A Demon's Dream
Chapter One: Taking Suggestions
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or its constituent characters/plot.
The shadow-user blinked in blatant surprise. The words he had just heard… there was no way he had heard his friend correctly. It just couldn't be. The spiky-headed orphan was cheerful, relentlessly stupid, surprised by almost everything and ridiculously dense, above all that… He was loyal to his friends.
He had expected disbelief, denial, almost absolute rage from the blond dipshit, not this. Semi-dark blue eyes that held concentrated life and enthusiasm were now hardened, cold beyond all belief. The same mouth that stretched into impossibly wide smiles at the most horrific abuse the Nara could think of, was a thin line of clenched teeth. And worst of all to the strategist, he could tell that the boy standing before him was infuriated, enraged to a degree he'd never seen before, cold, calculated, loathing seeped from him.
"N- Naruto…" the chuunin stammered, the words were forced to compete with his sense of self-preservation in front of the blonde's display of wrath. "C-Calm down, you aren't being forced to go with us…" he tried to pacify the youth, deciding he really didn't want to be in the wilderness for an indefinite amount of time with the crazed kid.
Go with them… and bring him back here!
If you don't go then who will, dumb-ass?
Not my problem, that angst-queen left on his own, by his own choice!
If you go… the second voice in Naruto's mind whispered back, the mental sound silky and seductive… it held the most dangerous thing of all, a promise. If you go, we can kill him.
That tempted him, oh god how it tempted him. After everything that he had done for the village, every time he had beaten their precious, tragic hero or proved himself to be just as good, they still needed him back. The third voice entered his thoughts, the voice that interacted with the world. Let's bring him back, the village will see us then, and they'll see how low their precious hero really is, they'll take us in his place! Damnit. He no longer had an option, and within the space of a second, the thoughts passed through his mind, he reigned in his rage and blatant envy, and was still nearly trembling with it when he smiled at the Nara again.
"Don't joke around Shikamaru, Sasuke is part of my team, I can't let him be kidnapped from the village without kicking someone's ass!" he exclaimed, and he was Uzumaki Naruto again, the lovable idiot. Or black sheep, as you preferred.
Nara Shikamaru was still shaken up by the display of temper he hadn't expected from his awkward companion, but he nodded assent and acceptance to the forced joy he let on. The two thusly left to gather their team, which went blissfully smooth. Naruto couldn't manage to look the youthful Green Beast of Konoha in the eye, unable to stand other people's sorrow, and Lee wore it around himself like a cloak, even while he did the same as Naruto did and tried to hide it behind a cheerful and energetic mask.
They gathered the remainder of the team, all the while Naruto was thinking, his mask responded automatically, almost by muscle-memory, in all the right places with all the same things he always said. But internally he was wondering, was it worth it to be cheerful and happy? It hadn't made any difference to anyone but him, it had only made him less happy inside, it was cowardly because he never looked at the problem itself, only a way to evade it. Of course the problem was that he had a demon in his belly, and that demon had destroyed the potential of this village. There wasn't a way to change that. But… there was always an alternative.
His reverie was disrupted suddenly as they were preparing to leave, the girl of his dreams, Haruno Sakura, she didn't even look at him as she all but begged him. "Naruto… Please, I'll never ask anything of you again-" liar. You'd ask him anytime you had even a little problem, weakling, Inner Sakura told her even as she spoke "- Please, just bring Sasuke-kun back," More words were lost to the wracking sobs that consumed her speech.
The outlooks of Naruto winced as parts of him died, watching the only girl he ever cared for, even in the face of betrayal and refusal from the object of her idiotic affections, beg of him. He hated her suddenly, every bit of him did. He hated her weakness, for not even being able to offer herself to the mission. He hated how she still called him 'Sasuke-kun' but he was still only Naruto. Most of all he hated her for assuming, for implying, that he wouldn't have brought Sasuke back for her sake anyway, that she thought he cared so little that she had to beg on her knees for his assistance.
The other four of the Sasuke-rescue team shifted away, to give the two some privacy, expecting Naruto to say something like 'promise of a life-time'. Speak your mind. How can she want to hurt us so much? I… hate… you… Naruto's eyes shown with unnatural light, keeping their deep blue, but lit from within as he snarled contemptuously at her. "I'll bring back your master for you. I'll bring Sasuke back to Konohagakure so you can be his devoted lap-dog and careful follower again you stupid whore. But never, ever, speak to me again as if we were anything more than teammates." He turned his back on her, shaking visibly once more with heartbreak and rage.
