*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*

Transformation Arc:

Chapter 7 – The Tale of Naruto the Gallant (Part II)

They were still walking – it was another 2 miles to the village they were heading for. Jiraiya kept glancing over at his student with a worried look on his face, as if waiting for him to collapse again.

Naruto looked back at his sensei, and donned a half-hearted smile to try to convince the Sannin that he was okay, regardless of the… incident that had occurred a few hours ago.

To tell the truth, Naruto could still hear voices – but they were much more subdued now, as opposed to before, when it sounded like a mob of people was standing over his cowering body and shouting at him. But they didn't seem to be bothering him now – at least, not at the moment.

They kept walking, until the first scattered buildings of a sizeable village in the northern part of the Land of Fire. This area was known for its hot springs and peaceful, warm, hospitable people.

"Wait a second… I've been there before!" remarked Tsunade. "They have a small gambling hut towards the far side of the village, towards the forest."

The Hokage had been briefed on the memory seal and its contents earlier that morning. After shoving most of her paperwork load onto Shizune, the Sannin herself joined Sakura, Shikamaru, and Kakashi in the library to view the rest of the seal's memories.

They had replayed the more crucial moments from the memory seal for her, including Naruto's run-in with the Nine-Tails inside of him. Tsunade grimaced at seeing her former teammate and "grandson" speaking and joking and yelling at each other like nothing had happened. But she remained firm, knowing that this information might be enough to help bring Naruto back, and maybe suppress the Nine-Tails enough to the point where he could return to normal again.

At least, that was what she desperately wanted.

Jiraiya had made it an order that Naruto take the next few days to relax and recover from his heavy training regimen, and for once, Naruto didn't put up a fight.

He didn't say anything, but he was feeling fatigued – and heavily so – just from walking and breathing.

He felt… weak.

After a few more excruciating minutes of walking through the village, they found a lovely little inn right off the hot springs that they could relax in. Before Jiraiya was even done paying for their rooms, the jinchuuriki trudged down the hallway to their home-away-from-home and crashed on one of the beds… hard.

The memory faded for a moment, then returned to normal after a moment.

Jiraiya was standing over him, wearing a fluffy white robe, and a concerned expression on his face.

"Naruto… you've been out for damn near a full day. What's gotten into you?"

The boy leaned up, and blinked a few times, trying to fight off the sleepiness he was still burdened with. "Hmm… I dunno… I just feel like I need some serious rest…" he mumbled, before stretching and laying back down again.

"Well, alright then. I'm going to head to the hot springs for a little… relaxation." The Toad Sage kept his concerned demeanor in front of Naruto, but he could still see the gleam in his master's eye that screamed 'research' instead of 'relaxation'.

'Whatever', he thought to himself, 'At least I won't be around to have to clean up after him.'

The memory faded again, this time completely to black.

Then, suddenly, he was standing in the middle of the cage room again – looking up at the enormous golden gates before him.

Everything looked the same as before, but this time, Naruto noticed a stream of bright blue chakra flowing off of him, and past the bars in the cage to somewhere in the darkness.

'What the hell?' he thought, before approaching the doors.

"Well, at least he finally noticed it," Kakashi said. "Still, we have no idea what that chakra beam is, or what it's doing…"

Tsunade murmured in agreement.

"Hey! Furball! What the hell are you doing with my chakra!" he shouted through the cage.

Naruto flinched, expecting a harsh rebuttal for using that nickname.

But nothing came.

Naruto scratched his head, and leaned forward a little bit. "Hey, you in there? What's gotten into you? Normally you'd be all over me for saying something like that."

No response.

"…Kyuubi?"

Naruto gulped, and quickly jumped to the conclusion that something was seriously wrong. He took another few steps, until he was standing right next to the massive bars; only a few steps away from the Kyuubi's domain.

Then, he froze. 'Wait a minute, what if he's just trying to pull something? Maybe he's trying to lure me in so he can squash me and get out.'

Naruto smirked. "Ha! You can't fool me! I'm not going to fall for that one. You might as well just give it up…"

His voice trailed off, as he began scanning the darkness for any traces of hate-filled eyes or an incoming set of claws.

