*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*
Transformation Arc:
Chapter 8 – The Tale of Naruto the Gallant (Part III)
Iruka Umino decided to take the long way home from the Academy that evening – one that would give him more time to think. It had been two days since Hinata broke the news to him that Naruto was still alive – although mingling with a crowd of S-class missing-nin.
He smirked to himself. 'Naruto never did know how to do something modestly, did he? If you're gonna go missing from your village, you might as well do it right.'
He strolled through the thinning streets of the Leaf village, the soft crunch of his shinobi sandals connecting with the gravel pathway echoing behind him as he walked. He passed by a few of his students as he went, and they bowed to each other respectfully with a smile.
Suddenly, Iruka found himself basking in the warm glow of a rather familiar ramen stand. It looked exactly the same as it had the day that Naruto and he had partaken in their last bowl together before he set off on his trip around the world with Jiraiya - an array of soft beige canvas with kanji written on it hung loosely on the rafters of the building, and Iruka could see 6 unoccupied seats from between the cracks.
He ducked in for a moment, if only to say hi to Teuchi and Ayame, the owners. He had developed quite the relationship with the father-and-daughter pair after coming here so many times with his favorite student (and probably paying enough out of pocket for old man Ichiraku to open another 3 franchises across the Hidden Leaf).
He smiled warmly as the pair greeted him, and sat down for a moment. "Hi there! I won't be long, just out on a walk. Figured I'd stop by and grab a bowl on the way."
Ayame smiled, and handed him a menu. "Well, we're happy to oblige! Right, old man?" She turned and smiled at her father, who was working the noodles behind the counter.
"Right!" Teuchi smiled, turning and gesticulating with the noodles he had in a strainer in his hand.
"Thanks, you guys," smiled Iruka, before he set the menu down. "I'll take one small misu pork ramen, please."
"You got it!" called the ramen chef from the back, still facing the boiler in front of him.
Ayame pulled a stool up on the other side of the counter, across from Iruka. "So, how have you been the past couple of weeks?"
Iruka smiled again, and put his hands in his pockets. "I've actually been doing pretty well, all things considered. This year's crop of genin is going to be pretty impressive, I can already tell."
Ayame laughed, and leaned back on her stool a little bit. "Yeah, I bet! The one with the scarf, Lord Third's grandson, comes here pretty often. He's our best customer right now."
Iruka chuckled a few times to himself. "Yep, that's Konohamaru. He's certainly grown up these past few years, hasn't he?"
"Oh, you can say that again. He reminds me of Naruto a lot, actually."
Iruka's face went neutral for a moment, before he resumed his smile. He was glad that these two still thought of Naruto now and then. "Yeah, he really does. Pulls pranks and everything. And that Sexy Jutsu of his…" he frowned, and smashed his fist into his palm, as a small trickle of blood came out of his nose. He blushed, and wiped it away, hoping that it went unnoticed by the ramen apprentice.
It didn't.
"Haha! You big pervert!" snickered Ayame from across the bar. "Is it true Naruto used that Jutsu to knock out Lord Third way back in the day?"
Iruka smirked. "Yeah, much to his displeasure. He was sour for a week after that. Naruto couldn't get enough; he thought it was hilarious."
Ayame grinned to herself. "That silly kid – I miss him quite a bit. The shop's not the same without him here."
The chuunin instructor nodded expressionlessly. He couldn't spill the beans on what he had learned from Hinata – even if these two were some of Naruto's closest friends. It was an S-class secret for a reason.
"Yeah… you know, it would have been three years a few days ago, right? He was supposed to come back this past Saturday. I had a big party planned for him and everything, back before we got the news."
Ayame saddened a little bit, before nodding. "Yeah, that was quite the shock, that's for sure. I don't think I could do that again." She looked up at him. "I'm just glad he died doing what he loved – being a ninja, and somebody people could be proud of knowing."
"Well said," Iruka commented, resting his wrists on the edge of the counter. "That's why I'm here – to honor him with a nice steaming bowl of his favorite ramen!"
"Only one bowl?" piped up Teuchi from the back. "With Naruto, it was always more like twenty…"
Both Iruka and Ayame laughed, and Iruka was glad for the break in seriousness for a few moments.
A minute or so later, a piping hot bowl of miso pork ramen was placed in front of the man, who quickly broke his chopsticks and thanked the old man and his daughter for his food.
He looked down and smiled at what he saw in front of him.
Instead of just the typical spiral pattern on the fishcakes placed gently on the broth in front of him, there was a smaller swirl in the middle, girdled by 3 sets of whisker-like markings.
"Naruto would have loved that, you know," he said, pointing at the fishcakes with a smile.
Ayame leaned over and looked at what he was indicating in his food. "Ha! Yeah. Dad suggested we do that after we got the bad news."
Teuchi, now finished with his ramen-making duties for the time being, moved over next to his daughter, rested an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a side-hug. "I figured that the name Naruto outgrew just the fishcake. It was only fitting." He smiled, and gave the teacher a thumbs-up. "And only available at Ichiraku Ramen!"
This made the teacher smile warmly. "I couldn't think of a better tribute!"
He quickly slurped down the small bowl of soup, paid the two owners in addition to a sizeable tip, and headed off to his second destination of the evening.
'If I'm gonna go on a Naruto Uzumaki memorial jaunt around town, there's one place that I have to go see.'
Iruka walked through the wooded treeline around training ground 3, passing three small wooden stumps on his way to the memorial stone. The sun had completely set at this point, and only the slight glimmer of the moon reflecting off of the flowing river to the northern part of the clearing was discernible due to the age of the night.