His four friends all looked at him with confusion and worry, Sakura stared after his retreating shape with pain- pain and barely hidden gratitude. Akimichi Chouji called after him as he struggled with the others suddenly to keep pace with him "Naruto, wasn't that more than a little harsh?"
Inuzuka Kiba was about to add his own support to Chouji's question but Naruto interrupted, and they listened because he had never been like this before. "No Chouji, if I was ever her friend then maybe, but as it turned out, I was just an annoyance, so I figured I'd play the part she assigned me. Just wish it didn't take me so long to figure it out…"
Kiba considered what he said for a long moment, and couldn't think of anything to say, so he sped past Naruto to the front of their group, Chouji fell in line behind the two and Shikamaru slipped behind him, Hyuuga Neji brought up the rear, considering the sudden change in Naruto. The Naruto who turned Neji's life around was different from this one, but if it was ok for Neji to change so suddenly… Who was he to say that Sasuke's defection wasn't allowed to have a similar effect on the blond?
"Focus on the mission everyone, let's bring our traitorous 'hero' home," Naruto tried to keep his comrades focused on the job at hand, but the venom in his voice was distracting even more.
…
Naruto closed his eyes tightly as it happened again. Another teammate gone suddenly, another friend of his that Sasuke killed. He bid farewell to Kiba in his heart, and then to Shikamaru. Running on further with no thought but to do the mission and go home. Between his target and himself there was the bone-user, between himself and home there were four graves, between himself and everyone there was Sasuke. Sasuke, who killed his friends, Sasuke who stole his heart's desire and gave her not a second glance, Sasuke who stole the smiles and reverence and acknowledgement he –Uzumaki Naruto- worked for.
A hand seal and a shout later a swarm of Naruto clones assaulted the enigmatic bone-user, and seconds after that they were clouds of smoke. Again the clones and a rapid assault, and smoke, and it was over. Naruto wasn't making any progress but he wasn't giving everything to the fight. Before he knew what was happening Rock Lee had landed beside him and sent him on his way, the green beast had heard the harsh farewell he gave to Sakura, and glared at the blonde as he told him to leave after Sasuke again. Naruto ran and said goodbye to Lee, even if he survived, the eyebrow-freak's devotion to that cherry blossom slut would have meant their friendship would be utterly destroyed.
Naruto almost wanted to cry over the loss, but he couldn't let it distract him as at that moment a flash of blue in the distance ahead and that Uchiha clan symbol drew a low growl from Naruto. With renewed vigor he launched himself after the power hungry kid. Sasuke jumped over a few rocks and into a cave, Naruto followed on the ground, his eyes already lit up again, slit-pupils widening as the dark cave surrounded him. The dull repetitive sound of his sandaled feet meeting the hard stone floor and the thin layer moisture thereupon, pushing his mind into an almost trance state.
As he slipped out of the normal mindset, Neji was beside him, standing still but keeping pace, this confused the blonde for a moment before the apparition spoke, harsh Hyuuga eyes narrowing at him in an almost accusatory fashion. "Naruto," the voice echoed in the cave, or maybe in his mind, he wasn't sure at this point"you have better eyes than me, only you can save Sasuke from the darkness he is in" all he had given was a nod at the time. DAMNIT, he had left his friend to die and hadn't even said farewell, he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.
"Neji… I'm sorry, don't die, please, whatever's listening, don't let any of them die." His head snapped up, focused on the point of light before him. "I'll bring him back for you guys, I'll bring him back to those pigs and that bitch for all of you." And then he burst from the cave and into the valley of the end.
…
If Uzumaki Naruto or Uchiha Sasuke had been interested in that kind of thing at the moment, they would have had to admire the majestic beauty of the Valley of the End, the first and second Hokages staring out away from Konoha, barring the progress of invaders. A part of Naruto's mind sneered rudely at the two, even they in their infinite wisdom ignored the Uchiha, ignored the threat that would betray and destroy Konoha, and they ignored the Kyuubi-carrier. He attempted quickly to calm himself, they were dead, and it was not their fault that things were the way they were.
"SASUKE!" the raspy voice echoed to the black-haired egoist. The conceited bastard in question turned his bizarre face towards Naruto, whose own features were rapidly turning to favor the bestial element of his self. Piercing blue eyes locked onto mismatched brown and gold ones before the voice continued. "The only way you're leaving this valley, is by going back to Konoha, dead or alive, whole or shattered, Konoha wants you back, and I will drag you there."
Sasuke quickly dismissed the blonde's words as his usual bravado, still… this was a chance to gain the Mangekyou Sharingan, he couldn't pass that up. "Naruto… Konoha has nothing for me, I haven't gotten any stronger there, Orochimaru is offering me power, power that I need to-" He was unexpectedly interrupted.
