A Demon's Dream
Chapter 3: My Brother, the Professor
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did, the Kyuubi would be the main character.
Blue sandaled feet wandered down the street, an orange jumpsuit with a hole in one shoulder that exposed a white t-shirt beneath, and blonde hair barely restrained by a blue-cloth forehead protector moved above them. That would have been odd if there wasn't a body attached to them, actually it still was odd because the blonde hair was all people saw of its face. This expression on that body –the only body that wore clothes that gaudy in public- was something foreign to the people of Konoha, and frankly, it was disturbing to them.
In point of fact, Konoha really didn't like the Uzumaki boy for the same reason they hated Mitarashi Anko, which is to say, they both upset the status quo. Naruto threw the balances and people out of order around him by virtue of his tremendous strength and seemingly unlimited potential, anytime he was pegged down into one role and behavior, the people eased their attitude towards him, but this most recent demonstration of power… He had defeated the last of the Uchiha clan, and once again showed to them how much more he was than a simple prankster. And right now he was throwing their status quo even worse with his morose and nearly depressed air.
Actually, the blonde was deep in thought, a truly unnatural state for him, he was reflecting on the words that had been exchanged in the hokage's office. His mind raced in millions of directions at once but many of those directions agreed that the traitorous bastard should die, he should die mostly because he had been such a close friend to the blonde, and yet he betrayed him and the entire village, in other words, it hurt. And he had to ask himself as he continued on his way, that if the bastard had hurt him so bad, then why did he not ask for him to die, knowing the Hokage she'd probably have done it just because the bastard had caused the already fragile boy some psychological damage.
The ever present, self-doubt, self-pity, introspective sliver of Naruto's psyche told him that it was completely understandable for the village's prized bloodline scion to slay the vile beast that plagued the city. Of course, the dominant aspects of his personality, and his rarely used training-and-mission-built detachment both pushed aside that voice, neither wanted to hear it and neither really believed it. But the blonde's current mindset was eager to listen to its most sinister sliver-self.
If Naruto had been put to death so long ago, as the village council had said to do, as the villagers and ninja had wanted done, then he would never have gotten in the way of Sakura and Sasuke. Or rather, he would never have heard Sakura blame him for Sasuke's frigidity and thus that would be the same as her being happy (no one ever said that self-pity featured a thought-out and logical road map). Along that same vein, Hyuuga Hinata, whose idolization of the blonde was apparent even to its (admittedly dense) subject (though by no means were the affections inherent to such admiration known, affection being something of a foreign concept to him), would never have to compare her self-confidence and her determination to someone else and would thus have been able to find her own strength. Perhaps more importantly, his rapid growth, owed almost entirely to the Kyuubi no Kitsune, would never have prompted the Uchiha's inferiority complex to flare up again, and he'd never have gone to Orochimaru for power.
These were thoughts that were conducive to his overall mood, and were thoughts he embraced because of that, a very human habit to selectively embrace reality. His self-pity, something he so rarely indulged in, spiraled down and down, introspection finding more faults within himself and with his prior actions.
Or rather, that's what would've happened.
Within infinite void that was the blonde's brain-case, the nine-tailed demon fox stalked back and forth, his plans were so close to advancement, but his host, Naruto, the most important factor in all of the Kyuubi's equations, was quickly falling out of his grasp. Until today, the fox had assumed what everyone else had, that his spirit was totally indomitable. Until yesterday the fox never believed it would be able to use the host in the fashion it needed to.
And until just that moment, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, had worried about little Uzumaki Naruto. Oh it just filled his demonic heart with glee to see what happened next.
The fox watched, and Naruto watched, as a gob of saliva, phlegm, alcohol, and tobacco hit the ground before him. And just then one could observe the quicksilver speed of human thought, if they were able to watch the blonde's brain that is.
For in the single moment before he acted, the self-proclaimed future Hokage considered his role as a ninja, his dreams, the villagers around him, and his life 'til this point. Of course, a ninja's first duty was to protect the village he was from, he knew that, and that meant threats from outside and inside the village. His dream was of course to be the Hokage and have the world's acknowledgement, and that meant learning how to sacrifice a part of the whole for the betterment of a larger part, a lesson he was eager to learn at that moment. So. Assuming that it was better to do things that would make less problems in the long run, he decided to set the villagers straight right then and there, because it wouldn't actually harm anyone this way, and the village would be better off like this.
