Chapter 2: The Grand Reveal

- In which an immortal fox yanks his jailer from the Jaws of Death, but not without consequences.

Disclaimer: More dead horses. That is all.

-+++- Fuujin -+++-

Konohagakure, November 28, Year X241. 0110 hours.

From the corner of his eye, Hiruzen spotted Hiashi two rooftops away, eyes trained on the same location he was heading to. It only further confirmed that their target was close.

In a hasty shunshin, the clan head was abreast of him, with a nearly unreadable, uncharacteristically tense expression on his face. Hiruzen only frowned further; for Hiashi to be this close to rage was a dangerous prospect by twofold. The assassin had to worry about a Jyuuken straight to the heart, while he himself had to worry about the shitstorm he'd have to weather if such an attack came to pass.

Hiashi let out a ragged breath, one he'd clearly been holding in an attempt to suppress his anger.

"Hokage-sama, I assume you see what I see. Do we have a status report?" he asked curtly.

Hiruzen made a gesture towards his eyes, then raised his once again chakra-laden fingers to his head. Hiashi respectfully shut off his Byakugan, tensing his hands to warm up for Jyuuken strikes. A short series of chakra pulses later, and Hiruzen had his response.

"A signature is escaping the scene … the weakest of the three," Hiruzen started. "Beyond a doubt, it's your daughter. Our target's injured, somehow. While this proves well for her, I don't think I can say the same of Naruto. His chakra's fluctuating, badly. If the seal were to break here…"

Hiashi gave a terse nod, and a bit of the roiling emotion in his eyes faded. However, much of his rather murderous sentiments were still apparent.

"Hiashi. Alive. I understand that this is a grave offense against your family, but a dead Kumo-nin on our hands will only cause more problems than it solves. We cannot afford that, not with current foreign relations. You are hereby ordered to use strictly non-lethal force. Do you understand me?"

For several tense, bristling seconds, Hiashi was silent. Then, he brought his right fist, perhaps too tightly closed, to the left side of his chest in a customary Konoha salute.

"As is your will, Hokage-sama." The words were terse, with only the mandatory deference.

"See to it that you hold yourself to your word," the Hokage responded, rolling up his left sleeve, and placing a finger over an ANBU communication seal. Tapping out a message in a Konoha variant of Morse code, Hiruzen relayed an order for all currently searching ANBU: Converge on my location.

Further up his arm was another seal, similar to the ANBU seal, but with an extra circular inlay with the character for Inu in its center. For Kakashi to have not responded for so long … what on earth is he caught up in?

In reality, Hiruzen had been worried from the start that any news involving Naruto had come from the Hyuuga clan head, rather than the boy's sole ANBU bodyguard.

Not that he doubted Kakashi, of course. The young ninja was one of his most exemplary ANBU back when Kakashi was on active duty, gaining a near S-rank profile in every Nation's bingo book and the apt moniker 'Sharingan Kakashi'. It also helped that Kakashi was emotionally invested in Naruto and his well-being; the boy was his sensei's son. This assignment wasn't just for Naruto's benefit, either. It would work wonders in helping Kakashi recover from the post-trauma stress he'd succumbed to during the tail end of the last war.

Kakashi was fervently diligent in his reports on Naruto, never failing to send him any information he could every hour, on the hour. (Hiruzen sorely wished the man would put that sort of effort into his day-to-day punctuality, but it looked to be too much to ask for … at least for now.) A dire emergency such as this would have never gone unreported.

...unless Kakashi had his hands tied with something else, something serious.

Problems within problems. Anything formidable enough to hold Kakashi back was bound to become Hiruzen's problem. He hoped it wouldn't have to come to that, at least not tonight. For now, he'd focus on saving the lives in front of him, one at a time.

"Hinata!" He heard Hiashi bark, before the man shunshinned to the roads below. Hiruzen followed, assessing the fleeing girl.

