Author Note: Holy crap that's a lot of response right off the bat. Honestly, I'm flattered by all the attention and I hope that I can continue to do right by you folks. As to the questions of TsunamixNaruto, believe me when I say I was tempted to do it, but I don't think there will be a pairing in this fic. I know wave's ninja academy isn't canon, and the Kyuubi is beyond ooc (but honestly he wasn't much worked with as a character), and to a degree Naruto still acts like he did. I'll give a little bit of analysis for that stuff during this chapter, and at the ending notes. Enjoy.

A Demon's Dream

Chapter Six: Courage, Innocence, and a growing list of questions.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto! Really! If I did, then… then… uhm…

He was still staring at the plaque, re-reading it, over and over and then glancing up periodically at the statue. So far it was about noon, and no one had bothered him yet, because this was the part of the village where the fewest actual villagers were. Thus, people who passed by and happened to notice him, didn't pay much attention to him. Of course, eventually it had to happen.

By noon, the crotchety old man had rolled himself out of bed, and had begun his 'morning' ablutions. For most bachelors this would be the standby shit, shower and shave, then dressing and possibly leaving the house if necessary. For Tazuna, these included a warmed bottle of sake, a shower, another bottle of sake, a dose of headache medicine and a little paperwork.

As much as Tsunade hated paperwork, she only had to deal with the mission approvals, assignments etc. She only governed a military aspect of a city, she did not have to almost single-handedly deal with the paperwork of an entire village's (a trade village no less) civilian population. Tazuna glared venomously at the piles of paperwork on his desk and shook his head, deciding that it could wait. He pulled his old hat from a hanger and walked out into the bright noon-time sun. Giving a brief consideration of where to go, his feet automatically began walking him towards the Great Naruto Bridge, and the statue.

When he did actually arrive there from his home in the middle of the now thriving village, Tazuna noted someone was standing at the base of the statue. This wasn't abnormal, but scant few people had fashion sense as bad as Uzumaki Naruto, and so the orange clothes that he wore were fairly well unforgettable.

Tazuna had learned, after Zabuza's defeat that the genin of team seven were all fairly new and so he had presumed that after some time Naruto would have given up on the bright orange clothes.

So the boy standing underneath the statue with the bright blonde hair and the brilliant blue eyes had to be a hallucination. Even if it was, he couldn't bring himself to look away, he wanted it to be Naruto, and if he said anything it was likely his hallucination would be shattered. For lack of any other alternative… Tazuna stood stock still and stared at the boy.

After a minute or two of being stared at, Naruto looked up from the plaque and saw Tazuna standing transfixed. A grin spread across his face as he walked over to the graying man with a darker tan than himself. His hand shot into the air in an overexcited and cheerful wave, swiftly followed by his obnoxious voice. "Heeey! Tazuna-san!" The blonde slowed as he drew nearer to the still numb and staring bridge-builder. "Eh… Tazuna-san? You okay?" From behind his new gold-rimmed glasses, Tazuna still stared at the blonde ninja in front of him.

It really is him, what's he doing back here again? "Naruto?" The old man asked hesitantly, still wary that his decrepit eyes might be playing tricks on him.

"Well… yeah, I'm pretty sure at least, why? Were you expecting someone else?" Naruto looked at the older man with something approaching genuine concern.

The concern quickly evaporated, replaced by a certain expression of fear as the elderly bridge-builder suddenly whooped and cheered before slinging an arm around the young ninja's neck and bodily dragging him away into the town. "Tsunami will be so happy to see you, and Inari too! EVERYONE will be happy to see you again! Why didn't you tell me you were coming by? …" he continued on with his long talk, the blonde too surprised and caught up in the unusual display of affection, not that Tazuna was giving him a chance to interrupt.

Mostly life went on in the Traveler's Yard, the few veterans of this particular trade route were surprised enough to notice, and raise their eyebrows at the village leader's sudden and uncharacteristic happiness. By and large though, the merchants and travelers ignored them, and went on about their jobs with the greedy laziness they had grown accustomed to.

