Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of the characters written here. They are own by their respective owners. Nuff' said.

Warning: This is rated M for a reason (blood, gore, extreme violence, language, and possible adult themes/lemons, etc.) Some of the characters will be a little OC.

Now on with chapter eleven.

The Black Leaves

Chapter 11

Naruto, Marta, Samus, and Baby were all making thier way to Konoha's hospital, when Naruto decided to ask a question that had been bugging him for the past few hours.

"Hey, Marta," He began, deciding that he would get a straight answer out of the pink-ette instead of a sexual response from Samus. "How do you tell the difference between symbiotes? I mean after they have taken a host and all. I know that you can tell by thier skin color but thats it."

Marta looked down at the young host and replied. "Very good Lord Venom. We did not think you knew that much," Naruto frowned at the lack of expectation she had for his intelligence. "Well, as you said, the easyest ways to tell the difference between symbiotes is by their color. No two syymbiotes are colored exactly the same. Another way to tell the difference is, that every single symbiote in existance has either some sort of unique design on thier bodies or an external addition to thier form."

"You mean like your forehead blades and Samus' extra mouths?" Naruto asked to confirm what he was told.

"You wanna' see them again?" Samus quickly interjected with both of her hands preped and ready to remove her outfit at a moments notice; or just for the Hell of it.

"Later," Marta answered for an embaressed Naruto then turned her attention back to the kid. "Yes, exactly like our blades and Payback's breasts. Can you guess Lady Empress' extras?" She asked in an out-of-character playful tone.

Naruto struck a thinking pose, then replied, "Her hair-feelers?"

"Correct. Do you wish to know what your external feature is?"

Naruto nodded is head.

"Well, Lord Venom, your feature is a large symbole on your chest and back." Marta stated somewhat bluntly.

"Is that it?" Naruto asked with dissapointment evedent in his young voice.

"So far," Marta stated bluntly.

Naruto looked up at her in confusion. "What do ya' mean 'so far'?"

Samus sighed. "We just explained all of this to you a few hours ago, Naruto." Suddenly her back straightned and her voice began to sound like an instructer's from the academy. "Every symbiote in existance can go through several transformations that differ from each individual symbiote. We do not know what exactly causes the transformation; be it extreme physical or mental distress, a great emotional jolt, fighting, feed, or just doing something random. The maximum number of transformations a symbiote can go through is unknown as well, but the most that has been recorded was around ten. All of the tranformations "add on" to the symbiotes form and what part of them transforms and what it transforms into is based on the symbiote or its host's own individual thoughts and emotions. Your case, however is different."

For some reason, Naruto was paying more attention to what Samus was saying now than all of Iruka's lessons put together. "Different how?"

Samus giggled, "We'll tell you only if you promise to do something for us," She giggled again. Naruto thought he heard the same kind of giggling coming from the girls locker room at the academy once.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "What'll I have to do?"

Samus giggled again, "We'll tell you if you agree to do it."

'I have no idea what the Hell she'll make us do,' Naruto thought to himself, 'Chances are, whatever it is, were not gonna like it. But what choice do I have? I need to know everything about my body just incase I can find some way to control it in what she tells me.'

Naruto sighed in defeat, "Fine."

Samus actually squealed in a fan-girl-ish manner and had a sudden spring in her step. "Now, you promise, right?" She asked to make sure Naruto would not go back on his word.

With a defeated sigh, Naruto nodded his head only for Samus to squeal agian. The group continued on without another word, leaving Naruto confused and irritated. He wasn't told the information he wanted and now he promised to do something he'll probably regret. 'Damn my 'Never go back on my word' beliefes.' He grouned inwardly. "Could you at least show me how you transform?" Naruto practically begged. At least he would get some information.

But before Samus could give any form of an answer to the knucklehead, Marta quickly interjected. "She was masterbating," She staated in her ever blunt tone.

Naruto felt the blood rise to his face as the mental image of a naked Samus lying on her back on his bed entered his young mind. He tried to shake his head to remove the picture of Samus with one hand fingering herself, the other massaging one of her breasts and moaning out of his head. Obviously, he only succeded in getting redder as the mental image became more vivid.

He snuck a quick glance at Samus to see how pissed she was. Naruto was quit surprised to see Samus holding her blushing face in her soft hands, her eyes closed, and her hips lightly swaying. She looked like a horny school-girl that just had her crush ask her out. This sudden change from Samus' behaviore from brash to shy threw Naruto for a loop. She shyly opened on of her eyes and made contact with Naruto.

