Disclaimer: Here we go again. I do NOT own any of Naruto except any characters that I come up with my self.
Through Crimson Eyes: The Time for Truths.
"…"
"What it is it Gaara?" A blond haired girl asked, her attention drawn back towards a younger boy, one with fiery red hair and black rimmed eyes.
The young demon container simply stood still, not acknowledging his sisters inquiry, facing towards the village they had just left.
"I felt something…" He said after a moment, his voice soft.
"Huh, felt something? Like what?" This from another young man, dressed all in black with rather odd makeup.
Temari looked at Gaara, her face filled with concern. It wasn't often that Gaara was affected like this. 'Whatever it was that can draw Gaara's attention like that, it can't be good…'
Gaara continued to gaze back at the village, his thoughts troubled. 'It is that boy, Naruto. I can feel his chakra even from here. But it has changed, somehow, it's…' He turned to his two siblings. "Temari, Kankuro, you two go back to the Sand Village. I am staying here for right now."
"WHAT!" They both yelled at the same time.
"What do you mean your staying here? The whole Sand Village is awaiting our arrival. A new Kazekage must be chosen and you have been asked to…"
"Don't make me repeat myself, sister" Gaara stated quietly, his soft tone doing nothing to curb the shiver that it sent down Temari's spine. Her mouth shut immediately.
"But, what are we supposed to tell the village when we come back without you?" Kankuro asked, his hands shaking slightly as he confronted his younger brother. Although Gaara was not quite as, disagreeable, as he used to be, it was none-the-less dangerous to question his decisions and actions.
"Tell them what you want, I do not care. There is something here that is currently more important." Gaara stated, already halfway down the path back to the village.
"Hey!" His siblings shouted. Their departing brother paid them no mind however.
'So he is truly the same' Gaara thought to himself, a slight smile, a sight that nobody, not even his siblings can ever claim to have seen, gracing his face.
'The same as me…'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
It had happened before any of them had a chance to react. A sudden surge of blood red chakra had erupted from the boy lying on the bed, his entire body arching against the mattress as scream after scream tore from his throat. All of them, even Tsunade, were blown back against the walls by the sheer force of it.
After shaking her head a few times to clear it, the Fifth looked up at the boy writhing on the bed, her face a mix of deep sadness and absolute horror. Naruto's entire body seemed to be pulsing with barely contained demonic energy. In fact the entire room seemed to be filled with raw chakra, ripples of energy caressing the walls, leaving large cracks in their wake, blood red flames dancing across the floor under her feet. Around her, several other medical nins were coming to as well, their faces reflecting similar expressions of terror.
Naruto continued to writhe about, his screams rising to a fevered pitch, the power alone enough to shatter the tile on the floor beneath his bed.
Slam the door to the infirmary flew open suddenly, slamming into the wall harshly as Kakashi, followed by Sakura, Hinata, and Shikimaru burst in. Their eyes grew wide at the scene before them.
Naruto's body was arched off the bed at a violent angle, his head thrown back, mouth opened as violent screams tore from his body. He writhed about on the bed, his entire body consumed in blood red chakra, its emanations clearly seen and felt by the four new occupants. The walls of the room continued to crack and blister, various pieces of machinery combusted, the shrapnel flying about dangerously. The most horrifying sight, however, was his face. His features were contorted in agony, hair wild. His whisker marks were wide and jagged, nothing like the almost cutesy marks that they were so used to. The most terrible feature, the one that captured their attention, was his eyes. They were wide open, the pupils slit like that of a wild cat. And, unlike the beautiful cerulean that they were all so accustomed to, his eyes were now a blazing crimson.
"N-NARUTO-KUN!" The normally quiet Hinata shrieked, her own cry barely heard over Naruto's screams. Tears streaked down her already stained face unfettered, droplets falling to the floor. Each scream caused her to flinch, yet her eyes remained locked upon the boy on the bed.
Sakura said nothing, completely shaken by what she saw. Her hand reached out as if with a will of its own, and she walked towards the agonized young ninja tentatively, completely unaware of her own actions. 'N…Naru…to…'. She was pulled back however, and found herself suddenly positioned behind Kakashi's outstretched arms.
"STAY BACK! Stay behind me!" The silver haired Jounin ordered harshly, his own voice trembling with barely contained fear.
"By Kami…" Shikimaru whispered absently, his entire body shaking.
