The Kinkou of the Yajuu
I don't own Naruto and Animorphs!
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"Talking"
'Thoughts'
-telepathy-
XD Scene change
/ Different point of view
):P Flash back
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Chapter 7
He bares his teeth in the mirror he has set up in the basement where he trains. He's currently testing out his Uritso morph since he figured it was about time he tested it. The mind of the uritso was that of a hunter, though on the Iskoort planet they became urban scavengers, if he remembers correctly, the uritsos were brought to their world as fighting beasts, used for bait pits or 'cock' fighting.
It also seems that sometime ago, some kind of drunken fight occurred that caused a large amount of uritsos to escape and they've been in the sewers since, hunting the vermin that populate in those dank lower levels that's usually used as waste management. Though they do sometimes grow bold enough to attack travelers that use those levels to move about unseen, which he figures means those that are doing illegal activities or something along those lines.
He rears up onto his last pair of hind legs, the first row of hind legs slice the air before he's back onto standing on all four legs. He feels the impatience in the uritso's mind, it wanted to track down, kill, and feed on something. He sighs and lets out an uritso's aquavit of a snarl. He blinks one set of eyes and then the other set, finding that to be really odd.
He pauses and cocks his head up to the ceiling of the basement. "Naruto?" He hears Cassie's voice say. –I'm in the basement!- He shouts to her. He contemplates between de-morphing and hiding the fact he has this beast's DNA or just remain in this body as Cassie tells him why she's here.
He heads to the stair case before Cassie opens it. Cassie lets out a startled cry, arousing the uritso's desire to attack. He shrugs the desire off and says, -I'm kind of getting use to this body. Sorry for startling you.- Cassie recovers and shakes her head. "You haven't mentioned you acquired this creature is all." Cassie says.
He sighs mentally and begins changing back into his human form. He focuses on his legs merging back together and on his eyes doing the same thing. Next he does the spikes on his back as well as the large pair of fangs jetting out of his lower mouth. His hands, skin, and size comes next with his bones and muscles rearranging back into what they should be.
Soon he's standing at the bottom of the stairs with Cassie staring at him in amazement. He cocks his head, giving her a puzzled look. "Cassie?" He asks, concern beginning to appear on his face. "You just… and then it was…" Cassie says, not really making any sense at the moment.
"Huh?" He asks. Cassie recovers and says, "You controlled your morphing." He nods as he admits, "It's kind of similar to the practice that allows me to walk on walls and on water." "You can walk on water? Wait, never mind. Look, I need your help. Everyone has come down with this morphing flu and we need to get Aftran out of the Yeerk pool. So, will you help?" Cassie asks. "Sure, I am you're guys' support last time I checked." He says, Cassie looks relieved and he climbs up the stairs.
"So, what's the plan?" He asks once he closes the basement door. He blinks as Cassie explains the plan. He pales as he realises what it entails. "Uh Cassie, I think you should know something… I'm kind of possessed." He says and Cassie blinks. "You mean like demonic possession?" Cassie asks, clearly not buying it.
He rolls up his shirt and Cassie humours him. He gathers chakra and Cassie looks up at him then back at his stomach. He puts his shirt back down and looks at a wall. "Ok, what was that?" Cassie asks, he blinks as he realise that she doesn't know a thing about seals.
"That's what's keeping a highly dangerous nine-tail fox Demon called Kyuubi from massacring the humans of my home village. You see, the day I was born was when the giant demon decided to attack my village. The leader at the time was the Fourth Hokage, the leader of the village at the time." He says, he takes a few seconds as he collects his thoughts and confidence.
"They couldn't harm the fox; all they could do was sacrificing their lives in order to slow the fox down until the Fourth came up with a way to end the demonic threat. I'm not sure what he did, but he sacrificed his life to seal a highly dangerous and powerful being inside of a new born baby, which was me. It's also the reason why I have these scars on my face; they're a reminder of what I carry in my gut." He explains.
"I don't know what became of my parents and the old man never told me if I had any family. But then, people needed a scapegoat and since I'm the one that's the closest to the fox, they figured that I was the fox reincarnate. Truth be told, I'm kind of amazed that I lived considering how much they wanted me death. I didn't even know why they hated me until the night of Graduation when one of my academe teachers tricked me into getting this scroll filled with forbidden jutsus. He then proceeded to tell me about what happened the night I was born, though he, too, thought I was the fox reincarnate." He says. "I used the jutsu that I learnt from the Forbidden scroll to kick his ass, but… well; the only real thing that came out of it was learning why people hated me. Sure I learnt a powerful jutsu but that pales to how most people see me." He adds, his right hand balled into a fist.
"I can see why you don't let anyone close; you're scared that once they find out that they'd reject you." Cassie says softly. "There's more too it then just that, Cassie." He says softly before he lightens up. "Will now that you know, you're still interested in going through with this?" He asks, not wanting to linger on the topic any more.
Cassie nods and he asks, "Should we do it here or should we wait until we get to the entrance?" "Now would be best." Cassie says and he performs a Henge into a more generic looking teen. Once done, he watches as Cassie morphs into a Yeerk, which definitely isn't a pretty process to watch.
