Warnings: In this chapter there's a pretty graphic scene, but I hesitate to say that it might turn your stomach.
Chapter Three: Akuma
by Clara
Naruto was sitting cross-legged in the center of a pristine, still made bed in the corner of an equally pristine hospital room. He could swear that even the food was sterilized, if he had been thinking about that particular thing. His mind, however, was on the small and worn out book that he had on his lap (actually, it was on top of the sleeping fox cub that was curled up on his lap, but yes).
He found it on his bedside table after he had woken up from the intense healing procedure Tsunade had practically forced upon him. Someone had conveniently marked several pages for him to look through, but he looked past them in favor of flipping through the entire book. It was relatively thin and weather-beaten, but there were times he wondered if he should get a magnifying glass since the words were practically microscopic. And there weren't any pictures. Who ever heard of a book without pictures? Naruto certainly hadn't.
He had to admit, though, that it was awfully interesting. It explained with detail the world inhabited by demons, an almost parallel plane with the world they lived in except for the inhabitants and for their style of living.
Demons were ranked much like the ninja in Konoha. The lowest demons were known as "C" rank demons, and they were the ones that were oftentimes used as servants or game. "B" rank demons were a bit more powerful than common humans and generally made pests of themselves because of their lack of strength. They were the ones who were most well-known for killing humans. "A" rank demons, however, were dangerously powerful and intelligent. They pretty much ruled the demon world and dealt with the politics.
And then there were the "S" rank demons. They were the demons that could destroy both worlds if they wanted to. They were ruthless, powerful, aged and much more intelligent than normal humans could even dream of being. They understood.
There weren't many "S" rank demons, the book said, then listed the known ones. At the very beginning, under the two first names, was Ichiro.
The name of the kitsune Koshirou and Kojirou had said.
The name of the kitsune that was trapped in Naruto's body.
Of course, the page had been marked by whoever had left him the book and the name underlined. Naruto frowned at it for several minutes, then turned the page. He was hoping to find more information about the kitsune, but the book continued describing demon lifestyles. He skimmed over it, uninterested with their hunting habits and eating habits, but made a note to look back on their fighting habits.
What really caught his eye was the slave trade. The demons were notorious for catching creatures (humans, fey, and demons alike) they thought were beautiful and selling them to the upper class demons. The over all thought in the demon world was that the more slaves one owned the more high-ranked one would be. Naruto frowned more as the book went on to explain the inhumane way the slaves were treated, depending on how beautiful or skilled they were.
He wondered, briefly, if the kyubi had any slaves. The kyubi seemed to be above ranks—would it have needed a slave?
"I see you found the book I left for you."
Naruto looked up, the frown straightening out and curving to a smaller version of his usual grin. Sasuke was leaning against the doorframe, smirking slightly.
"Bleeding stop yet?"
"Yeah," Naruto closed the book after carefully dog-earring the page he was on. "This is yours?"
Sasuke nodded and walked further into the room, dragging a chair up to the blonde's bed. Disturbed from his slumber by the chair scraping against the ground, Nanashi opened his eyes to give Sasuke his normal dirty look for a greeting. The Uchiha ignored it, as usual. "Sakura and Kakashi each already own a copy, but somehow I figured you didn't."
"I've never seen the point to reading," Naruto said defensively. "Why should I? You can read all you want on how to ride a bike, but you can never really learn how to until you actually try it."
"Of course not," Sasuke agreed, momentarily surprising Naruto. The dark eyed boy gave his rare smile and rested his chin on his palm, leaning forward slightly. "But reading does sometimes come in handy. It's always best to know your enemy."
Naruto frowned, unable to come up with a good argument for that. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again to sigh. "Can I leave here yet?"
It is, of course, to be expected that Naruto was more than a little squirmy. He hated being confined in closed places for so long (which oftentimes resulted in him sleeping on his roof).
"They said two more days."
"Two days! Two days! Why on earth would I need to be here for two more days?!" He shoved the blankets off his legs and leapt off the bed, only to sit back down as all the blood rushed from his head. He closed his eyes and scowled.
"Because of the poison, idiot," Sasuke admonished, gently shoving him back down on the bed. He met little resistance, and that worried him slightly. "It's only two days."
"Do we have any missions?" Naruto asked helplessly. The last thing he would want was to be stuck in a dinky hospital room while Sasuke was completing dozens of missions on his own. For a moment he pictured the black haired genin running around smugly with dozens of awards (that didn't even exist) hanging from his neck. He scowled.
"We have one tomorrow, but it's just a C rank one. Nothing to worry about."