His mind wandered for a moment about what Naruto's life would have been like had he stayed in the Leaf village. The boy was incredibly talented – anyone could see that. Even when he was back at the academy, Iruka had noted the potential he had within him – and he wasn't just thinking about the Nine-Tails. Naruto had the guts – or lack of brains, one of the two – to get up after every time he fell, something that he wish he could have said about most of his former students. In all actuality, most 'ninja' that went through the academy either flew through it in a breeze, only to be killed by their own egocentrism. The rest did the bare minimum work, either because that was the best they could do, or because they were too busy watching clouds to give a damn (his mind quickly wandered to Shikamaru), and ended up dying because they weren't strong enough, both physically and mentally.
It takes hard work and perseverance to become a shinobi. More than that, though, was mental awareness of one's strength. That was why Naruto left with Jiraiya three years ago, that was why Naruto was trying so hard and risking so much. That was why Naruto died as well in the end. Well, supposedly died. But from what Hinata had described, he was as good as a dead man walking.
Iruka shrugged his shoulders, looked up at the night sky, and cursed the stars. 'Why do us shinobi always die? This isn't a life for children, or even adults, for that matter. There is no peace or solidarity in life, as long as the shinobi way exists.'
The chuunin's mental existential crisis about his career and the society it rode on was brought to an abrupt halt as he saw a figure lying down next to the memorial stone, leaning on it gently, staring at the moon.
Iruka approached slowly, and let out a slight cough to alert the other ninja that someone was approaching. The shadowy figure didn't move at all.
'Is something wrong?'
His eyes began to finally acclimate to the dimness of the night, and he was finally able to make out a crop of messy silver hair, atop the head of a rather infamous jounin instructor.
"Kakashi?"
The figure still didn't move. Iruka sighed, and walked in front of the man to get a better look at him.
Kakashi was sitting next to the monument, leaning his head on the side as he looked up at the sky. His forehead protector was no longer on his face; instead, he was clutching it tightly in his hands, which were sitting in his lap. His sharingan eye was closed, but he was looking up at the moon intently with his normal eye, as if trying to search for some sort of hidden meaning within the cratered surface. His jounin flak jacket was lying on the ground in front of him, leaving him only in a black body-tight shirt that extended up his neck, covering his mouth and nose.
He blinked when he saw Iruka standing in front of him, before lowering his head to look at him, still leaning against the memorial stone.
"Oh… hey."
Iruka smiled slightly, with a look of worry in his eyes. But he figured that the man must have been here for reasons he'd want to keep to himself, so he simply walked over to the other side of the memorial stone and sat down as well.
The two sat in silence for what seemed like ages, while Iruka traced out first the names of his parents at towards the top of the stone, then down to the bottom, where a more recently carved set of kanji were dug into the rock carefully.
'Naruto Uzumaki'.
Iruka gave a hollow smile, and began to recollect all those times Naruto had pranked him, had slept in class, had turned in sloppy homework - or none at all, had yelled out how he would be Hokage someday in class.
He had honestly believed him – he could see the spark in his eye even at that age. The spark that he saw in Lord Third Hokage's eye whenever he visited with the Academy students and talked about the way of the shinobi, his predecessors, and the Will of Fire.
But now Naruto was a missing-nin. What could have happened to him in his life to make him rescind his dream of being Hokage? What exactly-
"Iruka, right?"
The chuunin blinked as he was jettisoned out of his thoughts and back into the dimly lit world in front of him. Kakashi was speaking barely above a whisper.
"…Huh? Uhh, yeah, Iruka Umino."
Kakashi was looking straight ahead now, at the treeline across the river. Or maybe he was looking at the three stumps that stood between him and the river. Or maybe he was staring at his flak jacket, crumpled in a pile in front of the monument. Or maybe-
"What would you say a shinobi is, Iruka?"
Again, Iruka was shocked at how quickly his mind began to wander. Although it had been about a minute since the other man had spoken.
"Hmm. Well, that's a tough question. What we teach in the Academy is: a shinobi is someone who puts his life on the line in order to protect and strengthen his village, his home, and his fellow man."
Kakashi grunted in acknowledgement, before becoming silent again. This time, Iruka listened intently, waiting for his response. When none came, he sighed, and looked up at the stars.
"But what do you believe, personally? What is a shinobi to you?"
This time Iruka turned and looked at Kakashi. He hadn't moved at all since turning his head to look straight ahead; although his hands trembled slightly in his lap, the hands holding his headband tenderly.
"Well… I'd say that a shinobi is someone to trust, to be trusted by, to protect, to be protected by, to respect." Iruka turned his head back to the front again, focusing on the middle post ahead of him. "Someone that loves his village above all else."
A heartbeat.
This time, Iruka didn't wait for Kakashi to reply, instead asking his own question. "What about you? What's a shinobi to you?"
Kakashi chuckled once softly from beneath his face mask.
Another heartbeat.
Iruka was about to speak up again, before Kakashi cut him off.
"I had a friend once – his name was Obito." Kakashi sighed, obviously trying to prepare himself for what he was about to say. "He had a saying… 'Shinobi who break the rules are trash. But shinobi who abandon their friends are worse than trash.'
"He said that to me, after I essentially ordered him to leave our third teammate behind to die and continue on with a mission. We… I was on my first mission after being promoted to jounin, and was team captain while Minato-sensei was off fighting elsewhere. It was the Third Shinobi War, so we were stretched pretty thin as it was. I was nervous."
Kakashi looked back up at the moon. "Against my better judgment, I decided to follow him, knowing that us splitting up would be a death sentence. We ended up fighting our way into an enemy hideout together, and were finally bonding a little bit; becoming friends, even." He looked back down again. "Our relationship was very much like Sasuke and Naruto's back in the day. I was the calm, brooding 'genius'," Kakashi's hands went up as he made air quotes, "and Obito was the brash, loudmouth idiot."
He chuckled a bit, before continuing. "Thirty minutes after I finally figured out what being a shinobi meant to him, he died."
Iruka was shocked at the bluntness of Kakashi's words, but said nothing, expecting him to continue. When he didn't, he turned to see if Kakashi was okay.