So with that thought in the blonde ninja's mind, Manbun Sonmin –the offending villager- suddenly found himself pressed against a wall, the monster's arm out pointed more or less at him, and a shuriken embedded just beside his ear.
The street stopped moving, and the villagers there turned to watch something new, even if they hated things that weren't normal, they always loved to see blood and violence, after all, they were only human.
What no one really expected to see, was the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, orange-clothed ninja sticking to the wall with a kunai in one hand, drawn back and raised into the air while their demon bore the most vile and hideous smile any of them had ever seen. Sonmin himself would've whimpered, if he had the courage, or if he hadn't been rooted by the powerful, glowing blue eyes that froze him in place. The down-on-his-luck tanner heard some noise, and judging by the motion of the blonde's mouth, he guessed it to be speech, but he didn't understand the sound, just the flowing melody of threatening evil that it offered.
Naruto's body was on autopilot, the course and the words and the actions determined by the rage and the repressed feelings he didn't care to hold in anymore. Probably this would get him in trouble, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care about that, he practically heard the kunai in his hand singing that it wanted to taste the man's blood, but he tuned out its siren song and focused on giving a promise.
"You all look at me and you don't see me, you only see it, just a demon, a monster. Well if that's what all of you want so much, then the next time you look at me, you can watch two demons, and you'll never see anything more terrifying than me; even the Kyuubi's wrath will be nothing next to the terror and destruction I'll be capable of!"
Sonmin heard a popping sound next to his head as the shuriken was pulled from the wood, just after the background noise of the shinobi's speaking stopped. He stared straight where the blonde's eyes had been until a few moments ago, and finally broke down, collapsing to his knees and retching violently onto the street, while most of the civilians around were recovering from their shock. They didn't raise a ruckus over it, each having a thought along the lines of 'Someone else will tell the Hokage or the council about this, and that little brat will pay. At the same time I don't really want to piss him off, so I'll let someone else do it' the latter half being something of a subconscious imperative, given that they would never admit to being afraid of a twelve, thirteen(?) genin.
Actually he was fourteen/fifteen (a/n: fail genin test twice + 12 year old graduation 14 year old graduation (if someone's got a more plausible thought or some doubts on my math then let me know because this bugs the hell out of me)), and damn tired of being so underestimated. Or rather, he would be, if the fox sealed in him let him recall his actual age. On the outside, the blonde passed it off as thinking that his birthdays were unpleasant affairs (the Kyuubi was defeated that day, most of the villagers remembered him on that day, this led to problems) and thus there was the perfectly acceptable excuse that he didn't want to use them as markers.
This was just one of the many things that the fox held in check for his host, being sealed into the same body, being an extra soul, but somehow only half of the being that was Naruto, gave him a great degree of power in affecting his host. In fact a lot more so than most people believed was the case, or would believe given the blonde's overzealous cheerfulness. Frankly, the Kyuubi didn't feel it would be satisfying if his host ran around doing the rampaging he so badly needed to perform, to that end he carefully sculpted and filtered the boy in his developmental years into… Oh for gods' sake couldn't he get a minute's privacy from the nosy readers invading his cage!
Or for that matter from his host's mind-image.
"GIVE ME JUTSUS! GIVE ME CHAKRA! MAKE ME STRONGER YOU BASTARD FOX!" The blonde was screaming at his tenant, tears streaming down his face in the jaundice light.
The Kyuubi calmly regarded him, and felt his respect drop a notch, he scolded himself for that, it wasn't the boy's fault after all. "No." A simple answer from the fox-demon, but not one that the boy wanted to hear.
"NO! 'NO'! What do you mean 'No' ? I want to hurt them, isn't that what you want too? Come on bastard fox! You know what I said to them, now make me a demon!"
Kyuubi no Kitsune, the fox of infinite patience, of evil beyond mortal ken, gave a frustrated sigh. "Listen to me, boy. I don't care if I do live in your body, you're to address me with respect and reverence when you're making a request on this scale. You want a little boost to your chakra? Fine. You want me to keep you from dying? I can do that. But let me explain the way the world works to you for people and beings that aren't genius."
For possibly the first time in his life, Naruto shut up, stunned into silence at the depth displayed suddenly by his demonic birthright. It just wasn't natural for the Kyuubi to speak so much at once, and for it to actually be teaching him… The world must be coming to an end, he decided very firmly.
