Sorry for the long wait. New job. New apartment. Got engaged. No kids. Not yet. But it's not out of the question.

Isn't that insane? I started writing fanfiction back when I was in middle school, and now I'm engaged and planning on starting a family.

Life is hard, innit?

Prankster King of Konoha

Chapter 12:

Waking Up

Naruto came back to consciousness to a clear head and clearer skies. The aches and pains that were plaguing his body seemed to have all but left him, returning him to perfect health once more. This was an ability beyond even that of Tsunade, so Naruto knew what was happening immediately.

"Fox," he said. His voice echoed around the empty plains, his voice bouncing off walls that weren't there. "I know you're there, Fox. And I know where I am. You can stop with the illusions."

He waited. His voice took but a second to peter out, leaving him in silence to stew on his own thoughts. After a few more seconds of it the scenery around him started to bleed away like oil off a canvas, revealing the dark, damp sewer that was his true mindscape.

Sitting behind the large, sturdy metal bars was his closest friend and longest confidant. The Nine-Tailed Fox looked down on him. Distaste practically radiated from his body as he glared down at him.

"Boy," the beast snarled. His teeth showed past his lips. His breath smelled like rancid, rotting meat. "We have much to discuss."

Naruto shrugged. He had seen this one coming. He sat on the floor of the sewer, ignoring the way his mind tried to convince him that the bottom of his tracksuit was wetting. "Alright, fine. Shoot."

The Fox didn't say anything. Instead, it continued to look at him through the bars. Its eyes were half closed, looking almost disinterestedly down at him. Usually, Naruto was privy to at least some of the Fox's thoughts. Now, however, he was left surprisingly without.

It was… quiet. He didn't like it.

"I did not enjoy what you did, boy."

Naruto rolled his eyes. He scratched at the back of his neck, the nervous habit not having faded away. "Yeah. And I'm sorry, okay? I told you that before. Why are you still on this?"

"Because it's not like every other time. This was a severe breach of trust."

"And like you're one to care about things like that. You trick me into doing things literally every other day. And you whine endlessly until you get it."

"It's not the same, brat." The Fox's voice was deeper. Deeper than usual. It made the hairs on his arms rise and made something heavy form in his stomach. It was the same tone the Fox used whenever Naruto did something wrong, or when he should have done something better. It wasn't the all-consuming rage that he was used to. That was easier. That could be ignored. This was something that cut far deeper.

This was disappointment. Naruto didn't like this. An angry fox he could deal with any day. This? This he wasn't sure how to handle. That made him scared. Confused. Anxious. He didn't like feeling this way.

His reaction was explosive.

"And what's so different about it, huh?" he asked. He sprang up from the floor and splashed the water around his feet. "We're always for doing what we want to everyone else! What makes you any different from anyone else?"

The Fox's lips peeled back, and Naruto could see the snarl on the tip of his tongue. The anxious energy filling him bubbled up once more, but he couldn't back down now.

"Boy. Calm yourself."

"No!" he screamed back. And how good did that feel. He was always the one that had to defer to the Fox's judgement. We'll go prank this. We'll go to that. Anytime he had something to say it was shot down. Even the times where he had his own plans, the Fox chimed in and changed them. No. It was time for him to stand on his own, damn it. "I'm tired of being calm. You're never calm. You're always upset or angry or out of control, and I'm always the one to deal with it!"

The Fox tried to say something, but Naruto wouldn't have it. The water in the sewers of his mindscape churned with his emotions, the sound of the waves raising with the sound of his voice. He then had to scream louder to hear himself over the waves, thus allowing the two phenomena to feed on each other until there was no room for anything else to be heard.

"You got to tell me what to do, where do go, how to do it! You got to tell me how to prank Danzo and to prank the ANBU every week. You ever thought about whether I wanted to do anything else? No, of course not! You could feel my reluctance every, single, week, and yet we do always what you want!

The Fox didn't say anything. Anything at all, actually. Naruto would usually realize that this wasn't normal, but all he could see was a chance to continue. He had never been able to vent these feelings before, and doing so now felt… nice. Right.

"I have to follow you to prank the ANBU every single month, even though I told you how tiring it is. I have to follow you to prank another of the big clans, even though you know how much that could get me in trouble! And I have to follow you to prank your Tailed Beast sibling even though it could have gotten me killed! And do you want to know the worst part? I did it! I did all of it! And I didn't complain! Meanwhile, you're over here blowing up at me just sitting next to the Uchiha bastard! And you have the nerve to tell me to be calm? To be upset that I made one little blunder?"