"To kill your brother; yes I know, I've heard it before, Freak-boy" Naruto leveled a cold glare at him, his mind withdrawing itself to the place where Kyuubi stayed. Naruto stared at the black abyss beyond the cage. "Bastard fox! I need your chakra, and I'll need you to keep supplying it, but this is my fight, don't think for a minute I'll give you control." Naruto grinned savagely, insanity writ across his face as his shadowed eyes started to look up towards his opponent. "But you're welcome to watch, and if it comes to it, I'll kill him before he can beat us." He brought his shining blue eyes up towards Sasuke, and smiled evilly. "I was hoping you'd give me the chance, you've had this coming for a long time, bastard"
Sasuke was about to retort when Naruto vanished, his Sharingan activated on its own a split-second before the punch hit him, he blocked it but the diverted hit cracked the statue under their feet, Naruto struck faster with another punch, it too was diverted, into the air, but before the black-haired boy could react Naruto's knee found his stomach and burrowed into it, almost throwing the boy back, but Naruto's claws dug into Sasuke's forearms and held him from escaping with the force of the blow. The blonde reared his head back and brought it crashing forward in his first armed attack of their fight.
Interlude: Analysis of Konoha Shinobi Equipment: Hitai-ate
The metal of a hitai-ate was thin, and rather flimsy, it was curved to fit to the bearer's forehead. Interestingly, it was primarily the material's ability to be reinforced by chakra that made the device useful at all, chakra pushed directly into the metal gave it the strength it needed to actually block a kunai or shuriken. But since a strike to the forehead that couldn't be blocked was one that was unpredicted, a technique like the Kawarimi no Jutsu existed for it. The Kawarimi was put on an object expected to remain somewhere nearby and triggered automatically when damage was suffered. So when the hitai-ate was hit, it automatically hardened with the bearer's chakra.
End Interlude
The difference, in the technique's senses, between a kunai and a forehead was nil, so Naruto slammed his head against his opponent's skull with essentially a two-inch-thick piece of steel slapped on his forehead and all of his Kyuubi-boosted strength. Sasuke crumpled under the blow, collapsing with a bleeding spiral-leave cut into his forehead. The blue-eyed demon stepped back from the bleeding, momentarily stunned fighter and glared with unbridled hatred. Clones exploded into existence around them, at least eight of them, with no seals or words from Naruto. The crowd of Naruto clones ran towards Sasuke and cried in unison "Naruto Bunshin Hitai-Ate Rendan!" the real Naruto grinned savagely as his clones smashed the bastard's face in, pushing their chakra into the false foreheads as they struck. None of them left the same mark, but he was badly bruised and battered by the time the last one poofed from existence. He lay still for a moment until Naruto grabbed his collar and lifted his battered form into the air.
Chakra-laced sandals brought Naruto to the edge of the waterfall, he hefted Sasuke into the air and formed the Rasengan in his right hand, on his own, the Kyuubi's wrath and laughter spurring him to the momentary feat, before he plunged the sphere into his former friend's chest. The blow spun him wildly around as he went down into the water below with a terrible explosion. Naruto threw himself off the edge of the waterfall after the bastard.
Sasuke grimaced painfully under the water, whatever that attack had been it hurt like hell. He grinned viciously, as he watched Naruto land on the surface above him, the pain didn't matter, it was quickly willed away as the self-induced suffering of the curse seal flowed through his shoulder and neck in its place, the flames-shaped blackness stretched over his cheek and across his features. Arms and legs pumped swiftly, bringing him closer to the surface and closer to the unaware blonde, his hands quickly tore kunai from his holster.
The black-haired boy burst from the water, a fine mist spraying in all directions as his hands emerged, quickly locking the kunai behind his opponent's knees, through the fragile joint and into the hard bundle of flesh and cartilage that formed the kneecap. Naruto's scream of outrage and pain filled the valley even as Sasuke hauled the rest of his body from the flowing river, hopped and kicked off from Naruto's orange-clad back, the process caught a weak seam in the old jacket and the red spiral symbol tore off as he flew backward from him.
Even before he was able to land he was forming hand seals, a cry of 'Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!' followed the blonde's scream, the fast-moving fireballs quickly fanned out leaving no room to escape 'Katon: Goukyakuu no Jutsu', the blonde didn't know that he'd had time for the seals yet, but even while he tried to drag the kunai out of his knees the massive fireball consumed his position. Sasuke stood back on the bank of the river, smiling wickedly with the flame-marks over his features, his lips and face were lightly singed from the rapid overpowered fire-techniques, but it had been worth it to see Naruto collapse.