Not for the first time, Naruto was struck by the strangeness of it all, and had to question; just what am I doing here anyway? By here, people who asked this question usually meant the earth, that particular point in their life, etc. Naruto on the other hand meant it in a much more practical sense. He was curious as to how, in the name of several hells, he had managed to end up in a very small classroom in the most bizarrely laid-out building he'd ever seen.

Okay, so it wasn't mind-numbingly strange, but the entire building was only a single floor, and all of it encircled a broad, grassy field. The six desks in this room all faced towards the field, and the open doorways on either side of the blackboard would've provided a great line of sight to the people who occupied what could only be a training field.

Naruto was curious about this, obviously this would have to be the ninja academy he'd heard about, but its layout and the small class size seemed strange to him. Furthermore, how could they be doing anything? When he'd first been here, there hadn't been anyone who knew a damn thing about Chakra theory, much less any jutsus. So what the hell was going on here then? His brain was wracking itself trying to figure out how the building he was in got here, and to its current state, and how he'd gotten into it.

His attempts at figuring things out were interrupted by a sudden loud sound and an almost instantly subsequent crushing sensation that made his eyes go wide, before he realized that this was a hug. Blue eyes tried to move further than the limit of the skull they were pressed into, but all he got was a glimpse of silky, almost-black hair and a dull-green shirt. His sense of smell gave him a bit more to go off of, telling him that it indeed smelled pleasant and mostly clean, a vague hint of sweat indicating that she (his mind had concluded this was a woman) was training probably just before being told he was here.

"Naruto! I can't believe you came back again! I'm so happy to see you!" She pushed him back again and beamed in an almost carbon-copy of his fox grin.

The blonde blinked dumbly at her for a minute, taking note of the overall well-toned body that gripped his shoulders. Her face was pretty, in a mature kind of way, although Naruto was certain she was younger than Tsunade's illusion was, and though her body was now well-toned and unobtrusively muscled, she had a comforting, almost motherly feel about her. "Ts-Tsunami-neechan?" his voice faltered as he tried to speak, and he wondered why for a moment, dismissing it quickly as thoroughly irrelevant.

"Yep! So you remember me huh? Well that's good," She smiled and hugged him again, this time in a less crushing way. "It's really good to see you again Naruto, I wish we had time to talk a bit, but my class is coming soon. Hey why don't you stick around? The kids could use a real ninja for once," as she backed off again and asked him that, he could only blink in curiosity, but he nodded happily after a minute of half-thought.

"Sure thing, neechan, but I warn ya, I'm not really a great teacher. Excellent ninja, yes, but we knew that already!" He beamed proudly at her and held out a thumbs-up, prompting a quiet laugh from the apparent teacher.

Like the previous question, he filed his thoughts about just why he was instantly agreeing to help as unimportant, and to be dealt with when he had the time later. Tsunami looked about to say something further, but the sounds outside of giggling and running disrupted her train of thought.

As she smiled at him and retreated towards the blackboard, Naruto had to do a double-take. In an instant she had gone from sweet, motherly Tsunami, to a harsh-looking sadistic woman with more an Anko-like gleam in her eyes. What have I gotten myself into? He had to ask. At a beckoning motion he joined her by the blackboard just seconds before six blurs sped into the room and into their seats. He shook himself a bit and made his eyes assess the (he assumed again) students.

One bench and table on one side of an outward facing door, a matching set on the other side of the outward-facing door. Teams, he realized, they were training them to be teams from the start, that was brilliant! Revising his study, he quickly assessed the children in this new light. (Begin note 1)

To his left were three garishly dressed cadets, one had bright red hair tied back in a messy ponytail, aside from the insane look in his eyes and his smile, Naruto might have thought him Shikamaru's cousin with better dress sense. Next to him was a girl with hair the same sea-foam green as Tsunami's clothes, she had a more intelligent look about her and a pleasant, agreeable air. Next to her was another girl who Naruto swore was the illegitimate love-child of Shino and Kiba; hair that was moderately long, spiked straight up, wearing dark sunglasses with apparent diminutive fangs and nasty-looking claws. All three wore white t-shirts under orange vests and pants, with their forearms bandaged and a kunai sheathed at their upper arm.