Hinata was a dishevelled mess. Her pupil-less eyes were red and inflamed, her face streaked with tears, her hair roughly handled and flecked with blood. She lacked any outward injuries, and her clothes seemed untouched, if a little askew from all her running. What stood out, however, were two fingers on her left hand, drenched to the knuckle in blood, and her Byakugan running at full steam, the veins near her eyes straining with pressure.

Upon seeing her father, the briefest flash of relief crossed her face, before her knees buckled beneath her. Toppling into her father's waiting arms, she tried to force words out, but none would come.

She's still in shock, but she has something to say before all that. Not to mention, she's awakened her kekkei genkai at a rather young age. Tough child, Hiruzen noted. Suddenly, the girl flinched, and burrowed her head into Hiashi's robes with a strange muffled noise. With some alarm, Hiruzen realized the girl was starting to hyperventilate.

Shit. It's her first time using Byakugan, so the sensory input is most likely overwhelming her. Coupled with the shock … "Hiashi! Panic mitigation, now!"

Hiashi's hands were already prepared, glowing with faint, green chakra as he ran them along Hinata's back. Shousen no Jutsu, if applied correctly, could forcibly synthesize more oxygen for a patient's blood to use, allowing their breathing to slow.

Hiashi whispered as calmly as he could manage. "Hinata, it's okay. I'm here. Please, close your eyes, dear."

He stroked his child's back, his hands still alight with the calming, green glow of Shousen. He nearly sagged in relief when Hinata closed her eyes; for someone new to the Byakugan, the sudden relief of not looking everywhere at once let the user subconsciously stop the flow of chakra to their eyes. A few seconds later, and Hinata shot up again, this time with renewed tears in her now unburdened eyes.

"Papa, please! You need to help!" The girl begged, her voice loud with panic, even forgoing the usual 'otou-sama'. "He's still in there! He needs help!" Hiashi did not fail to notice the lack of her usual stutter.

Looking at her bloodied hand, he could only guess. "Is … this a result of your escape?"

Again, Hinata flinched, though she was far more composed than before. "I-It's not my own blood. The … other boy in there threw something and I think it was tear gas and it gave me the chance to hit th-the man in the mask and I swung too hard and st-stabbed his eye out and I'm so sorry, Papa, I didn't use Jyuuken properly and - " At this point, she was rambling, face pale with lack of oxygen again.

"Hinata, calm down. I am not angry at you for using Jyuuken to defend yourself, no matter how you performed it," Hiashi tried to reassure his daughter. She only clutched him tighter, and her voice steadily rose in pitch.

"But that doesn't matter right now!" she almost screamed. "He's still in there! He's hurt!"

"Hokage-sama is searching for him right now. He will be fine, Hinata."

"B-But -"

"He will be fine. Hokage-sama will see to it that Uzumaki-kun is unharmed, and once I get you home, so will I."

"...Uzumaki-kun?" Hinata asked. "Otou-sama, is this the same Uzumaki-kun those civilian armorers from last week were..." She had a rather concerned look on her face, not wishing to remember her initially leisurely walk with her father. That day, she'd happened to hear the vile curses the shopkeepers had spouted at what looked like a ratty little homeless boy - "Fuck off, Uzumaki, we don't serve your kind here!" "Think the demon brat will just starve to death?" "Oh, I hope so. Goddamn murderer, and a monster to boot."

Hiashi sighed a ragged sigh once more; his daughter was sharper than she'd ever deigned to let on. "Sadly, they're one and the same. He is the same child you remember." I would hope those ruffians were the exception and not the rule, but I fear it may only be wishful thinking.

"Otou-sama, why were they so mean to him?" she implored. "Why would they call him a murderer? And why would they use the f… other word?"

"Hinata, do not dwell on such uncouth behaviour. It was aimed at a person who did not deserve it. That is all you need to know for now." Hiashi put a stop to the conversation there, pulling in Hinata to support her now trembling legs; it seemed her adrenaline-high from the escape was finally wearing off.