The woman gave a whimpering coo, "Naruto~, don't look at us like that,"

Now Naruto was more confused then ever. "Huh!" He practically shouted.

"Lord Venom is very dirty for asking his Payback to do such a thing in public," She covored her face with her hands while her blush brightned.

Before Naruto could begin to freak out; Marta, once agian, provided an explination. "Lord Venom, Payback is simply trying to get into your pants faster by trying to act shy and inexpierenced in the interactions with the opposite sex,"

"Damn it, Marta!" Samus currsed as she returned to her normal brash behavior. "It almost worked too," She then prosedded to explain the information that Naruto had asked for. "As Marta had said, we were masterbating to the mental image of Lord Venom rafishing our body. And, well, when we orgasamed we transformed," She then grinned down at the blond male. "We'll give you a deminstration later if you like."

Naruto did not have time to replay before they finally made it to the hospital. The group made thier way through the first floor hallways, the staircase, and reached the third floor without any problems at all. In fact, Naruto noticed that he had not seen or heard any other people inside the whole building. He could remember that everytime he was there; normally after a near death experiance from the hands of the villagers, that there was al least some sounds of human activity. Weather it have been a couple of hot nurses chatting about who was fucking who's patient, or just the quiet hum and beeping of the medical equipment. But Naruto heard none of this while he, Samus, Marta and the finally awake Baby traversed the hospital.

But what really caught his attention; was the redecorated third floor of the large building. To put it bluntly, it looked like a floor from Hell's hospital. All of the paint on the walls had peeled away and revieled horribly dipilitated concrete and steel fencing. What appeared to be rust or blood covored most of the wall, floor and ceiling of the place. All of windoes were broken and covored in rust. When Naruto tried to look aoutside of one of them, all he saw was pitch black darkness and, once agian, not a single sound could be heard. Some of the florescent lights were busted and the glass littered the floor; one of them suddenly broke and swang free from the ceiling, leaking sparks. When Naruto looked up he noticed that the entire ceiling had been replaised with rusted metal grating, with uncovored wires running this way and that. But what the most fucked up part of the new building was the doors.

Each door had blood soaked human skin; complete with the streatched human face, pulled tightly and nailed to each door. Some of the doors had the skin of men, others had the bloody skin from women. All doors, though, had thier numbers carved into the flesh and a mixture of blood, puss, and rotting meat slowly dripped from the numbers. Naruto felt like emptying his stomach as one of the eyes on a door twitched as the group walked by.

Payback counted off the rooms they passed until they reached room 312. Without any sign of hesitation, Marta reached out and grab the fleshy door nob and opened the disgusting door. A sudden rush of cold, stale air that smelled of rotting flesh and dried blood hit Naruto. The boy turned green and stumbled back as the offensive seant assulted his nostrils.

Marta and Samus walked into the room with Naruto and Baby close behind.

The inside of the hospital room was the same as the floor it was on. Everything was broken, rusted, and dibilitated. The medical equipment was all rusted, broken. One of the moniters was broken clean in two yet, somehow, both pieces had were working and showing static. One of the two gurneys inside of the room was missing the two front legs but was stilling standing evenly, with a skinless, bloody shapless corpse spraled ontop of the dirty sheets.

The only thing inside of the room was not in a state of complete disrepair was the curtian covered hospital bed that the symbiotes had brought with them. The women made their way over to the clean bed, while Naruto followed hesitantly.

"Hello there," A voice spoke from behind the bed, scaring the living crap out of poor Naruto. Whoever was behind the bed rounded the corner and revealed themselves to be none other than Empress herself. Annette had shifted into her full symbiotic form, which fit in rather well with the macabre setting.

"We are glad that you all were able to make it to Otherworld safetly," The symbiote ruler said cheerfully to the group her eyes completly focused on Naruto.

"Um.." Naruto began.

"We're glade you asked," Empress interupted in an overly happy tone. "All of what you see around you is something that our beloved daughter, Nightmare, created. She had taken a host that had strong psycic abilities and amplified them when they bonded together. What you see is actually another diminsion that our daughter created and has complete and total control over, called Otherworld. The reason it looks the way it does has to do with our daughter's accident and her extreme distrust of humans. She can take any inanimate object that exists in the Realworld and create an Otherworld version of it and alter it to her liking. Our presious daughter is unable to copy living being so instead brings any living matter into her world to do as she sees fit. While inside Otherworld, Nightmare can "see" into a person's mind and create monsters, ghosts, and anything that that person thinks is horrifying. In other words, she is able to create an individuals own personal hell; the monsters are twisted into personal nightmares along with the environment."