He sighs and picks up the Cassie Yeerk. He then holds her to his ear and shivers as he feels Cassie's chakra signature enter into his brain. Then he blacks out.
XD
He blinks as he awakens in a familiar place. He sighs, he kind of figured something like this was going to happen, but he had kind of prayed that it would have been slightly simpler then this. "Cassie? Cassie!" He shouts out, but doesn't get a reply.
He frowns and begins to search the sewer that's in his mind. It takes time, but he finally locates Cassie as she stares into a room. He can't help but notice the tears running down her face. He pulls her out of the doorway, the door closing once that's done. Cassie then begins to sob in his chest, he attempts to comfort her.
"I can't believe people could be so… How could they do that to a child?" Cassie says between sobs. "Nobody said humans were perfect, they could be the holiest of saints or the devil himself. There's always two sides to a coin." He says, beginning to figure out what she witnessed.
It takes time for Cassie to recover from viewing one of his childhood memories. "So, now where?" Cassie asks once Cassie lets go of him. "I'm guessing to where the fox is." He hazards a guess. "Why there?" Cassie asks. "The seal's design to keep the Kyuubi from escaping or taking over, so it's logical to think that it's the reason why we're here and I'm sure the fox knows how to get around it. After all, he's the one that knows my body inside and out." He says, he can tell that Cassie's still shaken up about what happened but wants to try and put it out of her mind, temporally since it's going to take a while before Cassie recovers from viewing one of his memories.
After what seems like an hour, they finally arrive at the place where the Kyuubi resides. "I was wondering where you two were." The demonic fox states as two large red eyes glance down at them. "Yea well, we got side tracked." He says, worried about what the fox could do to Cassie.
"So why are we here? I'm guessing it's got something to do with the seal, but I'm sure you know what's going on." He asks the fox. The giant beast chuckles and replies, "If it had been anyone but her, I would have fried the parasite that entered into our body, but since you were willing to have her in your head, you two ended up here, in your mind." "So you know where the exit is." He says and once more, the beast chuckles. "Of course." The kyuubi says.
He sighs, guessing that the fox was done being help full, though he can't help but frown at the way the demon is talking about his body. "Why do you keep saying 'our'?" He finally asks, Cassie seems to be overwhelmed by this experience. "Lets just say I'm more then happy with this morphing ability that you picked up. I've finally been able to improve your body since you're started transforming using that alien gift." The fox says and turns away from him, he glares at the fox's butt but a glance at Cassie keeps him from shouting at the fox for doing something to his body without his permission.
"Come on, he's done helping us out." He says to Cassie, she looks away and swallows; clearly the killing intent had been affecting her throughout the conversation. Cassie nods and she begins to regain her colour. He notices a door and he motions for Cassie to go through it first, she does so and he glances over his shoulder before he shakes his head and walks through the door.
XD
-You ok?- He asks. –That was worst then with the Crayak.- Cassie admits. –Sadly enough, he wasn't at his worst today, so you were spared the true force of his killing intent.- He says, he helps Cassie regain her balance.
A quick look at the watch says they've only been gone for about two minutes. –Ok, how did you do that?- Cassie asks. –Do what?- He asks. –Help me rebalance your body.- Cassie says. –I've had plenty of practice with the minds of the beasts I've been morphing. Why? You don't do that?- He asks. –I think it might have something to do with that seal you mentioned, it means that you can't be totally dominated by outside influences.- Cassie theorises. –Well, that's nice to know. So, did you want to fly to the entrance or walk?- He asks and soon they're on their way, he just hopes that all of this work wasn't for nothing.
XD
He watches as Cassie cuts into Ax's head, he flinches at the colour of the alien's blood. He glances over to where Erek is before returning his gaze to Cassie pulling something out of Ax's head. It's not long before the Yeerk comes out, Ax sounds pissed about the whole incident so he kind of knocks the guy out.
Erek shakes his head but he says, "He needs his rest." He then glances at Cassie, who most likely already has the Yeerk inside of her head. "So, now what do we do?" Erek asks, he finds that everyone is kind of looking at him as if he has all the answers. "Well, she's got about three days before she needs to feed, right? Well, how about we pull a Tobias?" He suggests. They blink at him and he decides to expand on it. "Have her remain in a morph over the time limit." He clarifies.
"Oh." Cassie says. "So, what kind of beast does she want to be?" He asks and Cassie looks thoughtful as the Yeerk and Cassie converse.
XD
He sighs as he watches as the Yeerk turned whale leaps out of the water one last time. He glances to where the others, all of them had recovered from the flu they received from Ax, were standing and it seems that they too were impressed with the choice that Aftran made. He doesn't deny that it felt good, watching somebody begins a new life.
"So, now what happens?" Danielle wonders. "How about a picnic at the beach?" He suggests, Ax perks at the mention of food. "But you don't bring anything heavy." Rachel states, he takes out a scroll and with little effort, some beach items come out of the scroll, he notices the startled glances before they just shake their collective heads. "Ok, what can't you do?" Marco demands, he just grins his trade mark grin in answer.
