Part 3: Death's Bureaucracy
The moment Naruto died, he found himself standing outside of his body, staring at the scene around him.
A woman in the dark blue kimono had her open palm pressed against his chest, over his heart.
Sakura was frozen, indecisive, confused, disbelieving.
Kakashi's hand was on his headband, lifting it away from his covered eye.
Sasuke's blood red gaze burned in his pale face.
The Hokage was caught in a movement, as if he would've stopped this, as if he'd been surprised and yet not really surprised.
And the strangers—more of them than the last time Naruto'd been conscious. The black-haired boy was furious, lined in white-blue fire, casting a shadow of great wings.
It all seemed very…distant.
There was no sound at all but a hollow sort of trickle, like water echoing in a vast cavern.
No breathing, of course.
Naruto's body looked ashen to the eyes of his ghost, even the color of his hair and clothes were leeched away.
And then…it…
exploded.
Well, no, that wasn't the right word. But there was light—so much light that the sun might have reason to be jealous. And heat. Even in the non-dimension Naruto stood, he could feel it.
Pressure, sonic and mountain-crumbling, and enough of it to flatten all those with corporeal bodies onto their backs. Even the women in the dark blue kimonos only remained upright long enough that Naruto caught their horrified expressions, strangely stretching their porcelain-doll faces.
Then, screaming, roaring—the sound of a storm, of lightning ripping the air, of an act of God—the kyuubi tore free of its dead host.
It was pure, unadulterated energy. Chakra, Naruto realized, the power of souls. It was raw fury made into radiance, only vaguely defining itself into nine lashing tales, red eyes, gleaming teeth and claws.
Fear was a blow to the gut, dropping Naruto to his knees. Not for himself, but for those still alive. The ground was ash under the kyuubi's feet. The grass gone the moment the creature had been born. Nothing could stop it. Nothing could save them. Nothing could—
In a panic, he looked around, not wanting to see, but needing to see, expecting charred bodies, blackened corpses, he wouldn't be alone in death for long…
Or not.
A bright illumination buffered the kyuubi's rage, impossibly, undeniably, tracing each fallen form with a power not unlike the demon's only less reds and oranges, more blues. Cooler. The core of starlight. Distant white-hot suns.
And footsteps. The third sound Naruto had heard since death.
The boy who walked calmly among the strangers and Naruto's friends alike was wearing a ridiculous outfit. That was the first thought that came to the blond. The second, when gold eyes met blue, was
This is what it's like to look into the end of all things.
Without breaking his precise stride, the boy reached down with pale, long-fingered hands to one of the strangers, and pulled a dazed redhead up, and continued to walk, taking the other with him. Straight for the kyuubi.
"Don't!" Naruto lunged to stop them before he fully registered the movement. He was programmed to do this. He had kept people safe from the demon since birth. It was like breathing.
But a hand on his arm stopped him, muscles freezing against his will. "Naruto-kun." A gentle feminine voice, not unlike the girl from before who'd found him in the forest.
He turned, and beheld an adolescent girl with a bright smile and warm eyes. She had a sweet face, and her long (blue?) hair was caught into a high ponytail. She looked kind, if a little ditzy. Not at all what he would've expected of Death.
"It'll be all right," she said. He believed her.
The kyuubi hadn't noticed the two who approached it, yet. It was reveling in the air, in the forest, in the ability to stretch for the first time in sixteen years.
It was the Bad Guy. It should not have stopped to gloat.
The golden-eyed god pushed the redhead's long sleeve up with one hand, and with two fingers of the other, drew a long line down the boy's pale arm. The redhead bled as if he'd been cut by a blade.
The smell of blood hit the air like a physical thing, and the kyuubi's attention snapped into focus. It lowered its great head until its eyes were level with the god and the redhead. Its breath curled around them like licks of flame.
The god raised a red-soaked hand, and then brought it down decisively, speaking in thunderous, twisting phrases.
The kyuubi was screaming.
Naruto was screaming.
The world was burning down.
And then…
Implosion.
"Lay him there!"
"Kakashi-sensei, please take them out of the…"
"We're going to lose him!"
"He's going into shock. Don't—"
"We've managed to stabilize him. But it's still very…"
Fractured pieces of awareness slowly began to collect at the edges of his conscious, bringing together a whole.