As he led her back home, he could only attempt to look back at Uzumaki's location with the Byakugan, with limited success; while he was certainly in range, there was simply too much ambient chakra in the air around the child to assess any injuries. The only thing he was sure of was that such a level of atmospheric chakra density was never good, especially when a jinchuuriki was involved.

As it stood now, he could only turn back sadly, and hope the boy would withstand the injustice thrust upon him. I can do no more but hope that Minato's boy is fine; he has done a great service for me … perhaps even the Hyuuga clan at large, and I intend to repay it in full.

-+++- Fuujin -+++-

Konohagakure, November 28, Year X241. 0112 hours.

Hiruzen could only catch random flares of Naruto's signature now, and they were getting more faint with every passing second.

At the rate he's weakening, I won't make it in time! He didn't bother going through handseals this time, chakra pulses at the ready from sheer instinct.

He needn't have bothered. The unfathomably large thrum of sinister chakra would have let him pinpoint Naruto from the other end of the village.

It was as if a stone had crashed through his stomach and kept going. "No … there's no way …"

Hiruzen thundered forward, faster than he'd moved in decades, faster than he thought his aging bones and tendons could handle. He dared not stop, hoping beyond hope that it was not all over.

Coming to a stop by the alleyway where he'd felt the overwhelming presence, he turned to assess the damage … and could only stare, eyes wide open in horror.

Naruto, ever the innocent child, was staring up at his killer in unmasked shock, his hand clasped around the sword that had entered his heart. Hiruzen was just in time to see Naruto's eyes slowly close, his tenuous grip finally failing, as he slumped forward onto the two swords he was impaled upon.

"NARUTO!" Hiruzen barely noticed that the anguished yell had come from his own mouth. He couldn't have cared less, not while he bore witness to this.

And then, a pulse.

The next wave of chakra that erupted from the boy physically threw his killer back several feet, and had nearly done the same to the Hokage. Hiruzen could only imagine the impending cataclysm that a deteriorating seal could cause. Palming his bō staff, he resigned himself to the oncoming fight, not wishing to think of the horror that would soon follow.

… It never came.

Rather, a single puff of smoke materialized behind the Kumo-nin. Before the killer had a chance to turn, a hand - a human, clawed hand - swept out of the obscuring haze.

With a meaty splortch, the man's head was ripped from the neck in one quick lash of the arm. Blood spurted high and plenty from the opened throat, before the still-warm body folded on itself, crumpling to the floor. The hand came to a rest, the head it was holding caved in on one half from the sheer impact force of the attack, reduced to a mess of brain matter, shattered skull and dripping blood. A sizable length of spine hung from its severed neck, imitating a grotesque tail. It reminded Hiruzen, in an eerily clinical manner, of victims of high-yield explosives.

That, or the bodies of those felled by the Nine-Tails.

By then, the smoke cleared, and Hiruzen couldn't stop his jaw from dropping.

Standing before him was Naruto, or at least, a facsimile with several … unsettling changes. The boy's right hand was stained a deep red, accentuated by the darkened blood dripping from his suddenly grown claws. The severed head in his grip went without saying; there were few deaths, even in wartime, more gruesome than that. His clothes bore no difference to the original, so much so that even the puncture wounds from the swords were apparent in the fabric. What unsettled Hiruzen the most, however, was his face.

The child's eyes were crimson and animalistic, coupled with deeper whisker marks than he usually had. Worst of all, the boy - or at least, something that looked like the boy - was glaring right at him, and looked distinctly furious.

"The old shit-monkey arrives, huh? Figures you were too late. Like father, like son," the gravelly, terrible voice ground out. It sounded eerily like Naruto's voice, however seldom he got the chance to hear it, yet with some horrific quality he could only describe as non-human. The only feasible thing that could speak like that was, without a doubt…

Kyuubi. "The seal has broken, then," Hiruzen finally broke his silence, closing his eyes in grief.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, shit-monkey. The prison's fine, and so is the jailer, if only barely." Hiruzen drew a sharp breath, shocked - alive, after such a decisive blow? "Get the brat to a hospital. I need to get to work fixing this fucking mess."