Apparently though Sasuke missed the twin flares of chakra, one normal one Kyuubi's, as two clones pulled the kunai from his knees and pulled the burnt and bleeding body back to the surface. The two clones again dissipated rapidly and Naruto's form floated into Sasuke's view. The genius' eyes widened suddenly as he felt a second chakra totally subsume all of Naruto's, the damage to his legs mended before the Sharingan, frighteningly quickly, and the fresh combatant, in singed, torn, bloody clothes stood with cold hate in his eyes. A part of Naruto was still in his mind and it had to know…
"Sasuke! Why are you doing this? Why are you going to Orochimaru, did all of our time as team seven mean nothing to you!" He was almost bawling as he said it, he needed to know that there was some of the Sasuke who was his brother still in there, if there wasn't, if Sasuke was so gone…
"No. It had meaning." His words sparked hope in the blonde's mask, even as the tone he used made his feet sink into the water as his heart grew heavier. "I actually now consider you to be my closest friend." His spirit lifted "That is why I must kill you. To gain power," and it all crashed back down to the earth, broke the surface, fell further, it took most of the container with it, but it left some twisted remains in the blonde's torso, where once a heart had dwelt.
He stood still and waited, he knew what was coming next, he was tempted to let it, put him out of the villager's misery he thought. But even now, he couldn't break his word, it went against his Nindo (sp?). His eyes didn't track the seals, but they saw the familiar crackling blue energy that surrounded his hand. Kyuubi's chakra wrapped around his weary body, blood red light surrounding him like a cloak, the Rasengan took shape in his right hand, with nothing but his own brutish will driving it into the proper spheroid shape, and he charged forward to meet his rival, hurling the Rasengan forward at the same moment as Sasuke lunged with the chidori, its shrill cry competing in volume with the howling wind of the Rasengan.
The two attacks could only cancel each other out. Fighting one against the other never got them anywhere, they could see that. Sasuke was a genius, one look at the orb and he knew its infinite surfaces would last longer than the chidori's cutting effect would. Naruto wasn't stupid, he aimed to make sure Sasuke wouldn't be able to fight anymore.
The attacks never met.
Neither opponent looked to the other's jutsu to try and attack.
Naruto aimed to Sasuke's belly, but the Sharingan gave Sasuke enough warning and he threw himself into the attack, lifting off the water, into the air, Naruto's attack bit through the air and he was pissed just before half of his face was burned off by the chidori's light touch. He knew it was coming but the blue fire punching through his lung and out his back hurt like hell, and then the energy destabilized and released, blasting his back to so much shredded meat and ribbons. Four clones had already sprung out digging very real kunai into Sasuke's knees and shoulders, drawing a shriek of indignant disbelief and horrified pain from the Uchiha-heir. A final clone smashed the villain's face with its Hitai-ate, exploding into so much smoke as the impact sent Sasuke sprawling, unconscious and incapacitated on the ground.
Naruto slumped to the water, blood filling his useless lung, 'til he fell over and it emptied itself into the water. At some point the world went dark again, and he assumed he died. Despite his best intentions to the contrary, he was dead, that considerably pissed him off.
Hatake Kakashi stared at the two unconscious genin and rapidly moved to pick them up. He stared at Naruto, the hole in his chest looked like he was dead, but blood didn't flow like that in death… He threw a blood pill into Naruto's mouth and forced him to swallow it, and picked him up as gently as he could, slinging him over a shoulder before turning to Sasuke.
With sorrowful eye he looked upon the better off shape of his most horrible mistake. He slung Sasuke callously over his other shoulder and dashed towards Konohagakure, his tracking hound Pakkun in close pursuit, staring wide-eyed at the bleeding body of Naruto, and the savage damage to Sasuke's body. The little dog wondered silently Just what are those two?
Hatake Kakashi was wrapped up in his own thoughts as he carried his charges back to the village, mentally screaming at himself. How could you not notice it! That Uchiha kid was only ever concerned with his revenge, and there was no way that even you could have brought him out of that. Even Naruto, his only friend, couldn't save him from himself. I can't ever let this sort of thing happen again, this is all because I focused so much on Sasuke's training. Poor Sakura's gone off and only just begun her training, and Naruto's found his own sensei. Stopping his thoughts before he drifted into self-pity, the masked jounin quickened his pace just a bit more, throwing caution to the wind in his bid to get his students to the hospital in time.
Sasuke was drifting through his own reverie, unconscious as he was. I lost… even with all that power Orochimaru gave me, I lost, to an already beaten-down dead-last from that village. If he'd wanted to kill me there wouldn't be enough of me left to fill a shoebox… Wait why didn't he kill me? Oh, that's right… I'm like his brother, he couldn't kill me because of that, but he'll die because he couldn't kill me. Funny how that works. But I lost… they'll take me back to Konoha now. And after that I'll never be allowed out of the village again, if I couldn't beat Naruto then I'll never beat those ANBU they assign to me.