The bed was soft, but his skin itched and he couldn't move to scratch. It was driving him crazy.
"Naruto, you idiot…"
Sasuke smelled like a pine forest in snow.
"Those people. Why are they still here?"
"It's unlikely he'll ever wake up."
Shinobi boots were near-silent on the tiled floors, but all the nurses wore shoes that clicked hollowly through the hallways. He knew he was in the hospital.
"What did you do? What the hell did you do?"
"Yuusuke, calm down. Yelling's not going to—"
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?"
If he just opened his eyes, he knew he'd see the familiar ceiling. He'd see the golden-eyed god and the black-haired boy arguing. The black-haired boy sounded upset, covering it with anger.
"What are you people doing in here? This is a hospital! Have you no respect? Get out!"
All he had to do was open his eyes. The rest of his body was weighed down with impossible pressure. He couldn't even shift a finger. But opening his eyes should be easy. If he could just…
"Naruto. Don't give up."
Iruka-sensei should know that he wasn't one to lay down in die. Not while there was any chance, any hope. And, Kakashi-sensei, slipping in silently on Iruka's shadow, should know that, too. He would show them. He would… if he could just open his eyes.
"Why don't you, then?"
Naruto did. The ceiling was as expected. Everything still hurt, still felt as if the very air was a weight, pressing down, but after he opened his eyes, moving became easier. He sat up.
"Good morning."
He turned his head toward the greeting and saw the redhead, leaning casually against a wall beside his bed. Pretty, Naruto mused, in that almost-girlish way that reminded him a little of Sasuke. Or maybe Neji, with that long hair. And Naruto's mouth curled a little into a ghost of a smirk.
Heh. I should call him that next time I see him. Pretty-boy. Neji'd hate that.
The coloring, the pale skin and blood red hair and bright green eyes reminded him of Gaara, though. That made him twitch and stare at the other boy more closely. But no, the green eyes were open, almost gentle. Nothing of a murderous demon. Nothing of a threat.
Naruto let his eyes roam, touching on the bland generic art on the walls, the opened window, the closed door. For all that he felt he should be in the critical ward this time, he recognized this for recovery ward.
His eyes settled on Iruka-sensei, sitting in a chair but slumped over asleep on his bed, on top of a scattering of papers—pop quizzes, from the look of it.
Naruto smiled. "Iruka-sensei!"
"He won't hear you."
Naruto resented people who seemed to know everything, just on principle. He rounded on the redhead angrily. "Why? What's going on?"
"You're still unconscious." The boy pointed, and Naruto twisted and looked back to where he pointed and, in a weird moment of vertigo, saw himself still laying on the bed, eyes closed, pale, breathing shallowly.
Naruto yelped and lurched, and went sprawling on the ground. And oh, another strange, strange sensation as he could feel himself pulling away from his body. Like two sides of Velcro ripping apart.
Despite the fact that his heart was a fast and hard beat in his throat as he scrambled back to his feet, the monitors in the room recorded nothing but a steady, calm rhythm. The body in the bed continued slumbering, undisturbed.
Looking at it made the hair on the back of Naruto's neck stand on end. He didn't like it, didn't want it to be true. With a soft growl, he walked around the bed and stood next to Iruka.
"Iruka-sensei. Oi…" No response. Naruto tried again, louder. "OI! Iruka-sensei!"
He reached out to grab his teacher's shoulder, but though Iruka felt solid under his hand, he found he couldn't move it, couldn't affect anything, no matter how hard he pulled. It was like trying to move a granite statue. He couldn't feel the texture of Iruka-sensei's vest.
"…excuse me?"
The redhead was talking again. Naruto didn't want to listen. "Shut up, you! I'm busy!"
"My name is Kurama."
Naruto paused and looked up. Green eyes met his with that same open, friendly expectancy, and the shinobi felt a little bit like a heel. He ducked his head for a moment, then looked up and answered.
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Kurama dipped his head in a small bow, and asked, "May I call you Naruto?"
It seemed a strange question to ask and Naruto felt his cheeks heating though he wasn't sure why. He shrugged to cover his disconcertion. "I guess." A sudden thought occurred. "Hey…why can you see me?"
Without moving from his place against the wall, Kurama pointed to another bed in the room, where another unmoving form rested. Red hair splashed the white pillow.
