Caranril: Gomen. I do like having weekly updates, but I've had very little time to update, much less write more chappies. I can't make any promises, cause this quarter I really like ALL of my classes. In fact, the only reason I'm updating now is cause I managed to finish all the homework I had. Only three days of classes so far and I'm already swimming in assignments! Ah, but that's okay. I'm doing what I love (ie acting). Daijoubu.
Legolas: Ah yes, thank you very much to: WindDancer18 (Sometimes, it's great to make Kakashi the fool. He just plays one so well!), Commisar of the Books (Fortunately for you, patience is a virtue. Unfortunately for Caranril, that means she's unvirtuous...), Xaras Uchiha (cheer cheer another reviewer woot!)
Caranril: I am NOT a patient person. Good think I'm a decent actress, else I wouldn't be able to keep a job...O.o
disCLAIMER: While I do not own Naruto nor any affiliated subjects therein, Kishimoto-sama does and therefore he owns my soul.
Chapter 13: Everyone Has Their Demons
Birds collected in the tree outside Kaori's window and squabbled like the little old ladies at the tea shoppe. If she'd had anything, she would have thrown it at them. Her clock read nine, but she wanted to hide away forever. Suddenly wings fluttered in a panic and the birds went quiet. Kaori silently thanked whatever cat had shooed away those pesky birds and rolled over.
"Kaooori-chan!"
Kaori shrieked as voice right in front of her face cheerfully called her name. She tumbled out of bed and landed on her head. The blankets tangled around her legs and she dangled off the edge. When she opened her eyes to glare at that annoyingly familiar voice, she saw a pair of bright blue eyes peering at her over her legs.
"Naruto-baka! That freakin' hurt!" She kicked her legs and sent him flying back. He'd come in through the damn window. "Why are you here?"
"It's nine o'clock already," he said matter-of-factly. "I thought we were going to train this morning. I always get up at sunrise for morning training. Then I have longer during the day to do whatever!"
"I was up late last night," Kaori whined, still lying on the floor. She had pulled the blankets down and covered her head with them.
"Come on Kaori," Naruto chanted, grabbing the blankets. She clung tightly to them and let out a whine of protest. He dragged her towards the door, fully prepared to take her like that all the way to the training grounds. He managed to open the door and take her part-way into the hall before she conceded and released the blankets. She slammed the door in his face so she could change first.
Naruto was entirely too cheerful that morning. And Kaori said so.
"Naruto, you're way too cheerful this morning."
He giggled. "Well, that's what you get when you agree to morning training! Besides, my favourite Kaori-chan is back and a Chuunin!"
"I'm not a Chuunin yet," she reminded him.
He wouldn't listen to her reasoning and kept right up with the supportive comments. Kaori grew irritated, then realized with a smile that he was always like this. She threw her arms around him.
"I hafta admit, I've missed you Naruto!"
He smiled knowingly and returned her hug before stopping near a large tree. The tree looked terribly abused, covered with slashes and dents like someone had kicked it hard. Kicked it several meters off the ground. How had that happened?
"I'm gonna see if you can climb a tree without using your hands," Naruto explained. "I talked to Kakashi-sensei about this, and he thinks you have good Chakra control already because of your knife thingy. But I want to know if you can focus Chakra at your feet too. You can't do too little, cause you'll fall, or too much, you'll bounce right off and leave a huge dent." He handed her a kunai. "Make a slash when you've gone as far as you can."
Now the strange markings made sense. Apparently this was the community climbing tree. Naruto demonstrated the walk up the tree that she was supposed to do and walked back down. Kaori sucked in a breath, summoned her Chakra, and made for the tree tops. She was hit with the strangest feeling of walking vertically; it was difficult to walk against gravity. She took several steps before gasping for air. She made a notch just before falling to the ground. Naruto clapped.
"Good job. Now keep practicing until you can make it to the top."
"What will you be doing?"
"Same thing, only with weights."
Kaori stared at the huge weights bound to his ankles. He also wore weights on his wrists. Not to be outdone, Kaori tried to climb the tree again. Notch above notch, one or two steps at a time, she reached the first branch. She clung to it and hoisted herself up, proud she'd made it that far. Summoning Chakra to her feet was the easy part. She still hadn't determined how strong she should keep it.
"Oh, this brings back memories!" Sakura's pink head appeared below Kaori. Her green eyes peered up. "What happened to you last night, Kaori-san?"
Kaori held her breath as she recalled Kakashi making moves on her. She blushed and shook her head.
