Here's chapter 2 :)
And yes, there will be Shakespeare in this fic, but just randomly thrown in by Kyuubi or Naruto, cause they're so wise and awesome ;)
Thank you, Impersonating-an-entity, my beta. Super awesomeness!
Legend:
"Ramen!" - Aloud speech
'Damn!' - Thinking/ Thought speech
'Fool.' - Kyuubi thought speech
"Hark!" - Kyuubi Speaking
"Eh?" -Fox/misc speech
Without further a do...
Fortune's Fool
Chapter 2 - Heavens Blazing
By Mirazhe1
Over the years, Konoha had, in short, gone to the dogs. The would-be bustling-with-life streets were dead and nearly abandoned, save for the handful brave souls who dared venture outside, but even they walked slowly like ones possessed. Wind blew dirt and dust up from the roads to swirl in the lonely air, making the village look a lot like Suna Village. The buildings looked dirty and old, over all unkempt, even a few windows and doors were boarded up. The street booths, usually used by vendors as they called out to passersby, were pitifully empty; the only thing filling them where fruit would usually be was dust. Konoha could only take so much, and it seemed everything and its uncle had happened to it.
It seemed to begin after the celebration of the disappearance of the Kyuubi Vessel. The village's pleasure and morale shot through the roof those first few months, full of celebration. People began working more, harder, proud to provide for their demon-free village. All was well, for the most part. Then, a small famine, steadily growing, broke out over Fire country. Crops failed, as did livestock, and food became more and more scarce and many of the poor starved. But Konoha had made it through famine before, and they could do it again! They would just stick through it. But many, without a certain demon vessel to unleash their anger on, the drunks or more spiteful citizens of the village, began to vandalize important official's houses. People who played important parts in the Kyuubi Attack, many of these vandals were. They egged homes, broke windows, painted graffiti, and some even went as far as to burn down buildings. However, all was well, for Konoha had the Uchiha police.
But, then the infamous Uchiha Massacre took place, depleting one of Konoha's most famous and powerful clans to one official member. With the absence of the police provided by the Uchiha Clan, crime rates skyrocketed and faith in the village began to slip. Clans of Konoha, like the Hyuuga for instance, began to weed out the weak blood, to make their families stronger, better shinobi, so they might create a stronger village. The Hyuuga demoted Main house members by the numbers, and evicted masses of Branch members. The Inuzuka threw out the weakest of their pack and the Akimichi banished the least hearty. This outraged the abandoned, and many rioted against their former clans. The remaining clan members strove to be stronger, to fight from being banished, making them cruel-hearted and less loyal to their village. This happened over the span of many years.
Many of the young shinobi of the new genin generation worked hard for their clan, many becoming hard and disloyal. They fought for themselves and nothing else. Seemingly the leader of this way of life was the Uchiha survivor, Uchiha Sasuke. Over the years after the Massacre, he had tried to run from Konoha many times, sometimes going as far as to injure the people who tried to stop him. It was rumored that the comrade lost in the Wave country mission his group had been assigned had been killed by him, not enemy shinobi as he claimed.
And to add salt to the wound, the Third Hokage, fighting hard to regain Konoha's faith and loyalty to their village, fell deathly ill and for these past few months was on his last legs. But he still fought, and found a replacement to grudgingly hold the title Godaime, a certain Sannin named Tsunade. The new Godaime seemed to have as much hope for Konoha as the citizens did, but fought to rejuvenate the village as much as Sandaime... But mostly just because Sandaime argued with her with all of his remaining energy to quite napping and start helping the village.
Reading this, in the old dusty library of Konoha, Uzumaki Naruto had a new respect for Old Man Hokage.
"Much misfortune has fallen upon this place." Commented the little fox kit on his shoulder. Contrary to what Kyuubi had said, it appeared he had barely grown at all. Apart from the long Kyuubi-like ears and even longer tail, he looked the same.
"Sure has," replied the vessel with a light, sarcastic "Heh," as he put away the out-dated newspaper. The library was abandoned, even of librarians, but he didn't want to leave a mess. Both he and Kyuubi had returned to the village within that same hour, but had yet to make their way to Hokage Tower. They had both found it wise to catch up on current events first after seeing the desolate village.
"Cowards they be. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once," Kyuubi scoffed. Naruto frowned.
"Maybe," He replied as he exited the library, idely fiddling with the heavily weighted silver bracelets on his wrists. His hands being raised opened the front of his brown traveling cloak to show his weighted roan vest and black shirt, both adorned with a dark orange spiral. Done with his fiddling, Naruto shoved his hands into his off white pants. "But they've been through a lot. People can only take so much." Kyuubi merely "Harrumph!"-ed, and jumped from the vessel's shoulder to trot by his side at his feet.