His eyes opened in shock when he caught a glimmer of burnt orange on the ground, that looked remarkably like a rear paw. And from the position it was laying in, it looked like the fox hadn't moved much since the last encounter.

Mustering up what little courage he had at facing the fearsome beast, Naruto held his breath, and took another few steps into the cage.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" Shikamaru muttered.

"…Kyuubi? Hey, are you alright?"

Naruto's more sensitive, caring nature got the best of him, even in regards to his prisoner. Or maybe it was curiosity. He couldn't really figure it out himself – he was more focused on the shadow of the paw that began to loom ahead of him.

As he delved further into the realm of the fox, the light from the other side of the cage began to follow him, slowly illuminating the darkness in front of him, as he continued to approach the Nine-Tails.

Naruto gasped as the body of the beast appeared before him, now lit by the mysterious source that followed him in.

"What?"

"Holy sh-"

"Oh my…"

"That's… that's not… how…?"

Laying before Naruto, in a clumsy heap, was the great and powerful Nine-Tailed Demon Fox of the Leaf Village. Its fur was tattered and faded, as if something had sapped the color from its once vibrant mane. The more taut portions of its form, such as the skin around its face and upper body, was wrinkled and sagged – as if it was slowly fading out of existence, from the inside out. Its muzzled face was gray and pale – moreso than the rest of it. The demon's tails weren't friskily dancing about behind it like every time Naruto had seen it – instead, they were piled on top of each other uncomfortably, soaking like the rest of its body in the watery abyss of its cage.

Naruto began cautiously circling the beast, still anticipating a surprise attack, but it didn't move. Finally, he decided to approach it and try and wake it up – maybe it was just asleep?

The boy walked up to its massive head, and tapped its nose a few times. To Naruto's surprise, the soft flesh wasn't cold and wet like he expected the fox's to be – he had been around Kiba and Akamaru long enough to know that those were signs of a canine's good health. Instead, it was completely dry, and cold in a different sense.

One that Naruto had felt before, on many occasions – a coldness that came with...

Naruto took a step back in shock and disbelief.

The Kyuubi was dead.

"How is that possible? I thought Tailed Beasts couldn't die?" panicked Sakura, frantically glancing around the room at all the equally bewildered faces gathered around the table.

"It isn't possible," muttered Kakashi, eye wide open.

The memory had faded to black after that, and Shikamaru felt that it was best to end the replaying of memories until they could discuss this in length. Taking his finger off the page, he sighed, and looked around at everyone else as well.

Sakura was darting back and forth from her sensei to her Hokage, waiting for some kind of response. Kakashi was still staring at the bloodied page of the notebook, as if he was lost in thought, or replaying what he had just seen in his head. Tsunade, in her usual form of contemplation in the face of sincere shock, was resting her chin on her steepled fingers and looking off absentmindedly in the direction of the table in front of her.

Suddenly, Tsunade grimaced, and frowned, slapping her hands down on the table. She sat there for a moment, before finally speaking.

"That damn Jiraiya! What the hell did he think he was doing, tampering with seals he knew nothing about! On something as powerful as the Nine-Tailed Fox!" she plastered her hands on her face, running them up and into her hair, where they stayed, upsetting her blond mop.

Finally, after several uncomfortable heartbeats, Tsunade shifted her gaze to Shikamaru; otherwise not moving at all. "Please continue."

Shocked at the reaction of the slug princess, Shikamaru blinked once, then looked back down at the scroll and placed his chakra-infused finger back on the seal.

Naruto woke with a start – he was still lying in the bed from before. It was dark out now; the faint glow from the moon outside meandered its way through the windows on the far side of the hotel room, and illuminated its contents halfheartedly.

He sat up completely this time, heart racing, as he glanced around the room. Jiraiya was still out – his bed was still made and untouched.

Naruto was about to jump to his feet and look for his sensei when he felt an intense wave of heat radiate from the seal and burn into his skin.

Wincing, he pulled his mesh shirt up enough so he could see the seal – and nearly screamed.

The seal was glowing bright blue – enough to illuminate a small portion of the hotel room. It was glowing much more than the last time, and pulsing slightly, sending waves of pain throughout the jinchuuriki's body.