"And why should I trust you to not take advantage of your host's weakness?" he shot back. Even if the seal is fine, I don't know how much this enables the fox. There's no way-

The not-Naruto - Hiruzen figured he'd just call it Kyuubi for now - scoffed. "First, I'm a Shadow Clone. The boy doesn't know any jutsu, so I had to force the closest physical form I could pull out of him to take the Kumo shitstain out. If I pulled some funny business right here and now, you'd just be able to pop me, not that it'd help the brat any."

Kyuubi remained silent for a beat, and instead trained his bestial gaze on Naruto.

"Secondly, there's more on the line than my freedom here," the demon fox continued, its voice strangely quiet. "A deal was made. Those borne of the will of Nature are honour-bound."

Its eyes focused once more on the Hokage. "Did your Yondaime not leave record of our deal? Are you truly ignorant of the forces at work here?"

Hiruzen couldn't have been more apprehensive of this sudden turn of events if he'd tried, what with the demon fox sounding so … human, of all things. It even cussed like a regular human, and a convincing one at that. For all Hiruzen knew, it may have all been an elaborate ruse.

But he felt compelled to answer, on the minuscule chance it would work. "Minato died soon after the fight. If he did leave a memento, there isn't a soul in Konoha that knows of it."

"Shit. The night just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" it rumbled, running its hands through its hair, leaving bloody streaks between lines of blond. "I'm going back in to fix the kit. He's going to … change a bit, but I can't avoid that."

"What do you mean, change?" Hiruzen bristled.

"No tails or anything, don't get pissy with me. He's just going to have a fair bit of sensory overload. Can't give you details now, it'll take too long. Now, are you getting the boy to a damn medic or not?"

"... Understood. I will trust your judgement, for now," the Hokage conceded, turning to Naruto's body.

"Took you long enough, shit-monkey. Oh yeah, you should know that whatever I tell him while he's out is fair game. Including his parents. It's not like he'll spill it to anyone anymore, not after this 'training' you've been putting him through for the last few years."

At this, Hiruzen flinched. "You're aware of that as well, I see."

"I'll give you some credit here and say it was a damn genius idea, even if you didn't plan for a situation like this. Kept him largely out of the public eye and the paws of that fucking unnatural cripple you keep in your employ, all the while letting the boy learn about the world the right way."

"But what of his emotional growth?" Hiruzen countered. "The way he's developing, I have a hard time believing he'll have the chance to live as anything but a shinobi. Have you seen how the boy reacts around anyone that isn't me?"

"I have, and it ain't pretty," the Kyuubi muttered, frowning even deeper now. "I honestly don't care how he feels about your ungrateful shithole of a village, but even I know that he won't last out there without knowing how to be human, and not just a shinobi."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, I didn't think you cared about civility, of all things."

The Kyuubi shrugged. "I only care for the brat's survival and the deal I made. If it means he has to stop killing people every once in a while, then so be it. Right now, the brat needs a medic to keep him stable while I work, dammit. Why aren't you on that already?"

Hiruzen sighed witheringly, even as he slowly pried Naruto's body from the wall, taking care not to jostle the swords too much. "Somehow, I get the feeling this is only the beginning of Naruto's troubles."

"Spot on, shit-monkey. Deeper down the rabbit hole, as they say. Mmmm, rabbits." With a cackle at its own joke, the Kyuubi burst out of existence in a small, but sharp explosion, cracking stone and shifting brick. Hiruzen realized, with a faint sense of disgust, that the Kyuubi had had one foot on the cooling Kumo-nin's corpse the entire time. The explosion had summarily blown the body's chest cavity wide open, splattering organs and splintering bones in one last revenge blow.

Hiruzen remained just as disgusted when he realized his next thought was 'Serves him right.'

Another long-suffering sigh escaped his lips. This entire flurry of events bore all the makings of a long, sleepless series of nights, coupled with what would no doubt be a spectacle of furious backlash from Kumogakure.