Realization hit him like an especially large and sharp brick. Or maybe that was his head. That dobe's headbutt really hurt after all. It didn't matter anyway.
His entire life's goal was effectively made impossible.
He could not now, nor ever in the future expect to defeat Uchiha Itachi.
There was a long minute of silence in the blue-clad genius' mind as he considered that. He started to panic, why wasn't he worried about that? Shouldn't he be depressed to lose his life's ambition? But… he didn't. Uchiha Sasuke felt nothing at the thought of being freed from his goal, except relief. His own reaction perplexed his conscious mind, and he took the remainder of the trip to contemplate it.
Unlike the other three, Naruto's conversation wasn't only with himself. If his mental body hadn't been a copy of his physical one he would have been pacing across the yellow-lit facility. For a moment the mental body of Naruto drank in his surroundings, pondering their meaning.
The orderly pattern to the tubes and panels in the walls and ceiling gave the blonde a distinctly tech-ish feel. The standing water all around gave him the feeling that it would eventually fill up the place. He noticed that actually the water was considerably higher than it had been upon his last visit, when his sensei pushed him off a cliff, maybe waist depth now. The yellow light seemed sickly to him, and its contrast with the rest of the world made him ever more curious.
Done enjoying the scenery, brat? The Uzumaki child's attention was drawn to the massive gates that dominated the room, and the mask of gleeful wrath that peered down on him from the other side. Naruto groaned and closed his eyes, attempting to tune out his monstrous resident. Hey, don't ignore me you little punk. I'm actually rather surprised by you…
"I wanted to kill him," he said simply, in answer to a question the Kyuubi hadn't asked. Perhaps he was only admitting it to himself now?
Which is why I was impressed. I always thought you were too soft to pick up on that thirst of mine. The demon laughed at Naruto's swift, but feeble denial.
"I'm not like you, he was just a bastard that needed to die." He said with cold certainty.
What did he do that the villagers never did to you? He actually was better to you than they were. This was rapidly confusing the blonde. Hadn't the Kyuubi been trying to convince him that killing Sasuke was a good thing to want?
"He betrayed the village, and he betrayed me…" he said, uncertain to the direction of this thinking.
The villagers betrayed you every time you offered kindness and they threw it in your face, container or no, you're still one of them, they had an obligation to you and they went back on it. Didn't they?
"The village… betrayed me?"
Of course they did. Humans are fickle.
"Funny thing for a demon to say." The blonde's tired response was quick, he wasn't dead yet, just exhausted.
Hmph. Still that insolent tone. I had planned to enlighten you a bit but you don't seem ready for it, anyway our time is being cut short. You'll hear from me real soon, brat… the demon's voice and image faded away with its haunting laugh. And Naruto woke up shivering.
The Village. The stares, the hate, their blind enmity, it stung and hurt more than the chidori had. Kakashi had no idea how Naruto dealt with it for so long, the blonde had put up with this back when he had been a prankster, and now he was subject to it after nearly losing his life to save their precious genius too? It was shocking, even to the jaded jounin sensei to see it. But Kakashi didn't give it any of his mind as he made for the hospital.
Sasuke was still out cold, not having a demon to help him recover, and actually he was becoming quite pale from his still slightly flowing wounds. Naruto was not doing much better, he wasn't bleeding so profusely anymore from any of his wounds, the blood pills had been doing their work so he didn't look as pale as the already mostly sunless-Uchiha did. In fact he was already swimming in and out of consciousness , enough to receive the cold glares from the villagers, and the few muttered remarks even he could pick up.
The fox-damned child couldn't bring himself to care, he was numb everywhere, and the world was rapidly getting dark again, with his inner coils burnt and damaged by overusing the Kyuubi's chakra, the demon had its hands full keeping him from dying, much less repairing the gaping hole in his torso. Semi-sleep, or at least enough cognitive dismissal built up again in him that he tuned out light sound and touch.
So it was the smell that got to him when moments later he was in a disinfectant-stink filled room that he realized he wasn't moving anymore. He was filled with confusing sensations of warmth and god-awful pain. Strange sounds abounded around him, numerous frantic voices layered just over those countless machines (he assumed they were machines). The sound was enough to make him curious and he let out a faint rasp that he meant to be a sigh, his eyes trying to open to take in the room around him.