As they made their way to Hokage Tower, they gained a few second or third glances, mostly of fear, even before the passerby noticed the fox; then it usually turned to terror. Strangers in Konoha usually meant trouble, and ones dressed like shinobi in traveling cloaks usually meant missing-nin, which indicated very dangerous trouble. And to top it all off, the appearance of foxes more often than not brought anger, and most recently, fear. This made Kyuubi growl.
Naruto casually glanced around with resigned interest as they walked (or in Kyuubi's case, with his short legs, trotted). He hadn't been to Konoha for years, and though he left on bad terms, he still had the strong loyalty to the village flowing through his veins. No matter what, he would always love his village... Though it was hilarious to see the gate guards recognize him when he originally approached. Now that had been a sight.
The vessel blinked, then gave an embarrassed smile as he spotted his old apartment. It looked as though the windows had been smashed, boarded up, and smashed once again, and graffiti covered every inch, painted many times over. The door had obviously been kicked in... It still lay on the ground.
Still walking, he finally made it to Hokage Tower and, unlike the rest of the town, the inside was bustling with movement and life. Workers scurried around to finish paperwork or obey the Hokage's demands, yelling and shouting their requests, woes, and troubles all the while. Kyuubi once again jumped onto Naruto's shoulder and the vessel began his trek to Godaime's office on the ceiling after a few chakra-enhanced hops on the wall. The workers, in their rush, never even noticed.
As Naruto made it to the door to Godaime's office, and flipped down to the floor, he noticed that unlike when he was young, there was only one shinobi guarding the door. Either the village was lacking in new shinobi, the new Hokage was really strong, or just really stupid. He silently hoped it was the first or the second; Konoha had no hope if their Hokage was a stupid one.
The guard's eyes widened as he saw the vessel flip down from the ceiling. "Who are you; what are you doing here! Another missing-nin!"
'A fool, he is.' Kyuubi said within the confines of Naruto's mind.
"Really now, if I was here to assassinate the Hokage, I wouldn't bother letting you see me, would I?" Naruto said with a foxy smile as he tried to diffuse the situation. Luckily, it worked to at least stun the guard. Picking his chance, the vessel strode forward and banged loudly on the door. "OI, OI! ANYONE IN THERE? GODAIME-SAN! OLD MAN HOKAGE!" He bellowed at the door. The guard, not in the least bit stunned now, looked on in horror and quickly evacuated the hall-
-as the door came crashing in (or out, depending on how you look at it), sending Naruto flying down the hall to land in with a painful sounding thud.
"DUMB-ASS! NO ONE SHOULD WAKE A YOUNG WOMAN FROM HER BEAUTY REST!" shrieked the rather well-endowed blonde woman that had sent the poor vessel flying. She calmed for a moment, straightening from her punching position, to glance at the aforementioned guard who was now peaking around the corner to spot what had happened. "Oi," she said more calmly this time, "Who the hell is he?" She pointed lazily to Naruto, who was now standing to dust off his clothes, seemingly unharmed. He was laughing heartily at Kyuubi, still on his shoulder. The fox looked rather disgruntled, and was muttering a long line of curses in his mind.
"What's going on now?" Asked a rather tired, yet familiar voice from the doorway. Naruto quickly glanced up to Old Man Hokage in surprise. The old man still stood in all of his former glory, but surely looked ten decades older and thinner. He couldn't have much life left in him, sadly. "N-Naruto?" The ex-Hokage asked uncertainly. Naruto flashed a foxy smile.
"In the flesh, old man!" Sandaime merely blinked in wonder, then promptly collapsed.
---
When Sandaime woke up (for he did wake up), he found himself in his bed... At home... With Godaime (her glowing blue chakra healing hands close to his heart) and Naruto of all people sitting next to his bed.
"N-Naruto?" He asked once again, just to make sure. He didn't bother to rise to a sitting position, knowing he didn't have the strength to do so. The vessel rolled his eyes and nodded. "Where have you been?"
Naruto shrugged and smiled. "Up, down, and all around." This made Godaime frown irritably at the lack of respect, but Sandaime merely sighed. It really was the same old Naruto he knew and (somewhat) loved. As the night dragged on, both exchanged questions (from Naruto) and stories (from Sandaime) of what happened in Konoha in more detail than the library had ever given. Naruto eventually learned that the new Godaime's name was Tsunade, who seemed easily irritable and to frown a lot, but obviously loved the ex-Hokage as a teacher. But as the night bore on, Sandaime's illness began to sap away at his energy more and more, however, as a last gift to her teacher, Godaime repetitively granted her chakra to him in larger and larger quantities so he may stay alive a little longer to talk to his long lost friend and son-figure.