Carrying Naruto's barely breathing form, Hiruzen could only brace himself for the oncoming storm.

-+++- Fuujin -+++-

(Unknown Location), November 28, Year X241. 0115 hours.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Naruto was floating. At least … he sure felt like he was. Was this what it was like to die?

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Strangely enough, he couldn't feel his fatal wounds. Then again, he couldn't feel anything at the moment. Couldn't see anything, either, though that might have been because his eyes were closed.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

If this was the afterlife, it had a leaky pipe somewhere. Naruto figured he'd file a complaint to the manager, whoever the hell - or whatever the hell - it was. He opened his eyes.

He really wished he hadn't done that.

What filled his vision at first was teeth, two gleaming, impossibly sharp rows that might as well have been pillars for how large they were. A distinctly canine-looking snout followed, accompanied further up by a pair of beady black-and-amber eyes and orange fur that seemed to ripple in what dim light his eyes could pick up, almost like flames.

Looking around the fox - which proved to be rather difficult, given its size - Naruto was slightly alarmed to find that his first sensation of floating was on the mark. No defining features of walls, houses, or anything remotely materialistic could be found as far as his eyes could see. The whole world around him had somehow been replaced with nothingness, a void that stretched as far as Naruto cared to look. It certainly didn't help how the only sensory input he had to work with were the sight of an inordinately large carnivore in his face, and the omnipresent drip, drip, drip, that was quickly becoming infuriating. But for now, it didn't matter; inordinately large carnivores were very good at grabbing your attention.

The creature's jowls seemed to tighten momentarily, and … was it grinning?

" 'Sup." It greeted lazily, with a rumbling voice Naruto found so utterly wrong for what it was saying. For fuck's sake, a giant-ass monster was propped up mouth-first over him, and the first thing it asks is what was up?

Naruto went with the eloquent response. "..."

"Yeah, sorta expected that," it continued, shrugging its colossal shoulders, before shooting Naruto a look. "You can stop shitting yourself, kit, I'm not here to eat you."

"Right, and I'm Princess Koyuki, starring in Fūun-hime 3: Warring Nations, coming to theaters this spring." Naruto immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide in horror. Of course I run my mouth off now! Fuck, I am so dead … again…

"The girl from the poster? Nah, your nose totally doesn't match hers," the fox - Naruto had figured by now that it was a fox - played along, still smiling smugly. Suddenly going silent, its grin faded into a look of severity, as its eyes locked onto Naruto again.

"Enough of the small talk. There are more serious matters at hand right now, kit. It's way too soon for you to be here."

"You mean, being dead?" Naruto briefly entertained the thought of a massive fox being the emissary of the dead. It would sure cause plenty of heart attacks, ineffectual on spirits though they'd be.

"I distinctly remember telling you that you would live. Therefore, you're still alive. Comatose, maybe, but alive. That isn't your biggest problem here, though."

Naruto gulped. Call it a gut feeling, but he couldn't help but expect the worst out of the words to come.

"First of all - and yes, there's more - that sword did a hell of a lot more damage than just a stab wound. The shock of the wound, both mental and physical, forced your body to jumpstart your chakra coils. You should be able to use chakra now, instead of waiting for your body to naturally open its coils like kids your age."

"... I don't see how this is a bad thing." Despite his circumstances, Naruto was elated. Chakra? Like, the stuff that the ninjas in the training grounds used to make fireballs and walls of rock and freaking tornadoes? And he didn't have to wait until he was older?

"Judging by the shit-eating grin on your face, you're not very worried at all," the fox shot back, as Naruto scrambled to keep his traitorous mouth in check. "While being able to use chakra early is by no means a bad thing, the problem lies in how it happened. A chakra network isn't meant to be stabbed and electrified into compliance."

"So what's the catch, then? Am I draining chakra like a leaky water balloon?"

"An apt analogy, there, but no. You meatsacks don't lose chakra from flesh wounds, otherwise the non-shinobi among you would die a whole lot quicker, seeing as they don't have very much chakra at all. So it isn't a matter of what's flowing out, so much as it is about what's flowing in."

