See Prologue for disclaimer

Everyone's Grudge – Chapter 1

Naruto hummed tunelessly as lay back, entranced by the flickering light emanating from the lantern clutched in his upraised hand. He spent a few more minutes admiring the glow from the lamp before a flick of his wrist sent it winging upwards so that the heavy ring it dangled from caught on a rocky crag on the cave ceiling a few feet above him.

He waited for the light to become still again then sat up tailor style and drew a heavy knife from his hip, resting it on one knee as he rooted through his pockets for a whetstone.

Taking a breath and steadying his mind he hefted the knife in his right hand and took the stone in his left. Holding the knife with its blade away from him he drew the whetstone up its length in a measured, even stroke. Twisting his wrist he applied the stone to the other side of the knife. He returned his wrist to its original position and repeated his movements.

As his body moved through a familiar pattern, his eyes closed, his mind became quiet and all of his attention focused on the blade of his knife. With each stroke of the stone he fell deeper into his trance and the glimmering edge became more brilliant in his minds eye.

After a time his vision of the knife was as perfect as the reality he held in his hands, and he knew instinctively that it was time to begin. A tendril of thought wormed its way deeper into his soul, into the visceral, primal parts that existed in everyone but that few acknowledged and fewer still could learn to wield. It was there that he found what he was looking for: a wellspring of rage and hatred in their purest forms, hatred against his enemies and rage against the world at large.

Drawing deeply from that well he withdrew to the higher levels of his mind dragging a tsunami of emotional energy in his wake. Soon he approached the core of his consciousness, where the vision of his weapon still rotated in empty space, the sound of the whetstone still ringing in his ears.

He imagined holding the knife, gripping by the smooth, wooden handle as he had so many times before and, instantly he was, for thought was as good as action in this place. There were many ways of holding the knife of course, each to suit the occasion, but he found himself gripping it in his own preferred manner, just below the bolster, with his thumb and index finger gripping the blade itself to give him more control.

He had time, briefly, to wonder as he always did about the sense of unity that gripped him as he touched the blade. To marvel at the realisation that the knife was not separate from him, but as much a part of him as any limb or organ might be. Then the wave crashed over both him and the knife, and thought escaped him.

In the so called "real world," his body was still moving, still plying the stone to the edge of his blade with skill and grace despite being for all other purposes comatose. Inside his head the scene was different, although the overall purpose was the same.

He stood amidst a maelstrom of emotional chaos and held his weapon high against it. His heavy knife cut through waves of fury, deflected torrents of rage, was etched n the acid of hatred and, rather than becoming dull through such abuse, its blade gleamed more brilliantly with every stroke it made. Its edge, already unnaturally keen, seemed to absorb the chaotic nature of the maelstrom surrounding it, until the storm itself began to seem calm in comparison to the wildly flickering blade clutched in his young hand.

He stood there, in this small, ruined part of his own mind. He stood there and cut, and kept cutting, each strike honing the knife, honing himself - mind, will and soul – along with it. In this small centre that was his own private insanity, his conscious mind held little sway, but some concepts had bled through: infinitely sharp, perfectly balanced, the epitome of violence contained in a single, small package. This was his goal, both for his knife and for himself, because in this place, at this time, there really was no difference.

Another wave came towards him, the pinnacle of his own violent potential. His to use, but it could just as easily destroy him if he flinched. It was natural to fear it somewhat, and maybe at some point he had, but there was no fear now, and he stepped forward without hesitation and struck, and the wave broke, splashing over and into him. He absorbed its rage and stepped forward to face the next.

The waves would never end, he knew. There was no way he could win this fight, not in the classical sense at least. The logical tactic would be to retreat, but retreat was not something he had ever been taught how to do, so he did the only thing he could and stepped forward. He might not be able to stop fighting, but he could keep fighting forever, and that would be victory enough. Striking down each enemy, and from it gaining the power and will to face the next. That was his way, it was all he knew.

He stepped forward, and cut.

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He was unsure how long he had been "sharpening his knife" when he became aware of something outside himself. Most of his awareness was with him in his mental battlefield, but a tiny sliver of consciousness remained in the waking world to detect threats.

Gathering himself, he thrust himself back into his body without any preparation. Not closing the channel to his primal side could pose problems later, but it was hardly anything he was unable to handle, and if something was coming then he wanted full wakefulness immediately.