A close by voice cried out in shock 'Sweet kami-sama… he's awake!' The blonde wanted to sit up and glare at the speaker and say 'Of course I'm awake, why wouldn't I be?' By now of course the drugs feeding into his body were making him forget the pain, but the raspy gurgle he heard of his own voice, and his body's lack of response to his intent gave him a good idea as to why he shouldn't be awake.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that hole in my lung. Huh. Must've slipped my mind… More shouting sounded over him, much louder now that he heard Tsunade's voice enter the fray. Her sudden presence made him feel quite a bit safer actually, and sleep again claimed him.
Tsunade was beyond pissed. There were not words in any lexicon with which to describe the rage the fifth hokage felt at that moment. She wanted to kill Orochimaru, but that desire had been present for years already, currently she wanted to unman and dismember Uchiha Sasuke –and his older brother too, just for good measure. To smash Nara Shikamaru's head in for getting Naruto into a position where he could be so injured, his lifelong friend Chouji for his antidote having prevented her from getting to Naruto sooner, the Hyuuga branch member for calling Shizune away. She wanted to deliver swift and violent punishment on Naruto himself for getting injured, and Haruno Sakura for guilting him into a promise that nearly killed him and in the process taking away one of the most important purposes in his life.
Most of all she was angry with herself, that she couldn't do everything at once. More so that she couldn't heal the little boy she loved like a brother and hold him to say that everything was alright. She hated to think what was happening to the boy right now, and being able to firsthand see his wounds, she was nearly paralyzed by the sight of so much blood and bits of flesh.
Like the trained medical professional she was, she took charge of the situation and began to work on her patient, offering prayer to the demon in his belly that he would live.
At the same time, Haruno Sakura sat outside Sasuke's hospital room, unable to help the medic-nin inside. She looked to her right, the bench in front of Naruto's room was still occupied by Kakashi, who was sullenly staring at the floor. She couldn't think of anything to say and decided to take up her sensei's hobby, picking apart the false randomness of the tiles that made up the floor. A machine made them, that denied randomness, but for the life of her she couldn't find the pattern.
She sighed, the sigh became a light chuckle that turned quickly into a sob. The tile pattern on the floor forgotten, she thought to the departure of her teammates. Sasuke had always refused her, with the same look and statements, but Naruto had never been deterred by anything she said before, and she had been more ruthless with him than Sasuke had been with her. It hurt her, deeply, to know that she'd destroyed that little bit of him, love or no he was her friend. Or he had been. She spent most of her time so far chasing Sasuke, who would never love her, ignoring the one who always had and now was repulsed by her, in short, her potential of romantic involvement with any of the possible candidates, was gone.
Kakashi, on the other hand, was trying hard not to think. He was reminded why he never took students, because it meant he had a liability. He had failed two of his students and had never understood the third. Even worse, it was entirely his fault (in his mind at least) that Naruto was going to die. He knew about the Kyuubi, but the chidori was his own attack, and the damage had been horrible to him, he was still covered in blood from the two monsters he had brought back.
He leaned back and smacked his head against the wall, a hand reaching laconically into his equipment pouch, and withdrawing (to Sakura's astonished disgust) his old favorite volume of Icha Icha Paradise. The jounin stared from his single open eye at the words, but he couldn't read just then. He slumped his arm back down and closed the book, tucking it away and balancing a kunai on his fingertip with his chakra. He lifted up his headband and let his Sharingan study the chakra, wondering if watching something so starkly natural would give him insight into the mechanical flow of the tiles' pattern.
"You're absolutely right. They do betray me, constantly." Said a still floating and incapacitated blonde to no-one he could see.
Brat, would it kill you to clean up in here a little bit? Open up the floodgates kid, there's too much in your mind right now. The demon called annoyingly.
"Did you pull my thoughts here just to complain about the décor in my head? I have some rather serious moping to get to if you're just going to dick around with me." The blonde replied hotly.
The demon on the other side of the cage snorted contemptuously. Ditch the attitude, boy. Carrier or no, your mind is still fragile in here. But incidentally that isn't the only reason I wanted to talk to you. The demon's face became visible again. Like I said before, you impressed me, so I'm gonna enlighten you a little bit, about the differences between demons and humans- Shut up and listen brat! The demon's last outburst came as the prone Naruto looked about to speak.
Now as I was saying. Demons are, inherently, beyond the scope of logical human power, its impossible for a demon to be killed by a human directly, why do you think I was sealed in you? Naruto again looked about ready to answer the red beast. That was rhetorical, no need to answer. The demon actually gave a semi-depressed sigh, why did he have to be locked in this idiot. Regardless of the difference in capacities, demons do not, and cannot change, grow, or act in any way beyond what they were created as and for. Demons do as demons are, humans on the other hand, do as they choose. They're growth is totally unlimited, their fate is determined by themselves… marvelous isn't it? There was something that might have been envy in his voice as he spoke, and for once, Naruto couldn't easily think up something smartass to say. After a moment he spoke again. Demons, therefore, get the short end of the stick in terms of how they live. They have the potential for eternal life with no change, humans have brief life within which they can realize unlimited potential.