"I, uh, was still tired from my injuries and had to leave. Sorry I didn't say anything."
"That's okay. We were just worried, that's all." She offered a smile, and Kaori felt relieved that she accepted the excuse. They both looked at Naruto, who had frozen with a stern look on his face. They followed his gaze and saw Sasuke standing several meters away. His hands rested on his hips and his expression was challenging.
"Well, Uzumaki. I see you haven't improved much." Smirk.
"Want a taste first-hand of how 'little' I've improved," Naruto growled in return.
"You probably couldn't even beat my taijutsu," the Uchiha responded lazily, his wrist popping as he rotated it.
Naruto threw off his weights and approached Sasuke with hands up. He'd done plenty of training with both Neji and Lee, geniuses of taijutsu. He was confident that he could take on Sasuke.
The girls could hardly follow their movements. Sasuke's speed was incredible, but Naruto managed to keep up. Kaori wondered what it would be like to fight Sasuke when he was going all-out. She also wondered if she'd ever get to see his true power. Yikes.
Blows were blocked and exchanged for several minutes before the pair stood apart, both panting in exertion.
"Not bad, Uzumaki," Sasuke admitted, wiping a fleck of blood off of his cracked lip.
"I know. But time to get serious." Naruto formed his Chakra summoning seal. "Let's see how good the great Uchiha does against a hundred Uzumakis!" One hundred clones suddenly appeared around Sasuke.
"Sharingan!" Sasuke was elated that Naruto had distributed his Chakra evenly. He'd just have to resort to punching to find the real Naruto. Just as he kicked at the first replication, several of them went flying overhead from the opposite direction. The clones shouted back at something. More went flying. There was a deep, triumphant laugh.
"I can't believe I found you! Here! After all this time! Stuck inside some brat, and right under my nose!"
Through the clones, Sasuke could see a writhing yellow mass. In the centre was Kaori, only she didn't look like Kaori anymore. Her eyes were red and round, and long, serpent-like tongue slid between her teeth. The yellow Chakra mass shifted maddeningly, several short tendrils protruding from behind. Her expression was positively gleeful as she knocked away more clones.
"Kaori!" Naruto cried out, horrified. "What's happening to you?"
"Akumako's not here right now," the creature said, licking its lips. "I only have eyes for you...Kyuubi."
The other three froze. Sakura had backed away from the burning Chakra, while Naruto removed his clones. The creature laughed.
"Don't do that! I was enjoying slaughtering the humans. Even if they were fakes..."
"What are you talking about, Kaori? Snap out of it." Naruto stalked forward and seized her arms. He gasped as the yellow Chakra burned his hands, but he couldn't let go. Then he felt something stirring inside. Something that he refused to rely on anymore and had remained mostly dormant for several years. All he saw was red.
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"Reporting like you asked." Kakashi stood casually in front of the Hokage's desk. Shizune stood and considered him seriously.
"I have received reports from Tsunade-sama and Neji-kun about Akumako Kaori's strange Chakra activity." She gestured to a stack of papers. "After reading through them, something struck me as odd. The conversations, the slow healing, and the altering of physical appearance reminded of something I read long ago. So I visited the archives in the old Shinobi headquarters."
"You managed to find something in there in just two days?" Kakashi had to admit he was impressed. The old archives weren't chronicled, due to the delicacy of many of the manuscripts and the dust and mold. Plus there were windowless walls that rose to tall ceilings and no electricity. The building and contents themselves were ancient and predated Shodai Hokage's founding of Konohagakure.
"What I remembered was from something I'd found on accident when I was a Genin. The scroll hadn't been moved from where I left it. Basically, it was a scroll of fairy tales."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Fairy tales?
"There were many interesting things in there, most of which were stories of the supernatural. Like angels...and demons. Unfortunately, demons seemed to be taboo, so there is only a vague tale of them, but from what I can tell, large, tailed demons appeared suddenly in a fierce battle. Several demons were battling against on very powerful demon. The one was defeated, but because of the strain the battle put on the other demons, they were forced to remain in this world."
Kakashi really couldn't see where she was going with this information. Most of this was general knowledge to anyone familiar with the bijuu.
"All of Kaori-san's symptoms indicate the presence of a bijuu."
Kakashi had a sudden coughing attack as he inhaled some spit. "W-what? But all were destroyed except for Kyuubi!"
"Precisely." Shizune's eyes grew hard. "What happens to the bijuu when they lose their power?"
