When Death Comes
Ch. 5
Naruto froze. I love you. The words shocked him to the core, and his mind was running through a million thoughts a second trying to comprehend what had been said to him. After a moment the usually quiet murmur of his pets in the back of his mind turned into loud shrieks of pain as they felt their masters confusion.
Naruto followed suit. Without thinking he pushed Ayame and Teuchi away from him clutching his head with a look of absolute agony on his face and screamed at the top of his lungs. Ayame stared at him in concern and tried to slowly walk towards him only for him to swing his arm at her keeping her at bay.
"Naruto-kun pl-" before she could finish the screaming stopped and with a swirl of wind Naruto was gone as if he had never been there in the first place.
Ayame did the only thing she felt appropriate in this situation and fell to her knees and cried.
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Naruto used Body Flicker to appear in the alley behind Ichiraku. He needed to get away from them, he couldn't risk losing control, not there. He activated his invisibility seal and sprinted towards the gates and out of the village without a single person noticing.
From there he ran into the forest choosing to run as far as he could as fast as he could. He would not stop until he could no longer move. Through all of this the screams persisted. They filled every part of his skull leaving little room for rational thought, it had taken almost all of his carefully trained self control to run out of the village without hurting anyone and the struggle was only getting worse.
His pets had sensed his weakness and now were seeking to take control, to wrest their freedom from the one who was causing them such pain. Naruto would not let that happen. He fought against the screams as he ran but it was a losing battle, his emotional turmoil was weakening his will and thus his command of his pets was dissipating. After almost a whole day of running Naruto had ended up in the deserts that covered the Land of Wind.
There he collapsed and the true battle for control of his body began.
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Almost a month had passed since Naruto's attack. Neko had awoken in a hospital bed and was told that she was lucky to be alive, her injuries had been grave, and the medic-nin said if it hadn't been for an odd seal that was found on her shoulder that seemed to accelerate her healing she surely would have died.
This information had angered her. Neko was not stupid, she knew who had placed the seal on her shoulder, but what she didn't know was why.
That man-no monster, who had never seemed to care about who he killed, and yet it was twice now that he had kept her alive, and this time he even went out of his way to ensure that she lived.
It simply made no sense. What reason could he have for keeping her alive, he knew that she hated him and wanted nothing more then to skewer him with her blade, so why would he keep her alive instead of just eliminating someone who surely posed some sort of threat to him.
She had been thinking about this since she woke up, even when she got out of the hospital and was cleared to go home the thought haunted her, and yet she was no closer to thinking of a reasonable answer then she was when she started.
In truth she knew it was a useless endeavor. There was no one who was capable of understanding the mind of Naruto Uzumaki, he was an enigma, who seemingly acted randomly and on impulse rather than planning any of his actions.
After his initial betrayal of Konoha they would occasionally get reports of him appearing in random towns around the Land of Fire and sometimes in other nations as well. Neko had been the one to investigate these reports and every time she was told that he had entered the town and acted as just another tourist, then randomly he would kill one or two of the townsfolk usually in the middle of street and disappeared without a trace before anyone could even hope to stop him.
Then it stopped. For the past three years no one had seen hide nor hair of Naruto Uzumaki. At first this had confused her. Why did he stop? The killings were pointless, but she had assumed he killed to satiate some sort of bloodlust, at least that made some modicum of sense. This was another thing that haunted her for quite a while, but eventually she assumed he was still killing just being more subtle about it or perhaps he just decided to stop on a whim or became bored. Something like that while illogical fit into the personality she had both observed and pieced together based on stories of his exploits which at that point had been numerous.
But now that he had saved her she was forced to reevaluate her conclusion. Had something changed that she didn't know of, had something forced him to stop, had he perhaps gained back some form of remorse for his actions.
Whatever the reason Neko had to move on. Trying to understand Naruto had been a fruitless effort thus far and would likely continue to be so, besides she had more important things to worry about.
She had a bad feeling about the upcoming Chunin Exams, she wasn't sure what it was and when she had informed the Hokage he had agreed that something seemed off, so she trained as hard as she could. Last time she had seen Naruto she had almost been defeated by one of his pets, she needed to be stronger. She couldn't help but feel whatever threat came next threatened to destroy her home. All she could do was hope that Konoha could weather the storm.
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For two weeks Naruto struggled. He was starving, he couldn't move a muscle, the sun had left any exposed skin burnt to a crisp, and the screams had not ceased. When he closed his eyes he could see them slamming themselves against the cage that was his mind, shrieking as they fought to tear up his skull and spill out into the world around him.
They would die instantly if they did so, but it seemed that they didn't care, their master, the one who created them and gave them life was causing them pain in his turmoil and all they wanted was to be free from it. Naruto fought tooth and nail against their will, he suffered through the pain that his body was undergoing and refused to acknowledge the pain they were putting his mind through.
He would not be defeated. He refused to allow it. Not now that he knew the truth. Someone loved him, someone cared for him, someone would be saddened by his death. He couldn't understand why, or how, but he didn't care as long as Ayame wanted him to live, he would. That was the least he could offer her.