"So why did you attack the village and make the fourth die to ruin MY life!" The blonde couldn't take it anymore, it seemed that logic was rapidly abandoning both him and the demonic fox.
Hmm. I had thought we'd be past that little bit. Oh well, not for the first time you have disappointed me, Uzumaki Naruto. We'll just see if you meet my expectations in the future, but I won't hold my breath. The fox's face started disappearing and the water filling the area began to sweep the blonde out of the room in a current that he couldn't totally explain.
"BASTARD FOX! ANSWER ME!" the cries echoed through the halls of Naruto's mind as he was pulled out of the dreamscape.
His mind was rapidly returning to consciousness, the drugs being pumped into his body did nothing to stop it, the hole in his chest still refused any and all forms of treatment, blood was being fed into his body from a bag, several actually, and was pouring out the glaring wound. Kyuubi had been keeping him alive despite it, but now he decided to let Naruto heal it himself, which was why he was rendering the sedatives inert in the boys body. As his mind began to return to the real world, a low growl began from his throat, and quickly escalated from there.
Naruto woke up. And the world was pain. He ripped his own throat apart with the scream of agony the left him, and didn't care, chakra billowed around him again and his eyes were terrifying with their slitted pupils and piercing light.
But the chakra, and his eyes, were blue.
The blue chakra enveloped the container completely, expanded out for a moment and dove inwards again. Even if Naruto never consciously understood how the Kyuubi used its chakra to heal him, his body knew the process, and it repeated the treatment on his form, this time using the body's chakra and not the Kyuubi's.
Kakashi had burst into the room upon hearing the scream and was now staring wide-eyed at the sight, as was everyone in the room, of blue light wrapping together newly forming flaps of flesh, reinflating the lung as it formed itself anew, blood vessels, muscle, bone, cartilage all reformed in the storming blue chakra in his chest. Finally the flesh reformed over the wound, a little pinkish, but skin nonetheless, similar rapid regeneration seemed to melt his other scratches and burns, and the horrendous damage to his back. Finally the mass of scar-tissue his face had rapidly become shuffled off, leaving new muscles open to the air for a moment, only to rapidly have those shielded from sight again behind a fresh layer of pink skin, the whisker marks matching the other side of his face with eerie precision, his right eye blinked open, its light mirroring his left. The scream ended and he fell backwards, breathing heavily, as if testing the new lung. However, despite his exhaustion he remained conscious, if only barely.
A silence descended on the room, and after a long moment during which most of the doctors had backed away from the demon-child. After an uncomfortable minute, Tsunade broke the silence, Kakashi was at her side, Sakura wanted to be there but his words still rang in her mind. "Naruto-" There were a million questions she wanted to ask, what did you just do, are you ok, what about the Kyuubi, and how dare you almost die on me you thankless little brat, just to name a few. She didn't get a chance to however, as the blonde spoke first. The voice should've been rough from all that screaming as he healed his massive damage, but his throat had healed even as he was laying there.
"Did I kill him?" He asked before anyone could say much to him. Tsunade was touched, that even after this he'd still be so concerned for that traitorous bastard… She shook her head slowly, preparing to speak when the blonde caught her gesture. Damnit. I wanted to kill him.
"He'll be fine Naruto, so will Chouji and Neji, Akamaru and Kiba will be in the hospital for the rest of the week and Shikamaru was already released. It's alright Naruto, everyone's ok." Hatake Kakashi glanced at the hokage with a raised eyebrow but then turned back to his pupil.
"Mostly everyone, what about you Naruto? What the hell was that just now? I mean, I have seen the Kyuubi heal you, but that wasn't the Kyuubi's chakra." Tsunade gave the masked jounin a stern look but didn't debate the point.
Naruto blinked slowly and thought about it, his eyes didn't hold that awful light they had a moment ago. He thought to the conversations he had had with the demon, but it wouldn't do for normal people to hear he could speak to the fox, that sort of gossip would make the wrong impression on people. He sent a glare at the cowering medical staff. Tsunade caught it and sent everyone packing, certain that she could handle his medical needs herself. He waited 'til the door was shut again before he spoke, and when he did finally his voice was almost sullen.