Naruto blinked. "You too?"
"It appears so."
"Che," Naruto expelled the curse on a frustrated breath and let Iruka go, stepping back. "This sucks."
Amusement lit the other boy's eyes. "I agree."
"Why are you so calm about this?"
Kurama shrugged. "This is not the strangest situation I've ever been in. Though it is, possibly, among the most annoying." He shifted so he was facing Naruto. "Actually, I've been waiting for you to wake up."
"You have?"
"Yes. There are other people who would like to know that you're…well…not conscious, in the literal sense but…aware, anyway. Do you mind?"
Kurama's absolute politeness and slightly formal way of speaking was beginning to grate. Naruto grit his teeth. "Yeah, sure. But, how are you going to tell anyone anything if they can't hear you?"
The sly smile was not what Naruto had expected in response. "I have ways." Kurama closed his eyes, and there were a few moments of electric silence. Naruto could feel his chakra reacting to…something.
Then there was a popping sound by his head. Naruto flinched and reached for weapons that weren't there as a familiar girl with a blue ponytail appeared in the air beside him, hovering above the ground, sitting on an oar.
"Naruto-kun!" she said happily as she dropped to the ground and pulled him into a hug. "Thank goodness!"
"Er…oi…um…" Naruto couldn't even summon indignation through his shock. He'd received very few hugs in his life, none from random female strangers.
She pushed him back to arm's length. "You're all right! He's all right?" She seemed to be directing that at Kurama as her eyes looked Naruto over for possible injuries. Naruto flicked a desperate look over at the redhead, hoping for some sanity from that quarter. Kurama smiled at them fondly.
"He's all right."
Satisfied, she nodded with a grin. "Good. I can tell Hinageshi-chan to stop biting her nails off, then."
The door crashed open with the force of someone who didn't give a shit about the hospital's quiet rule. Naruto's hands twitched toward his nonexistent leg pouch again. Iruka sat up and, still blinking sleep out of his eyes, stood and turned to shield Naruto's unconscious form from whatever threat there might be.
"Oi, Botan! Are you in here?"
Long strides ate up ground as the black-haired kid strolled into the room and Iruka relaxed marginally.
Botan blurred for a moment, and then seemed to grow duller. As, Naruto realized, everything in the "conscious" world was. As he if he were staring at it through a dusty window.
"Yuusuke, shush!" the girl scolded, whapping him on the arm. "Jeez."
"Is…it time?" Iruka looked uncertain.
Botan nodded. "It's time."
"Time?" Naruto demanded, though he knew no one was listening. "Time for what?"
"Everyone else should be coming," the black-haired boy said, and then. "Hiei," as if he were talking to someone standing at his elbow. A glitchy moment of black static later, and he was—a small boy dressed all in black, with large red eyes and a white bandanna. "Could you create a barrier when we're all here?"
Hiei nodded and was gone again. Having people make plans around him without being able to influence anything made Naruto want to beat things.
"What's going on?"
A hand settled on his shoulder and he looked up at Kurama in surprise. Though the redhead didn't look much older than Naruto himself, he was a good head taller.
"We're going to see if we can't fix this," Kurama said.
This is not what the Angel of Death had been expecting to do on her day off. She thought she should make that very clear as soon as possible.
As soon as the light of the summoning circled faded, she stepped carefully out of its boundaries, and locked eyes with what appeared to be the highest-ranked person in the room.
"What. The. Fuck."
"Apologies, Lena-san," Koenma said with a little dip of his head. The son of the God of the Afterlife didn't sound particularly sorry. The Angel was not mollified.
"Don't give me that. What the hell is going on?"
Her eyes swept over the people collected into a room she considered far too small (plus, it was decorated in a truly hideous, bland, country hotel sort of way), and quickly dissected them into Humans, and Things-Not-Human. A second glace sub-divided them into People She Knew, and People She Didn't Know.
Of the Didn't Knows, she could only see the old man and the boy with the orange aura clearly. Death shown on both of them like a spotlight. Though, on the orange kid it seemed…off somehow. She tilted her head and searched for his name.
"Uzumaki Naruto," she said in a voice of authority (which she only pulled out for special occasions), "front and center."
