Note: Thanks to my beta, zbird, as usual. She's been such a great help to me.
Scenes referenced: Still on the two year training period. The Land of Honey is mentioned only briefly in the anime, but I took the liberty of using it here.
Reflect
It hurt to breathe.
Jiraya watched his student's bandaged chest rise and fall; her soft exhales filling the quiet of the room. Naruto really must have been injured to not be snoring loud enough for three sawmills. She was so hushed even the birds were still chirping outside. The sage chuckled, but immediately winced. He gripped the front of his yukata with a big hand, twisting the fabric in his fist.
(The world spun. Ash and dust from the demolished building choked light from the evening air. Jiraya coughed wetly, struggling to stand. Hot, coppery blood spilled from his mouth to dribble down his chin. His head felt like they had been split open from the howling of the beast, and what was left of his lungs gurgled with every desperate inhale.)
No, not a beast. Naruto. Her four tailed jinchuuriki form was completely uncontrollable. Looking at her now, with her blonde hair spilling out over her pillow, Jiraya couldn't recognize the demonic creature that had smashed twelve of his ribs in. Only a child with a face the spitting image of Kushina's. A very injured child.
Linen strips bound not only Naruto's chest, but covered her entire body from head to toe in white.
(Her skin burned away under the fire of the demon's cloak. Droplets of blood floated up from exposed tissue, only to burst inside the boiling red chakra. It fused with the ash of her epidermis until Naruto was no more than a gory, fox-eared mass.)
She was lucky to survive the experience.
'You and me both, kid.' Jiraya sighed, and rubbed the back of his head self-consciously. He had been stupid, the sage would admit that much. Too cocky, too sure in the strength of Minato's Eight Sign Seal. The Kyuubi's power had surged up out of nowhere with unbridled intensity, taking him completely off guard. The hole in the sannin's torso still needed time to heal. Lots of time. Jiraya had dragged Naruto along with his sorry ass to lay low for a few months. It wouldn't bode well for either of them if the Akatsuki organization caught wind of his current state.
Naruto's breath suddenly quickened. She shifted on her futon, grumbling and groaning herself into consciousness. ". . . P-Pervy Sage...?"
"Hey, Naruto." Jiraya sat cross-legged on the other side of the room. Scattered novel papers covered the surrounding tatami mats. "You've been out for a little under a week, kid. And quit calling me that."
The blonde girl forced herself to sit up a little, and peered around with squinty blue eyes. No trace of red. "What the hell happened? Where are we?" Her voice was still thick with sleep.
She didn't remember. Good. The kid was better off not knowing.
He made a distinct effort not to let his relief seep into his voice. "I had a training accident with one of the toad summons while you were meditating. Brought down the whole casino." Well, at least that much wasn't a lie. Luckily, Jiraya had been able to lure his rampaging student out into the forest before the damage spread further than that. "We're in the Land of Honey. I reserved a room in the ryokan here until we can recover from our injuries. Think of it as an . . . extended vacation."
Naruto groaned, flopping back onto her futon. "Again!? Old man, I swear, if you used-"
"Gama-chan is fine. It's on me this time." The frog wallet hadn't fattened up near enough for him to use again. Jiraya smirked, closing one eye. "Go to sleep, you punk. Get some rest."
". . . dun' wanna."
Predictably, the girl was snoring within minutes.
Naruto slipped from sleep, straight into her mind-realm. Her eyes opened to the flickering lights of the sewers as they shut for the last time in the waking world. This was . . . new. She didn't often come in here without meaning to anymore.
And what the heck was she laying on?
Fire licked the corners of her vision, and the blonde lurched upwards immediately. Oh, shit. She sat in the middle of the fox's haori. The shimmering fabric pooled around her, warming her at every point of contact. A gentle, familiar heat.
Naruto blinked. She turned her focus to her hands, only to find them whole and unharmed. No bandages in sight. She guessed that made sense; there was no reason for real-world injuries to appear in this sort of make-believe space. The blonde glanced around, swallowing a sudden feeling of trepidation. Nothing, aside from the steady lapping of water, penetrated the silence of the cavernous room.
"Oi, fox!" Her shout shattered the quiet. Naruto clutched a sleeve of the cloak in a white-knuckled fist, shaking it a little. "I don't know how this got here, but I'm keeping it. This thing is really awesome, yanno?"
"I am right here, girl. No need to yell."
The voice came from right behind her other ear.
Naruto practically leapt out of her skin, stifling a high-pitched shriek. "What . . . what are you DOING here!?" She pointed blindly at the demon sitting next to her, then jabbed her fingers back towards the cage. Her dry mouth gaped. "A-Aren't you supposed to be in there? WHERE DID YOU EVEN COME FROM!"
He growled. Fox ears, which seemed to be made from chakra, flattened. "What did I just say, you imbecile."
The genin's blood pressure skyrocketed, and her mouth dropped open even farther to unleash a new round of expletives. However, the kyuubi was faster, and clamped a hand over her lips before she could resume her screaming. His palm was covered by the silk of his robe, as though he wanted to avoid physically touching her. "Hush. Stop the noise; your precious seal is still in place."
Blue eyes darted to fixate on the towering prison bars. The paper seal plastered in the center shone quietly in the darkness. Untouched. 'Then, how . . . ?'
"The majority of my chakra remains dormant behind those gates. This form is merely the sliver of energy allowed to interact with you." The grip on her mouth tightened. His lips curled, exposing sharp canines. ". . . lucky for you, hmm?"
