Date written: 12/09/10 – 20/10/10
Posted on FanFiction: 20/10/10
A/N: Got writer's block after finishing the latest chapter on my other story, Princess of Death. The outline of this chapter was already etched in my head, but I lacked the necessary means for the execution of the beginning and also the middle ground. Frankly, the chapter's end was what was the most visual and clear for me, but with so many ideas formulating while this chapter was in development hell, it expanded immensely that my planned ending moved onto the next one. I mean seriously, it seemed so simple at the time. I didn't think that more character development would come into play. So yeah, more words for you to read. Whoop-dee-fuckin-do. Anyway, I hope that you're prepared for some gritty stuff. The child-killing two chapters before was probably my grittiest moment, but expect some of the darker faces of humanity in this one. Fear, after all, can uncover the secret devils in saints.
I just want to say, the new Naruto opening theme song—Diver, by NICO Touches the Walls—is now my second fave out of all the Naruto openings, with Sign, by FLOW (the 6th Shipuuden Op.), being the first. And about time, too, coz the seventh one sucked ass! (My personal opinion because the upbeat tone of the song downgraded the seriousness and epicness of the Pain Invasion arc. I wanted some heavy guitar riffs and Shootie HG-style singing for that arc, dammit! [Note: Shootie HG is the gruff singer in the theme songs of Devil May Cry 3 and 4])
By the way, heads up for those curious people. Kakashi's secret girl is about to be revealed in this one. Some will hate, some will be indifferent, some will also probably like the pairing. But truthfully I'm doing this because I want this story to deviate from canon as much as possible. The mind-fucks are just beginning, if you want to be crude about it. Plus, if you think the cliffhanger-like ending of this chapter is a definite mind-fuck, then you haven't seen what I have in store for the two Narutos in the next chapter. Hehehe.
–– CHAPTER 7 ––
Unforeseen Consequences
After double checking the seal array plastered on the Kyuubi's cage and finding it stable, Naruto traversed through the mindscape and entered the white room. This place had always been the spot for discussions, explanations, and revelations. This was where he had learned that he was the son of his hero, the legendary Yondaime Hokage, so it only seemed fitting that he exacted his plan into action from this place. He and his counterpart didn't have a long conversation when they first went to this place together, unlike what he and his father had done, but now that was all going to change.
Rambo had said Aka-Naruto was in a semiconscious state, his awareness split between two places, the conscious world and the unconscious world. Naruto had seen this kind of state before, back when Ino had given him the basic rundown of the Yamanaka mind techniques. Putting the victim into this semiconscious state was essential for initiating hypnotism, which was used for either information-gathering (when simple mindreading was not an option) or tricking them into doing the user's bidding. There was a special kind of genjutsu that could fulfill this requirement quite easily (which was the one Red was in at this moment), but the Yamanaka clan frowned upon using it since it had a seventy-percent tendency of causing brain damage. No one knew the cause. It just had that kind of high-level damage.
But Naruto wasn't very worried about the chances of brain damage. If Aka-Naruto really had gotten brain damage from the technique, then there would've been black spots around the mindscape. Because this whole world was created and sustained by a working mind, and not a dead one, it should be in working order all the time. And because this mindscape was in working order, Naruto knew that Aka-Naruto was at least capable of manifesting his mental avatar into this world, despite how straining that may be. It would be like splitting his own body in two, one in the outside world acting like a lobotomized catatonic, one in the inside not exactly knowing what would become of him. But Naruto didn't think either of them had a choice if they wanted to be alive after this whole mess was over.
The connection must've dropped because he couldn't find the little redhead anywhere. It was him who had been calling for help, according to Rambo, but when Naruto saw nothing but white in this room, he suspected that Aka-Naruto was more conscious than unconscious now and that what Rambo had heard was probably nothing more than a frantic call from the kid when he realized that he was alone in a pure white room. For a child, being in such a place all of a sudden would prompt them to call for help when saying 'Hello! Anyone there?' repeatedly didn't get any reply.