Deciding he had waited long enough to spill the beans to his sensei, Naruto struggled to his feet, hand held gingerly over his stomach.

When he finally gained his footing, his back slouched over more than he was expecting, and he yelped in pain as his spine popped and crackled like a dried up leaf in the final weeks of autumn. It was uncomfortable to stand – almost like he wasn't meant to be on two feet. After taking a few small, experimental steps, his legs gave out, and he fell, face-first, onto the floor with a thud.

But that wouldn't stop him. He had to get to Jiraiya, and fast – he needed to figure out what was wrong. He felt very strange – not like he was in pain. No, he was uncomfortable – like his very existence was wrong: the way he held his hands, the way he breathed, the way his spine buckled under the weight of standing.

So, he began to crawl towards the door, slowly but surely.

After a few moments of dragging himself across the wooden floor of their hotel, Naruto willed himself to stand slightly and pull the doorknob, collapsing on the floor again after his task was complete.

The brilliant warm light of the hallway in front of him beckoned Naruto further, as if to encourage him to not give up. Besides, he had developed a sort of wiggle in his short jaunt across their hotel room floor that seemed to be effective enough.

He struggled out the door, which closed with a click behind him. 'No turning back now, I guess,' he winced to himself, willing his tormented body to move.

Move.

MOVE!

His pained crawling down the hall became sluggish, and his vision began to blur.

'N..no… I have to get up; I need to get to Jiraiya…'

And he passed out again, this time in the middle of the hallway.

The next memory began immediately after the previous one. Naruto was no longer on the floor of a hotel – he was lying in a hospital bed, with his teacher looking over him - a worried, angry look etched on his features like a wood carving.

Naruto took a moment to look around the room before trying to speak. He was in an unknown hospital – he could tell, because the Hidden Leaf's had square, light-gray/beige tiles that ran across down the length of ceiling. He knew that because he counted them out, repeatedly, after each stint he had to spend there.

This hospital's ceiling, however, was flat and plain – and completely white. As was the rest of the room – including the bedsheets, the nurse's outfits, and the machinery that littered the room haphazardly, and…

…his sensei's hair.

"Jiraiya-sensei?" Naruto murmured, still not quite all there.

The man forced a pained smile across his face. "Hey, kid. How are you feeling?"

Naruto looked around again, and down at his body.

He was covered from head to toe with bandages – his hands still had the bandaging he had applied himself before the… incident at the hot springs.

He tried to sit up slightly, but couldn't stifle the yelp that squeaked out of his mouth as pain arced across his flesh. He fell back down on the pillow, squinting his eyes as he rode out the waves of slowly-receding agony.

When he opened them again after the pain mostly went away, he saw Jiraiya holding his shoulder tenderly.

"Hey… don't move. And you don't call me that unless something is seriously wrong."

The boy looked back up at him with a confused expression on his face, before closing his eyes and sighing again.

"Wh…what happened?" Naruto was shocked at how raspy and decrepit his voice sounded.

"You were in some sort of chakra-exhaustion induced coma for a week, Naruto. The doctors say that your body was starting to fall apart because of it. They've never seen anything like it – neither have I. Although that Uzumaki blood you have might have something to do with it. And probably also the Nine-Tails."

"No… The fox… he's… I don't understand…" Naruto stuttered as the memories of his strange encounter with his prisoner dashed about in his mind.

Jiraiya smiled warmly, and patted Naruto gently with the hand that was still on his shoulder. "I found you passed out and looking really sickly on the floor on my way back to the hotel room. You wouldn't wake up, and your pulse was weak – so I rushed you here."

Naruto looked back up at the ceiling, thinking about the events that transpired that night. 'Was it really a week ago? It feels like it just happened…'

Jiraiya chuckled a little to himself. "You know, maybe it had something to do with you dying your hair orange. Maybe your body doesn't like the color."

Naruto turned back to his sensei confusedly. "What do you mean, dying my hair orange?"

"Don't play dumb with me, kid. You've been dying little bits and pieces, here and there, trying to sneak it past me. I thought it was just some sort of cruel prank, but I guess if you love the color orange that much, then fine, be that way." Jiraiya shrugged with a smile, leaning back in his chair.

Naruto gingerly raised a hand up to his head, and felt his hair.

