Author's note: My take on Kurama and the lives of Jinchuuriki is non canon. I have not used any FFs as inspiration for Kurama. On the other hand, I have used "The Nine Broken Mirrors" by Ayien as inspiration for the lives Jinchuuriki lead. If you haven't read that fic, then I highly recommend it. It is an old work, but a classic. It is by far the best long fic I've come across on this fandom.

Chapter 18

"You think yourself to be a saviour."

The Kyuubi pushed off its haunches.

"You fancy yourself a revolutionary."

The size of it outstripped even the most delusive of Naruto's imaginings.

He had expected a mammoth-sized monstrosity.

He had underestimated this abomination.

It was the breadth of a river and the height of an unending obelisk. Its fur was a fire-fretted tangerine.

Its eyes were twin points of rust.

Its breath streamed forth in boreal blasts.

"You embrace stasis but secretly long for change."

The whetstone of mockery sharpened every word.

"I have watched from afar. I have watched you trapeze about and make a fool of yourself."

The Kyuubi stepped forward. Each step was a seismic shock.

"Walk this path, and you will forever remain a mite that the world spits on and crushes under its soles."

It prowled up to the bars. The interplay of shadows punctured its snout and lent it a sinister second head. A flume of light trickled through an aperture above and made evident the putrefaction in its gaze.

"For you delude yourself, mortal."

The cavern trembled under its bass rumble of contempt.

"The world has wintered over— it hurtles towards its inevitable end. The time of saviours has come and passed. The sage who gave me form was one, yet all that is left of him is a fable and an urn. Hate is eternal, as is human rot. Revolution eats itself and its revolutionaries. It lasts a week, a year— and then it fails, as it has failed in the millennia gone by; as it will, in the millenia to come."

Terror stole away even the refutation of a gasp; terror at that voice, at that boreal breath. The cavern pulsated with every word. Naruto's vision swam. His surroundings collapsed into surreality.

Surreality, and dread.

"Your kind will forever gravitate towards abuse, because I have seen your hearts, and there is nothing to you, nothing but small mindedness and spite. Embrace it. Revel in it. The world is sick of its revolutionaries. What it needs is a cleansing. What it needs . . . is me."

The last phrase was a sibilant sigh. Nine tails battered the bars with a careless flick. The bars rattled, but the hinges held firm.

Naruto groped about with one hand for an exit that was not there. The back of his palm brushed against stone. He pressed himself against the cold hard surface, limbs leaden, gaze frozen. His exhalations were staccato gasps; his heartbeat was an arrhythmic jangle. The clangour of those malignant words was a tom-tom bursting against the back of his brain.

He tried shutting it out. Clapped his hands against his ears. Screwed his eyelids shut and let the cacophonous laughter crush him.

He tried moving. Tripped over his own feet instead. Lost the illusory safety of stone behind and stumbled forward. His kneecaps jarred against solid ground. Pain spurted— a dull throbbing that his fear magnified. He stayed like that— lost, mute, unmoving. The kyuubi's derision was a palpable sensation. It tramelled him up in its snare; it suffocated him.

Panic welled.

He quelled it through sheer force of will. Fought it. Tore at it like a cornered alleycat. Snarled in defiance. Ground his teeth. Roused his spirit. Bolstered it, not with words, but with a highlight reel of scattered highpoints. Sensations, emotions, moments and memories all melded together, and forged for him the armour he needed to fight this thing.

Thus he struggled as the seconds ticked away; thus he thrashed about, even as the quicksand of despair threatened to suck him under.

Finally he struggled back onto his feet. Glared right back at the Kyuubi, his eyes blazing.

"You don't know the first thing," he snapped. "You don't know what it's like to suffer. You cause suffering instead."

He took a step forward. It was the hardest thing he had done— but he did it nonetheless, to show this brute that he was not afraid. That he would never be afraid. That even though it rattled him, it would never break him, no matter how it mocked him. Nor would his course alter, for he was better than that. He would not surrender to the artifices of some glozen tempter; he would not be swayed by this embodiment of evil or its glib offerings.