Naruto panted. He hadn't talked that long and that loud in a long time. His chest heaved as he stared defiantly up at his inner demon. Though he didn't need to breathe in his spirit form, he felt remarkably out of breath as his nerves set his entire body trembling. He was expecting a pushback. A loud, thundering roar as the beast levelled all of the rage it had built up until now. He was expecting a snarl and a death threat. He was expecting something.

He wasn't expecting the Fox to stand, utilizing what little room he had, to turn around. The beast retreated into the deep recesses of his cage, thereby locking himself deep in the seal. Naruto grunted, before pushing his awareness into the seal after him. It was something that he had done regularly, so he didn't have any issues doing so now.

"Oh, come on, Fox. I get a little huffy and you run away into your seal? What? You aren't man enough to keep up a conversation with a kit?"

No answer. That was unusual. Naruto stretched his attention even further in. He felt around, only to feel nothing but the slickness of the walls.

"Kurama?" Naruto asked. He stretched a little more. This was the deepest he'd ever had to feel. Kurama usually never went this deep. "Kurama!"

He received no answer. He tried to reach a little more, but even he wasn't skilled enough to reach that deep. If he could get his spiritual body in, then maybe there would be a chance but…

There was no way around it. He pulled back, turning around and walking away from the cage. He took one last look inside, making sure that the Fox hadn't turned around.

He hadn't, so Naruto left his seal. The grumpy Fox could be that way if he wished.

XxX

Naruto returned to consciousness to a reverberating pain. He hadn't moved much, he had only craned his neck slightly, but the resulting pain caused him to flinch. That flinch moved his entire body, sending pain reflecting throughout his body. His eyes screwed shut once more, and it took an epic amount of concentration to keep still, but he managed it. He toughed through the remaining pain, only allowing himself rest once the pain became dull.

"I see you're up," came a voice. It was older, and stringent. And tired. So very tired. "About time. You've been asleep for three days. A faster recovery than most would manage, but I suppose that's because of your… disposition."

Naruto wanted to scowl, but that would be counterproductive.

"I don't really care about people knowing, Granny Tsunade," he replied. His voice was hoarse, and it even hurt to talk. But it was something he could handle. "It's not like half the village doesn't already know about the Fox."

There was a silence as Tsunade shuffled through some papers. Naruto wanted nothing more than to turn his head to look at her, but he could already feel the headache that would cause. He sighed. He would have to wait.

"I was talking more about the Uzumaki genes," Tsunade said. "Something a little more scientific. Something I'm a little more familiar with." The room went silent once more as she scratched something onto the papers. "Besides, we haven't detected any Tailed Beast chakra from you since the fight. There was some lingering after your last punch, but nothing since then. Guess you tapped out the well."

Naruto's eyes widened, but he schooled himself rather quickly. There was always some of the Fox's chakra running through him. There was ever since he was a child. Had the Fox withdrawn even that?

He sucked his teeth. Moody bastard.

"How do you feel?" Tsunade asked. "Well, besides in pain."

Naruto flinched once more. A snarky reply was his go-to, but he didn't feel as if it would be a good response. Especially to his doctor. Especially to a doctor that already had a grudge against him. "That's mostly it. Everything I do feels like I'm setting my nerves on fire. I feel tired. And hungry. But mostly in pain."

Tsunade nodded, taking down his words and adjusting something on her sheets. "Yes. That's to be expected. You had extreme chakra exhaustion as well as an insane amount of muscle tearing. It's a surprise that you're awake at all. You should be sedated and wrapped in enough bandages to keep you still for weeks. That's the Uzumaki genes at play. Swirly bastards could heal from a broken arm given enough determination. Good to see you inherited that."

Tsunade then wrote something down. Naruto was sure it was something disparaging. It took her a few minutes, but when she was done she started tapping her pen against the desk she was using.

She had went silent after that, but she hadn't left. Naruto could feel something was on her mind, so why wasn't the drunk old hag saying anything? He decided to break the silence.

"So. When do you think I can get—"

"I hope you're not thinking about leaving anytime soon. You had extreme chakra exhaustion and muscle and ligament tears in nearly every part of your body. You had some broken bones and several hairline fractures, most of which have only started to mend. You won't be leaving anytime soon."

Naruto let his mouth click shut. Well, that answer was way too quick. And her tone was way too curt.

"Do you think I can get some food then—"

She slapped her pen against the IV bag dripping into his arm. "This will take care of everything you'll need nutritional wise. Any hunger you feel is strictly mental. I could fetch you some ice chips if the hunger pangs are too much."

