.  Still, the accusation hurt.  "You're one to talk, Sasuke.  If I remember correctly, you were the one whose life needed saving!"

Sasuke flinched, his face twisting into an expression of pure venom.  "I never asked you!"

"Yeah?  Well I ain't asking you now either, so BUTT OUT!"

"The both of you, just—Sasuke-kun!"

White energy crackled in Sasuke's palm as the sound of a thousand birds filled the air like a chorus of harbingers.  Naruto's eyes widened as Sasuke dashed at him with surprising speed.  He tried to move, but his muscles would not react fast enough and the next thing he registered was Sasuke's body crashing into his, pushing him back against the wall.

Sasuke brought his hand down and forward in a savage thrust.  Naruto closed his eyes in the last second, preparing himself.

I didn't sense it.  Not until now.  I did not sense a thing.

Sasuke's Chidori broke the wall behind him, spraying plaster onto Naruto's face and hair.  The spray of plaster left minute cuts on his cheek, which healed almost as soon as they formed.  He doubted it would heal in the same way if his eyes had been destroyed.

Behind them, the shinobi impaled on Sasuke's hand gurgled wetly and fell to his knees.  Sasuke eyed him coldly and twisted his hand free of the man's rib cage.  "Excuse me; we were in the middle of a conversation."

Sakura collapsed to her knees, relief flooding her.  Damn those boys!  Why did they always insist on being so overly dramatic?  For a second there, she was sure that Sasuke was going to kill Naruto.  And what was up with Naruto anyway?  He was totally different from the way he was yesterday.  He seemed more like the old, clumsy Naruto that she was used to.

Sasuke shifted his gaze from the man dying in the adjacent room to Naruto.  "You were saying?"

Naruto tried his best to look at Sasuke with disdain.  "I coulda done that."

"If we leave now, you'll be dead before the day is over.  I don't know what's up with you, but the fact is that there are people out there hunting you, and you're in no condition to fight them.  Come back with us to Konoha; the whole village can protect you there."

"I'm not going back to Konoha," Naruto said firmly.

"Why?" Sasuke and Sakura demanded in unison.

Naruto looked away from them, embarrassed to be saying such an emotional thing out loud.  "Well…there are people there.  People that I care about.  All my friends are there; Iruka and Kakashi-sensei are there; Konohamaru is there; that baba is there; you guys are there.  Everyone I love is there.  If I go back to Konohamaru, I'll be putting everyone in danger.  It's enough that I'm being hunted.  I don't want the whole village to be under attack."

"Naruto no baka!"  Sakura exclaimed.  "It's precisely because the people you love are there that you must go back.  You're going to be the next Hokage, remember?  You've got to come back and protect the people you love!"

"Protect them from what?  The only thing I can protect them from is myself."

Sasuke made a disgusted sound and sneered at him.  "Coward.  You're just making an excuse to run away."

Naruto turned on him, furious.  "What the hell would you know, Sasuke?"

"Of course I would know!"  Sasuke spat back.  "I tried to run away once, too.  But somebody told me a coward and came to drag me back.  I can't believe you'd go back on your own words now.  But then I guess I shouldn't have expected much from you.  After all, we're not the same."

"Sasuke…" Naruto finally hissed, his fists clenched at his side.

"Hm?"

"When we arrive, I'm gonna have a fight with you in front of Kakashi-sensei so he'll know what an idiot he was for choosing to train you instead of me."

*-*-*

"Did you have to play with them?  We're on a time limit here."

Kisame shrugged and scooped up a handful of snow, letting it melt and wash away the blood on his hands.  "All work and no play, Itachi."

"We're getting closer.  I want to get there before he leaves."

"He should be in the next village.  The mist-nin are the best shinobi at reconnaissance and data-collection."

"That's what you said three villages ago.  And are you trying to praise yourself?"

Kisame grinned a toothy grin.  "I'll let the results speak for themselves."

Itachi shook his head.  "Your results can rarely breathe for themselves, never mind speak."

Kisame laughed.  "Oh, good memories, Itachi!  You always bring out the nostalgic side of me."

*-*-*

"Akamaru can't tell if it's a good plan by smell, Kiba," Shino said softly.  It was the most Kiba had heard him say all week.  He could never tell if that was a good or bad thing.

Kiba grabbed the scroll back from Akamaru and tucked it away in his shirt, "It couldn't hurt though.  Anyway, I'm not so sure about trusting Shikamaru's plan.  I mean, is this really going to work?  Why can we all just charge out and kick their asses?  Me and Akamaru can probably take 'em down."