Naruto shuddered, his eyes scrunched shut for a brief second. "Please tell me it's not another infection. The ones I get on my feet are bad enough."

"And I wouldn't have to waste my time healing them if you'd just stop stepping on broken glass all the goddamn time! Seriously, the only reason you even know the word 'infection' is because that lady screamed about it on one of your 'foraging runs'. But, I digress. What's flowing into you isn't bacteria, but chakra."

"Again, I don't see how this is a bad thing. If I just gain chakra, wouldn't I just have to let some out every once in a while? Kinda like taking a shit, but with chakra, and it's not solid. Ne, does this mean I have the chakra-runs or something?"

"... I won't deign that analogy with a response. Either way, it's not regular chakra that's going into you, but natural energy. Unconsciously absorbing the very essence of nature itself almost never turns out well. See, the way every living body works is that there needs to be a balance of both physical and spiritual energies, as well as natural energy for the very privileged few, to create the body's chakra. An imbalance of one energy over the other only damages the body. It's even worse when the imbalance is caused by excess natural energy."

Naruto was barely following along. "So... we have energy that makes chakra and stuff, and having too much of one kind is bad, and having too much of the natural energy stuff is really bad?"

"More or less. It's a good thing you've learned to listen to people, although I should probably call your methods eavesdropping." Naruto turned away at that, puffing his cheeks out petulantly. Smirking slightly, the fox took it as his cue to continue. "Still, it can be managed if the draw on this natural energy is tightly controlled. Unfortunately for you, though, that control doesn't exist. That energy is going into your body whether you like it or not."

"But then, what happens if I absorb too much of it?"

"Oh, you just petrify on the spot."

"Petri-what?" At Naruto's uncomprehending look, the fox's eyebrows rose in comprehension - almost forgot, still just a street kid - and went on to elaborate.

"'Petrify' means to turn into stone." Naruto blanched, predictably - there was the reaction the fox was looking for.

"The only reason this is happening is because of the wound to the heart you took. For almost any other meatsack, a sword to the heart means a swift death. For you, there happened to be three exceptions: one, your chakra reserves are massive; two, my chakra reserves are massive; and three, that blade was so heavily saturated with electricity that it forced open your Shimon (Gate of Death) prematurely."

"Gate of Death? I thought you said I was still alive! Who the hell chose that kind of name?!" Naruto protested. "And turning to stone, too! Why the hell is this Gate thing not closed yet?!"

"If it were that simple, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The Gate of Death is as final as its namesake; you can't close it once it's been opened. Opening all eight Gates sacrifices your body to the raw chakra of the soul it houses, burning it to ash within a minute. You, on the other hand, have only opened the last Gate entirely out of order, and haven't even unlocked your chakra pathways until now. Having one of your Gates open permanently won't kill you while I'm around, but you become a sort of... conduit between the world and your soul. This means I can't mask your presence anymore, among other things."

Naruto pondered that last sentence in particular. Masking his presence? Since when did he ever -

The haze! The one that ninja got rid of in the alley!

"Got it in one," the fox mock-congratulated, startling him out of his thoughts. He shot a horrified look at it - the damn fox could read his mind?

"Only in here, though. The seal stops me from doing it otherwise." The fox didn't bother to muffle its mad cackling at Naruto's evident chagrin.

"What the fuck, asshole fox!" Naruto screamed, indignant. "You could have warned me before you went and peeked into my -"

He stopped abruptly, before his eyes went wide in sudden realization.

For a second, he was dumbfounded. Really, that question should have been the first thing he asked. How could it have slipped his mind so completely? What in the hell was he thinking, letting this slide for so long? Slowly, a twist of dread settled in the pit of his stomach.

"Uh, really hate to change the topic all of a sudden..." Naruto began, "But... where exactly is here?"