"Generally, they're sealed inside a jinchuuriki, because otherwise they're indestructable."
"What if that one demon was never actually destroyed? What if because the battle was between the demons so long ago, there was no one to seal the defeated demon?"
"That doesn't explain your theory that Kaori has a bijuu."
"No, it doesn't. But if she does contain this demon, it's reasonable to assume that it's still holding a grudge against the demons that defeated it. Kakashi-san, the leader of those demons was Kyuubi."
Naruto. He was training with Kaori right now. Kami-sama. Kakashi excused himself and left the office quickly. There was no rush, for he doubted Kaori was a jinchuuriki, but he'd have to check to make sure things were all right, or else he'd go crazy not knowing. As he saw Sakura approaching in a panic, screaming for him, his heart skipped several beats.
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"N-n-no!" Naruto cried through gritted teeth as Kyuubi's Chakra reacted with the creature's. Before he could repeat that thought, Naruto sprouted two Chakra tails. At that point he managed to release Kaori's arms and stagger back.
"I don't know you," Naruto said in a raspy voice.
"How could you have forgotten?" Kaori snarled. "It's been nearly one thousand years. Nearly one thousand years since you and the other Bijuu destroyed me."
"You expect me to remember someone from one thousand years ago?"
"Of course. It was because you all defeated me that you are now the most powerful bijuu with the most tails...Kyuubi!" She flew at Naruto in a rage. Her eyes started to bulge out from her head, irises and pupils gone. She wrapped her elongated limbs around Naruto and tried to choke him. He threw her away and counter-attacked, another tail sprouting from behind.
"Sakura! Go find Kakashi!" Sasuke ordered.
"Hai!"
"Of course I'm the most powerful. And I'm the only one left. Except I'm trapped. He's trapped, I mean. Kaori! Stop this!"
Her deepened voice let out a loud cry as she leapt upon him again.
"Naruto! Stop talking, you're just pissing her off!"
"This isn't Kaori!"
Damn it. Sasuke dove between the two and threw Naruto away. The red Chakra burned his hands, but that didn't stop him from turning around and gripping Kaori's shoulders.
"Snap out of it Akumako! The hell's wrong with ugh!" Sasuke sank to his knees as his gut wrenched unexpectedly. Kaori grabbed his arms and held on tight, her eyes shrinking back to normal size and colour.
"S-sasuke?" she rasped. "Help me."
He couldn't respond. He felt like he was aging rapidly. Like he was dying. He tried to let go of her, but she held him in her grip. Somehow he managed to lift his leg enough to kick her back. He flopped to the ground weakly and tried to crawl away. She watched him, gasping as if in pain.
"Help," she whimpered.
"Sasuke!" Sakura approached rapidly with Kakashi. Naruto had regained control of Kyuubi, but that wasn't the problem. Kaori remained writhing in the yellow Chakra and growling in a deep voice. Kakashi landed next to her. Suddenly her hands snatched his wrists and held him in a vice-like grip. Her red eyes stared at him, almost apologizing.
"Help me, Sensei."
Kakashi felt like a hole had appeared inside and was stretching out through his body. He bit his lip to keep from screaming, blood oozing between his teeth. All strength was quickly leaving him, but even as he watched, the frothing yellow Chakra diminished and the tail-like tendrils eased away. He managed to remain conscious long enough to see Kaori release his wrists, stare at her hands, then make eye contact just before she passed out. He blacked out right after her.
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The silver-haired boy stared down at his companion beneath the boulders.
"It looks like this is it for me," the half-buried boy said weakly, blood oozing from his mouth. "My right side's crushed...I can't feel anything." He choked, blood gurgling in his throat. The girl rushed to his side. The silver-haired boy pounded his fist into the ground.
"Goddamnit! I...if I had just come with you from the start, like you said...this wouldn't have happened!" The young man's pained voice was familiar. The black-haired boy stared up at him silently, his face revealing that he didn't bear a grudge.
"I'm no captain!" His voice broke. "I'm no Jounin!" He gently held the bandage over his left eye.
The black-haired boy let out a weak chuckle. "Oh yeah, I forgot." He took a shallow breath and forced his hand to reach for his teammate. "I was the only one who didn't give you a present for being promoted." He chuckled again. "I couldn't think of anything to get you, but I think I have an idea now. You can relax. It's not worthless or excess baggage." The silver-haired boy swallowed hard. He couldn't imagine what his teammate could give him in this state.