To his shock, he pulled back a clump of it – and just like Jiraiya said, it was mostly blond, with streaks of burnt orange running through it. 'What the hell?'

"That's another reason why I think your body doesn't like it – you've been shedding like a dog for the past few days, since you started messing with it. You need to buy some better dye, kid." He chuckled softly, before frowning at Naruto's horrified expression as he clenched the clump of hair in his hand.

"What…what the hell is happening to me?" he croaked, before pulling back another clump of blond-orange hair.

Next thing he knew, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped back into unconsciousness, as Jiraiya called a doctor into the room urgently.

"I guess that makes sense," Sakura stated emotionlessly. "His hair was spotty and orange when we ran into him during the Gaara mission. I almost didn't recognize him at first."

"That doesn't sound like purely chakra exhaustion to me," noted Tsunade, who was once again leaning her chin against her fingers.

His mindscape opened up before him again – and once again, he was standing in front of the massive sealed doors that were meant to house the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Without wasting any time at all, Naruto sprinted towards the gates, but froze when his attention drifted to the beam of blue chakra that he was leaking.

Well, it used to be blue, at least.

Now, it was a bright shade of purple, and seemed to be tapering off from his body in a much less heated manner than it had been before.

He hadn't thought much of it at the time – after all, it was his mindscape, and there were many strange things that happened in there. Hell, his mind was a giant closed circuit sewer – not exactly something that made much sense, now that he thought about it.

So in his eye, a strange beacon of blue chakra was par for the course.

After taking a moment to observe the purple beam, he then focused on his body.

And he was surprised to see it was looking just as wrinkly and pale as the Kyuubi had last time he entered his mindscape.

He looked down at the pool of water below him, and took notice of his reflection. His hair was now very orange, with clumps falling out at the slightest bit of disturbance. His face, other than being pale and sickly, still had the 6 whisker marks dashing across his cheeks, and his eyes were still blue and brilliant.

After giving himself a visual patdown, he ran back into the seal to check on the Kyuubi.

'Maybe it's not dead… maybe it's just sleeping?'

But even Naruto's subconscious agreed that that was wishful thinking.

That was, until he approached the fox's figure, and saw it was slowly regaining its color, and its skin was regaining its elasticity.

'What?'

And then, Naruto noticed that the beam of purple chakra was feeding right into the body of the beast – bleeding Naruto dry.

He gasped, and jumped back, hoping that distance between them would stop the flow of chakra. He ran back to the other side of the seal, and to the far side of the room.

But still, the purple beam of chakra oozed out of him and floated across the cavernous space, and into the sealed darkness, into the Kyuubi.

'This is bad… I'm leaking chakra like a sieve…'

"So, that's what that beam was. Interesting that it's purple now, instead of blue," remarked Kakashi, with a tinge of worry in his voice.

"Isn't the Kyuubi's chakra red?"

Kakashi, Tsunade, and Sakura all looked up at Shikamaru with questioning faces.

"Sure, his chakra cloak was red – like blood. But why does that matter?" Sakura asked, staring at the Nara boy. She remembered very clearly what Naruto's Nine-Tails cloak looked like after experiencing it a few times firsthand herself.

"What if… and humor me on this one… what if their chakras are blending somehow?" Shikamaru looked from Kakashi, to Sakura, to Tsunade, and back again.

"Well, it's just a color change. We'll need to keep watching to know for sure," the Hokage said calmly. "However, for Naruto's sake, let's hope you're wrong."

They were on the road again, although much slower and less vivaciously than before.

Naruto was walking – no, trudging – alongside Jiraiya as they made their way south. He had a couple soldier pills in his hand, which he was fiddling with lightly as he walked.

After a few miles, he became weaker, and popped another pill into his mouth, grimacing at the taste, but swallowing it nonetheless. After a few moments, he felt his strength return, but only at a fraction of what it was before.

His heavy backpack was offsetting the forward-kilter that his back now had – but he was still having to force himself to stand up straight.

They were heading to a safe place, far enough away from the rest of civilization in order for Jiraiya to remove the seal. Everything that Jiraiya had seen up until that point had indicated that the Untamed Beast Seal had malfunctioned somehow, and that it needed to be removed. Naruto's sickly appearance certainly could vouch for that.