"The people in Wave— they beg, cringe and die, all due to shit that's not in their hands. I can change that. I will change that. I don't do it to be a saviour. I do it because that's the decent thing to do."

He brought down a hand in a slashing motion. Another step forward, head held high. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, till they stood nose to nose, separated by only the bars.

"But I don't expect the likes of you to get it," Naruto snarled. "You're scum."

He had expected outrage.

The Kyuubi threw its head back and bayed with laughter. It was maniacal— it was frenzied— it was eldritch and warped. The sound teetered towards madness, but was reined back in at the very end; it diminished into a hollow chuckle.

" Scum. Is that what you see, boy?"

Flecks of foam dribbled down the fox's snout. Its leer resembled a slit throat.

"I am but a mirror."

Naruto reeled back.

"We're not the same," he spat.

His voice cracked at the last syllable. Uncertainty unmanned him— turned him into a child again.

"Are we not?"

The leer grew.

"You follow in my footsteps. My brethren and I have walked this road before. We know where it ends. For you it is a whim— for us it was duty."

Here the voice grew disembodied. The visage lost every vestige of sanity. Mockery gave way to ire, and the words erupted in a thunderous fusillade.

"We were broken off from the Juubi; we were given shape and form, and told to safeguard a race so far beneath us, that the thought of you now inspires contempt. But then there was only sympathy; then we saw a mass of men piteous in their weakness, brittle but benevolent, and full of ardour— worthy of veneration, worthy of preservation . It was a new dawn— the world was young.

"We set out to safeguard it; we set out during an era of warring clans, with every intention of establishing peace. And now we are weapons of war. Now through the bars of this cage I sense the Shukaku's madness, the Hachibi's sadness, the Sanbi's lamentations, the nanabi's degradation. The despair of my brethren thrums through me like the breath of a furnace, and it inflames me. For this trespass, mortal; for this, and all besides, your race will die. They will die despairing; they will die suffering; they will know the hollowness of hope; they will be set afire at the pyre of their dead dreams; for before I pass, I intend to make every last one of you feel what we felt."

A whirlwind took up the raucous cry and dashed it against the walls. An explosion of sound, as of a thousand conches being blown in battle. The seals in the background pulsed and crackled, struggling to restrain the tidal wave of grief and fury that issued forth. The final phrase had such vitriol in it, that it dissolved the courage Naruto had gathered. But he did not step back. In a second's startling clarity he saw beyond the distensions, the convulsions, the mockery and even the madness; saw a once resplendent chakra entity that had been twisted into this. He saw a man-made monstrosity, not the errant epitome of evil he had expected to find.

Yet it was not solace that this thought brought, nor even compassion, but horror. A horror so corporeal, that he was momentarily rendered speechless.

Something happened.

He felt it immediately— he had lost heart. The conviction bled away, and he was beset by self doubt.

As if in response to this, the stalactites fringing the roof sharpened into a set of spires and began to lower. The ground underneath gave way and turned into loam. Fetters sprang; fetters snared him; fetters snapped into place and sought to draw him under. Waist deep he went, and now all was muddlement— muddlement and terror. Naruto thrashed about. All resistance was abandoned. His gaze sought the kyuubi, and he offered unto it an unuttered plea.

The metamorphosis stopped midway through.

And there washed over him once more the metallic rumble of mockery.

"So stricken by cowardice, that you no longer command your own mind. You are a disappointment, jailor."

Its tails rattled the bars with another dismissive flick.

"But mayhaps your worth lies undiscovered. Mayhaps if I were to drag that girl in here and sunder her . . . "

Fear gave way to rage.

"Stay the fuck away from—"

"She will betray you."

Stunned silence.

"Betrayal is in her blood, boy."

He could tell this was no taunt. There was an air of gloating to the statement, but this was submerged under a sobriety of intent.

"I walked the world with her forefathers, and I fought by their side. Before her there was another, and he was greater, her superior in every regard. The girl you prize is no standard bearer— she is gutless, and at best of middling ability. But Uchiha Madara was a firebrand: he had the strength to shatter armies and their chieftains; he was incorruptible, and utterly beyond reproach. Or so I thought, before he turned on me and set me to slavery. For a century I have been passed down, generation to generation, reduced to a trinket, my power sapped away by your seals, my fury subdued by your fetters, so that now I am docile, and now I forget myself, and what I once was, and what once more will be, when free. I will resume my reign of terror, be it with you, or over your remains.