XD
They were numb from shock as they realise that the Crayak got his payment in the form of Jake. He feels for the original members of the group since they were the closest to Jake. A quick look at the newest members of the group, they were looked slightly depressed about these turns of events.
He doesn't know where most of the others were located but he's currently with Blue and them. "Ok, now what?" Nath asks and he replies, "We find the ex-Visser and get where he stashed the Time Matrix. Blue goes with Kit on the ground in their respective morphs that will fix in and the rest of us will morph our owls to search around for the guy." The group nods, he's the first to finish morphing into his barred owl morph while Kit is the second one to morph into her red fox morph, he still can't help but shake his head at her choice of morph. Nath, Danielle, and Blue finish about the same time, Blue in his lynx morph.
He takes to the sky with Nath and Danielle following him. –Good luck.- Kit says and he replies, -Thanks, you too.- He then shout out, -Rachel? Are you still flying around?- He gets a reply from Rachel, -What?- -We need to find the ex-Visser, do you see him around your point?- He asks.
As he circles over the stand of trees that had been the camp of the Americans, Blue and Kit lop around towards the river so they can cross and check out the enemy camp. Nath and Danielle were following them from the air, leaving him alone over the almost deserted camp.
Then suddenly, the scenery changed and he's flying over buildings instead of a snowy landscape. –I think he just time jumped again.- Nath says. –Duh.- Kit says. –Err, should Kit and I change morphs? I think we're beginning sink.- Blue says and he replies, -Probably.- He sighs mentally, he continues flies above a large body of water.
Soon enough Blue and Kit were once more human and they're attempting to swim towards what appears to be a ship, Nath and Danielle flying towards the ship where he spies Tobias flying about. He blinks as he hears Tobias shout out, panic ever much in evident in his tone, -Anybody?- -Tobias! Where are you?- He shouts out and Tobias replies, -I see you guys! Hurry, something's going on over here.-
-Like what?- Nath asks as the teen in an owl's body. –I see Rachel, Marco, and Ax! There're chasing Visser Four!- Tobias reports as they finally reach the ship. –Ok then, where's Cassie?- He wonder out loud. Suddenly Tobias is shouting about Rachel needing to de-morph and then from Marco wondering what's in some kind of barrel.
-Why don't I like the sounds of that?- Danielle asks. –I don't think that's a good sign.- Nath says. They watch as something explodes, a large fire can be seen from the air as it begins to consume the ship. Then the scenery changes and the ship isn't around.
-Now where are we?- Nath demands, below, Blue and Kit were glancing around before they stand up on firm ground. "Does it matter?" Blue says softly, though those flying can hear it easily. "Not likely, though I wish we'd arrive with the rest of the group. This is just getting ridicules!" Kit says in angry.
He sighs and finds a spot to land that's slightly hidden from the street since they arrived in an alley way. He de-morphs and steps away to allow either Nath or Danielle to de-morph in that spot. Soon all of them were human and he checks out who's around by feeling out chakra.
Then a thought struck him and he groans about how stupid he has been when he can locate the others by finding that odd addition to their chakra, that addition that allows them to morph. He fillers his sense and found them about four blocks away. "There' four blocks that way." He says as he turns into the direction he senses their chakra from.
"I guess we're walking then." Blue hazards a guess and he nods in agreement. Soon they're heading off in that direction. He just hopes they meet up with them before they jump again.
/ Kit/
"Were we just in Rome?" She wonders. "We might have been." Nath replies, they're currently standing in water or should she say, everyone but Naruto were standing in water. Some how, Naruto's standing on top of the water's surface, something that only Jesus was said be able to do.
"So, when did you become the son of God?" She asks and Naruto blinks owlishly, clearly not understanding the reference. "You know, Jesus Christ? Said to be the son of God?" Danielle clarifies. "Oh, these? It's to help with energy control. I can actually walk up a side of a building without using my hands." Naruto answers and they all blink before they just shake their heads.
'It really makes you wonder just what he can't do.' She muses and they're soon walking towards the shore, though she does wonder about the ships that were beached on the shore line. "Why does this look familiar?" Blue asks. "Maybe 'cause I think this is WW2." Nath says and it clicks. "So now we have to worry about Nazis?" She says. "Or some other nation that started WW2, since things have changed since we started this whole trip. First that English and French battle, then the Washington disaster, that naval battle, that 1934 jump, and then those random leaps we just finish experience. Who knows how messed up the time line is." Nath says.
"I can think of at least three beings that know the extent." Naruto mutters, she nods in agreement. "So battle morphs?" Blue asks and Naruto nods. "Let's just pray that we're here long enough to join up with them." Naruto adds. They hide behind one of the ships and morph into their battle morphs. She's becoming her leopard morph as Blue once more transforms into his lynx morph, Nath's going into his male lion morph, Danielle morphs into a black jaguar, and then Naruto into his puma morph.
-Let's move out!- Naruto orders and they're moving onto the shore line, oddly enough, Naruto the puma was still walking on top of the water…
To be continued …