Instead, he saw the jounin staring back at him, with both eyes open. His bright red sharingan eye was glowing faintly in the darkness, making Iruka shiver.
"He gave me this eye in his dying moments. With it, I am able to let him see the world from my point of view, and let him live out his life vicariously through me. I failed my comrade that day, but gained a true friend."
He turned back to the front, sharingan eye still open. He let the muscles in his neck go lax, making his head fall sideways and tap the side of the monument again, where it stayed.
"My father killed himself, when I was just a boy."
Iruka jumped slightly at the sudden, and rather significant, change of topic. He was genuinely surprised to see Kakashi open up like this – he was infamous for being a closed book, no matter how much people tried to pry (mainly Gai). This was probably the most he had ever spoken to anyone in a personal matter, and to be honest, Iruka couldn't understand why he was the one the man was opening up to.
Once again, his thoughts were interrupted by Kakashi's life story.
"He was ostracized by the village because he took the time and effort to save the lives of his comrades instead of finishing the mission he was undergoing at the time. The blatant harassment he experienced from the entire village, even from the people he saved, became too much, so he committed seppuku in our living room while I was still an Academy student. I came home one day and he was just…"
Iruka looked over and saw that Kakashi's eyes were both closed, and he was still just sitting there.
Another heartbeat passed before Kakashi spoke again.
"I dedicated my life after that point to following the Ninja Code to the letter. Comrades be damned." He chuckled at this, before opening his eyes again, this time looking at his jacket on the grass before him.
"After Obito died, Rin, my other teammate, died as well. And I was the one who killed her."
Another heartbeat.
"She had been captured by enemy shinobi, and during our rescue, she threw herself in front of me while I was attacking another ninja with my Chidori. She took a direct hit to the heart, killing her instantly."
Heartbeat.
"I was so distraught that I threw myself completely into my work, and joined the ANBU. I became a ruthless killing machine, devoid of emotion. But at least I still had Minato-sensei, who helped me come to terms with my grief and supported me unconditionally. That was, of course, until he died too. Although this time, at least, I wasn't involved somehow." He gave a hollow, humorless chuckle.
"Then, the Third Hokage recommended that I take on a genin team to help ground me more; to help pull me out of my endless cycle of depression." He sighed, before continuing again. "I had several teams before the one you know of as 'Team Seven' came to be. I failed them all ruthlessly because I was bitter and angry at their youth and liveliness. Lack of teamwork was a big piece of it, but I would be lying if I said I didn't have some personal grudge that prevented me from being your normal run of the mill jounin-sensei.
"Then I met Naruto and his team. They were bold, brash, and brooding. They were loud, obnoxious, and quiet, all at the same time. They were a miserable excuse for a team… until they weren't. So I passed them." He coughed, before looking back up at the sky. "I saw a lot of myself in Sasuke – a brooding, young genius who was angry at the world and our way of life. But… I also saw myself in Naruto as well. I saw him as everything that I could have been, until I had forsaken myself."
Iruka looked over at Kakashi intently, curious as to all of this fit together. Kakashi sighed again, and continued his monologue.
"Then, one by one, I lost them all. Well, Sakura may be physically here, but her mind is in tatters after everything she's gone through. Again, reminds me a lot of myself." He chuckled once. "Sasuke was too lost in his quest for revenge to be properly brought back out into the light again.
"But Naruto…" he stopped, trying to grasp some sort of explanation for the feeling he had. "Naruto never stopped, never gave up, never became something he wasn't. He was true to himself." He smiled weakly. "Until now. I don't know what happened entirely, but Naruto was lost to me as well.
"I had a lot of my hopes riding on Naruto's success, because I saw Naruto as the last bastion of my humanity; an anchor point for my soul. He kept me tethered, let me understand that no matter the hardships, it's possible to set it all aside for the greater good, and do it all with a smile."
Kakashi sat up slightly, and turned to look at Iruka again. "But now that I've lost him too… I don't honestly know if I can do it anymore. I've killed hundreds of people, and felt no remorse for any of them. And yet his death, a death that isn't even on my hands, feels the guiltiest of them all. I feel like I am to blame for this somehow, even though I know that I'm not. It was all out of my hands. And yet I still feel like my soul was finally crushed, after chips had been knocked off of it my entire life."
He closed his eyes, sighed, and looked at the forehead protector he held tightly in his hands, leaning his head against the monument again.
"That's why I am honestly considering resigning tomorrow. I don't deserve this position, or the honor of being called a shinobi. I can't save my friends, I can't save my comrades, and most importantly, I can't save myself. Although, in a way, they're all the same." He smiled weakly, eyes still closed.
"Stop it."
Kakashi's eyes opened slowly, as he turned to look at Iruka's disgruntled face staring back at him.
Iruka was angry – angry at himself, angry at the world, and angry at the man in front of him for being so sorry for himself. "I understand that you've had a terrible life. We all have, in our own ways. But giving up after something like this isn't like you. It isn't like a shinobi. It isn't like Naruto." He sighed, and looked up at the stars. "I've been thinking a lot about things like this for a while now. Naruto was basically everything I knew a shinobi should be. It was inspiring to watch him grow, develop his skills, hone his talent. The boy had an amazing life ahead of him. And circumstances determined that his time had come, and he became a missing-nin. It was a big blow to my spirit as well, watching someone I considered to be a living personification of the Will of Fire be extinguished in a flash. But so what? No one's perfect. We all make mistakes. Hell, I know I've made my fair share of them." He looked back at Kakashi, who was simply looking at the ground in front of him, staring off into space. "I understand that you saw yourself in him, and that's admirable. I feel the same way. His bubbly happiness made my day, even with all the pranks and tricks and bad mouth and childlike attitude. But… just because he's gone, at least the Naruto we used to know is gone, doesn't mean we can't stop living by his principles. I definitely agree that it's depressing to think about, but the Will of Fire isn't just one belief, set in stone. It's fluctuating, like fire itself. It changes from person to person, molding to their ideals. We all follow our own Will of Fire, and it's important that we keep doing so."