He held this thought in his mind and maintained the image of her face at the forefront of his mind as he battled. When they screamed he roared and when they slammed against their prison slammed into them with the sheer force of his will and eventually they surrendered to him.
Now they were silent. They made no sound not even their usual mutterings which he had grown accustomed to and finally after such a long battle Naruto fell unconscious.
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Kakashi was at the memorial stone as he usually was. He did as he usually did talking quietly to his lost comrades telling them about his recent escapades and apologizing for failing them. He did this for almost an hour before leaving to meet his genin at the bridge he had asked them to meet him at.
Ever since their humiliating defeat at the hands of Naruto and his subsequent assault on the village there was a change in not only his genin but all of the rookies. They all seemed to train harder and even Sakura had requested to be trained as a medic nin at the hospital. Sasuke had taken his loss very hard and out of all of the genin he was pushing himself the hardest and had even begun to associate with the rest of his teammates as Kakashi explained that only reason the Jounin had been able to defeat Naruto was by working together.
All in all Kakashi was very proud of the progress that Sasuke and Sakura had made; however, his third genin was the one he was concerned with now. Sai had not been the same since the attack, where the other had progressed and moved to better themselves as people and shinobi, Sai had done the opposite. He had always seemed emotionally stunted, but he always made an effort to at least act like a good teammate. Now it was as though he couldn't even be bothered to make the effort.
Kakashi was not concerned with his skills as a shinobi more so that he was concerned with him as a person. Kakashi believed that he may be the strongest of all the rookies, but he refused to cooperate with his teammates and instead constantly berated and insulted them.
It was almost as if something had been lost to Sai. It reminded Kakashi a lot of how he acted after his father died, he had tried to talk to Sai about it but all efforts failed. Sai simply shrugged off his questions refusing to answer him. If this continued Kakashi would have no choice but to have him from the team, he would not risk two of his students because one of them refused to cooperate.
When he arrived at the bridge Sakura and Sakura were sitting on the railing talking about something or other. The two had become close since the battle especially after Sakura stopped constantly pursuing Sasuke and instead opted into trying to be his friend. Sai sat off to the side painting on a scroll ignoring his teammates conversation.
"You're late" Sakura said smiling at Kakashi.
"You see I was crossing the street when a construction worker fell off the roof, I caught him, but had to escort him to the hospital because it seemed like he had a fever." Kakashi replied with his signature eye-smile.
"You're getting more creative." Sasuke noted jumping down from the railing.
"I try" Kakashi pulled three forms out of seemingly nowhere and handed one to each of the genin.
"Chunin Exams?" Sakura asked wide-eyed. She knew they were coming up but hadn't imagined that Kakashi thought them ready.
"Yes, you guys have worked hard since the attack and I think all of you are more than prepared to become Chunin. If nothing else it'll serve as good experience for the next time." Kakashi replied. "However, ultimately the decision to take the exam is yours and yours alone. I ask that you not allow your teammates to affect your decision and only agree to take the exam if you feel you're ready. There is a not entirely small chance of death or at least serious injury in the Chunin Exams so I expect each of you to take this seriously." Kakashi said seriously his expression changed to match his tone.
Sasuke and Sakura nodded slowly understanding the importance of their decision. Sasuke was more then willing to take the exam but knew that Sakura likely had some reservations. Despite all of her hard work he knew that she still doubted her skills.
Sai stared at Kakashi impassively and after a few moments gave a single nod before walking away.
Kakashi sighed and said "Remember to think carefully about your decision. If you decide to take the exam fill out that form and show up at the academy in two days. Training will be cancelled in this time period so you can consider your options. I'll chase down Sai and tell him this, see ya" the eye smile returned before Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves. After a few moments Sakura and Sasuke said their goodbyes and headed home.
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Hiruzen sighed as he sat at his desk going through his paperwork the majority of which dealt with the upcoming Chunin exams. He had a feeling that something bad was going to happen, but had assumed that he was just being paranoid until Neko had approached him and said that she had similar concerns.
Seeing this he had ordered that security be increased for this Chunin exams and that he be personally informed of every shinobi that entered his village. He even ordered Jiraya to return, recalled many of the ANBU that were out on missions, and activated several Jounin that had been on leave.
It could have just been paranoia that he and Neko shared after the Naruto fiasco. But one did not live so long in the shinobi world without being paranoid and Hiruzen was not going to risk anything even if he was operating off of a hunch. He had done everything he could to prepare now all that was left was to wait for the Chunin Exams to come and pray that his gut feeling was wrong.
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A/N: I'm not a huge fan of this chapter but it served its purpose. For the Chunin Exam arc a lot of the focus will be on the rookies for a bit and then we'll return to Naruto. I put Sai on Team 7 for two reasons 1. I needed a replacement for Naruto and 2. I think it'll be interesting to see how he reacts to Naruto knowing that he killed Danzo. Remember that I am accepting suggestions for a pairing just PM me or leave a review saying the pairing and if you wish you could also say why you think it would work. Right now I'm leaning towards no pairing but there's still time to change my mind. Thanks for reading
-SilentSilas