Okay, he could quit touching her now. Naruto bit down on the palm of his hand through fabric, spitting it out and away from her. She glowered, wiping her face with the sleeve of her yukata. "And that's why you can't kill me?"
It took a few moments for the kyuubi to answer her.
The old fox's expression twisted in the weirdest way. Carmine orbs flicked from her, to his hand, and then back again. The claws crowning each fingertip gleamed under the florescent sewer lights. ". . . on the contrary." He shifted his weight, rubbing his palm with the pad of his thumb. "I'm healing you. As my vessel, if you die, I die. I cannot very well end your life just yet."
He nodded to the haori spread below them, and something about the demon's smile implied there might be worse things than murder.
Naruto's stomach twisted.
Cold, unsettling fingers brushed down her back. Something was wrong. The girl tossed her long blonde hair over a shoulder, bristling under the tension. "Am I supposed to say thanks for that?" She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard. God, her memory was in threads. Wasn't she supposed to be making friends with her demonic tenant? What happened? Naruto scowled, twisting the haori under hand. ". . . thanks, I guess. Though I don't really get it."
Kurama arched a brow. Thanking him? So the runt really didn't remember, did she? The mark on his palm throbbed. If Naruto had remembered, she would have certainly done much more than sink her tiny teeth into his skin. Hmm. When the girl eventually discovered the truth, perhaps her retaliation would be something to look forward to.
It wasn't true freedom, but the demon experienced the sensation of cool air on his skin for the first time in almost fifteen years. The blood. The screaming. At four tails, he did not possess total control over her body. Once he had subdued Naruto, he lost himself to the madness and bloodthirst boiling to the surface. Kurama needed to coax his kit deeper and deeper still into the darkness if he wished to secure his genuine release.
Neither Mito nor Kushina had allowed his chakra to intermingle with their own.
Some part of Kurama had always assisted Naruto's healing processes, without even his conscious approval. Loosening the Eight Sign Seal carried the unforeseen consequence of a much more intimate involvement in the girl's physical recovery. His chakra threaded through damaged cells, lacing them back together and stimulating new growth. It was . . . an odd sensation. Like parts of him had crawled under her skin and nestled in the boughs of her veins and muscle tissue.
It seemed that if he should be the one to tear her body apart, then he should bear the responsibility of piecing it back together. Hence, the haori. Touching it strengthened their connection, and would hopefully expedite the process.
"Hey, are you ignoring me? I just said thank you. That's not something that happens every day." Naruto groused, rubbing the back of her neck.
His jaw twitched. "It isn't as though I am doing it for your sake, runt." Kurama snagged his cloak, tossing the excess fabric over the kit's head and shoulders. The glowing haori draped over her blonde hair, lighting it up like a fiery halo. "Improve your condition as soon as possible, so we can get this over and done with."
She glared at him from the corner of her eye. "You're such a jerk. I gave you ramen and everything."
"I . . . I am not a pet!"
"Yeah yeah, whatever you say, fox."
Weeks later...
The hand signs flashed by, blending into one blur of motion. Ram. Snake. Tiger. Ram.
"Sexy Jutsu: Reverse Harem Jutsu!"
Curling clouds of smoke exploded through the room, punctuated by Jiraya's groans. "Ahh, not this again. I'm telling you Naruto, it would be much more beneficial to focus on the busty lady technique. Trust me on this one." His nostrils flared at the thought. "Just give up on this- ouch!"
A naked, male teenage Naruto bashed him upside the head with a fist. The kunoichi's high pitched tones dropped into a low, masculine growl. "Learn to quit while you're ahead, old man. You're the only one who wants to see that weird crap, this is what's appealing." The transformed Naruto winked, flexing a well-muscled bicep. "I got Sakura and granny Tsunade so many times with my Sexy Jutsu, you don't even know."
While the one Naruto was lecturing Jiraya, the other nude young men were preening and showing off their tall physiques in the smoke. One of them tousled his short blonde hair, a second adjusted his tie (the only thing he was wearing), and another worked through elaborate martial arts kata. His blue eyes were focused, sweat from the exercise dripping down washboard abs.
Poof. The handsome shinobi vanished into puffs of vapor, leaving a lone fifteen year old girl in their place.
"In any case . . . " she frowned, crossing her arms underneath her breasts. "I'm only practicing this because you're not letting me work with the Kyuubi anymore. What gives?" During the day, anyways. While Naruto was healing from the accident, she found herself tumbling into her mind space every night as she fell asleep. She 'woke' cradled in the material of the fox's haori, her burn wounds recovering at an impossibly fast rate.
"Naruto, I think we've done everything we can with the Nine Tails." Jiraya closed his eyes, deep voice resonating throughout the ryokan suite. "We should focus on improving your Rasengan, or your genjutsu detection skills. You've already made a lot of improvements with your meditation and controlling the three tailed chakra cloak, but it's time to move on."
She nodded, slipping an arm through her orange and black jacket. There shouldn't be any harm in continuing to meditate in her free time, though. What the Pervy Sage didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?
Note: Thanks so much to all the new people who chose to follow Captivate! And a special thanks to senselessgrinder, InnocentlyGuilty, Katherine, Psyka, Vaughn Tyler, JuliaAbadeerSkellington, and the two guests for their reviews. To answer some questions, no I don't have an ao3 account. However, this story isn't going to be rated T forever. I don't know if I'll ever go as far as full on lemons, but there are definitely limes somewhere in the future!