Iruka stood up, and walked in front of the jounin. "You have done incredible things in your life. You have done some not so incredible things as well, but don't let them cloud out the things that matter. Remember the good times you had, with your original team, and with Team Seven and Naruto. Don't give up on yourself yet, because there's still a lot of life to live, and a lot of good experiences to have. And hell, you'll make mistakes again. You'll probably make some big ones, ones that'll change your life considerably whether you like it or not. But don't blot out the good bits."
He smiled down at the flabbergasted shinobi before him. "And don't forget that Naruto is still out there, struggling to exist in this world. Dead or alive, a piece of him is still fighting for what it believes in, and we should throw everything we have at supporting him."
Iruka bent down, and grabbed the forehead protector out of Kakashi's trembling hands. "Close your eyes," he instructed, to which Kakashi dumbly nodded and complied.
"Now, I told this to Naruto back in the day when he and I had to deal with Mizuki, damn near 5 years ago now." He unwrapped the forehead protector, and tied it around Kakashi's head. Kakashi opened his eyes, and looked back up at the chuunin in front of him.
"Congratulations, you passed."
Iruka chuckled, and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Now, I know that rank is kind of an issue here, and you're a seasoned, battle hardened shinobi while I stay back and teach classes on the sorts of things you do, but I can safely say that you passed this trying time in your life and you're ready for your next challenge, whatever it may be." He stuck out his hand for Kakashi to grab, inviting him to stand up. The jounin blinked, and took hold of Iruka's outstretched hand, pulling himself up for the first time in several hours.
Iruka stood there with a big smile on his face, reaffirming what he had said earlier. Kakashi smiled back honestly for the first time that night, and reached up to his forehead protector and pulled it down over his left eye.
"Thanks, I needed that," he eye-smiled, before putting his hands in his pockets. "Now I see what Naruto saw in you."
Iruka sweatdropped. "What's that supposed to mean? What did you think I was before this?"
Kakashi chuckled, and bent over to grab his flak jacket. "I should probably get going. I've got a task force to coordinate."
Iruka grinned, still rubbing the back of his neck. "So I've heard." He suddenly looked Kakashi straight in the eye with a determined glint. "Give 'em hell."
Kakashi gave the chounin instructor a thumbs up and an eye smile, and shunshined away, leaving nothing but a swirl of leaves and a content Iruka, who began walking back to the village.
Sakura spent the next few hours wandering around the village aimlessly. After Kakashi's sudden disappearance during their time at the library, the Hokage had decided to meet up again the next day to discuss more in detail everything that they saw.
So he had really died. She couldn't believe it at first, even after their run-in during the Gaara rescue mission. His figure was decrepit and falling apart then, so she could only imagine what it might have felt like if he WAS still alive in that body. It would have been nothing short of excruciating.
She shuddered. Being a medic ninja meant she had a pretty good eye for things like that. And all of her alarm bells had been going off at the time.
Now she just had confirmation.
After the sun went down and everyone in the village went in for the night, Sakura was surprised at just how deserted the well-frequented parts of the Leaf village became after dark. The only thing she could see moving at all for block after block were the clouds of insects hovering around the buzzing streetlamps. The warm, early autumn heat still clung to the earth like an infant child to its mother, and it radiated off of the crushed stone pathway as she walked along, back to her home above her parents' shop.
Before she could open the door, however, she turned to see Shikamaru slowly meandering his way down the gravel street in her direction. Now, anyone who didn't know the cloud-watching shadow man would see this slow shuffle down the street as a sleepy and bored trudge, but Sakura knew better. This was maximum overdrive for Shikamaru.
She paused outside her door and waited another few moments for him to walk up to her. Once he was within a comfortable talking distance, he pulled out the leather-bound notebook and held it up in his hand.
"There's still more memories."
Sakura looked at him like he had grown a second head. "But you saw it as much as I did. He died, right there on the ground in that clearing. There's no way he could have any memories after that because he's dead."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Did you ever wonder how he managed to seal these memories in the first place, if he died there like we think he did?"
Sakura frowned, and narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying that you think he's still alive?"
"Well, crazier things have happened. We are ninja, after all."
She sighed, and sat down on the front step of her house, running her hand through her hair. It had long since degraded into a matted mop of pink, and she couldn't wait to get inside and take a nice, long, thoughtful shower.
"Alright, well, if that's the case, what should we do now?"
Shikamaru sighed, and put the notebook back inside his flak jacket. "Well, I just got back from the Hokage's office to let her know, and she says to meet up at the same place tomorrow morning, same time. Next on my list is Kakashi, and I just know he'll be troublesome to track down."
"Troublesome, you say?"
Kakashi appeared behind the two of them in a swirl of leaves, and gave a small wave.
Shikamaru didn't seem too fazed about the theatrical appearance, and just turned around and yawned. "Thank goodness. Now I can finally go home. I take it you got most of that?"
Kakashi nodded, and pulled out an orange book from the pouch on his waist. "Yep. Same time tomorrow."
"Alright then. Well, I'll see you both around then." And he started walking off towards the Nara compound.
Kakashi became absorbed in his book, and started walking off in the other direction, leaving Sakura just sitting there, still surprised that Kakashi had appeared so suddenly like that. After a few more moments, she smacked herself on the cheek a few times.
'Get yourself together, girl! He does that every time he thinks he's being sneaky. You should be used to it by now.'
The next morning, the self-proclaimed "Memory Squad" assembled once again in the musty old room at the back of the library. Tsunade was being badgered by Shizune about alcohol and paperwork when Sakura walked in, quickly followed by Shikamaru, who had his hands in his pockets and a blade of grass hanging out of the side of his mouth. Shizune was given the boot, much to Tsunade's glee, and the three of them sat down at the table, book in hand, and waited for their ever-tardy compatriot.
