Author's Note: I initially had a snobby little note up here, but I changed it. Now it's snooty instead. I realize I haven't driven the point home enough, so I'll say it again. I need reviews. Reviews are like the neon-lifeblood of my mountain dew. My blood glows you know. Anyway, I am unmotivated without reviews, words motivate me to do what I'm doing, if I'm writing this when I get words, I will write more.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I don't own Katamari Damacy, I own naught… Except flopples.
A Demon's Dream
Chapter Ten: The Hard, Necessary Choices
"Damn bastards didn't need to kick us out! We didn't do anything to them!" The duo ranted against the leaders of Hoshigakure no Sato. They had left the aforementioned village behind, and had no idea how long ago it was, realizing that they no longer perceived time might have frightened them once, but Naruto and Kyuubi had long since gotten over limitations like time and space.
This being said, the pair were also far busier kvetching about their recent disputes with conventional law figures. Naruto gave an overdramatic sigh and looked to his duplicate walking beside him "So where are we going now?"
Kyuubi shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. "Like we'd know. We pooled our intellects together if we recall properly." The orange-haired Uzumaki glowered.
"Yeah we guess. But still! We mean, isn't this just a little ridiculous? We are wandering around in a dark and very expensive forest, being pursued by an ominous thundering sound!" This prompted the two to suddenly pause and look behind them, the direction from whence the ominous rolling sound came. Kyuubi and Naruto began to inch away from their former position, having a distinct and uncomfortable feeling that whatever it was would suck major ass to be hit by.
When a massive rolling glob of shrubs, animals, assorted miscellaneous items, and the occasional very dead-looking human passed them by the two stared fixedly at it, not noticing the human running behind it frantically rolling it with his chakra. The two paused, looked at each other, and then followed the ball with their eyes. They looked at each other again and continued walking, resolutely throwing the giant ball out of their minds.
Unfortunately, fate tends to hate living avatars of pseudo-ascendant beings and their fractured psyches, and soon the rolling… thing… was forced back into their minds, this time propelled with a force that verged on the same level of disturbing as the shouts of 'Gai-sensei' and 'Lee'. In fact a similar seen is what forced it upon them.
Much to the shock of the wandering souls, they soon came upon another village, another village that happened to be a quiet and private ninja village. "Holy shit, just how many hidden villages are there in the world? Kakashi did tell us that there were many scattered throughout the continent… Not that the explanation condones finding another so close, by any stretch." They concluded. Of course, since time was irrelevant to the two, they had no idea where or how far they were, they weren't better yet so this distraction was obviously too close to the other villages.
With a resigned, perfectly stereo sigh the pair marched towards the gates, gates constructed to look like white-gloved hands lacking thumbs. Having to pause at the obstacle brought out the more traumatic event for the duo, this being the man who leapt out of nowhere to stand before them.
Every civilization has a few things in common; every spacefaring civilization has something like sweedish meatballs, every civilization has laws and regulations, and on some level every civilization has haves and have-nots. In the ninja world, there was an additional stipulation- that any hidden village of humans was required by the nature of their work to have an individual like Maito Gai.
This law was demonstrated violently to the two heroes as the pink-suited man with a neon-tie-dye jounin vest and an afro came into sight. His yellow and green-striped hitai-ate bore the symbol of a carpet roll studded with stars. The man flashed a brilliant, almost blinding smile and gave a thumbs-up to them.
"WEARY TRAVELERS! Wander no longer for the winds of fortune have brought you to the famed Village Hidden in the Cosmos. Fate has surely smiled upon such lively beacons of fortune on this day!"
There was a long moment of silence before the armor-clad blonde looked at his companion. "Us, why is Maito Gai saying we're at Uchuugakure no Sato? Shut up, us, we're trying to figure out why fate seems to hate our sanity so much." As they continued attempting to figure matters out, another gaudy figure appeared.
A foot shorter than the jounin, the obvious genin was also clad in a bright pink casual suit, he also had the yellow and green-striped hitai-ate of his sensei. "Kouro-sensei! You suddenly abandoned our training, has fortune blessed us with these visitors!"
"Fuuten! Who said that you should abandon your training! Run two dozen laps around Uchuugakure then tell your teammates they may go home!" The two were appalled by the response, and horrified and its continuation.
"HAI! Kouro-sensei! I will continue training with the winds of fortune at my back! Perseverance and fate shall see me through!" And with that, the proto-afro ran away at a brisk pace.
Meanwhile the pair were twitching in barely suppressed anguish. "What deity hates us so fervently? Why must we be forced to withstand this … this wretched human? Have we not suffered enough of his mindless drivel!"