Naruto could not help but wonder why he had been getting lectured so often in the past few hours, but shoved the thought to the back of his mind as the skinned body on the other hospital gurney gave a sudden violent twitch.

Naruto spun around as the figure shakingly rose from the gurney and twitched over to one of the dibilitated cabanets. With a violently shaking hand, it opened the cabinet and pulled out a roll of bandages.

Our blond male main character whatched with a raised eyebrow as the bleeding form stalked over to Nightmare's bed and dissapeared behind the curtians. Naruto turned his head to Empress with his eyebrow still raised.

Empress chuckled lightly, "That would be our daughter's latest victim. He was an idiotic doctor who thought that he would dare to even touch our child!" She shouted with a passion, "When the bastard moved the curtians, Nightmare sent him here and turned him into her own personal doctor. Nightmare told us that he was the head doctor of the facility or something." She gave an unimpressed chuckle as the use to be head doctor shambled out from behind the curtians and sprawled himself on the busted gurney. "Not like it matters now."

Empress motioned over to her daughter's bed, "Nightmare said that she would like to meet Lord Venom's new host."

Naruto walked over to the other side of the bed and reached out with a shaky hand. He gulped loudly as he gripped the curtians and glanced over to the prone doctor.

Seeing the hesitation, Samus walked over to her living wet dream and placed a comforting had on his shoulder. "Don't worry Naruto. Nightmare would not think of harming a fellow symbiote; but we would advise you to not vomit when you see her. It might make her cry." She whispered in his ear.

This did nothing to calm Naruto's nervious hand as he clenched the curtian tighter. With a hard tug, the white plastic was pulled out of the way and the unmistakable scent of burnt flesh smacked Naruto's olfactory sensors.

He stumbled back with his hands covoring his nose and mouth as his eyes widened to nearly comical preportions. In front of him was the most horrifying sight any symbiote could imagine.

Laying in a perfectly clean hospital bed was a girl that looked to be no older than six. Her entire body, however, was burnt nearly beyond recongnition. Her skin looked as if it was made from charcoal and several pieces chipped off of her as her young chest slowly moved as she took in air. Her hair had been burnt off, leaving her scarred head bare for all to see. Her forehead and cheecks showed an extra pair of eyes on each for a total of six, five of which were welded shut. Nightmare's lips had been partially melted together and nearly sealed off her mouth. With every breath she took, Nightmare let loss a slow aganized groan from the pain the very action caused her. Naruto noticed red lines on her arms, legs, neck. The lines appeared to have been inflicted by something holding her as she was burned. A large vertical gash on her stomach had opened her body and revealed the charred organs inside. The only organ not burnt to a crisp was the girls large intestines, which was currently lightly waving in the air like a symbiote's tentacle. Naruto took note of the fresh bandages that the once-was doctor had placed on various parts of Nightmare's young form; they had already turned a sickly yellow from puse that was leaking through several wounds.

Nightmare looked Naruto up and down with her three open eyes. Slowly, the corners of her melted lips curved upward into a sweet smile. Her lazyly swinging intestine slowly whipped around and wrapped its slimmy self around Naruto several times.

Before Naruto could voice his panic, Empress; on the other side of the bed, clapped her hands, "Awww." She cooed, "That is sooo sweet. Our darling Nightmare want's to give Lord Venom's host a hug. Awwww."

In response Naruto just looked at his ruler with a freaked look while Nightmare's grip tightned slightly.

"Um..." He began. "We don't mean to be rude but, why did you show me your beautiful daughter and...?" Naruto had to add the 'beautiful' bit just incase is question lit the fury of Empress and her child, "Wh-what happened to her?"

Empress chickled, "Both our daughter and us apreciate your compliment. " Nightmare's slight squeeze said the same. "The reason we had Revenge and Payback bring you here was both, to introduce you to our daughter and her amazing power. And to make sure that you knew who one of your future team-mates will be on your genin team."

Without thinking, Naruto's back straightened and he slammed his chest with his right fist and proudly stated, "We will graduate from the academy and we will protect your child with our very life and make sure no harm comes to her by any means."

"Very good." Empress replied to the symbiote influensed response. "It appears that your bonding with Lord Venom has progressed a little more." She lovely gazed down at her and asked, "Would it be okay if we told Lord Venom, Nightmare?"