After what seemed an eternity, the blazing aura vanished, the room loosing the eerie blood red tint as the massive youki began to settle down. Naruto's arched body dropped back bonelessly upon the bed, eyes closed, breathing shallow and irregular. His head still whipped about, as if still fighting off a bad dream, his brow still sweating feverishly. His whisker marks, however, did not abate, but remained wide upon his cheeks.
Slowly, unsteadily, everyone in the room began to breathe again. Without hesitation, Sakura broke free of Kakashi, running forward to Naruto's bedside. He was whimpering in his sleep, his body convulsing with chills as he lay there. The pink haired girls tears streamed down her cheeks.
Hinata came up behind her, her own eyes overflowing. It hurt her beyond words to see Naruto like this. To see someone who was always so full of life, whose spirit seemed to be so unbeatable. Broken. Lying shattered upon the hospital bed before her.
He had always been so strong, in the face of all adversity. So many others would have fallen against such enmity, but where others would have fallen, Naruto seemed to prosper. And it hurt her more than she could say to see him like this, and to know that there was nothing that she could do to help him.
Unlike his two distraught peers, Shikimaru looke at Naruto with a slightly more critical eye. What he had seen was definitely not normal, but he was at a loss as to what it was. Naruto had always seemed to be 'more than what he seemed'; his battle against Neji in the Chuunin exams certainly proved that. But what he had just seen was incredible. The kind of power that had erupted from him, the kind of power that could so easily throw Tsunade, the fifth Hokage, and, (grudgingly admitted of course) strongest woman he had ever seen to the ground was nothing short of mind boggling. He turned abruptly to Tsunade, his expression obviously demanding an explanation.
Tsunade, for her part, noticed the look Shikimaru leveled at her. After checking the status of the other medical nins, she glanced over at Kakashi, standing frozen at the entrance. She could not blame him though. She had heard the stories, knew of his experience against the Kyuubi 12 years ago. She could understand how the normally carefree Jounin would be shaken to once again witness the bared power of the mightiest Youkai.
"Kakashi." She called out.
Kakashi came too with a start, jolted from his thoughts "Y-yes, Hokage?"
Tsunade sighed deeply, preparing her self for the round of questioning that was sure to follow her next statement. "Go out and collect the ANBU. We will need them here in case the worst happens."
"Th-the ANBU? What do we need the ANBU for?" Sakura, who had been doing nothing but staring at the ailing Naruto, suddenly shot up, her fearful green eyes now locked worriedly on the Fifth.
Hinata said nothing, but her expression clearly portrayed her concern over this new situation.
Shikimaru merely regarded her suspiciously.
Tsunade sighed again. After giving one last pointed look at Kakashi, she turned to the three worried teens, her face filled with a mixture of sorrow and anger. This, of course, did little to ease their fears. They had hoped that the worst was over, that everything would be alright. Obviously, they were wrong.
Without a word, Kakashi left the room, so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not notice the young man standing just out side the door, his black rimmed eyes narrowed in contemplation.
Back inside the room, Tsunade now turned her full attention to the three standing before her. "Yes, I think that it is time for an explanation. You deserve to know the truth, about Naruto, and about everything."
"But Hokage! What about the law! The third expressly forbid anyone to talk abou…"
"TO HELL WITH THE THIRD AND HIS LAW!" Tsunade screamed at the cowering medic, her voice shaking the already unstable walls of the room. Her eyes were now leaking tears, her face contorted into an expression of such pent up rage and sadness that the poor ninja nearly dropped dead by the sheer force of it. "That damned law has already caused him enough suffering! It's time that it was ended, one way or another!"
"W-what law?" Sakura stuttered.
Tsunade took a moment to calm down before she faced them again. "Do you three know anything about the disaster that struck Konoha twelve years ago?"
Sakura, Hinata, and Shikimaru nodded numbly. They had all heard the stories of course.
"The Kyuubi attacked the village, right?" Shikimaru spoke up, his voice trembling slightly. He really did not like where this was going.
"Twelve years ago, the Youkai, Kyuubi, rampaged across the world. Village after village was wiped out, completely decimated. Inevitably, it reached our village, the Hidden Leaf Village. It was unstoppable. Even the greatest of Konoha's ninjas were powerless before it. It slaughtered countless ninjas without effort." Tsunade continued, her voice becoming more grim as she recounted the terrible story.
"But, the Kyuubi was destroyed, right! The fFourth Hokage sacrificed his life to destroy it, right!" Sakura stated, a nervous smile playing on her face. Despite her words, she could not help but feel a building dread within her gut, an unease.