The jounin opposite them, Kouro as his student had identified him, stared in absolute incomprehension. "How… rude?" He wouldn't have been so unsure of himself if the two weren't so utterly bizarre, speaking for one another and together like that. He shook off the oddness of the pair and continued. "So long as you have no ill-will towards our village then I shall allow you inside!"
The pair by now would agree to anything to get away from this character, and so gave rapid nods of agreement that they meant no harm, and soon after were bolting down the streets away from the jounin Kouro with all the chakra-boosted speed their bodies could muster.
Some hours later found the two standing atop a roof, strips of fabric covering their eyes to protect them from the harsh evening light. Uchuugakure, they had discovered, was completely insane. The entire city was covered in more gaudy neon displays than Uzumaki Naruto had ever even imagined possible. Lights and colors and ridiculously shaped structures all worked up to a solid and painful pair of migraines.
Not all was bad, it should be noted. As the two had discovered all of this sever trauma had had a positively divisive effect on their condition. With severe effort and thought, Kyuubi had managed to refer to Naruto as 'you' once. The two were discussing the implications at that particular moment.
"So, the more traumatic an event, the more damage our psyche takes, the more damaged we become, the more split we become." The armored blonde attempted to sort the matter out in their mind.
The red-haired boy sitting next to him gave a slow nod. "And when we regain our separate minds, we can be Uzumaki Naruto once more."
"So the question then becomes, what can we do that would be so traumatic, so devastating to us, that we would have to develop split selves to cope with it?" The asked no one in particular. Before the pair could come to a proper conclusion about the next and most healing course of action, they were interrupted by a certain proto-afro ninja in a pink suit.
Fuuten, they recalled absently, was the subordinate of Kouro. The boy spoke quickly, with the same bizarre fervor they had witnessed in Rock Lee. "You two are ninja from some other village aren't you? If so, please allow me the honor of a spar so that I may see how my training has furthered my skill."
The pair stared for a moment at one another. And grinned as their idea formed. "Sure thing, Fuuten-san." The student blinked at the odd speech, but shrugged it off much faster than Kouro had. "We'll spar you, but if we win, you have to tell us about that rolling ball of crap we've seen around the village."
"Against both of you at once? Very well then I sh-"
"We didn't mean both of us at once, we just meant us." Naruto pointed an orange armored finger at Kyuubi.
He blinked in confusion for a moment, but then bellowed his agreement. "And if I win you must tell me how you became so strong!"
Now this confused the two. Somehow this boy sensed their strength, but labeled it as being strength that was different from his own and the strength of others. More to the point, why question their method to power if they proved the inferior? Well, humans were silly like that sometimes, they decided.
"Agreed, but knowing how we got this powerful will do you no good… I suppose that's for you to learn though, isn't it? Perhaps we should move to somewhere less likely to be decimated in the process of our spar?" It was a question asked without pride or ego, simple acknowledgement, after all, the two had gone beyond the limitations of the merely human. (1)
He hesitated for a moment, but the genin (perhaps two years older than Uzumaki Naruto was, they noted) nodded swiftly and led his new friends on a bizarre series of jumps and flips, the lingering flares he left behind whenever he leapt clued the pair into his use of chakra. So the boy wasn't totally Rock Lee, but he had that whole 'alternative ninja' vibe still, a creepy thought for the pair.
Finally they came to a halt in what for all the world seemed like an oversized boxing ring. Kyuubi tapped his foot against the spongy ground and glanced at his opponent again. "You know, this isn't precisely what we meant by a more durable arena…"
The boy opposite the being gave a dazzling smile and struck a 'good guy' pose, prompting the two non-humans to deadpan. "This ring is made from a special material that acts as both a sponge and mirror of chakra, preventing it from being damaged or rolled up! Your concern for the village clearly shows how blessed by fate we are, but for the moment, let us simply fight! My name is Fuuten, may I know yours before we begin?"
"Fuuten eh? No clan name? Fine. We're-" the two began speaking together "Kyuubi" the red-head spoke with grim satisfaction "Naruto" and the armored blonde spoke simultaneously. And as they both introduced themselves, a powerful, otherworldly presence dominated the arena and wheezed what sounded ominously like Uzumaki Naruto. But the voice might just have been hearing things, and the presence fell away again quickly.
"Now if we're done with that may we begin this little spar?" Fuuten just barely had time to nod before Kyuubi began to plod inexorably forwards, body smoldering as chakra overloaded the fake body, crimson energy wrapping around the ninja.
While Fuuten seemed put-off by his foes display, he recovered quickly and dashed forward a flurry of shuriken preceding him, he was certain they'd be dodged and was prepared to divert his course to attack the ninja at his new position, but Kyuubi stood and let the iron pierce his glowing cloud of chakra, his orange jumpsuit, and his vessel's flesh.
