A/N: Okay, somebody was asking how long this story would go for, and truthfully, I'm not sure. After the play and the date, who knows? It could reach the huge 'final-battle' thing, or maybe not…
And yeah, you guys are right about the chapter titles. Sometimes you can't even work out what they're on about... But oh well, who cares?
It took awhile, but Shizune finally managed to get the girls off Naruto and back in clothes. Unfortunately, she couldn't do anything for the dazed trance Naruto was now stuck in.
"Hey, hey, Naruto," Jiraiya said rhythmically, clicking his fingers in front of Naruto's drooling face. "Wake up, buddy!"
"Ehh…" Naruto mumbled stupidly. "B-Bodies… S-So many bodies… Ehh…"
Jiraiya decided that it was a serious situation, and that he would have to take extreme measures. He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it above Naruto.
"Oh, gee! Isn't this one of those rare 'Free-Ramen-4-Ever' cards that the Ichiraku stand have been advertising recently?"
Naruto's body stiffened, his neck jerking up slowly and his eyes landing on the paper with a look of awe. He could see light shining off it like it was a God.
"Come an' get it, boy! Come on!" Jiraiya urged playfully, as Naruto reached up for it with a big grin, panting like an excited dog. The others watching could practically picture ears and a tail on him, the tail wagging enthusiastically.
"Okay, boy! Here you go!" he said as he let the paper go and it fell right into Naruto's hands. Naruto clutched it to his chest with tears, sniffling in joy. That is, until he raised the paper and looked at it.
'10 off the next weekly 'Kunoichi's Gone Wild'!'
His face went down as he groaned in sadness. Jiraiya almost felt sorry for him. But he didn't, he thought it was funny. And it did what he wanted it to do – it broke him out of his erotic trance.
"Hey, wait a minute…" Sakura said, looking at Naruto with a suspicious look. "I thought that you said you couldn't move at all?"
Naruto's head shot up again as he realized that he had been able to move. He slowly checked his arms and legs, and found that he could move them again. In fact, he felt completely fine.
"That's weird… I couldn't even budge a second ago…"
He looked up to see the girls looking at him with somewhat sour looks.
"Could it be…" Sakura muttered with an irritated face. "That you faked all that just to get us to take care of you?"
"W-What? I wasn't faking!" Naruto yelled back in defense. "There's no way I'd trick you girls like that, and I really did appreciate you all taking care of me, I'd never felt so happy in my life!"
He paused for a second and realized that he let that last part come out. He blushed heavily, looking down at the ground again. The girls were also blushing, taken aback by Naruto's proclamation.
"Naruto."
It was Temari's voice, and she was staring at Naruto with a serious face.
"I have to talk to you. It's about Boxer-sama."
"R-Really?" Naruto replied, chuckling nervously. "W-What of it?"
"You were at the park, right? When he was there?"
"Yeah…"
"Now we all know that Boxer-sama only ever wears his boxers. So let's say when he's in disguise, and he has to become Boxer-sama, he'd have to take off his clothes, correct?"
Naruto began to feel cold sweat building on his neck. He shrugged, trying to look innocent. He hoped it was working.
"So… Finding a piece of his clothing would be an easy way to guess who Boxer-sama really is… Like say, his pants…"
"A-Ah… W-Well, that could have easily been someone else that stupidly left their pants there…"
Naruto's eyes suddenly widened, as he saw something brush past just behind Temari. It was quick, human eyes wouldn't have picked it up. But Naruto saw it – a quick, orange blur that slipped right behind Temari and continued down the hall. Naruto jumped to his feet, although still a bit sore, and quickly jumped past everyone into the hallway. He just caught a glimpse of it as it headed down the stairs.
"What in the world… Temari, we'll have to talk later, okay?" he yelled as he started running out after the strange blur. Temari called out, reaching out as if to grab him and stop him.
"Damn, and I was about to show him thi-… Huh?"
Temari moved her hands in front of her, and looked at them in confusion.
Her hands were empty.
