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The thing with the tails? Ignore it. It's a glitch.
Kyuubi knows the tune cause it's ingrained into the minds of all kitsune at a young age by their parents. There will be more explantions later on.
WARNING! This chapter gets kinda gory towards the end. Really gory.
Whisper regarded the pile of orange clothing and smiled. It was not exactly a nice smile, more of a 'Kukukuku!' grin.
With the same insane grin on his face, Whisper dropped the lit match on Naruto's oil-soaked clothing. The pile went up with an audible 'PHOOMPF!'
Sasuke, duct taped to a single lounge chair and gagged, watched with morbid fascination as the blonde's entire wardrobe went up in flames. He'd turned up to pick up his team mate and woken up a pissy Whisper instead.
Naruto, the blonde in question, wandered past the merrily burning bonfire, contained in his dust bin, located in his lounge room, and into the kitchen, yawning and scratching his rear.
Hinata stood by the door, face bright red and staring at the blond boy with something between nigh total devotion and disbelief that she was actually in her crush's apartment. She'd turned up for the morning lesson he'd promised her.
And, for some odd reason, Gaara of the Desert stood next to Hinata with an expression similar to Hiei's 'The F--- Is This?' Look on his face. Whisper suspected it was to speak with him about what had happened.
Whisper hummed and turned back to his bonfire. It was just a matter of time before it occurred to Naruto that not only was there a fire in the room, but his friend was also taped in a position that was really bad for a nin to be in.
"And a 3…2…1-"
"AAAHHHH!"
Naruto bolted back into the room, looked at the bin fire, screamed again and ran back into the kitchen. Moments later, he ran back into the room with a cup of water, which he then threw onto the fire. The fire leaped indignantly.
The four nin watched as Naruto became more and more panicked as the fire refused to go out, until Whisper, noticing the tears in the blonde's eyes, went on a guilt trip and kicked the bin over so it was upside down, cutting off the fire's air supply.
Naruto turned his big crystalline eyes to Whisper's vibrant gold and emerald ones in a silent plea for comfort. The black fox cringed mentally but held out an arm in an invitation. The blond latched on and didn't let go.
As he started humming, he wondered if anyone had ever offered this when Naruto was a child. His eyes glanced around the room, catching the eyes of the others before moving on.
Sasuke's now red Sharingan eyes were worried and confused with just a touch of envy.
Hinata's were sad, flickering as she struggled to find the courage to approach her love.
Gaara's usually empty green eyes were filled with the same longing and broken sorrow the golden fox's had held before lunging for the darker one. The Sand Child took a few steps forward and his hand rose before he realise what he was doing.
Itachi, standing just in the bedroom door, met his gaze and stared back unwaveringly. There was something fierce in those spinning red eyes; something that would stop at nothing to get what it wanted, totally dedicated to the task before it. Whisper supposed it was a particularly powerful will. Life, one could say. Itachi turned and padded out of his line of sight.
And last, Whisper turned his gaze to the shade watching from the corner. The twin pools of blue, exact replicas of those belonging to the boy in his arms, held regret and dull pain. The blond shade in red turned away.
Whisper's attention turned back to the blond in his arms when he started to hum in time with Whisper's, only in a deeper, vibrating voice that reminded him of Youko; Warm fur, fangs, deep purrs, growls and high sharp barks.
"Well. Well. Well. What have we here?"
There was a man standing in Naruto's doorway, who, according to the looks of horror on the other three's faces, was a bad guy.
If it looks like a snake, sounds like a snake and moves like a snake, you got to admit there's a pretty high chance of it being a snake.
Whisper raised his eyebrow, for now ignoring the blond purring into his chest and the brief sense of deja vu. "And…you are?" He put as much disinterested snobbery into his voice as he could be bothered to.
The snake-man twitched momentarily, before leering, an abnormally long tongue wagging in the air. "I am Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin and Otokage of Hidden Sound Village. I believe you have something that belongs to me." He turned his crazy snaky eyes to the bound Sasuke, who looked like he wanted to bolt.
Itachi appeared in the bedroom door again, but out of sight of everyone else. Whisper vaguely noticed that he had the exact expression on his face that Hiei had when Kuwabara flirted with Yukina. He also noted that Gaara had put Hinata in a corner before placing himself in front of her. The shade was glaring holes into the dark-haired man's head.
'Naruto' was still crooning 'The Three-Fold Lament', but Whisper had since noted that the boy was pulsing with a great deal of highly concentrated Kitsune energy. The only reason Whisper was aware of it was because the boy was pressed against him. He doubted that any of the others were aware of the fact that it was now the boy's demon currently in control of the body.
Whisper gently pushed the bound fox back and turned to face the Sannin head-on.
"Really now. And here I thought the Spore was reinstated as a Konoha Shinobi."
Orochimaru smirked but didn't answer. His eyes roved over Whisper's form. "So…You must be the one who beat Itachi Uchiha."