"But there is a word of advice that I pass on, because there is hope for you yet— the Uchiha are liars, and to trust one is to sign your own death warrant."

This time when the ceiling started to cave in, the Kyuubi did nothing to prevent it. The world was flaking and the fetters were powdering bone and Naruto was neck deep now, and could no longer breathe; and through it all the Kyuubi continued its tirade.

Goading.

Provoking.

Mocking.

Forever mocking.

"You will fail, mortal. You will fail, because you are misguided. You seek to salvage what is beyond redemption. Humanity is lost. Resentment flows through their veins like poison. They will backstab you— they will sell you out— they will forever let you down. It is delusion that sustains you— grandiose delusion of meaning something to a worthless species you can tower above. You can rule, boy— and you wish to be a serf."

The surroundings were like puzzle pieces falling apart. The Kyuubi's shape and size were lost in the jumble. But that voice rang clear.

"You will fail," it rasped, "like I did. And when you do; when you are tossed about in the eddies of ruin; when you see your hopes and dreams chewed into chips, you will seek me out. You will come to me on your hands and knees, and you will beg for my benison."

The fox's lips split into a ghastly leer. A malevolent scythe.

"And I will give it— because you and I are the same."

His throat was parched. The phantom feeling of being crushed to death persisted. Confusion. Disorientation. And through the muddlement that stagnant stream of ominous words. The mockery in it, the menace of it. Warnings or manipulations? Truths or deceits? The Kyuubi— monster— martyr— embodiment of ill but phantasm of an ancient heroism. Misled, betrayed and trapped in fetters forever.

Through the fog of this confusion Naruto glimpsed a floating lantern of meaning: so that was what the fetters meant. A lesson in empathy. A glimpse into a chakra construct's private Hell. Mockery, yes, but also a plea. For mercy? For . . . freedom? But he could not give it that— he would not . . . the world did not deserve to— no, no; it did not . . .

The heat grew intolerable. Sweat stained his sleeping bag. He was choking, he was boiling to death, he was standing at the precipice of something momentous; and the chaos would not leave him. It would not—

A giggle gushed forth from his throat. High pitched. Unnatural. Like crystal cracking. The crystal ball of his own destiny, and the maze of pathways underneath, all crumbling to dust. The maze was interminable, and he was too afraid to navigate it. To take a step forward would mean to leave everything behind, leave behind the familiarity of this limbo; and gods, oh gods, he was just a child, just fourteen, and all he ever wanted was—

No. No. He would not be hysterical. He would not go mad.

He would not go mad.

The laughter increased in intensity. This was easy. It was easy just to bury things and pretend—

Salvation came by way of a blow to the face. A bruising sting, accompanied by frenzied shaking.

He fell silent, the episode ending as abruptly as it had begun. The flap to his tent was pulled back, and he could see from here the purple sky and the stubbed out remains of a spent campfire.

Her shadow spooled across his sleeping bag; even through the haze he caught a whiff of camphor. Her face was pale and her lips were moving, but she spoke gibberish. There was a ringing in his ears, a knell, as of bells tolling. It was the carrion call of something revelatory, something from beyond. Someone had to die, and the Kyuubi had sworn to rend them all—

Another blow. Her fingers were far from gentle this time as they branded themselves against skin. She rouged his cheek into an unnatural blush.

It brought clarity.

"What's wrong?" Her eyes were red. Her voice was harsh.

Everything, Naruto wanted to say.

"Nothing," he said.

"Tell me the truth." A sharpish upward slant to those words.

"Just a nightmare."

For a second he believed it too. It felt like one. But despite a desire to pretend that none of it ever happened, Naruto knew better. The proof was in the low laugh, the phantom fetters, the death like agony, which was etched forever in his memory.

He pushed back against the oncoming gloom. Pushed it aside and observed Satsuki. The crook of her knee as she knelt next to him; the rumpled clothes, the undone hair which spilled down the sides of her face. There was something urgent and penetrative about her gaze.