Naruto didn't want any, but that didn't stop her from pressing the button next to his bed. A nurse came… surprisingly quickly, taking Tsunade's orders for a cup of ice. It was placed before Naruto before the minute was up.

He stared at it.

"And… what about—"

"Your teammates are fine. The village is fine. Even the other Tailed Beast container is fine. Everyone is fine."

"And—"

"Orochimaru is behind bars with enough chakra suppressant seals on him to fell a Kage. He is on constant, rotating watch by only our most trusted ANBU." She hesitated, something else on her tongue. Something that she wasn't saying. It was at times like these where Kurama's emotion sensing ability would have come in handy. He didn't need a special beast ability to sense her irritation, though.

"Tsunade," he said. Nothing else. It hurt, but he stretched his neck to turn to look at her. She was wearing a frown strong enough to crease her face, and two golden eyebrows furrowed as she looked down at him. Still, she didn't say anything. "What's wrong?"

It was an open-ended question, and probably not the best one to ask, but he was still tired. There was a mounting headache building from the back of his skull and despite his best attempts he couldn't stem it.

"What's wrong?" Tsunade asked. "You want to know what's wrong?"

From the way her voice was climbing, Naruto had decided that he, in fact, did not want to know what was wrong. He wanted to know why he didn't just go back to sleep.

"How about the fact that you stole my necklace from me and didn't give it back? A cursed necklace that kills all who touches it? How about the fact that you chose to go out of your way to fight one of the most dangerous missing ninja to have ever come out of the Leaf since Madara Uchiha? How about the fact that you did so, and it took someone else to ring the alarm for backup to arrive? Did you think you'd be able to beat the man? Did you think you, Genin of less than a year, was strong enough to beat a man who had been a Jonin for longer than you've been alive?"

At some point throughout her rant she had rose from her chair. It scraped against the bleached tiles, sending an uncomfortable sound ringing through the mostly bare hospital room. The metal pen in her hand had started to bend.

"Do you not have any regard for your life, you stupid child? What is it with all of you foolish little boys with your stupid dreams of doing more than you're capable of? Do you think you're invincible? Do you think that no one would miss you once you're dead and gone from the world?"

Tsunade had all but broken the pen, twisting it into an L-shape that was definitely unusable. She was grinding her teeth so hard that he could hear it. She was upset.

Naruto grunted. She had no right to be.

"I had it under control," was all he was able to say. He wanted to say more. Who the hell was she to come in and talk to him like that? She wasn't his mom. She wasn't even his friend. She was a mission objective and nothing more. He could feel his own teeth start to grind as he considered her words. They made him angry. He was tired of people talking like they knew him. Like they had any right to tell him how to act.

"Oh. Really?" Tsunade asked. Her voice was a lilting, mocking cadence that set Naruto's blood to a boil. He wanted nothing more than to spring out of his chair and sock her, no matter how little good it would do, but he couldn't. His body protested even the thought of doing such a thing. So, instead, he was forced to sit there in his chair and glare at her. "Well, some control you had. You're half dead in a hospital bed with just enough energy to scream before an errant fly takes you out of existence. You'd be fully dead if I didn't decide to stay in Konoha."

"I saved people," Naruto snarled. "If I didn't do what I did, my teammates would be dead and an internationally wanted missing ninja, your teammate, would still be out and about kicking babies and eating puppies!"

Naruto wanted his words to validate him. To make all of the pain and anger he was feeling worth something. To make everything he'd done until now justified.

All he succeeded in doing was making Tsunade laugh.

"First off, kid, Orochimaru is a sick bastard. He would kick the puppies and eat the babies. Second, did you think that this was a good idea? To chase after Orochimaru? You do realize that, had he been serious with you, that you would be a stain along the forest floor? The only reason that you're alive right now is because that man underestimated you all the way until it was too late for him to back out." Tsunade then scowled. "His ego was finally too big for his skills."

"You keep saying I chased him. In case you didn't notice, that man infiltrated the Chuunin Exams to come after me. Not the other way around."

"True," Tsunade said. "But you didn't have to stay. You didn't have to continue fighting him well after you repelled him the first time. After you sent up the emergency flare, your number one objective should have been to escape."

"Don't you think we wanted to? Orochimaru was faster than us! And stronger than us! There was no where we could go!"

"A likely story."

"A true one!"

Naruto could feel the remnants of the Fox's chakra as he all but snarled at his doctor. Tsunade, however, was unperturbed. She continued to stare at him with a measured cool she did not have a few minutes ago.

"Are you done?" she asked after a few minutes. Naruto wanted to spit at her.

"Depends. Are you?"