Jiraiya had previously stated how he was worried that something might also break on the Eight Trigrams Seal, so they were heading especially far away in order to ensure that, in the unlikely event that the Kyuubi was freed, no one would be hurt.

Other than Naruto, that is. Jiraiya cursed himself for not taking extra precautions before playing around with seals he had never seen before.

"Hold on, Naruto, we only have another few hours or so until we're back at our last campsite," came Jiraiya's voice, briefly capturing Naruto's wavering attention. It was fully of worry and fear – not of Naruto, but for Naruto.

By now, his hair was completely orange. It happened while Naruto fell unconscious again, at which point Jiraiya realized that it wasn't something Naruto was doing on purpose.

Naruto stumbled forward a little bit, before his feet finally caught up with him and he staggered slightly, regaining his footing. Jiraiya turned around and looked at him.

"Do you need any help? I can carry you, you know."

"N…no… I should be able to make it. I'm still a little weak from being in the hospital for so long but I should be able to make it to our campsite no problem." He smiled weakly, in order to help calm his sensei's nerves.

And, to be honest, his own nerves too.

He hadn't told Jiraiya what went on in his mind while he was knocked out – because, honestly, he didn't believe it was real. At least, he really was hoping it wasn't. But he figured at this point, considering how close they were to removing the Untamed Beast Seal, he didn't think it mattered anymore.

Naruto pulled out a polished kunai, and held it in front of his face to see his reflection.

"God, he looks awful," muttered Sakura, who was frowning to herself. Being a medical ninja meant she had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

"It looks like someone's draining the life out of him," Tsunade added. She also was able to deduce that Naruto was in bad shape.

Naruto looked like he had aged 20 years in two weeks – his body still had a youthful figure to it, but the wrinkles and paleness certainly didn't help. It was hard to believe he was this fragile.

'Did I really rely this much on the Kyuubi?' Naruto thought, assuming that his condition was due to the Nine-Tails'… incapacitation.

The memory fogged over again, signaling the passage of uneventful time, before sharpening back into clarity again after the campsite from several memories ago reappeared before them. The sun was mostly set at this point, casting long shadows across the forests and beginning the opening sequence of nighttime's arrival.

Jiraiya sighed, and pulled out a small scroll from within his kimono. He formed a hand seal with his right hand, and after unrolling the scroll, a small tent appeared on the ground in front of him with a puff of smoke.

"Alright, we'll rest here for the night. I want to make sure you have enough energy tomorrow for when I take the seal off for good. You look like you could use some rest anyways." Jiraiya put his hand on Naruto's shoulder and smiled kindly, before crawling into his tent as the sky blackened considerably.

Naruto set up his own tent, and tried to rest. But he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried. His seal felt… strange, almost like the Kyuubi was acting up inside. He tried to enter his mindscape to check on his tenant, but had no luck.

He still felt weak, but he was doing no good sitting around in his tent for the entire night, so he decided to get up and move around, in order to keep his mind occupied.

He walked over to the center of the clearing, and looked up at the moon in the night sky. It was completely full now, looming overhead like a beacon in the night. He could see everything clearly – the treetops swaying in the breeze, the small creek to the north, the blitzing of the clouds between himself and the starry night.

Naruto sighed, and looked down at himself. 'This existence sure is insignificant.' He let out a small chuckle, and walked to the reflective surface of the water in the creek. 'Life goes on, I guess.'

He looked at his features for a few minutes, scrutinizing every detail on his face and body before blinking a few times and sitting down with his knees up to his chin, wrapping his frail arms around his legs.

He was still wearing a plain, dark grey t-shirt with the Uzumaki swirl emblazoned on the front. It hung off of him a little looser than it normally did, but it still fit fine. He tugged at it a little, looking down at the crest, and thought back to all of his friends and comrades in the Leaf.

Images of Tsunade, Kakashi, Iruka, Teuchi, Sakura, Hinata, Lee, Neji, the Hokage Monument, his small apartment, the ramen shop, the Academy, the Hokage's Tower, the front gates, and many more flashed briefly in his mind, one after another, like a slideshow. He smiled warmly at the thought of hanging out with them again soon, but… something inside of him told him that that wouldn't be happening again. His smile hollowed considerably, and he stared down at the grass in front of him.