"Humans like you don't get power, you work for it, everything you gain must be fought for, tooth and nail, you've gotta bleed for your desires and your dreams, and it's the same way for me. Or rather… it will be."
"Uh… Fox, what the hell are you talking about?" The blonde was sitting in a chair that hadn't been there, but he was tired of standing around and so he had decided to sit. "Waitaminute. You said that there was a reason you attacked Konoha, there's a link between that and why your chakra has always been leaking into me. And you also said you'd tell me the difference between demons and humans. We've got time now, bastard fox, so tell me." Naruto's rare streak of intellect, the Kyuubi couldn't help but beam with pride at the other half.
"Perceptive, kid, you get full marks for that.
"Alright, Sherman set the way-back machine for the dawn of civilization (1)" The blonde blinked in total confusion. "Ehh… Right. Anyway. At the beginning of man's abstract thoughts, he was upsetting the carefully arranged balance of energies in the universe, that means that order was disrupted and then there would be chaos, got it?" a nod "Good. Order in the universe man is present in couldn't allow itself to be disrupted by something intangible, so every time these apes came up with an abstract thought, something became of that thought in a less real space than yours. Call it chaos or limbo or whatever you like, but that's where demons, angels, and gods exist. Summon beasts are fundamental aspects of the world, twisted slightly by human progress, but you humans affect so much… Regardless, demons and angels and gods and all of us conceptual entities, can only exist to the identity that humans and ourselves collectively create, that is to say, human thought is sculpting us, but we project ourselves back out at the same time, understand this at all?"
The blonde thought for a minute. "I think I get it… But that doesn't explain the differences between our forms, demons and humans" The Kyuubi smiled, the boy had more potential than he'd ever hoped.
"I'm getting to that brat!" Naruto 'harumph'd and gave a disgusting pout. "As much as a demon is made, it is indestructible so long as the thoughts that made it continued to exist, which is why beings like me can project images back, to make sure that we remain real. We are as infinitely powerful or as underwhelmingly weak as we are imagined to be, but we can't ever exceed it. Take me for instance, I am the most powerful demon ever, and yet its technically possible for a human to one day leave me in the dust, in terms of power." Naruto found himself finding that hard to believe. After all, most of the village had died in the process of just sealing the beast.
"Infinitely unlikely, but possible none the less." Ah, there was that arrogance that the blonde so flippantly chalked up to his companion. "Of course this would lead to, among humans, an intense philosophical debate, over which one was preferable. It doesn't really matter of course because most humans are just given the one option. But just consider for a moment what would happen if a human, with all its free will and capacity to grow stronger , had all the power and experience of a demon integrated as an equal and separate part of its human whole. "
"That, in a nutshell ninja-boy, is what we are. You and I are separate personalities and separate powers, but we are both only half of Uzumaki Naruto."
"So you won't make me stronger then?" the one-track blonde asked.
"No, we're both going to make Uzumaki Naruto stronger, but, you'll have to trust me in order to be as strong as you can be, as it stands there's so much distrust on your half that you can't even tap into all that power the fourth gave you, even if this seal isn't as strong as it needs to be." The blonde looked at his tenant curiously with that statement, but the Kyuubi's eyes and threatening growl put an end to the things he wanted to ask. "The bottom line here, you more visible aspect of our shared psyche, is that we have to trust each other, and we have to leave. The village is holding you back, not in an Uchiha 'oh woe is me, they don't have anyone strong enough to teach me' sense of holding you back, but they haven't given us a single teacher that did anything truly good for us. Jiraiya doesn't count because you forced him to teach us, they're hate has blinded you to the possibility that I'm as virtuous as you are and by extension cut off the greater part of your strength except in dire straits, and honestly, what ties you here that you wouldn't give up for a few years to get stronger?" Displaying a rare moment of insight (frightening the demon with his newfound frequency of these), he paused and considered the matter.
And considered.
And pondered.
And the part of the Kyuubi's mind that was a reflection of Uzumaki Naruto was becoming irritated with his other half's slowness. Most of the Kyuubi though, knew that this all was an event that required some serious consideration.