The boy's eye changed. The red eye was underdeveloped, but it was obvious what trait he held.
"I'll...give you my Sharingan."
Kaori bolted upright. She couldn't believe the incredibly realistic dream she'd just had. She'd felt like she was right there, watching the exchange between a young Kakashi and his fallen comrade. His comrade who had been an Uchiha. His comrade who had given him his eye to replace the one he'd lost. That explained so many questions she'd had about Kakashi.
"Kakashi!" She suddenly noted her surroundings. She was in a hospital room. Then the battle rushed back to her in a flash. Falling to her knees, Kaori vividly recalled attacking Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi. She held her stomach, which roiled threateningly. What happened to them? She staggered for the door and shoved it open. The door was suddenly stayed by a gloved hand. Kaori traced the hand up an armored arm and into the mask of an ANBU member. He had a kunai drawn.
She couldn't move. The mask itself wasn't threatening, but the owner's presence was powerful and brooding.
"Please return to your room," he said gruffly.
"Please, I must know. What happened?"
"You are not to leave this room," he replied. He slowly brought to kunai forward, emphasizing that he would use force. Kaori gulped and stepped back, the door shutting with a prompt click. She stared at it for a moment before stepping away. There was one window in the room, and she rushed to it. To her horror, it was barred. She was a prisoner. As she started pacing in a panic, she realized why. Some great power had surged through her and made her do things, say things, that weren't under her control. She could remember screaming to stop, begging for help, but was any of it heard? What exactly had happened?
She must have been possessed. Yes. That was it. Some malevolent entity had used her to hurt her fellow ninja. It seemed to have a particular grudge against Naruto. She remembered that his voice made her so angry. Why?
Several days passed before she saw another human. Meals were placed quickly into the room, and there was a small toilet in which she could relieve herself. Bathing wasn't an option, unless she wanted to use toilet water, and the only things to do were ponder or train. She sent a brief message to Temujin, mostly a greeting, for she was afraid her voice would reveal that she was in trouble if she said too much. She found herself able to easily walk all over the walls and ceiling after a few days. She'd lost count after three. She didn't even know how long she'd been unconscious.
She lied on the floor, gazing absent-mindedly at the ceiling, when she heard voices. As much as she strained to hear who might be outside her room, only gender could be established. At this point she ignored the disembodied sounds and imagined them to be shadows whose voices were as intangible as their bodies. Intense boredom. If she stared hard enough at the ceiling to make her eyes blur, she could see patterns that revealed people or things.
There was a thud against the door. And then it opened. Kaori tilted her head back so she could see without moving. A familiar crown of black hair appeared. The face that followed was paler than usual and rather gaunt. Kaori sat up.
"Uchiha." She reached out and hugged his legs. "What's going on? I haven't seen or talked to anyone in days, and I've been wondering all this time if you were all right!"
Sasuke remained stoic. Kaori extricated herself from his legs and stood up. Her hand brushed his arm slightly, and he recoiled. Bandages encircled his hands and arms. She'd done that to him.
"Kakashi-sensei..."
"Is still unconscious," he finished quietly. Kaori stepped away from him. He wasn't afraid of her, just...suspicious maybe?
"W-what happened? I only remember parts. Like I was watching myself do things. Hurtful things. Oh, man I'm in so much trouble." She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. "Hate me. Feel free to hate my guts."
"If I hated you, I wouldn't be here against orders."
Kaori looked up hopefully.
"I was told you weren't allowed human contact. So you have no idea what's happened outside of this room." He placed a hand over his bandaged arm. "You have a bijuu inside of you."
"...Bijuu. Why does that sound so familiar?"
"Because Naruto has one too."
Kaori's eyes went wide. "He...he does?"
"You and Naruto are not allowed to interact right now. I just woke up myself a few hours ago. I don't know exactly what's going on either. But you're in here for your own safety. Something like this hasn't happened before, right? So we don't know if it's over just yet. I think by now, it's safe to say the bijuu is done for the moment."
"What do I have such a thing inside me?" Kaori clawed at herself in disgust. "What did I do to deserve this?"
"Uchiha Sasuke!" Sakura stood at the door, her hands on her hips and her face red with fury. "You should not be out of bed! I came in to tell you something important, and here I find you knocking out ANBU members and disobeying orders!"
Kaori peered past Sasuke and noticed two unconscious bodies on the floor. She hid a smile.
"What did you want to tell me, Sakura?"
"Kakashi-sensei is awake."