"Y-yes, I remember my father telling me that story too. How m-my mother died fighting t-the demon, how she died t-to give the Fourth enough time to destroy it." Hinata was not doing much better than Sakura at this point, her eyes widening in a dawning comprehension at a truth that she was not ready, consciously, to accept.
But Tsunade was relentless. "…No. The Kyuubi was not destroyed. Such a creature as Kyuubi could never be destroyed, at least not by any means that humans possess." She took a breath, then continued "The best that he could manage was to use the forbidden jutsu, the Shiki Fuujin (Dead Demon Imprisonment). Normally this jutsu takes the life of the user, and binds their soul with the soul of the victim, sending them both into the afterlife where, as the legend goes, the two souls will be sealed for all eternity within the belly of death, condemned to fight each other until the end of time."
Tsunade then glance over at the suffering boy upon the bed, and naturally the three young ninjas eyes followed. "But such a sealing only works upon other humans. In the case of a demon like the Kyuubi, sealing it within the belly of death would have done nothing but delayed the inevitable. Being a demon, it would have broken free, and it would have grown stronger within the realm of death, returning to our world even more powerful. So he did the only thing he could do…"
Sakura, Hinata and Shikimaru all held their breaths, all of them dreading the end of this horrible tale.
"He sealed it away within a mortal container. He was originally intending to seal it away within himself, to use himself as the container, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Since he would die soon after the sealing, not enough time would have elapsed for the Kyuubi's spirit to bind to his own, and when he died, the Kyuubi would be released. No adult, because their body and chakra system was already too developed, would work either; their bodies would be quickly consumed by the demons massive power. In the end, he was forced to seal it away within the body of a newborn baby…"
"Naruto… He sealed it within Naruto." Sakura whispered, the truth settling heavily upon her all at once. It all suddenly made such perfect sense. All of the hatred, all of the names. Why he had lived all alone his entire life. It all made perfect, terrifying sense. Her emerald eyes took in the sight of the tortured boy, and, only now, began to truly realize just how much he was suffering, not only now, but for his entire life.
Shikimaru could only stare blankly. He hadn't expected this. All this time, the idiotic, ever grinning, persevering Naruto was the container of the most powerful and destructive demon in history. His normally quick mind ground to a complete halt.
Hinata was silent for a long time, her white eyes taking in the sight of the boy she had for so long admired. Finally she turned back to Tsunade, her face filled with sadness. "Why? Why a child? W-why Naruto-kun?" She asked brokenly.
"Because it has not yet fully developed, a newborn is able to contain a demon within it, its body and chakra system is flexible enough to hold it without damage being done. As for why he chose Naruto… That is something that will have to be discussed later, when he himself can hear it."
"But why? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO HIM NOW?" Sakura screamed.
"I-I'm not sure about the details, but somehow, whether it was because of Sasuke's attack, or the Kyuubi's growing connection with him, somehow the seal that held the Kyuubi prisoner within him has been broken."
"Broken! So the Kyuubi is…"
Tsunade nodded gravely. "Yes, the Kyuubi is likely running amok within Naruto's body. Before, when you saw Naruto draw upon its chakra, all you saw was a fraction of the demons power, not even a tails worth. Even in his battle with Sasuke, Kakashi reported that he felt what may very well have been only a full tail. But now, the power of all nine tails is raging through him, completely unchecked. The fact that Naruto is even still alive shows that he has become attuned to it enough that his body is actually beginning to accept the demons chakra as his own. That is why we will need the ANBU. If it is the Kyuubi that wakes up, then the only way to stop it will be to kill the container."
"NO!" Hinata screamed suddenly. "Y-you can't do that! Not to Naruto-kun!"
"Do you think I want this?" Tsunade answered harshly. "I want him to live just as much as you do, but as the protector of this village I must be prepared to do what ever it takes to protect it… What ever it takes."
"And even if it is Naruto who wakes up, there is no telling what sort of changes might have taken place. Regardless, we will need the ANBU to help deal with the situation, however it turns out."
"That will not be necessary."
AN: Sorry this took awhile, but I was having a hell of a time deciding how I wanted this situation to go. I went through nearly ten different versions before I finally settled on this one. As it is, I'm rather happy that I took the time.
So now the truth is out. After the shock wears off, how will Sakura, Hinata and Shikimaru take it? And what does Gaara have to do with all of this. As for Naruto's fate, well I am still in the process of developing exactly what happens to him.
As usual, constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. People are welcome to send me any ideas, desired pairings ect. I make no guarantees, but such input is still very helpful.