"Naruto," he called softly, opening his senses to the far reaches of the mindscape. If there were even an inkling of Aka-Naruto's presence still within this realm, then he was determined to find it. He combed through the sectors, sniffing him out, wishing that he could find him faster because time was not in his hands. He absently sensed Rambo muttering as he sat on the floor, watching the outside world through Aka-Naruto's eyes, and continued his search. After going through at least eighteen different sectors—ranging from the small room for short-term memories to the hall that harbored his emotions—he found Aka-Naruto's unconscious half at the border between two places he called the Room of Dreams and the Wakened Veil. He should've known it would be there.
"Naruto," he called again, louder, much more assertive. He saw his counterpart groan as if in pain, but revert to obliviousness. Calling the kid's name (no matter how weird hearing yourself call out your own name) once more and still got nothing but a groan in response, Naruto decided to take matters a little more physically. While Aka-Naruto was, by all rights, the Ultimate God of this mindscape, Naruto still had control over the happenings inside this place. Like a second-in-command deity or something. So he tried summoning Aka-Naruto into the white room, using the godly gift he had gotten when he first arrived here.
It was a small success.
Aka-Naruto was barely visible. Rather, it was like he had turned into a ghost (the thought made Naruto shudder, and he had to control his shivers by comforting himself with the fact that the kid wasn't dead per se since he was only half there). If the white room hadn't been more like a void made of white than black, Naruto would've been staring right through the translucent sleeping boy. As it was now, he could only observe the lighter shades of Aka-Naruto's clothes, his skin so pale that it was as white as Orochimaru's, and his hair shifting tints into a . . . light red (he refused to refer to it as pink because it'd bring back memories of Sakura and what future they could've had if she hadn't died). Aka-Naruto was afloat in midair when he was teleported into this room, and now he was gently set down like a fragile vintage bomb.
Naruto knelt down next to Red's face and shook his shoulder. "Naruto."
The redhead groaned.
"Come on, Naruto, you have to wake up."
Slowly, Aka-Naruto opened his eyes to the world of white light. It would've been comical to listen to the boy's thoughts and hear him think that he had probably died and reached the afterlife, but the reason for his being here dissipated the humor out of the situation. What Naruto needed was Red's undivided attention for his plan to work. And they had to act quick; he could already sense Rambo's frantic pleas for him to hurry up. Things were looking worse in the outside world than before.
"Dad?"
"Naruto, I need your help," he said. He decided not to rectify Red's presumption; explaining the truth would take too long and the boy would probably be more trusting of him when he thinks he is his father. Naruto didn't like lying to him, but they were short of time. Still, he promised himself that he would tell Red the truth after everything was resolved. There were no if's, no doubts about survival, because Naruto was certain that they'd get through this alive and mostly unharmed.
"Help?" the boy asked.
Naruto nodded. "Yeah, big help."
"What do you want me to do?" He didn't even bother asking why he was here or why his father was here when he was supposed to be dead. And Naruto knew that Red was aware of his translucence, but the kid didn't voice any kind of reaction other than the observation of an art critic looking at mediocre art. Naruto surmised that a part of Aka-Naruto's personality was also split along with the consciousness. Fear, confusion, and curiosity were absent in this ethereal Red. If you were to look at it in another angle, it'd seem like the kid had become completely docile, like a brainwashed servant.
It rankled Naruto, somehow.
"Can you see yourself in another place?" Naruto asked cryptically.
"Yes," Red answered. "A lot of people are staring at me and the white-haired guy next to me. He's yelling something, but I can't hear him."
Clearly catching the tone of shame in his counterpart's voice, feeling like he had failed to deliver what was wanted, Naruto moved swiftly to placate that dark thought. "That's fine, Naruto, completely fine. Now, I want you to sit down with me." He sat down, the boy mimicking him moments later. "Give me your hands."
Aka-Naruto offered his hands, and it was here that Naruto had a better picture of how much the translucence had affected the boy's mental avatar. If one were to look at the redhead with nothing more than a simple glance, anyone might miss the subtle features, excluding the obvious bleacher colors of his entire being. When Naruto grabbed both of the kid's hands, he could actually see the wrinkles in his palms through Red's own. Enclosing these tiny, translucent hands, he looked straight at Red's misty gray eyes and offered a smile.