Naruto dashed out the hospital's front door, scaring the crap out of waiting patients. He could make out the blur hopping on top of the buildings, and quickly jumped to keep up. His body was still disoriented and sore, causing Naruto to cringe as he chased after it.
"Stop, damn you! Ow! Dammit!"
He saw the shadow dive into a small hut, which Naruto recognized as one of the emergency huts made to house the villagers when there was an attack. He ran inside, glancing around cautiously.
"Where are you…"
"Behind you."
Naruto yelled out in surprise, as he jumped away and turned to see that the blur was in fact a red-haired girl, dressed in an orange full-body dress. He yelled, pointing at her in realization.
"It's you again!"
"It's rude to point, young one."
Naruto frowned at her, his eyebrow twitching. "Stop calling me young, dammit. You don't look all that much older than me anyway."
The stranger smiled, and threw something at Naruto, which he caught instinctively. "These belong to you, do they not?"
"M-My pants?" Naruto exclaimed, blinking in disbelief. "These are the pants I had on just before I fought Kisame and Zabuza…" He trailed off, then shakily looked up at the girl, who was smirking sexily. "Uh… I can explain… See, my pants, they… They were in the park because… They caught on fire! Yeah… And then…"
"You don't have to make excuses, young one," she interrupted, walking towards him, cat-like. "I knew all along who you were…" She slid her finger down his cheek, causing him to shiver. "Boxer-sama…"
Naruto jumped back, clapping his hands together and bowing his head. "Please don't tell anyone about this! I'd be in lots of trouble is everyone knew!"
"One of your cute little girlfriends was about to accuse you of being Boxer-sama… You're lucky that I managed to stop her just in time."
"So that's what it was at the hospital?" Naruto asked. "Hmm… Then Temari found them? Crap, how am I going to explain that… Well… My pants caught on fire and-"
"You're surprisingly bad at making excuses for someone who is always in trouble, young one."
Naruto looked at her in embarrassment. "Shut up. And stop calling me young. Who are you, anyway? I keep bumping into you and I don't even know your name."
She poked her soft cheek with her finger, looking up in thought. "My name, is it? Well… You can call me Kyuu for now, young one."
"Kyuu? Weird name…" Naruto muttered under his breath as he put his pants back on. "So anyway… You're not going to tell anyone about this right? I mean… My pants, and uh… You know… My boxers."
"Well, I know something you don't want other people to know… And I also happen to need some help in a matter…" she replied, staring at Naruto expectantly. He looked back at her with narrow eyes for a few seconds trying to work out what she meant.
"You're… Blackmailing me?"
"You are very slow, young one. You will help me, won't you?" she asked, grabbing Naruto's hands and looking into his eyes innocently. Her look caused Naruto to blush furiously.
"…I-If I help, you keep my secret, right?"
"Correct."
"…What do I have to do?"
"Huuh, I'm so old… I'm such an old man… Huuh…"
The old man sat in his room, his verandah door open, as he sipped his warm prune juice.
"Ah… This prune juice… Sure reminds me… That I'm really old… Huuh, how depressing."
"I don't think you're that old…"
The old man turned in surprise, and saw a beautiful red-haired girl standing in his yard. She walked towards him, hips swaying, as she sat opposite the old man. She rested her head on her hands, leaning forward so that her cleavage was clearly in the old man's view.
"W-Wow… I'm starting to feel young again…" he said, as he leant forward, staring at her chest with lecherous eyes.
CLICK.
Suddenly, a flash caught the old man's eyes, and he realized that somebody was standing in his yard, with a camera, taking a picture of him, his lust-filled face clearly in view.
"Bye-bye, old man!" the red-haired girl said as she leapt out and disappeared with the orange-haired cameraman.
"But… But…" the old man raised his hand, as though trying to reach out to her, but his hand dropped in vain.
"Huuh… I'm so old…"
"Seriously, explain this to me! You've made me go around to at least one hundred old guys' places and take pictures of them being horny old geezers! Why?"