He opened his eyes, amazed as always by the unnatural clarity that the world possessed after he had been honing himself. More so now than ever, with his mind practically dissected, flayed open to expose his deeper emotions, he was viewing everything through an icy lens of acid rage and cool logic.

He opened his senses to find what hat alerted him and forced him to wake early, only to stifle a groan as he realised that Pug was coming down the corridor. He had expected this, and had even been looking forward to it somewhat, but right now he could only see it as an annoyance, an interruption.

He stood quickly, shaking the cramp from his legs and returning his knife and whetstone to his hip holster and pocket respectively, before moving to grab his lantern by its ring, almost bumping his head on a low crag, but avoiding it with practiced grace. The other Folk tended to have their knives unsheathed when dealing with others, even others of their own kind. You could never tell where an attack might come from. Naruto tended to keep his out of sight. It was a mark of his confidence and a studied insult to anyone he met, akin to saying: "I don't need this to deal with you. You're no threat to me." It made them nervous, and so was a valuable tool to use, especially when it was true.

He leaned back against one wall and waited, his lantern dangling nonchalantly from one finger. Soon came the familiar shuffling as Pug entered the cave. Steel glinted in the grip of the smaller figure as he made his way to his place across from Naruto. He leaned back on his tail and raised his head so that the hood of his robe revealed more of his face and spoke.

"They want you gone."

No one could accuse any tonberry of being longwinded, or of beating about the bush. Naruto's response was equally direct and concise.

"I know"

Pug rocked on his feet briefly before speaking again.

"The Ki…" He cut off sharply as Naruto fixed him with a glare, then continued more cautiously. "The …Others…" he waited for further objection but received none, "they say you can attend the dedication, but you are to be gone by an hour after. They don't care where, just that they don't see you again."

Naruto stared down the creature that had done the most to raise him for long moments before replying with a single, clipped word.

"Yes."

Naruto leaned further back against the wall and let his eyes fall shut. It was a risky manoeuvre when he was standing in close quarters with someone who would kill him as soon as look at him, but he remained unworried. He did not, afterall, need his eyes to sense the world around him, and removing the distraction of sight let him think better.

He considered closing the channel to his emotional core now he had identified the disturbance, but resisted the urge. This level of rage was not sustainable for a long time, not even by him, but he would need it a while longer at least. He may have jut been exiled, but he intended to cause a stir on his way out.

'One last dedication, huh?' In the dim light cast by the twin lanterns, even Pug, watching closely for any sign of weakness, could not have noticed the faintest curl of his lip. 'In that case, I'd better make it count.'

He felt Pug move and cracked an eye, pinning the small reptile in place with an intensely blue glare.

Standing up straight and opening his eyes fully, putting the full weight of his laser-like focus on the tonberry in front of him he uttered a single word: "Leave!" before turning his back, never doubting that his order would be obeyed.

A hesitation, then his keen ears picked up the soft shuffle as Pug fled the cavern. Naruto allowed a faint smirk to cross his features before returning his focus to what was in front of him. What could have been mistaken for an oddly shaped rock in the dim light were in fact his robes. He had been forced to make considerable modifications to the traditional design in order to wear it. In addition to the size difference, and his lack of a tail, he was warm blooded, which made the classic robe far too hot for him to wear.

Robes were traditionally a loose one piece garment cut from a type of lizard leather, from one of the blind lizards that inhabited the deeper caves. His modifications had turned it into a loose pair of pants, with attached holster for his knife and pouches for other useful oddities on his belt, and something like a hooded overcoat, both with large pockets. The coat came down to his knees, and both garments were of the same, tan lizard-leather as the traditional robe, with some minor leatherwork on the hood and cuffs to mark them as his.

Naruto picked up the coat from the floor of the cave and shook it out. The days were getting warmer and he had not been wearing it recently. A small cloud of dust came off it and settled to the floor.

Slipping it on as he walked into a small cave on the side of his cavern, he quickly found where a shelf had been carved in the rock and went along it filling his pockets and pouches with useful items he had collected over the years.

Turning into yet another cave, he kneeled down and splashed himself with clear water from a basin carved into the floor. As the water settled again, he took notice of his reflection in the flickering lantern light. He frowned; something was missing, but what? Everything seemed to be present and correct: Pants, belt, holster, coat, and the silvery dog tags hanging at his throat.