He didn't smile back.
Unperturbed, Naruto said, "Now I want you to open up your chakra coils and let me take control of it."
"Mom told me not to use my chakra at all."
He sighed through his nose. Kushina had given her son rough instructions on how ninjas manifest the use of their chakra into their techniques. Aka-Naruto had been four at the time, so she didn't really believe that he could try them out (she only told him because he was curious) or be as stubborn as she had been when she first learned how to get ahold of her innate chakra. Unfortunately, the summoning of chakra for the first time diverted their full use in supplying the seal with enough energy to keep it relatively controllable. The Kyuubi had taken that second of disruption to try and get out. Kakashi had been there babysitting when Aka-Naruto began to release demonic energy, so nothing dangerous had come from the event; Naruto reviewed those particular memories and nodded in understanding when Kakashi resorted to using a paper seal used for suppressing chakra. No doubt it was a special seal Jiraiya had made for emergency cases such as this. Back to the point, Aka-Naruto's chakra reserves were completely integrated into the use of the seal—Naruto suspected that his father in this reality sealed both the Yin and Yang of the Kyuubi's chakra, but this disadvantage did not prove anything unless he found more damning evidence to the contrary—that even using a fraction of it would cause the collapse of the Kyuubi's prison, like taking away the foundations of a tower.
"That's why I'm here," Naruto said. "I'm going to keep you safe." Or rather, the seals he placed around the Kyuubi's prison was going to keep Red—and in effect, Naruto as well—safe. "You'll be fine."
The redhead nodded once, a simple up-then-down motion.
He told the kid to close his eyes before closing his own. The thing about Mizuki was that he most definitely had a one-track mind. Naruto figured as much when the bastard attempted to do the same risky thing twice. This second time, however, Naruto knew how to counter whatever trick the chuunin had up his sleeve. But that didn't mean his own method had risks of its own. He had to take the child's body into account and what effects his manipulations could do in the long term. Considering that most of what had happened to his original body whenever he did this were quite beneficial in his line of work, he didn't mind much about the major details back then. But he wasn't in his original body anymore, and this younger body was probably more susceptive to the harmful effects if Naruto couldn't control it. Still, he had to take that risk. It was either the harmful effects or Aka-Naruto's death.
What Naruto intended to do was gather the surrounding Natural Energy from outside and fuse it with Aka-Naruto's chakra pathways, thus creating Senjutsu chakra. It would be a lot like Naruto going into Sage Mode, but instead of him being the battler, he was taking the role of his shadow clone, collecting the Natural Energy through meditation and sending it directly to Aka-Naruto. He also took the part of controlling the flow of Natural Energy inside this body, because Aka-Naruto couldn't. If he had done otherwise, Red would've turned into a frog stone statue faster than he could utter "Rasengan!"
The use of Natural Energy and fusing it with his chakra system had its long term effects, which Naruto had experienced about three months after the Pain Invasion. The overall effects were more physically oriented and seemed like a watered-down version of Sage Mode minus the trademark frog eyes, orange eye shadows, and the enhanced sensory ability. His muscles were now denser, making them more durable when strained. His bones were affected similarly, and it would take two or three enhanced punches from Sakura to crack a rib (he discovered that from experience when he entered Sakura's tent without warning —this was two weeks before she died—and had an eyeful of pale, bare skin and a small patch of hair—which, Naruto noted, matched the curtains—as Sakura looked back at Naruto, shocked, wide-eyed, and then finished up putting on her panties before clobbering the living daylights out of him. Waking after being bedridden for almost a week, he concluded that the residual pain from Sakura's chakra-enhanced fists was worth the sight). His reaction time had improved by leaps and bounds, senses more acute and susceptible, and battle instincts sharpened to almost legendary. He became the perfect soldier personified, and it would take an army to take him down.
Madara, however, only needed himself, a handful of bijuu, and an ace in the hole to defeat him. In hindsight . . . Naruto was now hoping to control the shinigami and force that deity to copulate God where the sun doesn't shine. Without lubrication, too.