Shuddering slightly, he looked to the other half of the room, and was forced to blink again in astonishment. The first kid he saw was a boy trying desperately to emulate Kakashi, badly spiked silver-dyed hair (he knew it was dye because he saw the black roots just peeking out), the mask, and an all dark-blue jumpsuit, complete with armored gloves. Next to the Kakashi-clone sat an average looking boy, hair rather close-cropped normal dark brown eyes, a carefully neutral expression, and a deck of playing cards in hand. On the poker-kid's other side sat a girl with sandy blonde hair and more freckles than he figured was healthy, sleeping at her desk. (End note 1)

Naruto looked to Tsunami, clearly hoping for some kind of explanation, or better yet, an introduction. She caught the look and gave him a slight grin that did nothing to reassure the blonde genin. Her words, when she finally spoke, confirmed his fears.

"Okay class… This is Uzumaki Naruto, he's just gotten in town today. Apparently he's been slacking off since he hasn't been training all this morning like us!" All morning? Slacking off? Oo-h-oh no, he could guess where this was going. "But unlike us all, he's a real ninja and knows a bunch of ninjutsu, so we're gonna skip our chakra-theory lesson today and go right to work getting some practice in with our ninjutsu! Isn't that great?" There were mixed reactions from the class, some groans, some smirks, and one exceptionally loud snore. He sensed Tsunami beside him gathering her chakra, and realized that she had already been pushing more chakra than was needed through her body. He wondered quickly if that was healthy, then again he did it all the time so how couldn't it be healthy and safe?

He channeled chakra throughout his own body, and was momentarily surprised as his curiosity became suddenly more pressing. He fought it back down and glanced at the children still sitting, and then he realized that they too were all channeling chakra in similar manners. Trying to figure out how first year academy students were managing to do that, he almost missed Tsunami bolting out of the room, he quickly followed after her, and having some considerable bit more experience with the practice, quickly caught up to her.

"Hey, Tsunami-neechan, where the hell are we going? And what did you mean when you said that you guys would practice your ninjutsu, I didn't think that wave village had any ninja?" He would've kept on questioning her but the look she gave him (a rather threatening one) struck a bit of fear in him, that little bit snowballed into a rush that stopped his mouth and almost made him falter in his step, inwardly he questioned why that was so scary, just what the hell was going on with him?

Tsunami stopped short in a training field, and Naruto quickly followed suit albeit lacking the grace with which she had simply halted. He gave an inquisitive look to the teacher and asked her "Okay, now I have to know, I've been running like that a lot lately and every time I stop I end up face-planting. How'd you not do it?"

The woman blinked at him in frank surprise as her six students arrived and stopped with the sudden, easy grace that she had. "You honestly don't know? You just throw the chakra you've been channeling out of your body all at once. The chakra going forward absorbs your momentum, going backward stops the gust of wind that would follow you, obviously latching to the ground helps you stay and the sides keep you stable. Don't they teach this in Konoha?" At Naruto's blank look, she shrugged and looked to the two teams again. "Alright everyone, apparently Konoha has a different training policy than we do, so why don't we give our guest a brief summary of our methods here in Wave Country?"

The red-haired crazy boy spoke up first. "In order to train chakra control and capacity, we use chakra constantly, way more than we would normally to do everything, it makes us move faster and hit harder, we almost exhaust ourselves everyday so that our capacities grow faster. Since we don't know any real jutsu, we've been creating our own techniques based on raw chakra expression," he beamed proudly as he yanked his kunai from its arm-sheathe, and cool blue chakra wrapped around the blade, flowing further and making it seem more like a short sword.

The vessel gave an appreciative whistle at the thought. This was really a fairly clever idea, and he was really curious to learn what kind of jutsus they had been able to develop, he grinned his fox grin and his eyes glinted subtly. "Well before I ask for a display of your skills, let me show you some of my jutsu!" He tapped his chin thoughtfully and wished Tazuna or any of the other innumerable old perverts were there. He gave a sigh, realizing it was not meant to be. "Well I can't show you my first original technique today, for lack of an appropriate victim, but I suppose…" He made a single seal and his chakra flared around him before he shouted "KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" and filled up the training area with chakra-laden smoke and copies of himself. The Naruto clones called out a collective 'yo!' to the stunned cadets, and all but a single one poofed away again into nothingness.