The fine spray of blood joined the glowing crimson. However if Kyuubi felt any pain from his construct, he gave no indication of it, he simply continued forward straight into the charging fist from the Uchuu genin. The fist impacted flesh, caused the skin and muscle and bone to cave inwards in a manner not unlike a cartoon, and then the tension over the whole body to release and burst forth in a searing cloud of red chakra.
The boy was thrown back by the release of energy, he rolled along with it, and was immediately shocked by what he saw when he looked up again. There was no longer any body where Kyuubi had stood, just a sizzling red cloud and the distinct presence of something far more than oneself. Fuuten paused, for once unsure of himself, before he shook the notion and slapped his hands together to attempt to dispel the sight.
However, the lad's dispelling technique rendered no genjutsu inert, the fog was still there, and… laughing? He tried again, and a third time with the same effects, finally the cloud began to compose itself into a reasonable shape. Well, as reasonable as horse-sized foxes with nine-tails being composed of blood-red flames could be.
Fuuten was stunned into immobility by the display, and Kyuubi took advantage of that fact by lashing one of his tails swiftly 'round the boy's throat and lifting him into the air while the remaining eight chords of fluffy chakra battered and beat the boy ruthlessly. When he was broken and bloody enough for Naruto to wince, Kyuubi dropped him, both chuckling darkly.
"Well I believe we've quite solidly developed a way to part ourselves a little more. But we're still too well-integrated, oh damn it all, he's still moving isn't he?" Indeed Kyuubi's opponent was beginning to lift himself up from the ground, hacking up blood and bile from the abuse.
The pair regarded his poor state and decided to take him to a hospital, Naruto stepping forward to pick him up while Kyuubi made a fake vessel again, Fuuten being given a reluctant firsthand view of a human's inner and outer workings while the body was created from airborne particulate matter. If he hadn't been half-dazed and only partway conscious, he'd have lost his lunch then and there. Mercifully for Naruto, he didn't.
Kyuubi wrapped its body once more in the fake-leather orange and nodded to his co-soul, the pair proceeding towards the source of antiseptic smells.
Upon arriving the pair expected to be assaulted with a bevy of questions and perhaps an ANBU escort to an interrogation cell. However, the receptionist saw who it was they carried, gave a rueful smile and shook her head before speaking into an intercom.
"Fuuten was injured training again, will someone please prepare his normal room?" then she looked back to the pair of strange villagers (she presumed) "Thanks for bringing him here, he always pushes too hard in training sessions, thanks to that idiot teacher, Maito Kouro. I swear those two…"
The pair quickly regarded each other and gave a subtle shudder. They quickly turned their minds from the disturbing implication that Gai had a family like himself. "Errr… Why exactly do they train like that? They seem to be completely competent ninja. No real reason that we could see to be so… fanatical." They concluded together.
The receptionist gave them a curious look, though they couldn't really understand why, but answered them, slowly at first. "Well… Ah, most Uchuu nin have a Katamari, Maito Kouro and Fuuten don't have contracts with any of the royal cousins or the prince himself, so they have no Katamari of their own." At their blank stares she elaborated, a heavy sigh escaping her first while an orderly hefted Fuuten's unconscious body and carried him away. "You're not from around here are you? Put simply the prince and the royal cousins are, more or less, the physical manifestations of several kami. This village is under their protection, and they have granted us access to their mightiest tool, the katamari, it rolls over objects, and said objects stick to it, as it increases in size from the accumulated objects, it can pick up larger things, including people. Fairly… lethal."
The pair of unearthly creatures stared aghast at the woman, struck by the absurdity that deities would grant humans such a potent weapon. Or such an absurd one. "We must meet this prince of yours. He sounds most interesting."
Without any other words the pair exited the hospital, they knew what they needed to know now, and they had to verify another supposition. There were dreadful possibilities if their theories proved accurate in this case as well. The two decided very firmly that if there was any sense of justice guiding the world, then they would be completely wrong tonight.
Sadly, justice does not govern the world. As Tsunade knew full well, sheer bitchiness determined power more anything else in the world. Reality, again as the busty kage already knew, could be a serious bitch.
Or rather in the particular case the two souls were faced with, unreality could be several-fold the bitch the old woman could. They had first attempted to dispel the illusion, but it lingered on, seven attempts later and the sight was still before them. They debated the possibility that it was all a lie, a costume maybe, but the strange feeling cast off from the alleged 'kami' reminded the pair too much of Uzumaki Naruto in that brief moment before they Became.
The creature before them was a giant, at least nine feet tall, upper body clad in a forest green shirt, a fluffy sky blue vest over that, maroon tights covered the legs what rested on the world's flashiest recliner. Scariest was the head.