The Natural Energy swirled in his gut, manifesting into a tranquil and condensed ball. He pushed it into his arms, through his hands, and into the slender body of his redheaded counterpart. Aka-Naruto squirmed, feeling uncomfortable with the foreign energy, but Naruto reassured him that it was okay, he'd handle everything. But that was easier said than done. Controlling the Natural Energy remotely was difficult, but he'd manage. Back in his original body, he'd been able to gather and control enough Natural Energy to rival more than half of the chakra in his body, a feat that had Fukasaku's jaw dropping before he got through the initial shock and laughed his wrinkly ass off in both pride and unequaled astonishment. For Aka-Naruto, a small amount of Natural Energy was all he really needed for protection, so at least the difficulty evened out.
But simply put, this would be the first time Naruto had done Sage Mode by proxy. Although he was the controller and the gatherer of Natural Energy, he was not in control of the body, but with the amplification of his senses due to him becoming one with nature and the stronger connection he currently had with the possessor of the physical body (Aka-Naruto), he at least could "feel" the outside world through Aka-Naruto. He could hear the words of Mizuki, although muffled because of the genjutsu distorting some of Red's senses, and see the blurred images of the villagers crowding near the elevated platform he and Mizuki were on.
A public execution? Naruto thought. That's pretty bold of Mizuki. But why aren't there any of the police stopping him already? He somehow knew the answer to that, but he refused to acknowledge such a possibility. He didn't like hearing that the justice system was as corrupt here as it was in his old world. Konoha always praised peace, but it was a mask as thickly layered as his own ADHD façade.
How Konoha could keep a straight face when there were as much skeletons in its closets as the other hidden villages, I would never know.
He didn't intend to know, either. It was best not to.
The Natural Energy began to fluctuate when Naruto distracted himself to the newfound extension of his senses, leaking out and degrading the connection. He quickly fixed the problem, but this slipup already caused some minor effects in Aka-Naruto's chakra system. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't necessarily good either. It was just energy idling around the kid's system, uncontrolled and severed from the main connection between giver and receiver. Naruto supposed that he could gather that trail of energy and pull it back into the main group, but that would weaken his control again, thus leaking energy out as he tries to put some back in. So it was best to leave it alone for now, at least until the need for Natural Energy was gone.
The mindscape rumbled. Naruto held onto the kid's hands when he started shouting in pain. Feeling the pain, though not as profound as the affected party, Naruto grimaced but kept most of his composure. His body didn't twitch an inch, his posture relatively unmoving. He channeled some of the Natural Energy and chakra to begin healing the minor burn wounds Aka-Naruto had obtained from the incident, though he would have to seal away the sight of a police ninja's face getting burned to a crisp—skin shedding, melting, blackening to ashes and soot, the man's whole face expressing agony and fear—from Red's memories later. Naruto didn't want to live inside the mind of a traumatized kid; his own experiences and his life were traumatizing enough.
Mizuki had already made his move, but at least Naruto protected his counterpart as best as he could. The Natural Energy did its work and made Aka-Naruto's physical attributes increase exponentially. It would take approximately twenty simultaneous shots of the Grand Fireball technique to cause third-degree burns with Red's hardened and flame- and heat-resistant skin. Not sure about the hair, though. Well, with the kid being alive after that point-blank explosion, having hair on his head was probably the least of his worries. For now, anyway. Naruto thought the red hair looked good on him.
He thought he just needed to keep the Natural Energy up for a few more minutes until help got Aka-Naruto to the hospital, but it seemed luck began to tip in between sides.
His control over the Natural Energy was disentangled abruptly, like the sudden snapping of rope supporting a heavy object which then dropped to the solid ground below. It all turned to chaos, then. The remnants of Natural Energy that hadn't been converted to Aka-Naruto's chakra started infecting his system, using the idling bundle of Natural Energy as a homing beacon to gather all the fragments into one place, like a magnet attracting scattered iron filings.
Naruto feared the worst. The now uncontrolled Natural Energy was deliberately seeking chakra to produce Sage chakra, and if there were a large amount of it in the host's chakra system without the host filtering its deep connection with nature, then the host's body would start turning to stone.