Naruto sunk back down against the pillows. How many times had he heard that before? 'It's only a C rank mission, it'll be simple'. It always started out like that and trouble always ended up following them.
"I should be fine by then," Naruto said in all honesty. "You know me, I heal quickly."
"You do," Sasuke agreed. He stood up, peeked outside the hospital room back and forth, then turned back to Naruto and grinned a surprisingly crooked grin. "Get up."
Naruto blinked in confusion. "Wh...what?"
"I'm breaking you out."
The blonde stared at Sasuke with blatant disbelief. What on earth..? Ever so slowly, a cunning grin spread across his lips. He didn't know where this mischief-making Sasuke was coming from, but damned if he wasn't going to take advantage of it.
---
Thirty minutes later the nurse started her rounds. She dreaded the first room she was to go to—it, after all, contained the demon child. Who knew if he was going to go postal or not and kill everyone in sight?
Sighing, she squared her shoulders and pushed into the room.
To her complete and utter surprise it was empty.
"You have got to be kidding me."
---
"I had a feeling you would help him sneak out."
Both boys froze guiltily, slowly turning around to face the frowning Iruka. He was sitting at the front step of Naruto's house, knees drawn up and chin resting on palm. He stood when the two boys noticed him, doing his best to look imposing by towering over them both.
"I should have known better than to leave you two together alone." The older chûnin shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. "What I can't figure out is how you managed to talk Sasuke into it, Naruto..."
Naruto opened his mouth to protest vehemently and was quite surprised when Sasuke beat him to it, smiling sheepishly.
"Sorry, Iruka-sensei. It was actually my idea."
Iruka blinked in obvious surprise, then looked at both boys shrewdly. "Ah. I see. Naruto's starting to wear off on you. Well, don't go pulling that ridiculous Sexy no Jutsu technique or anything." He frowned, suddenly. "Naruto, you should not be up and about, yet!"
"I'm fine," Naruto insisted, scrunching his eyes shut and pouting. Nanashi squirmed out of the blonde's arms and scrambled on top of his head, giving Iruka a look identical to Naruto's. The result was a demented looking totem pole, and this caused Iruka to chuckle and Sasuke to turn and hide an amused smile. "Besides, hospitals are expensive. I'll be much better off at home."
The laughter died from Iruka's throat and he frowned. There they were—all three of them orphaned at a very young age and struggling to survive on their own. He knew what Naruto was talking about when he said 'too expensive'; none of them had the luxury of having a parent to take care of things like medical bills, and lords knew insurance was ridiculously overpriced.
"Well," Iruka finally said, after a long moment of observing the two. "I'll be sure to let the hospital know." He smiled again. "And don't worry about the bill; I'll have them send it to my place. After all, I am the one with the income coming in..."
"I-Iruka-sensei..."
"Don't worry about it, kid. I'll just expect you to pay me back after you become an excellent ninja."
"What are you talking about?!" Naruto asked, the surprise fading away to mock-offense. "I am an excellent ninja!"
"All right, all right," Iruka agreed, laughing. "A well paid excellent ninja."
"That I am not." The blonde looked as if he wanted to thank his old teacher profusely but didn't know how, so just opted in giving the older man a tight hug. Before Iruka could respond, Naruto had Sasuke by the arm and was running as if hell were at his heels.
"Where the hell is he?!"
And from the sound of the angry nurse in the hospital, hell might as well have been at his heels.
---
"Are you going to head home?"
"It would be pointless. My house isn't exactly close, and I don't want to walk back. I'll sleep on your couch."
Leave it to Sasuke to be absolutely curt and rational about inviting himself over to his main rival's house. Naruto snorted and blew his bangs from his forehead, shifting Nanashi into one hand to search for his keys.
"Whatever. Just as long as you pick up after yourself." He frowned, fishing further into his pocket. Where was his keys? Normally, he had them in his pocket...
"Something the matter?" Nanashi nudged his side, seeming to notice his unease.
"Yeah. I lost my keys. No biggy, though, I have a spare in the back." Without waiting for Sasuke or even bothering to offer him an explanation in human tongue (talking to Nanashi meant, of course, that Sasuke had no idea what the blonde was saying), Naruto darted to the back of his house.
"Oi, stupid, what're you doing?" Sasuke called after, baffled. He immediately shot after Naruto, half-convinced that the kyubi would lock him out or something equally as cruel.
"I can't find my keys," Naruto offered as an explanation, heading straight for a large pot that had a plastic tree nestled in it. Naruto dug into the multi-colored pebbles for a moment, before he triumphantly smirked and pulled out the spare key. A moment later he was racing back to the front door, leaving Sasuke to chase after him again, and to wonder, briefly, just why Naruto was always in such a hurry to get everywhere.