"Kyuubi said that I impressed him." He looked at both of them with all the savagery and hatred he could muster, not directed towards them, for the blonde thought Sasuke alone was to blame for his flight, though he blamed the damage to his body on Orochimaru and that thrice-damned curse seal. His eyes lost the hate, they were filled with contented madness as the light reappeared in them. "I impressed my tenant because so help me I wanted to kill that fucking prick in the next room over. But I made a promise that I wouldn't, that I'd bring him back alive, and I needed to know something too. When I was out, Kyuubi started to explain things to me, but I interrupted and he decided to let me die I guess." He paused as he said that, it was confusing to him why the demon would allow his container to die, but then again, the rest of the human's life in that cage couldn't be any better than oblivion.
The blonde went on. "When I fought Sasuke I was only using Kyuubi's chakra, not my own. I don't want to die, there's still some things I have to do, I pushed all my chakra back into my body, and it did the rest, like it does every time with Kyuubi's more demonic chakra." He looked at them with a smile. "Disturbed yet? I know I am!"
Tsunade and Kakashi were silent for a long moment again. Again Tsunade removed the tension in the room, this time with a solid smack to the top of his head. The demon-container exaggerated and clutched his skull in feigned agony and Kakashi sighed as Tsunade told him to tough it out. He was the next to speak.
"Tsunade, may I have a moment with Naruto?" The question was innocent enough but Tsunade gave him a scrutinizing look just in case. She gave Naruto a quick medical scan, the chakra for which was difficult to summon after using so much today. She glared at Naruto for being able to heal without damage to his body permanently but answered Kakashi.
"Alright, you've got a week off from missions Hatake, when you two are done here, help Naruto get home since I don't know what the villagers or medics feel right now." A momentary glare and a reminder that she was the creator of the ten-thousand years of pain technique later she finished "But you're both showing up in my office tomorrow first thing, got it?" They both gave frightened nods, Kakashi hiding on the opposite side of Naruto to divert her wrath, and Naruto wishing that he could find the energy to hide under the bed.
The Hokage turned and left, muttering something about coward perverts and troublesome pranksters. Naruto stuck his tongue out at her retreating form and got the distinct impression that his sensei would have done the same had he not been constricted by the mask. Before he could look to see if it were the case, Kakashi was at the foot of his bed again, looking down at him intently. The blonde knew better than to intrude on his sensei's thoughts when he had that expression on.
"Naruto… Sasuke will probably be killed for his treason. I think its right because he's too big of a gamble, but that isn't the issue. Its… my fault that Sasuke was able to almost kill you, and that he ran, I owe more than I can ever make up to you and Sakura, but I promise you that it'll be different from now on." He paused to collect himself and might have said more if Naruto hadn't interrupted his train of thought.
"Wow, I never thought my sensei was so dim." He sat up in the bed, not breaking his words as he grimaced slightly. "Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke ran away because he's a whiny little prick who's too obsessive for his own good. Maybe his older brother had a hand in it, but it was his choice. It's Orochimaru's fault that he got that lucky shot in, you just made a common mistake and focused on one student, not even the future hokage is perfect, right?" His face stretched into his normal impossibly wide smile.
For a moment the jounin stared at his student, and slowly his visible eye curved to a rough approximation of the opposite of a third x-squared. Not that Naruto cared or understood mathematical descriptions of two-dimensional arcs (a/n: And somewhere in Japan, several television writer/producers and their artists sneezed in unison.). Kakashi decided that while he still had a lot to talk to his other student about, and still had a lot to make up to all of them (even Sasuke), it could wait, or it would be easier with them. Naruto had that effect on everyone, Kakashi had assumed that being so much older and more mature, porn excluded, he would've been immune to the blonde's joyous spirit. As with many people in Konohagakure, Kakashi had underestimated Naruto. He grunted out an agreeing sound and went towards the door.
"Well hurry up and get dressed, I'll walk ya home." That said, the jounin let the door shut behind him, leaving Naruto alone in the room with his tenant.
End Chapter One: Taking Suggestions
Author Notes: Hi howdy and hello to all. The name's Islagatt, and I'll be the author for this story. I know this all is a fairly common setup, but I'm hoping its enjoyable all the same, this will be a Naruto leaves Konoha for x number of years and comes back all uber-like fic, I'm hoping that the quirks I throw in will make it interesting… I don't know if there will be a pairing in this, Naruto won't be a half-demon, Kyuubi will be more explained and more active as time goes on, I'm mostly done with my Sakura-trollop bashing… Ugh, I'm gonna stop this damn note, read the next two chapters please, I finished 'em in advance anyway. Oh yeah, I need a beta, any takers? Further, I need ten reviews to post the chapter after the initial batch.