"Anou, Shikamaru-kun has been chuunin longest so…so he probably has a good plan.  That is…it's only my opinion."

Kiba sighed theatrically, looking down at the forest below them.  He switched position on the tree branch.  "I guess you have a point, Hinata.  Shikamaru did a decent job when we were searching for Sasuke."

Hinata nodded as if relieved.

"Still," Kiba said, looking at that grounds that made up Konoha's northern border.  "I would have liked to be one of the guys in the back.  Cause y'know, the hero always fights last."

Akamaru barked as if assenting that he too was a ferocious warrior and deserved the glory of the last scene.  He quickly calmed down when Hinata's fingers found the back of his ears, and settled for scrambling into her lap for a nap.

"Well…I guess we'll just have to kick all their asses and not save any for the others!"  Kiba announced with a grin. 

In that, as in many unexpected things, Team 8 was in total agreement.

*-*-*

By the time he arrived at the village, everyone was already dead.  The snow had covered up most of the blood, but he realized something was wrong the moment he stepped foot into the village and smelled the stench of blood.  The sense of wrongness, of residual pain and fear, lingered in the air like rotting death.

In the inn, he found several dead bodies and a hole in the wall.  That was probably the boy's work.  The dead cook and innkeeper in the kitchen—or rather, what was left of them—definitely was not. 

"Well," he said to himself grimly.  "Looks like vacation is over."

He took the rest of the day to bury as many of the villagers as he could.  Then he set out to find the boy.

TBC

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

1) Arg, I suck.  Yes, I know.  I haven't updated in forever and a day but…yeah, I suck.

2)  There was a question as to why Kyubi's presence in Naruto is getting stronger, when the manga/anime indicates that as time passes, Naruto should gain more control over Kyubi's chakra as their chakra merges. I thought I'd take a moment to speculate on Kyubi's bond with Naruto.  We know the 4th sealed Kyubi in Naruto's body.  Okay, what does that mean?  It means Kyubi's body/mind/soul/chakra is trapped inside of Naruto.  From the manga/anime we can see that although they are inhabiting one body, they're still two very separate entities.  As time passes, Naruto seems to be able to gain more control over Kyubi's chakra, but we have no reason to believe that he actually controls Kyubi as an entity.  After all, Naruto asks Kyubi to lend him some chakra so it's obvious they're two separate entities.  As time passes, Kyubi's chakra is also merging with Naruto's own, but again, we have no reason to believe that Kyubi's personality or mind is merging with Naruto (it'd be kinda disturbing if it that did happen).  The 3rd also goes out of his way to explain to Iruka that no matter what the villagers think, Naruto is not the Kyubi, so we see again that Kyubi and Naruto are seen as two separate entities. 

My point is this: Kyubi is and has always been a separate entity within Naruto's mind.  During Naruto's training with Jiraiya, we see that Naruto is able to communicate with Kyubi, so he can voluntarily weaken the mental barrier between himself and Kyubi.  What if (like in this fic) Naruto deliberately weakens the barrier between him and Kyubi so that he can better access Kyubi's chakra?  The 4th's seal is not weakened in any way.  Kyubi is still trapped within Naruto; they are just able to communicate chakra/thoughts more easily.  I hope that was coherent and didn't just come out as rambling.

3) About Jiraiya: um…don't jump to conclusions.  ^^  I won't say more than that.

4)  Naruto actually will not die shielding himself from Kyubi.  I mean…not unless he stupidly forces himself to use up ALL his chakra, which would be nigh impossible since after a while he'll have to pass out from exhaustion.  The point is, the chakra barrier is just that: a barrier that drains his chakra.  It'll make him tired and wear him out, but most likely will not kill him unless he does something really dumb.  Kyubi says it'll kill him because it's Kyubi and Kyubi doesn't want to be shielded.  Heh Kyubi's not to be trusted.

5) Exactly what is a youma?  The manga/anime called Kyubi a youma, which is a demon (the nine tail kitsune is a popular representation of a powerful demon in Asian culture).  There's no mention of whether GamaBunta or any of the summoned animals are also youma, but for the purposes of this story I am going to say that they are.  Also note that the term demon/youma here is neutral.  A demon is simply an animal imbued with a soul and, in most cases, some special power.

6) Edited: I apologize to everyone who read the first draft of this.  FFnet took out all my spacing between scenes, so it might have been a little confusing for everyone who read it the first time.  I've added in *-*-* now to separate the scenes.