"Now this technique was made by the Yondaime, and taught to me by the Yondaime's and my own teacher, its got no seals and I can't teach you it, but I think some of you might be able to figure it out. You've gotta all promise never to teach it to anyone else if you do figure it out. Showing off with it is a bit shallow of me, but this technique was basically custom-made for people without hand-seals. So do ya promise?" At the various nods he received, he and his clone walked over by a tree, he stuck out his hand and began spinning chakra in his palm, the clone kept pawing at the distending ring of chakra and air, disrupting the flow and creating new directions, the spins increased exponentially, held within the sphere as he pumped ever more chakra into it. His eyes lit blue from within, glowing with the same light of the spinning orb, his clone poofed into nothingness and he thrust his hand forward with a cry of "RASENGAN!"

The tree did not have a good day that day, as a spinning ball of energy and air ripped through its bark and cork and then the meat of the tree, and exploded wildly inside, shredding the trunk and letting the tree groan in protest. In a display of rare self-preservation instincts, the blonde rolled away as the tree toppled over in his general direction and smashed into the ground. Standing up and dusting himself off, Naruto gave a sheepish grin to his audience as he scratched the back of his head, "Ehh… hehe, guess I overdid that a bit. Whaddya think?" Their awestruck looks were quite the ego boost for the distraught demon-boy.

That was the day's high point, the rest of it being filled with the teams taking it in turns to impress the ninja with control and stamina that were about normal genin level. He was, needless to say, floored by this fact, because these were just kids, in their first years as academy students. He filed away a mental note to never mess with Wave ninja. As the sun began to set he followed a once more sane-looking Tsunami back to her home.

Naruto looked around Tsunami's home, the same place he and team seven had stayed in when they first came to wave country, he had to smile a little in nostalgia before Tsunami sat him down at the table and turned her attention to the adjoining kitchen area. He had tried to resist and offer to help her with the food, but she gave him a look that said 'Do as I say or I'll do Something that you won't like'. With no idea what it would be, Naruto had no desire to experience Something.

So he sat, attempting to still his rapidly beating heart. Tsunami meanwhile began to cook and called back to him. "What do you think of our cadets?"

Naruto blinked and brought himself back into the moment, out of his silent reverie, "They're really impressive, you guys do all that every day? I'm pretty sure that that's not really healthy for normal humans to do…" He realized his slip and bit his tongue angrily. Stupid, now she'll be onto you.

There was a long, quiet moment as she chopped vegetables and pulled a couple of pieces of thoroughly marinated meat back out of the refrigerator. Turning away from the meal, and leaving it to cook, she came back and sat down beside him at the table with a quiet sigh. "I know it isn't. I hate having to do it to these kids, but like I said, we don't have any real ninja, and we don't know any of the techniques or things that established villages do. As it is, this is the only way we can become strong enough to make sure something like Gatou never happens to Wave again…" she trailed off with a faraway look in her eyes.

Naruto's brows scrunched together "Why didn't you send for some ninja from Konoha to come and teach your teachers or the kids?"

"We did." Came her simple answer, at Naruto's lack of response she expounded. "I sent to Konoha for some chuunin or jounin to come and help us set up the school failing that we wanted to barter for some technique scrolls. The response we got was a swift and immediate refusal, on the grounds that we had wronged the village of leaf, and needlessly risked the lives of two geniuses and another genin."

"WHAT! Ojiisan would have never done that! I thought Hokage-ojiisan was a good guy…" Naruto's face bore a mixture of confusion and betrayal as he looked down to the ground.

"Hokage? That response was from the village's council. We tried to approach the hidden mist with the same deal, but all they were willing to give us were some scrolls about basic and advanced chakra theory. We still wanted to mend our ties with the leaf, for your sake Naruto, so we didn't ask the hidden cloud or stone." She gave him a small smile. "But you're here now, and you can teach us some of your techniques right?"