Surprisingly, they didn't have to wait very long. Kakashi walked in with a cyan-colored book in his hand, and looked up when he saw the trio staring back at him, looks of shock etched on their faces.
Kakashi stared dumbly back at them. "Umm… is there something on my face?"
Shikamaru smirked. "You're actually on time for once."
Kakashi jumped, pulled back his glove, and looked at his watch. "Huh. I guess I am. Imagine that."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "And since when have you started wearing a watch?"
The silver-haired copy nin simply gave an embarrassed eye-smile, shrugged, and took his seat.
After Kakashi put his book away, Shikamaru opened up to the bloodied page in the journal that contained the seal, and looked back up at the people gathered around him.
"Alright. So there's apparently more to this seal. A bunch more."
The Hokage looked up at him from her folded fingers, and grunted. "I figured as much. How would he have sealed his memories away if he had actually died there?"
"But… we all saw it. We all felt it. He definitely died there. There's no mistaking it," Sakura stated.
"You're right," Tsunade agreed. "But that's not necessarily the end. We'll just have to watch and see, I suppose." She turned back to Shikamaru, and nodded.
The boy coughed, and looked down at the bloody page in front of him. "Well, after everyone left for the night, I stayed behind and played around with the seal a little longer. It felt weird that it just faded to black after he died, so I kept playing the memories for a while. It took about an hour, but something actually came up."
Tsunade grunted. "Crafty brat. Leave it to him to pull something like that."
Shikamaru smirked, and nodded. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I didn't watch much further than that, so it's all a mystery to me as well."
Kakashi leaned forward onto the table and looked over at the Nara boy. "Alright then. Let's get started again, shall we?"
Shikamaru nodded, channeled some chakra into the page, and their visions went black again, similarly to how they had after Naruto had died in the previous memory.
"I sped forward about an hour, so it should start here any moment."
There was the deafening sound of silence, and blinding darkness. Several moments passed, but suddenly a violent sound ricocheted off the walls of a very large room, causing Naruto to jump awake.
Drip.
He blinked a few times, and tried to adjust to the new environment he was in.
'Is this hell?'
He stood up, and took a dazed look around at his surroundings.
He blinked a few times when he realized where he was.
His mindscape.
Drip.
Naruto took a staggered step forward, but stumbled and crashed down onto the watery floor below him. He noticed that it was uncharacteristically dark in his mind, but everything looked the same to him. He couldn't see any further than two or three feet in front of him, but he could make out the outline of the gate a few feet away.
He sat up again in the darkness, and stretched his arms out with a silent yawn.
WHACK!
He immediately withdrew his hands back to his chest, and turned around quickly to try and figure out what had hit him. But it was dark – very dark. He couldn't see anything.
'Was that the Kyuubi? Am I on the wrong side of the seal?'
A sense of panic overcame him suddenly, and he rushed towards the sealed gate, trying to get to the safe side as quickly as he could. If the Nine-Tails was awake again, that would be very bad. And if Naruto had actually died, like he thought he did, then there was little to nothing stopping him from breaking free of the seal and escaping.
As he approached the dimly lit gate room, Naruto noticed immediately that something was off. For one thing, the gate had shrunken considerably, and was now much too small for him to squeeze through. He frowned.
'Is this because I died? Is the seal shrinking or something, in order to prevent the Nine-Tails from escaping?'
He plopped himself down next to the seal, and turned around to try and get a glimpse of the Nine-Tails, if it was indeed after him. He saw nothing but darkness.
Sighing, he looked through the gate to see if he could see anything out of the ordinary on the side he was supposed to be on.
Much to his surprise, he saw a tiny person on the ground, facefirst, surrounded by water. He squinted to try to get a better look at the individual, because he was far enough away to where Naruto couldn't make out any distinguishable features. His eyes adjusted to the light on the other side of the room, and he blinked a few times before he recognized something eerily familiar.
A beam of chakra was coming off of the person, and floating across the room to his body.
And it was completely red.
He watched in a confused daze as the chakra seemed to be pulled off of the body on the floor like a noodle, floating tenderly through the air. He was having trouble thinking still, and was very dizzy. Naruto couldn't understand why his head was so clouded, but he tried his hardest to stay focused and try to figure this situation out.
Not long after, the red beam of chakra began to thin out, and taper off until it was needle-thin. After a few moments of this much lesser amount of chakra channeling away into the darkness, it stopped completely.
Suddenly, there was a white flash of light, and a 'bang!' erupted from the figure in the water. Naruto turned just in time to see a red spectral figure, tethered to the thin beam of chakra, fly through the air and slam into him, knocking him backwards with a stifled grunt.
Suddenly, his foggy head cleared up completely, and he was able to think properly again.
'What the hell was that?'
He didn't get much time to think, because suddenly, he heard a sound that eerily reminded him of the wind as it picked up through the trees in the Leaf village.
Naruto looked back through the bars at the figure on the floor in front of him, when suddenly there was a golden flash of light at the opposite end of the room, towards the sewer entrance.
"Wait… that flash… that's eerily familiar…" Kakashi whispered.
Naruto blinked a few times. He could have sworn he was staring at a man, probably six feet tall. Just seconds before, no one had been there, and no one other than himself and the Nine-Tails had ever been in this room.
But there he was.
He was too far away for Naruto to make out any details – although he was much taller than the other figure, he was also much further towards the back end of the room and thus harder to make out.
That was, of course, until he ran forward and fell on his knees in front of the other.
"Naruto? Naruto! Hey? Hello?" He started to shake him violently by the shoulders, but the figure simply slouched forward lifelessly in his arms.
"Wh… what? Why… I thought I…" the man started choking on his own words, as tears began to fall from his eyes.
He was now close enough for Naruto to get a closer look. With a squint, he was able to make out a green standard Leaf village jounin flak jacket, a blue undershirt, and a mop of messy blond hair.