Whisper smiled ironically, though he was disgusted at the implications of the snake's gaze, activating what he had discovered was an advanced bloodline called Tsuin Rasen Sori, the Twin Spiral Warp, just in case. "Not beat. Hemight have won if our fight hadn't been interrupted. He has a lot morepower, skill and control than I, butI have more battle experience, analytic abilityand strategic flexability. The only reason I could keep up with him is because of my bloodline ability. We were so evenly matched that it was like fighting myself."
The snake ignored Gaara and Hinata and moved away from them to try to circle around Whisper and 'Naruto' to get at Sasuke. Whisper wasn't worried; the snake would have to pass the bedroom door to get to the Spore. Whisper caught Gaara's eyes for a moment and jerked his head slightly. He was satisfied when the Kazekage grabbed Hinata and quietly dragged her out the door.
The Spiral eyes turned back to the snake in time to see him jerk back with a hiss as he barely avoided being stuck on the end of Itachi's Ninja-to.
Orochimaru looked uncertain for a moment before he covered it up. "What is this!" He hissed.
Whisper smiled. "I believe it's called a Big Brother Complex."
Itachi threw him a dirty look.
Only Whisper had noted that 'Naruto' was no longer behind him.
Noting the startled and enraged look in the gagged Uchiha's eyes, Whisper decided to define the Big Brother Complex. "This particular complex is particularly troublesome because it causes the big brother to become aggressively protective of the younger sibling, or siblings, to the point where they go to extreme lengths to keep them safe. There was a case in the Dune Country where a big brother brutally murdered his clan's council of elders because they were going to marry his twelve-year-old sister to a paedophile to cement diplomatic relations." Whisper smile thinly at Orochimaru, having noticed the flicker on unease that flashed through his eyes. "The only reason I can see for Itachi to have killed his clan was to protect Sasuke and lied about his reason for doing so, or…" Whisper's smile because almost predatory. "He could have lied about having done it in the first place."
Orochimaru faltered for a moment. In that moment, the demon in Naruto's body pounced onto the Otokage's back, clawed hands and feet digging into the man's torso and his fanged jaw clamping onto his neck. There was screaming as the Sannin fell with the demon riding his back, a squelch as a hand was pulled from ribs and moved down to gut the man. The screaming became panicked and gurgled as the man tried to throw the demon off, while the demon dug up under the ribcage looking for the heart.
There was a crunch and the screams stopped. Shoulders jerked as the hand flew back out of the chest, covered in gore and holding a piece of flesh.
Slit-pupiled red eyes looked up to regard the three others in the room, blood smeared around Naruto's mouth. For a moment, just a moment, the three saw the red fox's hanyou form.
The boy looked a small fourteen or so with feathery crimson hair falling straight down like a curtain to about ankle-length loose, but was caught up and braided about two feet from the head. The skin was a clean bronze stretched over a feminie, vulpine face similar to Whisper's own, dominated by huge almond-shaped eyes the same shade as his hair. The clothes the fox wore were drifty and black, splashed with red and gold, consisting of a loose black mid-riff tank-top, a pair of black short-shorts draped with nine scarves of black and crimson. Black knee-stockings bared the heels and clawed toes of his feet. Similar fingerless gloves went to the upper arm where they were tied with red ribbon. On each finger were golden claws attached to the gloves. Around his neck was a plated gold neck-protector/chocker. If it weren't for the eyes and slightly pointed ears, he could have passed for a rich, tribal human boy.
And then the image was gone.
'He's powerful.' Youko whispered in his host's mind.
Those big red eyes flickered between Whisper and Sasuke for a few moments before he realised that the boy was choking on his own vomit behind the gag. Whisper ripped the gag off and turned away so he didn't have to watch. If Sasuke had been forced to swallow, Whisper wouldn't have been able to stop himself from hurling.
The demon's head snapped around to stare at the door, head slightly lifted to scent the air. Whisper tilted his head as well. He blinked and turned to Itachi, sharply.
"Nin are coming. Go."
The dark haired manjerked an affirmative and he moved toward the bedroom where he paused to spare his brother a glance before disappearing.
A slight sucking sound said that the demon had stood. He looked back at the blond form. "You should go back to sleep." He told the demon softly. "If you stay in control too long, the body deteriorates and puts a strain on the host's mind."
The eyes looked at him for a long moment, judging him, before the jaw tilted slightlyin acquiescence. "As you wish. We will speak later." The demon spoke in a deep, smooth voice with a slight echo. The demon threw a glare at the still shade in the corner before he left and the body collapsed beside the Otokage's corpse.
There was a crash as the wall surrounding the door hit the floor. The dust settled to reveal Tsunade, Gaara, Hinata, various other nin and no less than twelve ANBU.
Whisper smiled. Sasuke was still taped to the chair (only now he was covered in puke too), the walls were still standing (except the front one), the furniture hadn't been trashed, (if you ignore the bloodstains) and everyone was still alive and relatively unharmed (unless you count the late Orochimaru).
"Where ya been? You missed the party!"
Quote: Murphy's law: 'Never play leap frog with a Unicorn.' True quote. ; )