Very slowly, Nightmare turned her head towards her mother. Bits of her flesh fell off as her neck turned along with several pained whimpers. When she finally was able to look her mother in the eye her head slowly nodded.

"Very well then." Empress cleared her throat. "The event that caused my daughter's current condition happened a few hundred years ago; 736 years ago to be precise. The young girl that my daughter bonded to was the only individual within a small community with psycic abilities and was feared by her neighbores even before being introduced to Nightmare. Her name was Alessa Gillespie. During the girl's short life in her town, she was treated as a demon and was ostrisized. The parents told thier children to demean, humiliate, and harm the girl as much as possible. The adults of the town would attack her whenever they could. On some very rare occasions the girl was vioently raped and beaten to near death. But none of the villagers dared to attempt to kill the child for fear of releasing the devil upon the world."

As he listened to the tale, Naruto unconsiously gripped Nightmare's intestine, which was still wrapped around his torso.

"Her mother though, was the worst of them all. She would do everything she possibly could to make her daughter's life a living Hell. From something simple like ignoring her child's cries for help, to not feeding her for long periods of time. We had been observing the girl for a short time while scouting out potential hosts for my daughter; we had been pregnant with her at the time and was near birth. We witnessed the girl perform several psycic abilities and wondered what the effects of bonding with a symbiote would have on her power. After a few days we gave birth to Nightmare and was able to stow her way in the girl's closet in the middle of the night. The next morning, you can guess what happened." She chuckled again as the memory of her daughter attaching to the terrified girl and yanking her into the closet to begin bonding, flashed in her mind.

"Anyways, after the two bonded the girl's power increased beyond anything we could ever imagine. As you can obviously see the power this girl now wealds, ranging from creating Otherworld to completely reforming living matter to whatever she desires. It is infact Nightmare's very power that shields our home from any who wish to find our secrets or do our kind harm." Relizing that she got a little off topic, Empress cleared her throat once again.

"Well, anywho, after the two joined Alessa's life changed very little. The townsfolk still treated her like filth and continued to do so untill the fateful night." Her symbiotic hands clenched the bed sheets and her claws tore into them as her grip tighned. "A group of 'demon slayers' calling themselves "The Order" came to the town. Upon thier arrival several villagers informed them of Alessa and of her power. Being the bastards that they were, The Order took our daughter to the town temple and tighed her to a religious symbol using rusted barbwire. Then..." Empress had her head down, clenched her jaws hard enough to shatter several of her fangs, and had nearly rendered the sheets to ribbons. "...They burned her."

Suddenly screaming and the roar of a fire could be heard ehoing through out the Otherworld hospital. One scream sounded like that of a little girls, while the other was less human but still female in nature.

"You have no idea how happy we are that your daughter, Scream, happened by at the time. Using her unique ability, she was able to clear out the fire and save our Nightmare. Unfortunatly, The Order members involved with the burning had escaped and had gone into hiding. We have been unable to locate and terminate any of the lothsome insects." Empress kept her head down for a few more seconds as she finished the tale.

As the information sunk in, Naruto's grip tightned even more on Nightmare's intestine. His eyes hardened and he gazed down at the charred girl. He leaned forward a little so that he was looking her in the eye(s).

"Nightmare," He addressed to get her attention, "We swear on our honor as members of the symbiotic horde, that we will find every Order member in existance and make them pay for what the have done to you." The determination in his voice was only matched by the fire burning behind his eyes. The rest of the symbiotes in the Otherworld-ly room only smiled at the all too familiar determination that their lord was known for showed itself on the young boy.

"Now then," Empress spoke out. "We think it is about time that Nightmare went to bed; you too Naruto."

Naruto looked up at Empress in complete and utter shock. "What!"

"You are still a child and children need thier sleep so that they have enough energy to grow up into our powerful Lord Venom."

"And," Samus interjected, "If your good on the way home, then we'll let you use our breasts as marshmellow pillows." She ended while hefting her bosom with her hands and slowly kneeding them.

Naruto was out the door before another word could be said. Samus still caught the massive blush adorning his young face.

Well, well, well. Chapter number 11 comes to a close here. I was actually planning on calling Nightmare, Ruthless instead but decided to save that name for later. As for why I called Nightmare her name...just think about it for a moment. All of the symbiotes names have a hidden meaning in them. And here are several symbiotes giving us a short discription.

Venom - "We're like poison to those agianst us!"

Payback - "Harm our child and we'll return the pain a thousand fold, bitch!"