"Thought you'd never ask! Welcome to the inside of your lovely, comatose mindscape! I'm your host, the Kyuubi no Youko!" The Kyuubi let its previously out-of-sight tails slowly unfurl behind him, nine utterly massive lengths floating in the void behind it. "Well, technically, you're my host, but hey, it's not like any of the idiot meatsacks in your village can make the distinction, right?"

Naruto didn't quite hear that last sentence, because for all he knew, his heart might as well have just stopped.

He'd only heard tell of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, mostly through the rather confusing insults aimed at him. He'd understood people would be angry at him if he'd stolen from them, but the people who'd actually curse at him were rarely shopkeepers, and ones he'd stolen from rarer still. Naruto couldn't, for the life of him, understand why these people he didn't even know found it appropriate to call him 'Kyuubi brat' or 'demon child'.

His memories wandered back to the first time he'd been called that in the orphanage. At first, he hadn't understood the intent behind it when the matron spat the words at him. He couldn't even remember how old he was when she'd first said it; 'demon' was just another word that made no sense, just like the rest of the language he couldn't speak yet. Unfortunately for him, the phrase soon became synonymous with a sudden lack of food and warm sheets for however long the matron and staff willed it. The memories of the years he'd spent in the orphanage became almost indistinguishable from the visceral sensations of biting cold, stabs of hunger in his belly, and tears he'd tried to stop from falling because that only made everything hurt longer. The only unique days he could remember, if only just, were the days that Jiji visited him, with a warm smile and warm food and warm clothes and enough warm to keep the whole village in summertime forever and ever.

At least, that was the case until the 'incident'. Naruto shuddered, breaking off that train of thought. There were better times to dwell on the 'incident', and it sure as hell wasn't right after a demon fox had just told you that it was living inside your head.

Mere hours ago, Naruto would've come to the conclusion that these idiots simply didn't realize just how wrong it was to bandy about an insult like that, especially after witnessing the lingering remnants of the havoc it had wrought. Several entire districts were still being rebuilt, and Naruto had seen the horrific gouges of claws in the earth, half-demolished buildings that had yet to be torn down, messy puddle-shapes of once-melted concrete that had long since cooled, and the faintest hint of the smell Naruto associated with the back of a butcher shop. He'd always felt unnaturally on edge, almost nauseous, in these places, for reasons he could never figure out. It boggled the mind that someone would just wave a nasty, blood-scented curse like that around anyone.

At least now, that sentiment finally made some sense.

Naruto was silent for what felt to him like an eternity plus a day, until he finally responded, in a too-quiet voice on the verge of cracking.

"So... they all hate me because you're inside me?"

"In a word, yes." The Kyuubi was devoid of mirth now, staring at Naruto critically.

"Did you kill all those people, then? Everyone from the... disaster zones?" Naruto almost didn't want to hear the answer.

The Kyuubi scoffed, unexpectedly. "I will not deny my role in their deaths. But, I will also not claim I was the only one killing innocents that night."

This pulled Naruto out of his roiling emotions, soon replaced by shock. "You weren't the only one there?"

"There was one other. A Uchiha, a human... if the disgusting reprobate could even be called that." it scowled, tails twitching in barely suppressed anger. "I presumed him dead, many years ago."

"One of the red-eye bastards? Weren't they all killed or something two years ago?"

Naruto had very few good memories of the former police force members. Most of them didn't bother speaking to him, so it was a damn sight better than the civilians, but he was all too aware of the loaded looks they'd give him, as if he were the reason for everything wrong with their lives. He always found those glares especially unsettling, nothing like the usual bald-faced disgust and outrage from the rest of the village. Doubly so, considering he'd never ever seen an emotion other than 'statue' on a Uchiha's face otherwise.

Bastards though they were, he would have never expected someone from one of Konoha's most powerful clans to turn traitor. Granted, Naruto had stopped expecting anything in his life to be consistent years ago, but this was pushing the envelope a bit.