Still dressed in his hospital garb and orange pants, Naruto sulked, yelling at his red-haired blackmailer. Kyuu was barely listening, happily taping the pictures onto the town bulletin board. Night was setting in, so nobody else was around at the time.
"Hey, listen to me when I talk!"
"I heard you, young one," she replied, taping up the final photo and stepping back to look at her work. "Huhu, this will do nicely."
Naruto stared at the bulletin board, which was completely covered by pictures of old men lusting over Kyuu, then back at Kyuu. "So are you going to explain now, or what?"
Kyuu turned away from him, glancing up at the moon, which was still rising. "All of these men did something terrible a long time ago… Something unforgivable. I wanted to pay them back. But death would be dropping to their level, so I wanted to do something that wasn't as wrong."
"What did they do?" Naruto asked curiously. Kyuu turned to him, smiling sadly.
"You should know better than anyone else, Naruto."
Naruto gasped as the moonlight bounced across her hair, and he noticed a transparent pair of ears and a tail, made visible by the way the moonlight bounced off them.
"K-Kyuu… You are… But how?"
"You haven't noticed, but slowly my spirit was being unbound to yours. Perhaps the strength of the Fourth is fading. Regardless, my powers are slowly returning to me. It took me quite a while to gain a physical body, and soon I'll have command over my original body, when your seal has been completely nullified. The only reason you managed to heal so quickly at the hospital was because I chose to heal you so that you would follow me."
Naruto, showing clear hesitation, took a combat pose. "You're regaining your power… T-Then it looks like I have to stop you…"
"Naruto… You know what really happened… I know you know. I was watching when you told your pink-haired friend, Sakura."
Naruto's body shook as he tried to decide what was the right thing to do. He knew that the Demon Fox was not at fault, and yet to let her reach her full power would be going against the wishes of the village that he loved.
His fists went limp as he lowered his hands, staring at the ground in thought.
"There is something else you should know, Naruto." Kyuu looked down at the ground as well. "I am aware you have been using my powers. Even unintentionally when you were injured. There's a possibility your body has become over-reliant on my abilities."
"What are you trying to say?"
"When my powers have completely returned, there is a possibility that your body will not be used to working without my powers. Your body might become really fragile, and your ability to fight could be much less than what it was before."
Naruto's hand twitched in realization. "And I've also been relying on your powers to become Boxer-sama… When your powers leave me… I won't be able to become Boxer-sama either."
"That is also true."
Naruto lifted up the hospital robe, and noticed that the seal on his stomach had missing lines, which looked as though they faded over time. Suddenly, Naruto remembered something.
"Wait a minute… I remember there was a time when I was talking to you… You were this big… Evil thing. How come you're like this, but you're also that?"
Kyuu stared at him in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about. When I was completely under the seal, I didn't have any consciousness."
"W-What!" Naruto stepped back in surprise. "T-Then… What was that thing I was talking to...?"
Kyuu stared at him with a knowing smile. "Perhaps there is more inside you than a demon fox."
Kyuu turned away and walked off, not saying a word to Naruto, who was still trembling in a mix of confusion and fear.
"Something else inside me…?"
"Dammit Naruto, no more running off! I don't know how you managed to heal yourself so quickly, but now that you're better, we've got until tomorrow night to practice!"
"O-Okay, Sakura! I get it!" Naruto said back nervously.
"Oh, you're going to get it, alright! We're all going to practice until you can say it in your sleep!"
"Oh, God…"
"Okay, everyone! Take your places! And… Action!"
END CHAPTER 17A/N: So next chapter I'll probably (finally) get to the play, and then of course the much awaited date! And let's not forget that Sasuke is supposed to have something planned out with Naruto to do something to Boxer-sama. What's Naruto going to do? Who's he going to go out with? How is he going to protect his identity from Sasuke?
Feedback is appreciated as always, and thanks to Ryushi's beta GGLucas for pointing out my errors. If anyone has any good ideas, I'd also like to hear 'em! But uh... Next update might take awhile... Urghh...