He obeyed, looking a little sullen, a lot wary. She ignored it and put her hands under his chin, tilting his head back so she could study his eyes. She then made him open his mouth so she could check his tongue and his teeth, and then had him turn around so she could get an overall look at him.
"You look good, kid," she said. "What the hell are you doing out on my shit list?"
That was, apparently, the wrong question to ask.
"Lena-sama, this brat—"
"Leave Hinageshi alone, you cold bitch!"
"Yuusuke, please control yourself…"
"—it was an accident, I swear I—"
"Lena-sama, these incompetents have—"
"—and the oar, it just—"
"Fuck you!"
The Angel of Death snapped her bubble gum and waited for the storm to pass. When no end appeared in sight, she sighed and said, "Voice, if you'd please…"
"Be silent."
There was quiet.
"Thank you. Now. Let's start over, shall we? Koenma, you like to hear the sound of your own voice. Why don't you start."
The junior god shot her a disgruntled look, but took a step forward and cleared his throat. "Uzumaki Naruto's soul was not collected at the time of his natural death—"
"Natural?" the orange-souled kid squawked. "I was gutted!"
"Natural insofar as it was your time to die." Koenma gave Naruto a sharp look. "In any case, his soul was not collected, and his body was healed so that death was thwarted. In an attempt to correct the mistake, Urameshi Yuusuke was summoned from his home dimension and then proceeded to only make matters worse."
"Hey!"
"Though it was not really his fault," Koenma amended with a small smirk. "The Twelve, sans you," he nodded to the kanji of "soul" sewn into the fabric of her shirt over her heart, "decided to take matters into their own hands, and the Head killed Naruto personally. Which released the nine-tailed fox demon that had been sealed inside Uzumaki Naruto since birth."
Naruto flinched, paling a little, eyes darting over the other people in the room, most of which couldn't hear the conversation, but he probably didn't know that.
The kid felt a little shell-shocked. Lena chose to ignore him for the moment as the Head pushed her way to the front.
"Lena-sama, this was in no way our fault. I was merely attempting to clean up the blunder of that girl." Frigid eyes landed on Hinageshi, who ducked behind Botan.
"Hey," Yuusuke interrupted. "You sent a junior ferrygirl to collect the soul of a nine-tailed fox demon. I think that the 'blunder' is on your end, don't you?"
The Head practically hissed at him. "Idiotic, low-class—"
The Angel held up a hand to forestall another verbal war and then kept it there, letting the situation process in the silence. When the hush became too oppressive, she hummed the Jeopardy theme song to herself for a while. Yuusuke shifted impatiently on his feet. Naruto fidgeted.
Finally, she came to a decision and pointed to Yuusuke. "I'm going to have to agree with the detective on this one."
"Lenasama, Uzumaki Naruto is dead."
"Eh." Lena made a dismissive waving gesture. "I can fudge that."
"He's host to a powerful, terrible demon. Surely you cannot think to bring such a thing back into the world."
"From what I can tell of the situation, which, admittedly, is rather sketchy, is that the demon is still in the world, and the kid is the only thing keeping it from running rampant."
"…M'not a kid."
That from Naruto, and Lena continued to ignore him. She really really wanted to get back to her vacation. Fun in the sun. Walking around beaches with unnaturally pale skin, telling cute surfers that they were going to bite it, soon. Mmmm, surfer-boys…
However, the Head wasn't letting her argument go. "Measures can be taken now that the beast is subdued and unconscious. Surely there's a better, safer way of dealing with—"
"Right then. That would really be Koenma's area of expertise, wouldn't it? Well, lordling?" Lena gave the junior God of the Afterlife a look that said Wrap this up quickly. "What do you have to say about it?"
Koenma and the Angel of Death were only lukewarm allies at best. He tolerated her because she was Botan's good friend, and she managed to keep on the polite side of snarky because he was Botan's boss and friend and they were basically working for the same goals. But it grated on both that neither truly outranked the other. They were both too used to getting their way because they said so to really get along.
Still, there were times, very rare times, when they clicked perfectly.
Koenma met her eyes and smirked. "I think the best way to handle this would be to reinstate Naruto's soul into his body as a counter to the demon."
"I agree," Lena said briskly, over the Head's choked protest. "Of course, to be fair, the kid's going to have to go through a Trial, like every other soul who's gotten a second chance."
Kuwabara coughed something that sounded like, "All one other…"
Kurama thwapped him on the shoulder.