He looked back up at the moon again, and this time, really scrutinized it with a prying eye. He observed the faint glimmer it held as clouds passed it by, trying to diminish its intense light to no avail. He noticed that it was moving across the night sky slowly, and sat watching it silently for five minutes. Or ten. Or 100. He honestly wasn't aware of time anymore.

It was strange – the moon was never more than a passing fancy to him, just like the rest of humanity. But now… it felt like it was calling to him, whispering to him. It was mesmerizing, and beautiful – more beautiful than he ever remembered it being. He smiled slightly, and closed his eyes.

He felt a blinding pain in his chest – one that he had never experienced before. He immediately curled forward in pain, eyes squinted shut, trying to ride it out.

But it kept getting worse and worse, progressively so – until he noticed his consciousness blurring considerably, which numbed the pain. 'That's nice,' he thought to himself warmly, before falling over slightly and opening his eyes ever so slightly.

His vision was fragmented and jumbled, and he watched his peripheral vision grow dark and shrink with each faint heartbeat.

He closed his eyes again, and tried to stand up, but instead fell facefirst into the water in front of him. At least, he thought that's where he fell, because he couldn't feel anything anymore.

He struggled to move – to get up, to move, to get help. But his body betrayed him, and stayed where it was, before it suddenly jolted a few times on the ground.

His heart had stopped.

'That can't be good,' he mused to himself, as he faded out of consciousness.

Under the light of the full moon, in a small clearing in the south side of the Fire Country, under the cover of tall, waving trees, Naruto Uzumaki died - hands crumpled at his sides, face submerged partially in the crystal clear spring water flowing through the heart of the forest.

Sakura just sat there, mouth agape, letting the pained memories of her teammate flow over her like the pain he suffered that night. She couldn't explain it – she felt… guilty, almost, for the way he was feeling. He was in tremendous pain, that much was transferred (although dulled slightly due to the seal) through the memory.

If only she had been there. She could have stopped this, helped him move, tried to heal whatever was wrong-

"Sakura."

She looked up with a start, and saw the Hokage looking at her with a grim expression plastered across her face.

"Please… don't blame yourself for this. There's no way anyone – not even Jiraiya – to know what was happening."

Sakura sniffled, and took a quick glance at her other colleagues. Both had a look of absolute shock on their faces.

They had, after all, just witnessed the dying moments of one of their friends.

"So he really is dead," she whispered, before looking down at the table in front of her, her vision quickly becoming obscured by the tears that were threatening to fall from her face.

She may not have liked the boy all that much at the start, but she had to admit that he had grown on her after they became teammates and worked together with Kakashi and Sasuke.

She let out a sob, realizing that both of her teammates were gone, most likely for good. Sakura thought back to the moment three years ago, when Naruto and the Sasuke Retrieval Squad was departing, and Naruto made the promise of a lifetime – to bring their friend back.

It would seem he was true to his word in the end after all.

Sakura jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Kakashi staring at her with a very sad, very hollow look in his eye.

"Sakura. There was nothing you could have done." He looked down at the ground as he spoke. "For either of them."

She jumped. 'Was he thinking the same thing I was?' Her thoughts were interrupted by Kakashi's voice, this time barely above a whisper.

"I failed again… I'm sorry, Minato-sensei."

And he shunshined away in a cloud of leaves.

A/N: Wow - congratulations. You made it through the gauntlet! Chapters 2-5 and to a lesser extent Chapters 6-7 are, without a doubt, the worst things I have ever written, and they make me incredibly uncomfortable to reread... so I can't imagine what they must be like to go through for the first time.

Regardless, everything from here on out is much, much better written - I spent a lot of time working on this chapter to make it decent at the time - and that still holds true now. The plot finally (...finally!) begins to move forward here.

I mentioned at the beginning that I am still proud of what I wrote for the latter half of Kyuubi - this is the start of that half. Chapter 14 will always and forever be my favorite chapter of this story, though.

You'll have to read to it to find out why - you'll be lost otherwise ;)

Thanks for reading - and I'm glad you stuck with it this far!