A moment later they were standing in the middle of a disaster zone.
"Er," Naruto said nervously, scratching the back of his head, "sorry about the mess. I don't have many visitors, right?" He coughed apologetically and darted around a mess of playing cards and scrolls and books, apparently heading towards his bedroom. "I'm going to change real quick. Grab something to drink."
Sasuke rolled his eyes in affirmation and strolled into the kitchen. The first thing that assaulted him was the sickly-sweet stench of decaying meat, and the dark haired boy scrunched up his nose. Had Naruto forgotten about some pot-roast or something? He couldn't see it anywhere, however—perhaps he had left it in the oven.
The next thing he noticed was a fly.
It was a large fly, at least the size of a coin. The insect was lazily crawling across the back of one of Naruto's chairs, once in awhile shaking out its wings. Sasuke pulled a disgusted face. Insects didn't bother him, but even he had to admit turbo-flies were pretty disgusting. He strolled over to it and swatted it away, making a mental note to order Naruto to clean up at least once a week. This was just getting gross.
Something was bothering him, though, and he found himself being drawn closer to the table. His mind was working—past lessons were whirling around in his head, categorizing the kind of fly that he had seen on the chair. Blood-fly, his mind whispered mechanically, insects that are attracted to the blood of fresh deaths in order to lay their eggs in the corpses.
Why would a blood-fly be interested in pot-roast?
"Oi, Sasuke! I cleaned up a bit. How long does it take you to get something to drink?!"
But Sasuke was ignoring Naruto now. He had discovered the source of the smell and the reason for the fly, and he was immobilized with shock.
"Sasuke? Oi, Sasuke!" Naruto's voice was closer now, and there was a hint of confusion in his tone. "What the hell is that smell?"
There was a gasp as Naruto fell in step beside Sasuke, and a startled yip from the fox cub that was still snuggled close to Naruto's chest, despite the wounds. If Sasuke had the ability to understand the kit, he would have been surprised at the startled,
"...Father!"
---
Neither Sasuke nor Naruto wanted to stay inside the house after the discovery of the several day old fox corpse in Naruto's kitchen. They had buried it next to the Nanashi's mother and had cleaned the kitchen as well as they could, but it seemed the smell and the sheer presence of the person or demon that had left the dead fox seemed to hang in the air, despite all the windows they opened. They silently agreed to camp out on the roof for the time being, at least until the smell had left the house.
"Do you think it was the same person?" Naruto asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Sasuke frowned and curled his arms around his legs, offering a one armed shrug. "Not sure," he admitted, ruefully. "But I don't think you should stay here any longer, Naruto. It's obvious whoever left the fox is the same one who has your keys."
"It wouldn't matter." Naruto pulled the kit closer to himself, Nanashi uncharacteristically silent. "Even if he didn't have a key, he could have gotten into my house anyway. A well placed kick to the door, a rock to the window—it's not that hard." His matter-of-fact voice belied his experience.
"I think it would be better," Sasuke insisted. "These aren't just your usual hate-crimes, Naruto. Someone is really out to get you."
Naruto seemed disinterested.
"Damnit!" The conviction in Sasuke's voice caused Naruto to jump slightly. "I'm going to call Iruka and—"
"I can't keep running."
It was Naruto's quiet tone that caused Sasuke to falter.
"No matter where I go...it's not like I'm gonna be able to hide for long. It's like—like they know where I'm going even before I do. The first fox was at the school yard..." He looked confused for a moment. "I hadn't planned to go to the swing, I just went, and there it was. I didn't go up to anyone and be like, 'hey, I'm going to the old school now! I'll be there at 14:32 sharp'.
"And then the forest!" Naruto continued, not even looking to see if Sasuke was paying attention. He was getting worked up now. "Sure, people knew we were goin' on this mission, but there're a lot of ways to get to Tamiko's house. How did Hoshirou and Hojirou know the trail we'd use?
"Then the kitchen. I mean, it's like a normal place, but it's really not. How could've this person known that I didn't die from those two jokers? Not only that, but wouldn't they think that I woulda gone to someone else's house to hide for a bit? Why did they come straight back to my place? We're not dealing with some stupid power-hungry bad guy this time. This person is playing with me."
There was a pregnant silence where Sasuke stared at Naruto in disbelief. Was this the boy who—
"Yeah, well, damn the man!"
—never gave up?