"With your diagnosis? Yes. Your Uzumaki genes are working nicely. Normally, brain function begins to cease and neurodegenerative ailments tend to occur as soon as a few hours after the removal of the Cursed Seal of Heaven." Tsunade set down her clipboard, having already read the information she needed off of it. "For you, however, there seems to be no lasting damage. Although…" she stared at Naruto once again, and once again the blond was subjected to a feeling he didn't like: that of being a lab rat before a scientist. "… the sudden outburst of anger is quite unusual. Even if I riled you up, you shouldn't have been this upset."

Naruto felt that he should have been upset, but he couldn't bring himself to spare the energy. The only thing on his mind was digging his fingers into Tsunade's endlessly regenerative skin and savoring the blood that—

Wait.

That wasn't normal.

Naruto closed his eyes.

Chakra was an always flowing, ever-present thing. It represented someone's willpower and their energy. It was physical prowess personified, as well as the individual's ability to do things. Chakra was mystical in nature, and some believed that it represented the soul. True, those who specialized in genjutsu were perhaps the most interested in that field of study, as they were able to impart emotions, feelings, and thoughts all with a few handsigns.

It was truly impressive. It was also not entirely what Naruto was focused on.

Like in genjutsu, whenever a foreign chakra invaded your own, it tended to leave lasting effects on the person's body. On their mind. For Naruto, that foreign chakra was typically the Fox's, and as such Naruto was typically more vindictive and malicious when he used the Fox's chakra more than he usually was. Since the Fox was a being of rage, Naruto was also more prone to angry outbursts, but they were more along the lines of petty trickery than anything else.

What Naruto was feeling now wasn't trickery or convoluted revenge, however. What Naruto was feeling now was a distinct taste for violence and causing another irreparable pain. While that wasn't outside of Naruto's field of expertise, it wasn't something that he ever found himself yearning for.

Which meant that these intentions weren't his own.

Naruto started the search in his core. Almost all chakra originated from there, and it was where most ninjas pulled the chakra for their techniques. To his relief, his core felt fine. Full, dense, and sunny, just like Naruto. There were no impurities there, and as such, Naruto felt he could breathe a sigh of relief.

Sure, there was none of the slight reddish tint of miasma that Naruto had come to associate with his chakra core, but that was something he could get to later.

After that, Naruto extended his attention outwards. His heart was fine, there was nothing going on there, and his legs were completely unharmed as well. In his physical body, both of those were in immense pain from the broken bones, but the chakra flowing through them—giving them the strength to move and recover—was perfectly fine. Naruto made a checklist and went down it.

Stomach was fine. Legs were fine. Each of his toes were fine. His heart was fine, and pumping liberally in his chest, and even his…

… wait.

Something was wrong with his arms. A dark, barely there, cloud of miasma floated amongst his normally blue chakra. Everywhere it went, he felt greasy and wrong, and his muscles ached even more in the places where the cloud was thickest.

That was Orochimaru's miasma. He was sure of it. The thought of that snake bastard still being inside of him filled Naruto with a disgust that he couldn't quite articulate.

"His chakra," Naruto managed to mumbled. "The damned Snake still has some of his chakra in me. Usually it's not to hard to remove, but there are… circumstances going on right now."

He could see the way Tsunade's golden eyebrow rose, but he decided not to give her anymore information. He was already tired of the woman's presence. Instead, he turned over in his hospital bed. Away from the overpowered medic.

"I see," was all that Tsunade said.

Naruto decided that the hated whenever doctors said that to him.

"Anything else?" he asked, his voice more spiteful than he intended for it to be. He really didn't want to be this sour, but he couldn't help it. "Or do you have anything else to harp on me about?"

A silence overcame the room, and Naruto just knew that the woman was staring at him. He wasn't stupid. He had spent enough time with the woman to know how she operated. She was more likely to punch first and ask questions later, and he could tell the woman's legendary temper was quickly reaching that point.

Normally he would be terrified of such things, but for some reason he wasn't. He turned back over in the bed and glared defiantly at her, his teeth bared and ready. He wouldn't be able to defend against her retribution, but that didn't matter right now. He wanted to see her explode. He needed to see her explode. And he knew that she would.

The moment stretched on into an unbearable minute, the two blondes glaring at one another. The beeping of the monitor attached to him was the only thing to break the silence of the room besides the ever-present clicking of the nurse's shoes in the hallway outside.

Tsunade raised her hand, and despite his best efforts Naruto found himself flinching. He closed his eyes, preparing himself for the hit.

He wasn't expecting the soft tap on his head. He opened his eyes, only to see the golden eyes of the only female Sannin staring back at him.