Something hard to place as well. Something that resembled fright. But it petered out even as he met her eyes.

The red, however, remained in place.

He had heard about the sharingan before. This was the first time he saw it.

"That was no nightmare," Satsuki snapped. "Your chakra was fluctuating, and you were half mad when I first entered this tent. Now tell me the truth, or I rip it out myself."

Her eyes flashed. Naruto had never seen her like this: disheveled and outraged, but also panicked. He must have been some sight, for it to have made such an impression.

He vaguely recalled the stark lunacy he had descended into. Recalled the Kyuubi's warnings too. And all at once he felt crushed. Worn out. He wanted to sleep. He just wanted to sleep.

"Please don't," Naruto said.

And once more that mocking whisper: she will betray you.

The tension and the anger ebbed away from her expression. She had noticed the defeat in his voice.

The red faded from her eyes. There was something akin to shame there.

"I won't. But tell me what happened."

"Red suits ya."

"What?"

"The eyes. They look good on you."

"Are you trying to change the subject?"

A flat rebuttal.

"Is it working?"

"No."

She sounded distinctly unamused.

Naruto attempted to chuckle. The sound emerged as an exhausted half croak. He cupped his mouth.

"Was just gonna ask, why the sharingan?"

"Not many things can trigger a reaction like that."

She pointed at his abdomen. His track jacket had been ripped in half and the undershirt was a mess too. She must have done it herself, when he was catatonic.

"That seal holds one of the things which can."

Sharper than he gave her credit for.

Naruto sighed.

"What did you see?" He asked.

"Nothing." Here some of the terseness returned. "There's nothing wrong with the seal."

Naruto blinked.

Then thought for a minute.

The Kyuubi had mentioned something odd. Something about having lost control over his own mind. But that implied he had control in the first place. So if the seal was fine, and if he initially retained control, then the Kyuubi had never sought to set that meeting up.

If so, then could it be that a depraved part of him had willed this meeting into existence? That he had wandered down that stonemouth and approached that solitary cell of his own free will, with the hope of surrendering to the temptations of his captive?

He shied away from the prospect. He was overthinking this.

He had to be.

"Well?"

Impatience shaded her question.

He took in the tension. The puffy eyes. Tendrils of concern seeped through an overarching facade of nonchalance. She had been asleep, and he had woken her. She had stormed in and been afraid for his sake. The realization brought back reminisces from the night before, when she had stalked off in anger, but not before promising to fall before him if it ever came to that.

In that moment, Naruto wilfully disregarded all that the Kyuubi had said about her. She cared. And for that alone he owed her a part of the truth.

"I met the Kyuubi."

The slightest of shifts in expression. A tightening of the lips, a hardening around the eyes, a sudden stiffness in how she held herself, as if she were discarding the mask of friendship and adorning the one of duty.

"Tell me everything."

He did. Not everything, of course; but he told her most things. Left out the Kyuubi's prophecy and the parts concerning her and Madara Uchiha, but mentioned that it thought itself to be a victim.

Throughout his retelling her expression did not alter. She was unmoved. There was concern for him but disdain for his tale, and even for some of his personal thoughts about the Kyuubi; for even though it had threatened to burn them to the ground, Naruto found himself empathizing with it. He saw more than a twisted grotesquery; he measured its captivity against his own. It beat against the bars of its cell in rage— like he did, like he always would. Thus he could relate to its despair. But she could not, or would not; and she was not afraid to demonstrate as much, be it through the clenched fists or the wound up form. The rigidity in countenance never thawed.

"This is nonsense," Satsuki said at the end. "You are sympathising with this thing. Don't."

"Kick a dog enough times, and it'll bite."

"You listen to me." Her voice was a whip. "The Kyuubi killed over a thousand people the night it broke free, your parents included. And that was just one incident. Throughout history, it has been known for cruelty. There is not one shred of recorded information which calls it anything but a monster. Do not let whatever sob story it spun for your sake con you into thinking there is something noble about that thing."

Derisory laughter floated through the phantom maze in his mind.

They do not understand, it whispered. They will never understand. Only you do. For you and I are—

Naruto shut the lid.