But what startled him the most was the billowing white cape that followed behind him, embroidered with flames across the bottom and adorned with a series of kanji in a bright, blood red color across the back.
'Fourth Hokage.'
Naruto jumped, and blinked a few times, before collecting himself and looking again.
The man was bent over the other figure, who was now lifted out of the water and forced into a one-sided hug with the man.
Naruto couldn't help but gasp when he saw the figure properly for the first time.
It was him – his body.
'Wh… what the hell?'
"Is… is that who I think that is?" gaped Tsunade. Kakashi was wide-eyed and opening and closing his mouth over and over again, grasping for words. The two younger ninja were just sitting there, confused, watching the Hokage and jounin flounder in regards to the new arrival.
Finally, Kakashi dumbly nodded, before saying rather shakily, "That, right there, is the Yellow Flash of the Leaf, Minato Namikaze – otherwise known as the Fourth Hokage."
Sakura and Shikamaru both shot back in their chairs, and began to strain further to make out the appearance of the blond man that was suddenly in Naruto's mind.
"What? Are you serious? That's him?! He looks completely different in pictures and on the mountain!" Sakura was still in serious shock, as she leaned forward even more in her chair, as if to try and get closer to the man in the memory.
"How… how on earth… WHY on earth is he in Naruto's head?" demanded Tsunade, a little more harshly than she meant. Kakashi just shrugged at her, still wide-eyed, just as confused as the rest of them.
Minato Namikaze, in his dying moments, sealed the last of his life force away in the body of an infant child. His infant child. He placed it there in the event that one of two things happened – either Naruto tried to break the Kyuubi's seal himself… or he died, so he could take care of resealing the Nine-Tails somehow.
Not that he'd know what to do if that happened.
He just prayed it wouldn't come to that. It was his son; he had high hopes for him. There was little doubt in his mind that it would be the former that would bring out his consciousness again and he'd get the opportunity to have a lovely – albeit brief – chat with his boy when he was older.
As the last bit of his life was drained away out of his body and into the boy's belly, he smiled, eagerly awaiting the chance to meet his son, all grown up, as his body went limp and cold.
And then, suddenly, he was standing in the middle of his son's mind.
He blinked a few times, looking around for a moment, until his eyes rested on the slip of paper with the kanji for "seal" inscribed on it.
So the seal wasn't broken.
He jumped when he realized what that must mean, and frantically looked around the room further.
That's when he spotted an orange-clad boy, lying face-first in the murky water a few yards away.
His heart stopped for a moment, and he took a few deep breaths, closing his eyes in the process. 'Maybe this is just a joke. Maybe he's actually trying to be funny or something. This is Kushina's son we're talking about, right?'
He mentally let out a hollow chuckle before opening his eyes.
No, they weren't deceiving him. He was standing above Naruto's body.
"Naruto? Naruto! Hey? Hello?"
He grabbed his son by the shoulders, desperately trying to wake him up, as if he was simply dreaming. He shook him repeatedly, until he touched his skin and immediately knew.
He really was dead.
Minato fell to his knees, eyes empty, but quickly beginning to harbor tears that began to drip down his face and onto his son's lifeless body beneath him.
He cradled the boy in his lap for a few moments, taking in every detail. He was young – probably still only fourteen or fifteen years old. His skin was just short of falling off his bones.
Most startling, however, was the crop of loose orange hair that was sprouting off in many different directions.
Now, Minato hadn't had much time with his son before he was killed, but he was able to see enough of Naruto to determine that he should have had blond hair, much like his own. In fact, the shape and flow of his hair was much like how Minato's own had been when he was younger; before he let it grow out more and over his face. But instead, it was orange. This confused Minato greatly.
His face was adorned with six sharp whisker marks, three on each cheek. He smiled, remembering how they looked on his infant son what felt like five minutes ago to Minato. He had quickly deduced that it must have been a result of being the child of a jinchuuriki, but it was still a surprisingly unique birthmark.
Minato's smile was short-lived, when he remembered why he was here.
His son, the one he trusted so much with, had died somehow.
"Wh… what? Why… I thought I…" he sputtered, trying to come to terms.
Instead, he pulled Naruto's body into a warm embrace. It wasn't much, but it did help numb the pain slightly.
And that's when he heard a slight gasp come from beyond the sealed cage.
Minato's eyes darted back to the gate, and an enormous amount of rage began to build up inside of him. He placed his son back down in the water, this time face-up, and stood to face the figure in the darkness.
Naruto immediately regretted letting that slight gasp loose when the Fourth Hokage turned violently and stared him down with a look that could kill.
The boy was startled at the amount of killing intent he was receiving from his lifelong idol – who was standing there, in the flesh, right in front of him.
Although he looked rather small, now that he thought about it further.
"YOU!"
Naruto jumped at the screamed words. The Hokage was now on his feet, and walking towards the seal with his fists clenched and teeth barred. His brilliant blue eyes bore deep into Naruto's, and terrified him.
He was mad… very mad.
Naruto jumped up and immediately began to step back to keep his distance from the deranged man. He didn't understand why the Hokage was turning on him of all people for his own death. Did he think that he had died a dishonorable death? Sure, it wasn't glamorous, but it was certainly better than dying of old age long after one's prime.
As Naruto stepped away, he tripped, and fell backwards. The Hokage, however, was still fast approaching, and was now about to enter the seal.
And so, he began to try and crawl backwards to escape from the rage that was seeping off of Lord Fourth like some sort of faucet.
"You… you destroyed my home… destroyed my family, and took my life. And now, to top it ALL OFF!" His voice began as a husky whisper, and ended with a bellow of pure hatred, "You killed my only son!"
Naruto blinked. 'Wait, what? Did he just say…?'
"…Son?" whispered Naruto.
Except it wasn't Naruto's voice that leaked out of his mouth.
It was the Kyuubi's.
His eyes went wide and he froze.
Minato also froze, after hearing the voice of the demon fox ask something that he knew it already knew.