"It sucks." The simple declaration confused the demon, because it wasn't his normal tone, it was… tired. "I would've argued less than an hour ago, that my friends and my precious people here would keep me from strength. The reason I'd go with Jiraiya is of course, he obviously cares, he's been there for me as much as he could, when I really needed him at least" Kyuubi glanced at him with an unreadable look, but Naruto went on, ignoring his debatably wiser half. "But now it sucks because I know this, it's going to be hell to get Tsunade-obachan to let me, err… us? Go. Worse than that, I still don't trust you, I mean, you said yourself you're clever, and you ARE a demon, so maybe you want me to go out alone, let the Akatsuki get me and let them rip you out of my stomach." He glared accusingly at the demon in question.
Kyuubi feigned offence, as much as a massive, grinning maw and seemingly unattached red eyes could appear to take offence at anything. This prompted another comment from the blonde. "Do you really have to look like that?" Again a red-eyed glare from the beast and it spoke
"Actually I was about to show you why the Akatsuki taking me from you is going to kill us both. While at my initial rage, I would've been ecstatic even for death from you, before you were too old I had cooled my rage and resumed my plan. However, our bonding in this fashion…" The red eyes closed and the mouth shut, leaving the place behind the cage unfathomably dark for a minute. Another passed. Naruto wondered what the flow of time was really like inside his own mind, when would it be when he awoke? He wondered, but he had no valid guesses.
The light snapped on, across the massive gate, revealing a wide rolling sea of green, after a moment, the blonde realized they were trees, in the distance he could see little, blurry shapes, the village, and the Hokage monument rising beyond that, with three faces on it. Three?
"That's how I remember it, at least." The blonde's eyes shot to the suddenly human-like voice, standing directly opposite the bars from himself. Brilliantly blue eyes widened in shock as they locked with mirroring orbs of crimson, the pupils slit vertically. "Don't be so surprised, the body belongs to both of us after all." It was Uzumaki Naruto's Mirror. Fucking. Image. Down to the bright orange 'kill-me' jumpsuit, the only difference was that his double lacked a hitai-ate, and his spiky hair was dark orange instead of bright blonde. The aforementioned eyes would be a redundancy, and Naruto believed in bluster, not repetition.
Naruto noticed something after he shocked out of his initial daze. "HEY! Weren't you criticizing my clothes earlier!" Kyuubi glared darkly back at him and responded in the same voice.
"I have an excuse! Besides these clothes rock, not stealthy but stylish! At least I'm not being a ninja in this getup, moron!"
"I'm not the moron, you're the moron!" The blonde shouted at the redhead.
"And a halfwit to boot!" the inevitable, well thought out retort.
The shouting match didn't end until the shared Naruto woke up, it was dark, and he was smiling genuinely. Tsunade… A problem they would address when it came up, and not before, for now… ICHIRAKU!
She'd seen him tell off the pink-haired girl on his team, when she doubted that he would get her heartthrob back, and she'd had to suppress a vindictive smile of triumph. After all, the boy no longer longed for Sakura, maybe he would notice her finally… Then again, she had seen his return as well, blood flowing freely from his wounds, and if she let herself trust her eyes, a fatal, gaping chest wound.
And then she'd been crying, weeping to the point of running dry of tears, and still sobbing uncontrollably. After all he was dead, the idealized image in her mind, the self-confidence she aspired to, the strength she knew was always there and always willing to help, it was gone. Dead. How could it not be dead with that wound?
Sunlight was filtering in through her window now, it must've been afternoon for that to happen, and while her sobbing had stopped, she still couldn't bring herself to care. I never even told him what I felt, damnit, and now he's gone…
Hyuuga Hiashi did not know about the rumors of the Uzumaki boy's death, he was above such pathetic matters as gossip. Of course, he didn't consider it gossip when he always heard how his firstborn daughter idolized the same boy that was, for a few hours, conjectured dead. His patience in learning why his daughter was crying so much had paid off, when, in the night he returned, a messenger arrived to inform him that his nephew was in critical condition, but expected to survive. He had asked after, and received, the status of the others on the team, including a description of the Uzumaki boy's wounds, and his departure just before the messenger left.
Hyuuga Hiashi was not a stupid man, but he didn't really have much in the way of common sense either. His logic, when it came to human interaction, was sorely lacking. So, because of that, he still had no idea why his daughter was in her room bawling her eyes out 'til all hours of the night. And now, she had missed two meals in one day, and hadn't yet left her room, that was more than he was willing to put up with, and he picked himself up and stalked through his own house to his daughter's bedroom door.