Sleep beckoned.

"I shall report this to the Hokage when we return," Satsuki was saying. "He will ask Jiraiya-sama to—"

"No!"

The stare she gave him was disbelieving.

"This is not something to be meddled with, Naruto."

"Don't tell the old man. I'll never talk to the Kyuubi again. Swear it on my mother. Just don't tell anyone."

The old man would tinker. He would poke and prod. He would ask all the wrong questions. He would never allow Naruto the liberty to navigate his own thoughts, which were a convoluted mess at the moment. Dread and sympathy, sympathy and dread; and Naruto did not know which way—

No. He would figure things out on his own. He was fine as he was. He was happy as he was. He just prayed she would not subject him to the indignity of further scrutiny or constant surveillance. He had trusted her— he wanted a modicum of trust in return.

All of this, everything he thought but could not say, he communicated with one glance— and by some miraculous twist of fate she seemed to guess what caused his discomfiture, for the hard edges softened. Diluted into indecision.

"You're asking me to withhold sensitive information," she murmured.

"I'm begging my best friend for a favour."

She chewed her lip. Her tongue made an indent against the inside of her cheek. Frustration and reason warrred with whatever she considered to be her obligations towards him.

"Please, Satsuki?"

She sighed and looked away.

"You won't talk to the Kyuubi again?"

"Never."

"And if there's any trouble, then you'll let me know?"

"I promise," Naruto said immediately.

She huffed and got back to her feet.

"All right."

Satsuki left. He thought that was it; but a second later he heard the tent's flap rustle, and looked up to see she had brought her sleeping bag with her. She set it a couple of feet from him.

"Just in case there's trouble," she said, to forestall the question.

So much had unfolded over the previous few hours, that the erstwhile heat of his passion was blotted out by exhaustion. Once there might have been nervous excitement— now there was only gratitude. He conveyed it with a short nod before tucking in.

Even as sleep crept on him, he confessed a conviction that had impressed itself upon him over the course of this trip.

"You're a good person, Satsuki Uchiha," Naruto mumbled.

And as darkness claimed him, he fancied he heard a delicate feminine snort in acknowledgement.

Author's notes

Happy new year, guys!

Two chapters left in this arc. I wrote the second half of this one while struggling with burn out and running a high temperature, because I resolved to post a new year update. Happy to have that out of the way.

Now, that aside:

None of what I am about to say is canon. None of it has any basis in canon whatsoever. Applies to this story, is all. You can skip these things, since most of this is background info, and I will show some of these things at some point in the future anyway. I just tell you as a matter of courtesy.

Some random changes

That is the entire Kurama, not just his yang half.

No Minato and Kushina in Naruto's seal.

Obito is dead. Madara is dead. Zetsu and Kaguya do not exist. The Indra Asura thing does not exist. Reincarnation does not exist. The sage was simply the progenitor of all chakra.

I rely solely on the Shinobi villages for all my drama. I have made changes to adjust for this. I will inform you of them when we get to the relevant points. But three things immediately:

1) Kushina's seal weakens due to premature child birth, which is what allows Kurama to break free.

2) The Uchiha massacre was the eventual result of a coup attempt brought on by two generations of Tobirama inspired mistrust and paranoia. There was no Obito-shaped, Kyuubi controlled nudge here.

3) Only Madara (who is dead, and stays dead) could control Kurama. He did this by virtue of the EMS. The mangekyo sharingan cannot do this. It retains the ability to subdue tailed beasts under specific conditions (more on that later), but it cannot control them.

On Kurama's warning

His own negative experiences with Madara. But he knows about the Iwa kunoichi genjutsu (refer to last chapter's end notes if that doesn't make sense). He guesses Satsuki's intentions from that. He does not know that she changed her mind. He doesn't tell Naruto any of this, because he has his own agenda. He thinks it would greatly enhance his credibility if he warns Naruto against Satsuki, and then the things he warned about end up happening. It is a better alternative than simply telling Naruto and giving Satsuki a chance to talk her way out of it.

On Jinchuuriki

Jinchuuriki seals can be redone in this fic.

Jinchuuriki are human sacrifices in the literal sense of the word.