"Don't patronize me, Kyuubi! You know DAMN WELL what that boy was to me! Naruto was family! He was my son! He was my legacy! And you're just too PITIFUL to respect us 'puny' humans and our way of life!" He kicked some of the water on the ground in front of him, and it shot off across the room, misting the entire darkening space with a thin jet of liquid. "You couldn't just LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!"
Naruto was about to speak again, when a yellow flash appeared in front of his eyes, and suddenly slashed out at him. Then, it was gone, and he felt a gash appear on his forehead.
Where his forehead protector should have been.
'Why don't I have my shinobi headband on? What…?'
Suddenly, another series of gashes appeared across his body, and he screamed in agony as the man that had just confessed to be his father brutally assaulted him in the dark confines of the seal.
"Please…! Lord Fourth! Why… Please…!" he grunted in pain, before falling sideways to the ground with a soft thump. His voice was still eerily similar to that of the Kyuubi's before he… died…
He watched as the man approached him again, two tri-kunai held out in front of him, dark black writing emblazoned on each. This time, he froze for a moment, a look of apprehension his face.
"Oh, so I'm 'Lord Fourth' now, huh? Too bad you couldn't have respected my title, my position as defender of my village BEFORE you started trying to blast it to pieces!"
And the barrage of attacks began again, and Naruto could only close his eyes, cover his face with his hands, and curl up in a ball to try and defend himself.
Wave after wave of slices, kicks, and stabs inebriated the boy with unimaginable pain – and all he could do was try to prevent himself from sobbing.
Why was he doing this? Was he mad at him for dying?
What was going on?
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Naruto, the attacks stopped, and he heard the Hokage gracefully land on the water with a soft 'plop' sound between him and the gate.
"Now then… as much fun as it is to hack and slice into you in the dark, I think I'd like to see the extent of the damage I've caused properly."
He snapped his fingers, and the entire sealed portion of the hall was bathed in a harsh yellow glow.
Minato was angry – more angry than he had ever been in his entire life. This fox had taken everything away from him – his life, his love, his son. And he'd be damned if he'd fade out of existence before giving it the beating it deserved, even if he knew in the back of his head that he couldn't actually do any significant damage to the chakra beast. It was immortal, after all.
But that didn't mean it couldn't experience pain.
And Minato readily took advantage of that.
After minute upon minute of brutal taijutsu combat, Minato noticed that he wasn't experiencing any resistance whatsoever. In fact, the Kyuubi seemed pretty placated. 'Did the piece of shit fox finally grow a conscious? Hmm, maybe some good came of him being sealed inside Naruto for this long after all.'
"Please…! Lord Fourth! Why… Please…!"
Minato blinked at the begging from the beast. 'Now this DEFINITELY isn't like the Nine-Tailed Fox at all.'
He narrowed his eyes and stared into the darkness where he could faintly make out the outline of the great demon fox. 'Just what is it playing at, exactly?'
"Now then… as much fun as it is to hack and slice into you in the dark, I think I'd like to see the extent of the damage I've caused properly."
There was a slight pause, before he sheathed one of his kunai, and snapped his fingers.
Suddenly, a brilliant explosion of light in the sky appeared high above them, illuminating the entire darkened portion of the gated sewers magnificently.
Minato smirked at his handiwork, then turned back to the Kyuubi to begin another round of harassment.
But he stopped dead in his tracks.
What he saw in front of him was the great Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, in all its glory, curled into a ball, shielding its face with its hands, trembling terribly and trying to suppress violent sobs.
"Wh..what? What's gotten into you?"
The fox jumped at his sudden change of demeanor, and looked up slightly from behind its huge limbs. Its large, blood-red, slitted eyes were wide with fear, and tears were streaming out of them like the leaky pipes that surrounded its cage.
It was, for lack of a better term, terrified.
Minato blinked, and was about to open its mouth, when the beast seemed to take notice of its own appearance, much to his confusion.
The beast's eyes went wide with shock, as it held its arms out in front of it shakily. It looked down at its body, and jumped at what it saw.
Naruto was just glad that the Hokage's barrage had finally stopped. He was still coming to terms with the many things that had just happened, and it was all just too much. He couldn't help being afraid. First he finds out he's dead, then the Fourth Hokage appeared, then the man called him his SON, and now he was relentlessly attacking him – seemingly, unprovoked.
It was all too much.
"Wh..what? What's gotten into you?"
Naruto looked up and over his arms to see the now completely illuminated form of the blond-haired hokage standing a few yards away from him, with a concerned look on his face.
He couldn't understand why the man had gone from killer attack dog to the way he was now in such a short period of time.
That's when he realized that the lights were on.
And it was also when he realized that his arms were completely covered with orange fur.
He jumped up to his knees, and started staring at every little detail of his body. His hands were just as covered as the rest of his arms in the burnt red-orange colored hair, and sharp, black claws jutted out of the tips of each of his fingers. He flexed them once or twice, just to come to terms with the fact that these were, in fact, his, and blinked a few times.
'What…?'
Then, his gaze shifted down to the rest of his body.
The first thing he noticed was that he was completely naked – and in front of the Hokage himself. But that was soon dwarfed by the next realization that slammed into him like one of Tsunade's chakra-infused punches.
The body he was looking down at, his body, was the Kyuubi's. His chest and lower stomach were completely coated in orange fur, and it continued down his legs to a set of clawed feet as well – although they were much more like paws than anything else. He had also lost any sense of his… gender.
He gulped and looked down at the water, afraid of what he would see.
Two crimson-red eyes looked back at him, down the muzzle of a very fox-like face. The orange fur was everywhere – even his cheeks and forehead. His large mop of blond (and then soonafter orange) hair was now gone, replaced by two fox ears that stuck up and out of his head at an angle.
The fox's face – his face – no longer looked even slightly decayed, like it had when Naruto had investigated his tenant's quiet streak a few weeks prior. It was instead vibrant and lifelike, just like he had always remembered the Kyuubi being.