"OI!" Naruto had found his voice again. "Would you stop talking about me like I'm not here?"
"Lena-sama, I must protest…"
Lena shifted into her true form. The night-black water that poured from her everpresent wounds spilled across the floor and splashed in a froth when it hit the walls, rising quickly. Her wings, all nine of them, beat at her back, an ache that pulled her from the ground but it hurt to fly, too weighed down by chains and corpses. She towered over them, seeing them only as smudges of light, the mortal ones burning quickly toward the end of their days.
"I HAVE SPOKEN."
It took a bit more effort to return to the body she usually wore. Down, down… stuffing herself into the human shell. Five fingers on each hand, five toes on two feet, it was tricky remembering the details, sometimes. Perky breasts…there. The Angel sighed. She really hated doing melodramatic shit. But sometimes, that's what it took to shut the Head up.
"Okay," she said, dusting her hands together smartly, her voice loud in the stunned silence. "I'm going back to Bermuda."
"Bye!" Botan waved cheerfully. "Have fun!"
"Thanks. I'll bring you back one of those little umbrellas they put on drinks. I know you like those." She waved flippantly at all of them. "Ciao!"
With the sound of a wave crashing against a cliff, her form flattened into a black shadow and then was gone.
A/N: I've changed the category of the story, and I've also changed the rating. The former because, well...it's more action than romance at the moment (though there was a hint of Sasuke/Naruto which you may have missed if you blinked while you read this), and the latter because, well, Yuusuke swears. A lot.
Just to get this out in the open from the beginning...though it may not be particularly apparent so far, Kurama is my favorite character. So, as much as I will try my hardest to keep everything equal, all characters getting to say or do the same number of nifty things...Kurama is my favorite character.
And now... stuff that most people won't care about! (But it's fun for me, which is all the excuse I need.)
Replies to comments: (Thank you everyone! I appreciate all the comments. A few of people said some insightful stuff and asked good questions, or in some way, tickled my desire to babble at them, so here's my response)
- Lucas: Thanks! Yes, I realize the pace is a little quick. There's a reason for that, which is in no way literary. This is my exercise in quick-writing. I'm trying to force myself to do this in a timely manner, and that's translated through the writing, which it shouldn't be. But I'm new at this. It usually takes me months to update. Anyway, I hope to correct this later as I get a hang of it. Not in this part, though, obviously. ::sweatdrops::
- Akki: I get the sense that the Makai and the Reikai aren't allies. Therefore, whatever power Yuusuke holds as a demon isn't going to translate well into the Reikai. It'd be like giving an enemy general command of your troops. He can pull some rank as a Reikai Tantei, but not much. He also has the ability to beat the crap out of just about everything, which earns him some influence...but ferrygirls, who are, essentially, un-killable, and are protected by Enma himself, probably wouldn't be that impressed.
But that brings me to another point. You're right, Yuusuke is horribly, terrifyingly strong. He probably could wipe Konoha off the map if he really really wanted to. However, he seems to have issues killing humans (he angsts about killing Sensui and that guy was seriously trying to kill him and destroy the world. The Konoha ninjas are just defending their home turf). And, have no fear, he is much stronger than the Hokage.
About the Kyuubi: from the brief seconds I've seen of the "fight" between the nine-tails and the ninjas, it doesn't really look as if the demon is trying. It swishes its tails and then prances a little. It looks like its playing. Which makes me wonder.... Also, I would guess that it was summoned, which breaks the rules of what can and can't get into the human world ( which pisses off Koenma. ::smirks:: ).
Whew! I hope I answered all your questions. Thanks for your review!
The Mad Fangirl: Yuusuke is surprisingly easy to write, considering that Kurama is my favorite character. I'm glad you like it! As for Kakashi and the rei gun... we'll just share a secretive smile and leave it at that. Also, as much fun as it would be to have Kurama knock the nine-tails down (what a fight that would be) there are some logistical problems which get in my way. The main one is that Kurama has five tails in this fic and...the nine-tails has, well. Yeah. That's a huge difference in power (even if I fudge it like a kinda want to so that silver foxes are superior to red foxes--although that kinda feels like a cop-out). Also, Kurama likes Naruto...for reasons which will become clearer later on.
But yeah, that would still be a fun scene.