"They were, and good fucking riddance, too," the Kyuubi groused, irritated at the mere thought of the Uchiha clan. "But at the same time, we've all but lost any lead on tracking the genocidal fuck. All that's left of the clan is that one dark-haired boy you've seen hanging around the northern training fields, and I doubt a PTSD-riddled brat is going to have any clues."

"Why do you care so much? People died. Isn't that all that matters to... you know, demons like you?" Naruto questioned offhandedly.

In a burst of motion, the Kyuubi lunged, faster than anything Naruto had ever seen move in his life. Its snarling maw returned to fill his vision just like when he'd woken up, pillars of shining, deadly enamel vibrating with the force of its ear-shattering growl. The fox's once black eyes were almost reptilian now, burning suns of red with black slits for pupils.

Naruto's heart leaped into his throat, and he came very near to soiling himself. 'Why can't I keep my fucking mouth shut?! Hell, what did I even say wrong this time?!' Unhelpfully, his mind was still somehow articulate, perfectly conscious for what was about to be his last moments.

And once more, the universe seemed to betray Naruto's expectations of death, as the Kyuubi backed off, its hackles lowering and its eyes fading to black once more as it sighed, a noise of exasperation.

"... I can't fault you for coming to that conclusion. However, I will make it clear, here and now, that I will not tolerate being called that which I am not. Soulless chakra construct I may be, amoral I may be, mass murderer I may be, but demon... demon, I am not." The Kyuubi's mouth was tight, its words curt and clipped in its indignance, before it softened momentarily. "As it is, I should not have reacted the way I did. I did not think memories of the past held such sway over me. I'm sorry, Naruto."

Naruto had lost count of how many times he'd been at a loss for words today. How was he supposed to react to a demon - no, wait, soulless-chakra-construct-amoral-mass-murderer - addressing him by name, and then apologizing? Apologizing!

At Naruto's gaping silence, and no doubt anything-but-silent thoughts, the Kyuubi laughed, a short bark of mirth as its grin resurfaced.

"Glad to see you're focusing on the important stuff. Anyways, I'm gonna have to run you through what to expect when you wake up, and what to do about it, at least in the short-term."

"How long am I gonna be out?" Naruto asked back. "Hey, did anyone even find me after I got stabbed?"

"The shi- ah, current Hokage found you and got you to a hospital in time. Between the coma, wounds and stasis seals - you remember what those are like, right? - I'd say you'll be out for at least two weeks, maybe a month. We're still in your mind, though, so we can spend a few hours before you go to sleep. You won't feel the passing of time while you're unconscious, so it'll be like a good night's rest rather than spending a month floating in your own head."

"At least I'm safe, then. Good thing Jiji got that sword bastard, right?"

The Kyuubi froze. "About that..."

"What, did Jiji not arrest him or something? Did he escape?" Naruto grumbled. "If that asshole got away..."

"No, no, he's very much dead," the Kyuubi continued. "It's just..."

"Just what?"

"You know what, I'll just explain it along with everything else we need to talk about."

With that, the Kyuubi relaxed onto its haunches, shuffling to relax itself for the hours to come.

"Keep your ears open, kit. You ready?"

Naruto nodded silently, shoulders now rigid in anticipation.

"Good. Let's begin."

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the late release. Midterms are a bitch-and-a-half. Anyways, for some clarification:

New powers (and new consequences) are best shown instead of told. Expect it to be shown in all its glory next chapter.

For those who remember from canon when Maito Gai uses it, the Gate of Death is located just above the heart, and is opened by piercing it physically after the previous seven Gates are opened.

No, Naruto will not be trained by the Kyuubi in his own mind. It's a mindscape, not the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

The Kyuubi won't tell Naruto everything yet. Knowing who his parents are won't help the situation at hand. Threatening to tell Naruto about his parents was just a jab at the Hokage's authority that it couldn't pass up.

With that said, hope you liked Chapter 2. Leave a review, if you'd like to share your opinion. It'd be mucho appreciado.

Next time on Yu Yu Hakusho: Life, death, and the fine line between them that no-one can see... well, almost no-one.