Tailed beast chakra is corrosive, even to the user. Overuse shortens lifespan and causes insanity. Lack of control does the same.

Naruto's seal acts as a filter. It locks out the worst of Kurama. It also works overtime to negate the side effects that tailed beast chakra inflicts on the wielder. He is free from almost all the drawbacks that Kurama's chakra would otherwise inflict. He is limited only by what his body can hold— which is to say, his own chakra acts as a counterbalance. At any given point, he can draw an amount equivalent (in tails) to his own chakra. If he goes beyond this, it starts to have consequences. But the seal is also a fuse: it checks this process the second he starts to overload. He can still lose control; but the moment serious psychological or physical harm is threatened, the power just short circuits and fizzles out.

Naruto leads a better life than every other Jin, since he has a stable seal, and since his tailed beast's chakra does not slowly eat away at his body and his sanity. If he were to defect, he would be hunted down by the entire world, not just for what he holds, but for the seal design, which is unique, and which would be invaluable if it were to be reverse engineered.

No notes exist on the seal. Most of Minato's work was destroyed in Kurama's rampage.

Three kinds of Jinchuuriki here:

1) Naruto, who has a great seal and a pretty decent life.

2) Situations where an unstable seal and an inability to control the tailed beast leads to a mutual meltdown for both the jin and the beast. Ends in sickness, insanity and premature death. These people are deployed in war for kamikaze attacks— they rarely last the duration of an entire war, let alone beyond. They are clearance sacrifices. It is a cynical use, but that is the only point to them. The tailed beast, which is then recovered and passed down, retains these effects of ill usage, and is considerably the worse for wear. This is what Kurama refers to, halfway through his tirade. Some of his brethren have literally lost their sanity, and are shells of themselves.

3) Situations where the seal is not good, but the Jin is able to subdue the beast and take its power by force. Repeated practice brings some amount of control and stability. These people are invaluable; they instinctively understand and adjust to the demands of using tailed beast chakra. There is still some wear and tear, but it is slow poison for them, a gradual falling apart over the decades. Three instances of this: Yugito, Yagura and Roshi. Obviously, the higher the number of tails, the harder it is to simply dominate the tailed beast and take its power. Hence Bee's failure to harness the Hachibi; thus his 'episodes' and his instability (mentioned in chapter 8).

On Mito and Kushina

Mito Uzumaki never draws from Kurama, even though her seal was country miles better than anything Kumo, Iwa, Suna or Kiri have come up with. Her own seal was designed as a partial filter, wherein if the tailed beast complies, then the damaging effects can be significantly diluted. Kurama does not comply. And Mito does not deem the risk of instability to be worth it. Simply seals him away and keeps him prisoner, so no one else can use him either.

Kushina tries drawing from him a few times, and is met with some success; but even with a Mito designed seal, the effects are debilitating. She gives up on his chakra when she feels her body and her psyche starting to crumble; and Konoha at the time is just so stacked, that she is never forced into over-extending.

On Minato

From these ideas, and from some of the things that Kurama hints at, a very different picture of Minato emerges.

In this fic, Naruto resorts to a reductive analysis of both his parents. He demonizes Minato and writes him off as an oppressor; in contrast, he deifies Kushina, because she, like Naruto himself, was a jinchuuriki.

But take all of the above into consideration, and you get a man who married a girl despite knowing what she held, and what her life was like. A man who ran with the idea that seals can be redone, and worked night and day to design a perfect seal to stabilize his wife and give her a better life. A man who was forced into completing his masterpiece in real time, after his wife's seal shattered during childbirth. And Kushina loved him fiercely for who he was, and was infinitely appreciative of the things he did, both for her and the village. Their marriage was a happy one. A rather more nuanced take than the simple: "my father was a monster, and my mother a saint."

This is not to justify his actions, of course: there's just more to him here than Naruto gives him credit for. In creating that seal, which is magnitudes better than what a run of the mill Jin in this fic walks around with, he did the best he could.

But again, Naruto does not know all this. To him, Minato is simply the man who ruined his life. And in looking at the troubled history of Jin and their usage, he has good reason to think so.

Thanks for reading!