His expression cleared as he realised what was missing. He slipped off his coat again and stood, picking up a roll of gauze from a pile of basic toiletries in the corner. With the ease of practice, he began to wind the bandages around his belly and back, finishing off by passing it once over his left shoulder and tying it off.

He checked his reflection again, and was satisfied to see that the bandages completely hid the seal on his stomach from view. The seal was his secret. Tonberry eyes were not fantastic in good light, and they had only ever viewed him in the dim light of their lanterns. The seal was all but invisible unless he was actively using chakra, and he had been certain never to let others see it and live to tell about it, but he was fairly certain that he would be using chakra before he even began his exile, and was preparing appropriately.

He pulled on the coat again and checked himself one last time. Satisfied that he was as ready as he could be he loosened his knife in its sheath and set off.

It was time for dedication.

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The caves he moved in were a virtual labyrinth, a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, but Naruto navigated the near-darkness with the ease of familiarity, until he came to the dedication chamber.

As he approached the entrance to the chamber, he stopped moving lightly as he was used to doing, instead letting his bare feet slap against the stone floor, not loudly, but enough that he knew he would be heard. Subterfuge would do him no good at this point, but announcing his presence would display his confidence and help him make more of an impression.

Sure enough, a space had opened up in the crowd of tonberries that occupied the chamber at any given time, and as he moved forward, a path opened around him. Naruto spared them not a glance as he progressed forward at a slow, measured pace

Dedication was a simple enough process, most of the time. A tonberry would enter the chamber, hold his knife, lower his hood and focus his gaze on the far wall, a flat plane of obsidian about four metres across. Holding that pose they would focus all their thoughts, all their mind and will upon what it was that constituted being a tonberry. An endless seething river of rage and hatred surging forward towards the obsidian wall. The spiritual pressure in the room was immense, and only became more so the further forward you moved. The further forward you could sit in the chamber, the more dedicated you were considered to be.

Naruto's actions were a deliberate insult, flying in the face of tradition. Even if the tonberries had forgiven his unorthodox clothing, his raised hood and sheathed knife infuriated them, and Naruto was walking within attacking distance of hundreds if enraged tonberries. It was only a matter of time before something snapped, and soon enough, it did.

A small dingleberry, standing by its parents leapt forward, blade extended and aiming for Naruto's heart.

Naruto had been expecting this, waiting for it, and never even broke his stride (doink!). He flicked the ichor off his blade and resheathed it calmly, leaving the child's body cooling on the ground behind him without a look back. None of the other tonberries moved, although the killing intent saturating the room thickened. The counter had been fluid, perfect and utterly unavoidable. They knew better now than to attack.

Naruto continued making his steady progress forwards, moving past the penultimate, and then the last row of tonberries without slowing, and although the emotional atmosphere was no less murderous than before, it now contained a hint of awe as well.

Naruto was feeling the pressure now, although he prevented this from showing in his posture or stride, and crossed the remaining few metres at the same steady pace. Stopping before the obsidian wall, he reached up and lowered his hood, golden locks shimmering in the glow of hundreds of lanterns. He hooked his own lantern over one wrist, and rubbed his thumb over the hilt of his knife before reaching forward and placing both hands flat on the wall before him.

Countless generations of tonberries had dedicated themselves in that chamber, and over the years, the dense, rage-filled spiritual energy being projected at that wall had coalesced, congealed into a vast, shapeless spiritual entity that was the very essence of tonberry will. That much energy in one place has dire effects on space and time, and the obsidian plane had become as much a portal as it was a place.

All this was not exactly a secret, although it was unlikely that the low-castes currently in the room had any real understanding of it. They knew that some of the high-castes, specifically the kings, would sometimes go right up to the wall, occasionally even touch it with their blades, and usually return stronger for the experience. They had never seen anything like this.

Where Naruto's hands touched the wall, the black stone seemed to dissolve, revealing a fluctuating green light spilling forth from behind it. As he pushed forwards, his hands sunk into the light and his forehead met the rock gently. Another step forward, and his toes, belly and chest were all immersed in the light. Two more steps and he had disappeared completely. Before the tonberries could question this miracle, the green light receded, and the obsidian wall restored itself.