He jumped back a bit, startled.
WHACK!
That's when he was hit once again from behind, this time in the back of the neck. This wasn't like the beating he was getting from the Fourth earlier. This was similar to when he first woke up and tried to stretch.
His neck shot around to see what it was that hit him.
Considering what he had just seen on his face and his body, he should honestly have been prepared for what he saw next. But still, the shock and realization hit him hard.
Nine bushy tails were swirling around behind him, connected at a single point at the end of his back. They were all the same rusty-orange color as the rest of him, but there was a small blond streak that ran down the center of each tail, almost like a highlight.
They also seemed to have a mind of their own, which was quickly demonstrated when one shot forward and bopped him across the nose, causing him to stumble back a bit.
Naruto froze completely, tails and all. He blinked a few times, wide-eyed, and took a deep breath.
As all of this was happening, the Fourth was simply standing aside and watching with mild amusement. He was still enraged, but it looked to him like the Kyuubi had had some sense knocked into him after all.
Then, suddenly, the fox opened its mouth.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!"
Minato winced as the beast in front of him bellowed out his question, but stood tall and still in front of it.
Then, surprisingly, the beast collapsed onto its backside, and crossed its legs, leaning its head into its hands. "What the hell…"
"You really don't sound like the Kyuubi I remember. Did I break something important?" mocked Minato with a smirk.
The beast looked up at him with a confused expression etched across its face.
"You really don't sound like the Kyuubi I remember. Did I break something important?"
Naruto blinked at the Hokage, who had his arms crossed in front of him and was sporting a venomous smile on his face.
'He just called me Kyuubi… is this…'
"Is this hell?" he whispered. "Why am I here? What's going on?"
Minato's façade crumbled a bit, but he quickly rebuilt it. "What do you mean, 'why am I here'? I sealed you here! Is your memory really that bad?"
Naruto blinked. 'Does he really think I'm the Kyuubi?' He took another look at himself briefly. 'Then again, I think I'm the Kyuubi too. This is so confusing…'
He began to rub his head tenderly, as if trying to nurse a migraine. After a few moments, he stopped, and sighed.
'I suppose if I want answers, I should ask the Fourth. He may be mad for some reason, and I don't even know why he's here, but…'
"I… I don't know what I did wrong… but, I'm sorry anyways, Lord Fourth. Please forgive me." He then took a deep bow, resting his forehead in the watery sludge.
After a few moments of silence, he sat up, and looked down at the blond-haired man standing in front of him. His eyes were wide, and he was just looking at Naruto, opening and closing his mouth over and over again.
"I know you're angry, but please, can you help me? I don't know what's happening, I just woke up here…" Naruto said softly, before trailing off, still looking down at the ground in a sign of submission.
"Uh…"
Minato was clearly not expecting this to happen when he went after the Kyuubi. Figuring he had nothing better to do, and that the Kyuubi probably had information as to why his son died, he decided to humor the beast.
"…Okay… What's the last thing you remember? Besides me coming here and knocking you around, that is." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.
The Kyuubi looked up at him briefly, then back down at the watery ground. "Well… I was setting up camp with the Pervy Sage-"
Minato jumped when he heard the playful honorific. "What did you just say? Pervy Sage?"
The Kyuubi blinked. "…Yeah, Jiraiya of the Sannin? He's always peeping on women all the time when he's supposed to be training me so I started calling him that." The beast gave a big toothy grin, which was unsettling to Minato, due to the size and sharpness of them.
The Hokage just stared at the Nine-Tails. 'What did he just say? He trains with Jiraiya-sensei? But that would mean…'
"Wait… why would Jiraiya-sensei train you, a giant sentient blob of evil chakra?"
The Kyuubi blinked. "That was my other question. Why am I in this body? I mean, the last thing I remember was a really painful feeling in my chest, and then going numb and falling facefirst into a creek next to the campsite Pervy Sage and I were staying at. He had already fallen asleep, but I couldn't, so I went out and looked at the moon for a little bit… then everything went faint… and I woke up here… like this..."
Minato's eyes widened in horror. 'No… it can't be…'
"Well, if you're not the Kyuubi, what are you then?" he whispered.
"Oh!" The Kyuubi gave the Hokage another toothy grin, and a thumbs-up. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki. And I am definitely not the Kyuubi."
Minato stood there for a moment, before his legs gave out and he fell to his knees, eyes beginning to well up with tears.
"But I know who you are! You're the Fourth Hokage! The coolest one of them all! But I don't really know what you're doing here in my mind… this whole week has been really weird." He scratched his head with a finger, then suddenly went wide-eyed when he remembered he had huge claws to deal with now. "Ow!"
Minato smiled slightly at the beast's antics – at Naruto's antics. It was a hollow smile, but it showed that at least the anger had subsided.
And was replaced with shame and guilt.
"Hey! I have an idea." The fox grinned at him, and weaved a hand seal, before poofing into a cloud of smoke.
Minato waved his hand in front of his face a few times to dispel the smoke in front of his face as it began to subside.
Standing in the water in front of him was a boy – about 14 or 15 years old – wearing an orange jumpsuit. His hair was a brilliant yellow, and his eyes, which were wide and full of life, were a dark, crimson red.
But it was Naruto.
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, and grinned at the Hokage. "Whew, that's a little better. I still feel weird though."
A few tears dripped down Minato's face, before he stood up, walked over to Naruto, and hugged him fiercely.
"Naruto… my son… I'm so sorry."
Naruto's eyes widened in his father's arms. "Wait… you were serious when you said…"
He pulled away from Minato a bit, and looked him in the eyes – crimson red meeting azure blue. Minato smiled warmly, but Naruto could feel the pain in his features.
Several moments passed as Naruto scanned the man's face, before his lip started to quiver and tears of his own began to develop.
"…Dad?"