"Why are you all so stubborn?" she asked. The anger was gone, evaporated like mist. In its place was something else. Something wet and heavy. Her hand trailed down to his whiskered cheeks, pinching it slightly and sending a dull pain through his body, before reaching for the crystal hanging from his neck.

In truth, he hadn't thought of much when he swiped it from her. It was a minor prank that he had somehow grown attached to. Apparently, it was something much more important to her than he thought.

"I…" Naruto started. He had words—he always did, it came with the territory—but for some reason they died on the tip of his tongue. He continued to stare at Tsunade, his jaw working but his voice not.

"They were just like you, you know," Tsunade continued. "Maybe a little sweeter. A lot more endearing. But they were just as stubborn. I think that's my fault, really. I just attract stubborn men."

Naruto wanted to ask what she meant by that, but before he could the blonde was already flowing out of the room. The door closed behind her, dropping the room into a silence that Naruto didn't like.

He hadn't been in such silence in a while, always having the Fox to whisper into his ear.

He stared at the ceiling.

XxX

It took three days. Three days of constant monitoring and full-body checkups from multiple people. There was an assortment of nurses that came in, all of whom had these apologetic looks on their faces, but besides one medical ninja that came in to do a scanning jutsu on him late at night, Tsunade was the only doctor that tended to him.

Every single time she entered, Naruto felt like screaming.

"I see you're still here," she would say, a snide smile on her face. It wasn't as if he could leave. The first time he tried she personally came and tied him back onto the bed. "Must you darken my day with your scowl?"

To Naruto's extreme disappointment, he was actually scowling. He wanted to say something smart back, but the medication he was on was dulling his mind.

"Don't worry, boy. You'll be out of here soon enough. We just have to make sure your chakra coils are fully restored and your chakra generation pathways are working at full capacity."

Naruto wasn't even going to pretend that he knew what she was talking about. It was likely all bullshit meant to keep him in the hospital bed and torture him for as long as possible. He could almost respect her if it was.

After what felt like forever he was finally discharged. He couldn't sign those papers fast enough.

"The second half of the Chuunin exams has just ended. Your team passed if it means anything to you."

Naruto's eyebrow quirked as he digested that information. He wasn't aware that Tsunade was following the Chuunin Exams. Still, it was nice to know that his team was still in it… somehow.

"I, personally, would not recommend you rejoin. You are… physically… up to par. That's thanks to the Uzumaki genes and their incredible vitality. But chakra won't be as responsive as it usually is and there's the issue of extensive chakra usage making your situation worse."

Naruto looked up from the fat stack of papers that he had to sign. He stared at his medic. "Are you saying that I can't use chakra?"

Tsunade's face became pained. "I'm not saying that you can't. You are definitely able to. But I would rather you not. You could irreparably damage your chakra coils to the point where you wouldn't be able to be a ninja anymo—"

"But I could use my chakra, correct?"

Tsunade stared at him. There wasn't a glare there. It was more like a stern stare. It looked to him resigned. And tired.

"You can," she finally said.

"That's all I needed to hear."

He shrugged on his coat and headed towards the door. He passed by nurses and the like, all who offered him pointed, if not withering stares, before returning to the things they were doing.

"Hey," Tsunade called. Her voice was languid, tired. "Just promise me you'll keep it light. Despite what you may think, you're not back at full strength as of yet. Your body is impressive, but it's still tired. You recovered from something that you really shouldn't have been able to so quickly. That requires an enormous amount of energy that you haven't gotten back."

Naruto stared at her. Usually he would have a witty retort ready, but for some reason humor wasn't the first thing to come to mind. Rather, something dark and ugly reared up in him. He couldn't imagine the words, not exactly, but he could feel the intent. He didn't like it. He had opened his mouth to speak but had closed it after contemplating his thoughts.

That was weird.

"Alright," he said instead, having nothing else. His voice was dry. Words felt wrong. "I'll try."

Tsunade didn't look satisfied, but there wasn't much she could do. She signed his discharge and waved him away, setting off further into the hospital amongst the chattering of nurses and doctors that were far below her station.

She was still in Konoha. The booze and alcohol he had pilfered for her had run out long ago, and yet she was still in Konoha.

That was weird. She was weird. People were acting weirdly and Naruto, for the life of him, couldn't figure out why.

She shook his head before turning back to the door. He made his way out of the hospital's automatic doors before forcing chakra to his legs. It responded, as he was sure it would, but the action felt slow. Like honey running off a spoon.

Naruto took a mental note of that before pushing off the ground. He made it to the rooftops in a single jump and started on the long trek home.