He threw the door open with full intent of being how he normally was, but then he saw her, huddled up, a complete mess, eyes bloodshot and cheeks puffy. With a sigh, he lost his brutal edge and slid the door shut behind him as he walked over, and sat on her bed, not yet looking to her face.
Neither one spoke for a long time, Hiashi extended his hand and wrapped it around that of his eldest daughter. She didn't recoil. A good sign, by his standards.
She broke the silence. "I should've said it…" The voice was so faint that for a moment, Hiashi confused it for his own thoughts. No, wait, that was Hinata.
He kept the surprise from his voice, but he couldn't hide his concern. "Should've said what?"
"That I admired him… I wanted to get closer to him, I should've told him how I felt, but he's dead now…"
He felt a twinge of jealousy, she'd never opened up like this to anyone. Wait, she wasn't stuttering… "Who?"
"n-n-" she started to sob again as she tried to say it, she didn't have any tears, but she managed to say his name despite the hiccupping and crying. "Naruto!"
Of course Naruto, she must've seen him come home, fool Hiashi! "He's alive Hinata, Tsunade-sama managed to heal him in time," of course, Tsunade-sama managed to let the demon fox heal him, but she didn't need to know that.
"Wha-?" She started to ask. That didn't make sense; it was a fatal wound, how could even the legendary medic-sannin Tsunade heal something like a hole in the chest?
"I have heard that he was walking around the village earlier, if you will clean yourself up and eat something, then I will allow you to skip today's training so you may speak with him." Much to his amusement his daughter's face did its normal flush and dance with a nervous heart-attack. But the pink slowly subsided and she shut her eyes at some great length, she resolved that she couldn't be so weak anymore.
"N-no, father… I have to train," She stood slowly, shrugging him off a bit, and moving towards her adjoining bathroom, snatching a set of clean clothes from her dresser as she moved. Her heart was still hurting with the thought of him being dead, and the temptation to just give up on him, but she pushed it out of her mind, along with the thoughts of failure. "Its not fitting for the Hyuuga heiress to feel such things for a simple commoner. Is it, father?" She spared a backwards glance at him, her eyes held a sharp edge of accusation as she mimicked his words.
Hiashi bit back his emotional retort, reminding himself of the law, "Uzumaki-san is no commoner Hinata. But if you are set on training today, then bathe, eat and meet your sister and I in the dojo," he turned and left the room, saddened that his daughter was finally finding a little bit of strength from abusing him. Maybe he deserved it.
(AHA! I have been struck by a muse and shall add the Sakura section! Author rubs a welt on his head where a muse punched him while grumbling)
Filler:
Two more weeks. Her green eyes looked at the clipboard, skimming over it and taking note of what it said about Sasuke's recovery time. Of course, that was healing naturally. It'd probably be okay to go see him tomorrow, he'd still be unconscious and surrounded by medics today after all.
Haruno Sakura walked through the streets of Konoha, her feet guiding her around the town, while her mind was worlds away. The brusque refusal still hurt, it was a shock to realize just how Naruto had so long felt about her, and it hurt more than a little to know that she had squandered a little brother. His cheerful cry of 'Sakrua-chan' and the wonderfully happy sound of his laughing even when she hit him on the head resounded in her mind.
Oh wait, no that was real.
She was just passing the Ichiraku ramen stand on her way home, and inside was the only guy who still went there this late at night. He was laughing and joking with the owner and his daughter.
She saw the scene when he had left.
The hurt, the betrayal, in his eyes.
The ragged hole going through the shoulder of his jacked, and the badly burned backside, shredded in places, the red spiral ominously singed to blackness over half the circle.
Then she noticed that the ramen chef's daughter had spotted her, and she ran towards her home, thinking all the way. Two weeks, just two more weeks, and then I can have a role in this story again…
End: Chapter Three "My Brother, the Professor": A Demon's Dream
(1): A private viewing of the next chapter for the person who guesses this reference right first.
Author Notes: Did I mention I needed a beta? Well the chapter didn't suck as much as I thought it would at first, but its not as long as I wanted. Remember folks, ten reviews will keep Ozymandius from crying! And it will make me post a new chapter too. Send inquiries about any other stories I've mentioned so far…