The head was a bloody carpet roll, with a face stuck in the center, confusing, nauseating patterns and flashing lights studded throughout the carpet roll head. There were twenty other creatures much like the first one scattered throughout the room. Possessed of various shapes, sizes and levels of detail, the seated giant was by far the grandest. The pair presumed this was the prince.
"So… you lot crossed here on your own. From the realm of the abstract and immaterial and have remained here for some time. Tch, posing as kami, that's a little low isn't it?" Kyuubi and Naruto glared coolly at the 'Prince'.
The Prince promptly responded, with a slightly amused look on his ghastly pale face beneath the pompadour, but the response itself was unintelligible. It sounded like fingernails against a sleeping bag, if the two had known what record players were they'd have said it sounded like someone scratching a record.
Whatever it sounded like, it was no language that either understood, so they merely settled for a blank, confused look. Exchanging glances quickly before turning back to face the extra-planar entity. The being made another series of wheezy, scratchy sounds and pinched what looked like a star until I exploded.
The smoke of said explosion quite neatly obscured their sight of the nin who had been summoned. When the smoke drifted away, the scratching sounds continued, and the nondescript nin (a chuunin if his tie-dye vest was any indication) paid close attention to the Prince and then looked to the visitors.
"Ah, the visitors. What's more visitors not quite real, not decided how they exist yet. You know our father used to be that way, we rather miss him sometimes." The nin looked to the prince with a confused expression, but the record scratch went on. "But that's not important right now, what matters now is the roll-up. Yes. The katamari brings light and goodness to the people of Uchuu. As long as the people of Uchuu aren't hurt by our deception, why would we tell them the truth?"
"Valid point but why proclaim yourself kami?" queried the pair.
The nin looked even more confused now, looking back and forth between the debating parties. A few of the royal cousins started twitching in jerky, spasmodic gestures, getting Kyuubi and Naruto just a little nervous. "We never proclaimed ourselves kami. The villagers thought that so we just smiled and nodded, they have become our loyal fans now. We would die to defend our fans, and our fans would die for us, its all very touching yes? So long as we all are important like this, then why correct their misconception? Seems like it does less good in the end. Anyway, that is not why you are here Uzumaki Naruto."
The pair gave him a hard, questioning look, they hadn't introduced their conjoined self here. "How did-"
"All things not real know what Uzumaki Naruto is becoming. You two are breaking laws and rules by simply existing, we rather like the thought that you will remake the world, so we won't even try to stop you. Humans couldn't stop you of course, we are pretty sure everyone wants you two succeed, you're popular like that, yes? Well… Uzumaki Naruto won't want you to succeed. But you knew that already, we're getting redundant now… Oh well. Go on Kyuubi and Naruto, the more time you waste here the more convoluted the rules become. Roll away, find yourselves, and let the Uzumaki creature be happy." He opened his mouth and dazzling, painful rainbow light filled the room, it sizzled on the skins of the artificial bodies and then it was gone, and they weren't in the village anymore. Actually, they'd have fallen to the ground, if their physical bodies hadn't been destroyed by the royal rainbow. Instead they clung to the tree, existing as translucent, shifting clouds of chakra.
They sat there, not bothering with words as they mulled over what happened. They needed something that would cause so much trauma, they would be forced to break apart. The Prince had told them that Uzumaki Naruto wouldn't want it to happen, that gave them a hint, perhaps guilt was the key. But what could prompt guilt to the degree it would give a person a dissociative disorder? That would take something- oh. Oh oh oh.
A pair of jaws manifested in the red chakra, because Kyuubi was very happy.
End Chapter Ten: The Hard, Necessary Choices
Author Note: Jeez it took me a month to write this… And it's not that good. Damn. Oh well, is what is, yes-yes? Anyway, Uchuugakure is a village I always wanted to have, maybe it'll get its own fanfic some other day, who knows? I had too many thoughts and not enough dedicated theme to this chapter, but that's what happen when I have few reviews.
That brings me to another point, I need to get a total offorty-six Reviews? (Reviews, right. Quiet Aidis) or the next two chapters won't be written. I don't wanna be an attention-whore about it, but fuckit, that's the way it is.
Which brings me to my last point, hopefully fuel for irate reviews at the least, and insightful comments at best. I hold no illusion that it'll make a difference. Yaoi. What the fuck? You want to go ahead and a yaoi pairing story? Fine, it can be written well, like any other pairing. But if you're randomly going to make absolutely everyone in the story homosexual, it goes beyond willing suspense of disbelief. There isn't any feasible way a village would allow homosexuality from individuals like Sasuke or Kakashi, who are 'genius' or prodigies. Whatever, it's your story if you write like that, and I don't read it anyway so my opinion is tremendously invalid, but I felt like ranting.
I put some other notes up there, didn't I? Right then.
(1): Have I beaten this point in just enough yet? Let me get out the corpse-flogger…