He would've gotten into action once more, hoping that he could fight back the surge of Natural Energy and Sage chakra invading more of Aka-Naruto's chakra pathways, but the way they moved and acted seemed strange to him. It was like—
Shit!
The Natural Energy wasn't acting like a parasite. The only times that it willingly sought living chakra to create Sage chakra was either it was demanded by the environment (Naruto still couldn't understand what the old toad meant by that) or to suppress an onslaught of demonic chakra.
And because of his attention solely on the dire situation, he didn't realize until it was too late that the Kyuubi had found a loophole in his seal array. And this loophole also happened to negate the rules enforced by the Eight Trigrams Seal that kept the demon behind its cage.
The Kyuubi was finally breaking free.
She had hope. She always held onto hope, somehow knowing that it could be the light that would save her from her darkness. But hope was nothing more than a concept of either pleading for a better world or wishing that reality wasn't as evil as it seemed. It was a contradiction to what she always thought of life. Anything could happen to anyone, be it sudden death, losing a limb or an eye, having their heart broken, their dreams shattered, or losing what they'd cherished most.
For Kushina to witness the rising red-yellow flames and to feel its intense heat that it was close to burning her face's skin, she abandoned hope. Nothing was more painful than seeing what she had always feared would happen. She had been given a second chance to protect him, to make sure that no madman could come close to killing him again. But she failed. And failed it miserably.
And from that moment onward, she turned away from grief and sorrow, even if it were for just a few minutes. Vengeance fuelled her veins, retribution made her concentrate, justice demanded her to raze the bastard who had killed her son, consequences be damned.
Mizuki smirked before making a run from the place. With her senses strangely acute—probably from another burst of adrenaline—she aimed a shot at the Achilles' heel tendon and executed it. The kunai brushed past her fingertips as the crowd in the bazaar screamed and ran and dropped to the ground. One of them ran perpendicular to Mizuki's direction, covering him from her sight, and she found an almost instinctual certainty that her projectile would intercept that villager than her intended target. So she readied another kunai, searched for the right pair of running feet, aimed for the tendon, and took the shot. The villager got by without getting hit, which she was thankful for, but neither of her two kunai hit flesh, but the solid soil of the market square.
She rushed through the throng of panicking villagers who were all running away from the explosion. She pushed people away, jumped over huddled ones who were pushed down by others, maneuvered her way through the small gaps in the crowd, and once even elbowed a fortyish man who had the eyes of a broken soldier experiencing momentary flashbacks to wars he had lived through. She didn't feel the least bit sorry; the man had it coming to him, thought it would be okay to just grab the nearest person and start sobbing and pleading like a prisoner of war about to be killed. She wasn't in the mood for sob stories or tales of survival. The enemy was still within her reach, and if she didn't get to him before the police did, then that small window of opportunity for vengeance would be lost.
And then what would that leave her?
Kushina wished not to think of it. She only had to act for now, and let the consequences come later. This was all for Naruto. All for him.
Sliding her last kunai into her right hand (she could only carry a maximum of three to look most conspicuous when in civilian clothing), she adjusted it into her favored reverse-position. Slashing random villagers just so they could give her a berth was not on the agenda. While she doubted that the agonized screams of the villagers would be differentiated from the general panic of everyone, she didn't want to attract attention to herself when Mizuki somehow could discern the difference. He showed the prowess of a jounin when they fought earlier, despite his chuunin instructor status. She wasn't about to underestimate the bastard a second time.
Still, keeping her head up, her body standing straight while people incessantly pushed others around, and her sight on the white-haired child-killer was extremely taxing. She wasn't sure where the members of the police force were anymore. At least one of them would have to go back to the stage and extinguish the fire, so that left three or less others already in pursuit. Not to mention their backup, if they ever came around.
She was nearing the end of the bazaar where three passages into the streets of Konoha were situated. She couldn't allow the bastard to get any farther. The market square was fine because it was on open ground, but if he were to enter one of the streets, then he had much more chances of getting away. Narrow alleyways, stores, rooftops of dissimilar multistoried buildings, and other hiding places. None of them could be found on open ground.
"Shit!"