Well, that was—
"There ain't no way in hell he's gonna beat me. Not the super cool, future hokage of Konoha! I'll make him eat dirt so hard he wouldn't need to buy a rock to exfoliate!"
—more like it.
Sasuke blinked in surprise. "Do you even know what exfoliate means?"
"Sure! Sakura was ranting about it to Ino this one time...I mean, not that I was listening in on their conversation or anything..."
Sasuke shook his head and let his mind wander back to what Naruto had said about the chance occurrences. It seemed too logical for the kyubi to deduct on his own, but Naruto appeared to have considered the situation carefully. Of course Sasuke had already drawn the same conclusions previously, albeit a bit more eloquently. The difference was Naruto hadn't seen the holes in this explanation. Perhaps the man had planted dead foxes in other places for Naruto to stumble upon, and it was luck that brought Naruto across those three. It was possible the man didn't know where to put them, and was just making educated guesses from information he may have picked up idly.
But the thoughts seemed too morbid to bring up, especially now that Naruto had finally relaxed a bit. The blonde was trying to empathetically convince the bored Nanashi with wild hand motions and excited words.
"No matter," Sasuke said gruffly, interrupting a rather over the top adventure that Naruto was promising Nanashi he would have. "They may expect you to be with someone, but it'll be stupid for you to be alone."
"I can handle myse—"
"I don't care." Sasuke's tone was flat and unyielding. "We may not be able to avoid them, but we don't have to be stupid about it. If these people and creatures can get into Konoha, then they're not a group to be trifled with."
"You think there's more?" Naruto furrowed his eyebrows in concentration.
"There could be. We can't dismiss that theory. In fact—"
Naruto interrupted him, quietly. "I—" I what? I don't need you to baby-sit me? I can handle myself? "—I'm scared."
Neither of them expected that, so it was followed by an uneasy silence. Admitting something so personal to someone was implying that you trusted that person, and to both boys that was surprising. It overstepped the boundaries of the tentative truce they set up as a result of the current situation and entailed that their friendship was strengthening.
Both had too much pride to accept that.
"You should go to bed," Sasuke managed, roughly. "You're starting to look like a drowned fish."
"Stupid. How's a fish supposed to drown?" But there was no animosity behind Naruto's words, mainly because they were said around a large yawn.
"If they swim backwards, they would."
Now Naruto looked even more puzzled. "You're weird, you know that?"
"Probably the only reason why I can deal with you," Sasuke retorted and grabbed Nanashi, to the surprise of both Naruto and the fox kit. Nanashi retaliated by latching onto his hand by way of his mouth, but Sasuke didn't protest. After all, the reason he had grabbed the fox cub was to jar the surprisingly intelligent ball of fluff back to reality. "Has this damn thing gotten its shots yet? Hell, it might have rabies!"
At that, Sasuke jumped off the roof.
"He does not have rabies!" Naruto shouted back, his annoyance spurring him to follow Sasuke. He landed a little less gracefully, but managed not to hurt himself even more. "And come back here! He's mine!"
Nanashi yipped helplessly at Naruto, obviously not liking having Sasuke tote him around. It was interesting the way Naruto yipped reassuringly back, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Sasuke chuckled and raced into the house, figuring the easiest way to get Naruto back into his bed was trick him there. It was also a good way to distract Naruto from his problems and entertain Sasuke—was Naruto howling?
Oh, well. As long as Naruto was enjoying himself.
The distraction worked too well, however. It would be hours before Naruto and Sasuke realized that they weren't alone.
.end chapter three.
A/N: Ah...I know this took me forever to put out, and I'm sorry. I realize this chapter is much more serious than the first two chapters, and I apologize for that. I promise there'll be light-hearted goodness smattered throughout the other chapters, but in order to get on with the plot I had to serious it up a bit. Sorry if that's a disappointment.
Another thing is, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the other chapters, but the characters are supposed to be a bit older than they are in the series. And I'm pretty sure, like most of the ongoing stories that started before the plot in Naruto took its turn, that this has become an AU. Since I don't like to think like that, I'll just dub it a TWT (which is a Timeline? What Timeline? type of fic.).
I just don't like the way is about uploading right now. Taking away my asterisks. Anyway, I reuploaded this chapter because I realized my scene change was in the wrong area, and I don't like how that looked. Scene changes are now '---'s instead of asterisks, because is a butt.
One last thing—now that I've finally got past my writers block (can you believe that? I haven't written in this story for so long because of writer's block), the chapters, SHOULD be coming in a little more fluidly. Sorry for the wait, and I hope you people don't stop reading the fic because of the lengthy time between chapters. It shouldn't be like that again.