Naruto winced under her smile, and shut his eyes tightly, wishing she didn't have so much faith in him. She apparently didn't notice as she almost immediately returned to the cooking. He looked glumly at the table, planting his hands on his legs as he gave more thought to the situation. The time slipped by and before he realized it, a plate with a piece of teriyaki beef on it, with vegetables at the side, and a bowl of rice with it. He had to smile at the fare, it was far better than his normal meal.

She served herself and placed the remainder of the rice between the two on the table. In the same manner that he had upon his first arrival, they both exaggeratedly clapped their hands together and said 'itadakimasu'. Naruto glanced at Tsunami, quizzical at her mimicry of his mannerisms, she gave him his own fox grin in reply. They shrugged and ate with equal abandon, neither feeling terribly like speaking while they ate.

When he'd had his fill, Naruto turned and beamed at Tsunami once more, "Thanks Tsunami-neechan, that was great!" The ninja teacher blushed a bit under the praise, in her mind the food was improvised, quick, filling. She wondered why he thought so highly of it.

"Well I'm glad you enjoyed it Naruto, you know how you can pay me back…" She gave him a small grin, and he looked away, just a bit ashamed. That gave her pause, she let up and put a hand on his back to comfort him. Though given the way he stiffened at the contact, she wondered if this were the proper way to go about it. "Naruto? Are… Are you okay?"

The boy gave himself a small moment to compose his answer, what precisely should he tell her? The truth, he decided. "I'm, really sorry Tsunami-san. I wish I could give you what the village really needs right now, but frankly, you're doing what always helped me to get better when I was a kid. But that's not right, you're all only human and you're pushing too hard.

"The reason why I never got chakra exhaustion, or was left so spent and tired that the villagers would have been able to kill me, is the same reason they wanted to kill me in the first place and why no one trained me. It's the same reason I don't have any jutsu to really offer Wave.

"When I was born, there was a demon fox with nine tails that attacked the village, no one knew why or how, and really there was no reason. The fox was there because it had discovered our leader was the strongest shinobi in the world at the time. When it arrived here, it could only feel and think how it was born to feel and think, the need to destroy and kill were its only motivations. Yondaime-sama knew none of this, but he saw the demon kill shinobi by the score, and flatten sections of the village with the catastrophic damage his tails wrought." Tsunami looked more than a little confused as the blonde carried on, but said nothing.

"The Yondaime, I think, was my father, and that's what gave him a thought. He signed a contract with the shinigami, that he would give his soul in exchange for Kyuubi's essence being confined within a seal. The death god agreed, and it happened like that, Yondaime sealed the demon into me, and his soul was consumed by the shinigami. That deal meant that when I died, both Kyuubi and I would also be eaten by the shinigami, and he couldn't stand for that, so he designed the seal to let the Kyuubi and my own soul merge together.

"But… He didn't expect how powerful Kyuubi really was, because the seal was never enough to completely hold him back, and he never understood fully what a demon was, because from the moment he was sealed in me, Kyuubi stopped being The Kyuubi. I stopped being just me too at that time. The seal was always pulling his chakra through, it kept healing me, the damage when I over-trained myself would vanish after a good rest, my chakra reserves expanded at an unnatural rate just because the flow of his chakra had to press against the limits of my pathways. What I did should have killed me but it didn't. It only didn't because I am not completely human, I don't want to see Wave do that to its children," He closed his eyes tightly again and stopped himself from crying, just what would Inari think of the hero crying?

"Naruto…" She started, but what could she say? She didn't care a damn bit about the demon sealed in him, but were they really killing the children? It was hard for her to figure out. "Look, you're tired, I'm tired, we both need rest." Naruto turned to her and blinked in blatant surprise that she was still being amiable towards him. His stomach twisted around a bit as he nodded and smiled a bit at her. She pointed at another room down the hall as she turned and adjourned into one of the two rooms still furnished as sleeping quarters.

He slipped the door closed behind him, shucked his travel pack down (2) against the door, stripped down to his boxers and threw himself into the bed, falling asleep faster than he could say "Leroy Jenkins". Though why he would, shall never be known.