Staring at the wall where the human child had stood, the tonberries crowded anxiously, if such a descriptor could be used to describe the mental state so alien to them. One of the elders present sent others to spread the word, and to remove the corpse at the same time.

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The Kings watched carefully as the obsidian wall dissolved into green light and the human came striding out fearlessly. The oldest, and most powerful, observed as the wall regenerated before turning to the blond youth looking up at him.

"What have you done?"

"Dedication." There was the faintest note of smug satisfaction in Naruto's one-word answer.

The King gestured at the wall with his exposed blade, "This was no simple Dedication. I repeat…what have you done?" The crown spinning gently on his brow flared briefly in response to his increased intensity.

"You would do well to answer your king, Human!" A lesser king flared his crown similarly in a fit of sycophantic rage.

"All I did was my Dedication, Brothers." Murmurs from the crowd at his casual manner of address, and the Kings crowns flared higher in their rage. "It was the last Dedication I'll ever do, so you can understand if I was…overzealous. And do stop that irritating showing off. It's not like you're the only ones who can do that…" He released his iron control over his chakra, allowing it to mold freely, without restriction. The susurration of the crowd grew into a quiet roar, and a few of the lesser kings were shocked enough to take a step backwards, forever staining their reputations. Naruto allowed a smirk to cross his face, he knew what they were looking at, the slender golden crown that had appeared, spinning gently above his head, nine points rising and falling with the beat of his heart and with what appeared to be a coating of blue and red fire, leaping from the surface and falling back again like flares on the surface of the sun. "…after all, I'm a King too."

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Naruto waited for a time, allowing the roar of the crowd to come to a halt. They were confused, and understandably. Kings were rare, and their arrivals were heralded throughout the cave. It was inconceivable that one should appear without the knowledge of the tribe as a whole. Furthermore, a King compressing, concealing his power in such a manner was even more wrong. The Kings were a symbol, a banner for all the tribe. Finally, that the human child was the newest King was both a shock and an insult to the tribe as a whole.

"So shocked, Brothers?" He was enjoying this now, "Surely Fourth Brother had informed you. He invited me to the trials several months ago, and witnessed my ascension. I can't believe that he would have failed to report back in the time since. I do believe that since that time he has pushed harder for my exile."

The other kings were observing the shaking Fourth Brother with disgust and anger. Naruto had known well enough that the lesser King had only invited him to the trials believing he would die in the process, and had not dared to reveal his gaffe to his Brothers.

The trials had been hard, but Naruto was far more dedicated than anyone could have guessed. Having survived the trials, the ritual bestowed upon him the powers of kingship, which it did by channelling power, part from him and part from the dedication chamber, to significantly rearrange his inner coils, as well as widening and thickening them considerably, at a cost of incredible pain.

Once he recovered from the transformation of his inner coils, he was able to summon at will the symbol of Kingship, the crown, which was in actuality nothing more than a residual chakra apparition.

It is a common misconception that the lights appearing around a person's body when they use chakra are in fact chakra dissipating into the environment, but this is not always the case. Assuming 100 chakra control, no chakra should escape to the environment. What creates this aura in those cases is in point of fact the chakra residue. The exhaust chakra. The remnants of the chakra that could not be used by the wielder, combined with any waste products.

As a result of his transformation, Naruto produced far fewer waste chakra products than usual, which meant that if he was able to master his chakra 100, he could have better control than others might dream possible. Significant changes had been done to the inner coil system in his brain and head, which was necessary as Kings had to be both larger and smarter than lower-caste tonberries. In theory, any tonberry could grow to the size of a King, but few ever did because they were born with a chakra deficient Thyroid gland. This prevented them from gaining their full growth, but becoming a King removed this deficiency and supplied the whole brain with more energy, aiding concentration, memory and logical thought. A side effect of this change to the head's inner coils was that the majority of all waste products were now vented through tenketsu in the scalp rather than all over the body. The practical effect of this was that whenever he released the controls on his chakra, a spectral crown would hover above his temples.

The Eldest King, First Brother, raised his knife for silence, waiting for the room to fall silent. "I already know the theory of what you have done. Why have you done it?"

Naruto stood silent for a second, but spoke before another King could interrupt. "Closure, I suppose. I was prepared for my exile the moment I survived the trials. But before I left I was determined to do this. I have spent the last months preparing for it."

"Why?"