She changed course, wanting to intercept Mizuki before he could reach another five yards in his escape. She got through the crowd as fast as she could while still keeping an eye on the mop of white hair among the rest. The continuous shouts were beginning to dull her sensitive ears, making it hard to concentrate, but she did her best to zone them out. Mizuki was too covered by the throng for a decisive shot, but at least she was making progress in intercepting him in time, although she didn't know which passage Mizuki would use.
Before she could think more about it while sprinting through an obstacle-laden area, a chaotic burst of demonic chakra, containing such malevolence and dread that it had affected everyone in the market, certain it'd cause respiratory failure to the faint- and weak-hearted, manifested in the middle of the square. She knew this chakra, felt it no more than five years ago, on that tragic night.
"No . . ."
Halting her sprint, looking back, the once frantic crowd imitating her movements in stunned silence and unhidden fear, a colossal wave of evil intent surged through everyone, quickly surpassing the feeling of dread Kushina had felt earlier. This was undeniably it. She knew what the Eight Trigrams Seal's purpose was, and with Naruto's death its services were complete. But the Kyuubi no Youko was an embodiment of chakra filled with the anger and hatred of humans. Such emotions and demonic essence could not dissipate by the snap of a finger, more so by the death of its container. And with nothing to contain the beast—
Screams filled the air. Panic was minimal before this. Now it was complete havoc. Villagers, no longer caring for honor, courtesy, and kindness, made mad dashes away from the malevolence's origin, even going so far as to punch and kick their way through rather than mere pushes. Some of the unlucky villagers who fell to the ground were stepped like doormats, with the steppers unmindful of how much pain they were inflicting to their fellow men. Some were surely dying, not from the presence of their deepest fears but from the stampede growing in the general area. This was fear at its most primal stage, the need for the human being to survive at all costs, condemning morals for the betterment safety of the self.
No doubt this was the same as that night. The same chaos. The same panic. The same fear. The same threat.
The Kyuubi had been released.
"Hm? Hey, did you hear that?"
Looking at him from the corner of her eye, she replied, "Hear what?"
"I thought I heard an explosion."
"That's probably your stupidest excuse yet," she deadpanned. "If you really don't want to go shopping with me, you can just say so."
Usually, he wouldn't mind going shopping with her, but this trip was a little too much for him to take. He could feel a lot of women staring at him—his reputation as an open Icha Icha reader was well known among the female population in Konoha. Normally he'd ignore the attention, but this was not about his reading preferences because his precious little pocketbook was nestled neatly inside his back belt pouch. This was actually about him being in the middle of the women's lingerie section inside the biggest department store in Konoha, assisting his female friend (they hadn't made anything official . . . yet, anyway) in picking out a new set of provocative undies. For someone with zero experience about this embarrassing situation, he never realized that it was very embarrassing. There were a few other males inside this section, too, but they were already married with the woman that came with them, so pervert radars were exempted from them. For Kakashi—he was young, single, a smut book reader, and most of all, single. At least for the time being. Damn, the stares were already getting to him.
"It's not an excuse this time. I really did hear something." He meant it. If he had wanted to get out of this place, thereby losing a lot of relationship points with her, he would've said something akin to Obito's usual 'Sorry I'm late' excuses. Not that he thought of leaving; he'd at least endure this since it was probably payback for the smut book shopping he did with her a week ago. Though he couldn't be quite sure where that thought came from, because he was referring to a woman who at least tolerates his openly perverted behavior—not to Jiraiya's extent, but close enough. Her asking him instead of her female friends to help her in buying provocative lingerie was an enigma in and of itself.
She arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure it's not just your imagination?"
Kakashi shrugged. "It could be, but I don't think so." He grunted, lifting his left hand to chest-level involuntarily. Realizing where the pain came from, he took off his glove and stared at the symbol in the center of his palm: 一 (tr. Kanji for 'one'). "Shit," he murmured.
"What's wrong?"