Kyuubi glared across the seal at his other self and shook his head in an angry sort of way. He stood up from his desk and walked to the ever-shrinking cage. At present it was less than half of the width of the Valet itself, where its edges began to disappear were slow motes of black dust. He stared at the lump of person on the other side of the now quite transparent barrier, and decided he wished he knew what Excedrin was.

"WAKE UP DAMNIT!" That seemed good enough to alleviate the stress. Or rather, the reaction of his suddenly bolt-upright and awake friend was. He had to laugh in that obnoxious Uzumaki laugh as he stuck out an accusing finger at the other's reaction.

Naruto snarled in apparently sleepy rage and stumbled to his feet, fully intent on kicking his kage bunshin's ass. Until he dazedly realized that this was not where he had fallen asleep, and his kage bunshins did not have orange hair or red eyes, or claws (except when he was really pissed off) or, usually, nine flowing fox-tails. Ah yes, the seal. That was where he was then, okay.

This decided, he charged forward against Kyuubi and slammed full-tilt into the invisible barrier of the seal. Now it should be noted that gently pressing against the barrier continuously had allowed Kyuubi's chakra to flow freely into him, in minute amounts, brute strength against it had given him a headache. Naruto found out now, that the seal was quite extant. As his head swirled, he looked up at the sky from his prone position, and noticed that it was, in fact, on fire.

Following the flames, they consumed the entire sky, and were calmed by thin white clouds that looked more like veins. Had Naruto been an industrious and good student, he would have questioned why exactly the setting sun was imposed over the burning sky and vein-like cloud. He sat up slowly, becoming very alert quite suddenly as his eyes came to rest on the seal itself. "Oh shit, that cannot be good…"

Naruto was not a bright child, never book smart, and he'd not had much experience. But he learned quickly, and he knew how to keep aware enough of things that were dangerous, people around you having the potential, and inclination to kill you continuously had that effect. He got the same feeling of imminent death and suffering from the almost nonexistent barrier that seemed to be disintegrating as he watched; the sky being on fire and covered in webby clouds didn't help. Kyuubi briefly nodded to his other's assessment.

"No it isn't good. We've got just over a day before that seal goes out and we die. I warn you now, it's not going to be clean or easy to break free of that, and it will be dangerous. You have to get out of wave, and you have to do it first thing in the morning. Do you understand?"

Naruto gave a slight nod, eyes fixed on the seal, almost able to observe it dissipating. "Kyuubi, how the fuck are going to not die?" Kyuubi looked at him quite seriously from across the barrier.

"Naruto my brother… We will die. Just we've got a better deal with the whole reincarnating thing." The blonde seemed to sink a little at the Kyuubi's words. Just before banishing Naruto from the seal, Kyuubi spoke again "Just trust me, I've had this plan for millennia, and nothing will stop us now."

His advice dispensed, Kyuubi banished his 'brother' into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep.

End Chapter Six: Courage, Innocence and a growing list of questions.

(1): No, I am NOT going to turn this into a Naruto is teaching a team of oc students fic, this fic is not going to center on them little brats.

(2): Yes, he's been wearing that pack the whole time, I never said he set it down. Yes it would probably be uncomfortable, but no more so than trying to fight Zabuza as a genin with a backpack loaded with weapons.

(3): Don't let Aidis fool you, he's been a great help so far with the making coherentness of the story. Its late, I'm sleepy, don't kvetch about that not being a word.

Author Note: Geez, I really hate this chapter… Anyway next chapter should be most entertaining(relatively speaking). I had originally planned to do much more here in Wave, but I decided the Kyuubi wasn't getting enough face time. At present I'm not exactly sure what I plan to do with wave, and I probably won't put in a pairing. As for canon/non-canon, I've only watched the anime, says so on my profile. I don't dislike the manga just… I dunno. Mm…. that's really about it that I can think of right now… Oh yeah, question about all this. If I do decide to make a pairing, should it be Naruto and Tsunami or Naruto and Isaribi, who was in the anime filler arc Kishimoto helped out with? And yes, those are your only choices, unless someone can give me a damn good reason for another one, message the votes please.