Naruto's eyes went blank; he seemed to be looking at something only he could see. "In there, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. The trials were nothing compared to this. I was…dissected. Analysed by some vast entity I couldn't even describe. Every part of me was examined in the minutest detail. And then I was put back together, somehow more complete than when I began, together with the sure knowledge that that entity had found me…acceptable, or even worthy. It has no shape, and so shapes do not matter to it, only souls"

He stepped forward, somehow looking the eldest in the eye despite the height difference. "I couldn't leave without first knowing, without first letting you all know that…" he took a breath to steady himself and plunged on, "In any way that matters to anybody who cares, who is in any position to say, I am as much a Tonberry, as much a King as you are…maybe more. The biology maybe different, but that's just meat. We of all people should know that."

The elder looked at him for a long moment and nodded. "You should go now."

"Yes, I've been here long enough, I think." Naruto pushed past the other Kings, calling his chakra back into iron restraints as he did so. Behind him he heard the Eldest speaking again.

"Fourth Brother, I think we need to have a little talk."

This was enough for the already stressed Fourth Brother to snap completely, rushing Naruto as he walked past with what was quite a turn of speed for a tonberry. Naruto stepped past his first wild thrust and struck him with a finger between his bulbous eyes, leaning forward as he did to whisper in his ear "Everyone's Grudge," before pushing him to one side and walking forward and out the entrance to the chamber

Behind him, the unfortunate Fourth Brother was stunned from fear. A ghostly light appeared around him and it seemed as though shadows could be seen in that light. A lizard here, a human there, some with weapons, some without. All reaching out to attack the prone tonberry King. As the shadows touched him, thick gouges and tears began to appear in his body. The shadows sped up and appeared in even greater numbers, countless wraiths all clamouring for their pound of flesh, and taking it.

Eventually, the light receded, allowing the spectators to see the heap of flesh that had once been their King.

The Eldest looked on emotionlessly, before ordering a low-caste dingleberry to clean up the mess, and then returned to his contemplation of the obsidian wall. He reached out several times as if to touch it with his flesh, but faltered each time, eventually tapping the rock with the blade of his knife in a short, personal dedication, and turned to walk away. Slowly the other low-castes returned to their dedication. Several of the Kings remained as well. Everyone else returned to their places. Life slowly but surely returned to at least the semblance of normality.

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Naruto made his way to the outskirts of the caverns before his senses picked up a familiar presence. He flared his own presence briefly, and then felt Pug move away, back into the deeper caverns. He smiled; a true smile for once. In his position, he couldn't really afford to feel for anyone, but he had grown quite – not fond exactly, but content – with Pug's presence. The little creature was not intelligent, but had so much cunning you would never guess. He had known there would be trouble, and so had skipped dedication for today.

Naruto supposed briefly that that was what he looked for in companions: Not strong enough to challenge him, but with a keen survival instinct. Pug would never be a King, but he would probably outlive most of the ones alive today, at least he would if he survived the fights that were sure to break out tonight. Tonberries in a bad mood tended to spread it all around.

As he walked into the cavern where he had sensed Pug's presence, he noticed a Lizard-leather bag leant against one wall. Looking inside he found food and supplies to take him a week away or more. He smiled, so like Pug: first you wait by the exit to make sure he leaves, then you make sure he doesn't have any reason to come back.

He looked around the cave, noting old bloodstains on the floor. Not unusual for these caves, but still interesting. He wondered briefly where they had come from, but the curiosity passed quickly and he shouldered the bag and left. Tonberry, cave-signs lead him to the exit and he waited there for a half-hour or so until his eyes adapted to the light and then stepped out into what he vaguely recognised as early morning spring sunlight. His lantern disappeared easily into one of his voluminous pockets despite the fact it was both still lit and too large to have done so.

He unrolled the map that Pug had provided in the pack and scanned through it, enjoying the clarity of vision the sunlight provided. He mouthed out the words of the places as he read them, reminding himself he had yet to master the human language, until he came to…

"Konohagakure" 'The village hidden in the leaves' "Fire country"

One hand rose of its own accord to trace the raised script on the silvery dog tags that had been around his neck when he was found.

"Konohagakure"

Slowly a smile spread across his face. He rolled up the map and replaced it in his pack, before shouldering it again and standing up. He turned to face the rising sun and pulled his hood up to shade his eyes, before starting to walk.

"Well alright then!"