More and more they talked, mostly of Sandaime's troubles, but as his time grew closer began to question Naruto more and more, trying his hardest to gain at least a little information about what happened to the boy over the last six years, with little success. Each time he pried slyly, the subject would be changed rather obviously and he would be back to square one.
"What have you been doing all this time? Why did you leave?" He asked, trying a new approach to gain information. Time was growing short and being sly and coy to get information obviously wasn't going to work. Tsunade's blue healing chakra began to recede as she had done all she could. She said nothing about the ex-Hokage's health. Sandaime's probing, fortunately, received more of an answer from Naruto this time around, as the vessel was obviously growing tired of Sandaime's prodding and chose to merely give in.
"Training, mostly, with Ky-Tenko." He answered, quickly fixing his mistake in wording as he absent mindedly scratched Kyuubi's chin. The fox demon purred both aloud and in the mind from atop the vessel's shoulder. "Kinda got tired of all of the villager's abuse. Cold eyes aren't that welcoming." He glanced lazily at Godaime, leaning back in his chair. Kyuubi quickly shifted to his "master's" lap.
As Naruto spoke, Tsunade's eyes widened in realization. "This is the Kyuubi kid?" She asked.
"My name's Uzumaki Naruto, thanks," the vessel immediately corrected as Sandaime gave the woman a pointed glare. "Don't worry, Old Man. I already know about the Baka Kitsune." Kyuubi mentally growled at this.
"You do? And you don't mind?" Sandaime asked. "How did you find out?"
"I pieced things together as I got older," Naruto answered easily, as he slowly averted his eyes away from Sandaime's own, to focus on the wall behind him. The old man never noticed, but he did shift in his bed weakly at the answer.
"If you knew about Kyuubi... And hate how the villagers treat you... Why did you come back now? You could have easily stayed away from Kohona for a good, long time," questioned Sandaime, obviously curious. "You may have noticed… we lack the ability to send out hunter-nin." Naruto's squinting eyes opened, widening in wonder for a moment, before softening.
"Because I love my village," he answered simply. Tsunade promptly snorted.
"Love this village? Hah!" Sandaime frowned. "Nothing good comes from this village, kid, and never will. Everyone that loves this village died protecting it, baka." Naruto nearly growled.
"Everyone dies eventually, Tsunade-san! Better to die protecting it than to die a coward without honor," The vessel spat. He quickly calmed himself and went on, "I was once told by someone very wise that cowards die many times before their deaths, but the valiant never taste of death but once. Would you be such a coward that you're not even loyal to your village? Cowards are the people that board up their homes, let horrible things happen to other people and do nothing. Let the village they grew up in go to the dogs, and let the people starve, and do nothing! If nothing is done, nothing will happen; nothing can come of nothing. Oddly enough, it seems a lot like you have been doing, Old Hag!" Godaime's shoulders sagged slightly in shame.
"I came back to this village 'cause I love it, no matter how much the villagers hate me, no matter how much people don't want me here. I will restore Konoha, even if I have to drag every villager kicking and screaming from their homes." Sandaime, old, weary, and eyes heavily lidded, smiled.
"I'm proud of you, Naruto. You've grown up a lot over the years. I only wish I had been there to see it," Old Man Hokage said softly. Naruto beamed with pride.
"This is the unkindest cut of all, to see one of such wisdom die in such a way," Kyuubi said, finally speaking aloud as he jumped from Naruto's lap to Sandaime's bed to sit beside him, startling both Hokages in the room. Tsunade moved to exterminate the fox demon, but a piercing glare from Naruto stopped her in her tracks. Sandaime merely lay there, amazed to hear Kyuubi's voice once again. "Hark, wise one. Listen well. When cowards die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. The heavens shall shine with thine passing, wise one, I shall see to it." Sandaime smiled wearily and gazed over to what could only be called his son-figure.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. Your part's over, Old Man Hokage, so now I'll make my part. I'll continue what you tried to do; for your sake and Konoha's; I'll revive their love and loyalty to the village," Naruto assured.
"I know you can do it, Naruto. Love the village and I'll die content."
And with that, Sandaime Hokage, survivor of the Kyuubi attack, and the attempted savior of Konoha, died.
The heavens blazed brightly that night.
Aww Sadaime Died. Tear. But even if he died, you have to keep reading cause next time Naruto meets his team and pulls a trick out of his had ;)
'azhe out.