"It's the seal," he said. "Naruto . . ." He showed her the character burned into his palm. This was a seal he had asked Tenzou, the second ninja in history who could control the Mokuton (tr. "Wood Release"), to put on him. After the incident with Naruto drawing on chakra for the first time and the subsequent release of the Kyuubi's demonic presence, Kakashi believed it was wise to have some kind of device to alert him anytime, anywhere, if it ever happened again. Other than Jiraiya, the Third, and probably Kushina, he was the most qualified in suppressing the Kyuubi.
Understanding the implications as well, she put back the set of lingerie she had been browsing on the rack and then nodded at him.
They left the department store quickly, right in time for the symbol to change: 二(tr. 'two').
"Where could he be?" she asked him.
Kakashi was silent for a moment. "This way!" he exclaimed, heading deeper into the market district. His friend followed after him.
"What do you think caused the seal to crack?" she asked. Before long, they leapt onto the rooftops, away from the constant dexterous maneuvering and dodging in the afternoon market rush. Like him, she knew that this predicament must be brought to the Hokage at once, in case Kakashi's seals were not enough to suppress the demon, but she didn't like the thought of Kakashi taking on Naruto on his own. He thought of the kid as his surrogate little brother and the last living legacy of his treasured sensei. Such emotional attachment did not bode well for his efficiency. She trusted him that he wouldn't let emotions get the better of him, but that didn't stop her worrying.
"Don't know," Kakashi answered, his gaze solely at the rising level of demonic chakra. It was so potent and blood-curdling that swirls of red were forming in the air above the source. "But it must've been an enemy ninja."
"That would imply that they know what little Naruto contained. Him being a jinchuuriki is supposed to be a village secret."
"Oh it is," he agreed. "But would that stop loose-lipped villagers from telling?"
"It's a capital offense. Surely they'd know better—"
"Some secrets mean nothing to people. It's just the way they are."
"Kakashi," she said softly, but didn't continue. Below them, they saw the afternoon crowd panicking as the waves of malevolent intent from the demonic chakra slithering into their fears, robbing them of their sense of security. In front, the red swirls thickened and twirled, forming what looked like a rope, before a sudden wave of much darker and eviler intent almost knocked Kakashi and her off the rooftop they had landed on. She was close to slipping off the edge, but Kakashi grabbed her and pulled her back in time. The red rope melded, turned into a magnificent red tail.
As Kakashi felt another burning sensation on his palm, two more tails shot out and came into view. Looking at the new symbol was unneeded. The three wagging tails were reminiscent of how a dog indicated its excitement, which Kakashi believed to go well with the Kyuubi's current state of mind. It was more than happy—elated, perhaps—to almost be free of its five-year-old prison. These tails were devastating the towers around the market district, their exact lengths Kakashi estimated to be a hundred feet, taller than an eight-story building. He wasn't sure how anyone could subdue one of those, much less three, and a lot less if new tails appeared.
"Go and tell Hokage-sama about this," Kakashi ordered her.
"No," she retorted. "I'm not leaving you alone."
"I won't be; there'll be other ninjas in the vicinity to help me. But I need you to inform the Third at once."
"Someone else must've beaten me to it already."
Kakashi sighed. There was just something about her stubbornness that reminded him of a certain female redhead. It annoyed and impressed him at the same time.
"Kurenai," he said softly, mimicking what she had done a minute ago, like a parent telling their kid that he didn't have time to play with her.
"Don't give me that tone!" She scowled. "And don't pull your rank on me, either."
He sighed and slumped his shoulders. He was a jounin, she was a chuunin. He was nineteen, she was twenty. Age didn't really matter to them, or even to ninjas in general. Ranks, however, were important to remember and if a lower-ranked shinobi displayed insubordination, then it spelled trouble for the leader. But Kakashi was liberal, so Kurenai wasn't really in trouble; he didn't even order her anything yet, too. That was a big point.
"All right, I give," he said, acting like a whipped husband. "Just stay as close to me as you can."
"Any thoughts on strategy?"
They jumped off the rooftop towards another and then another, moving closer to the gigantic foxtail trio.
"Don't know if what I have in mind will work until I make sure Naruto's intact."
"What do you mean by 'intact'?"
Suddenly, they were joined by Gai, who was on his way there as well. He seemed to be the only one teaming up with them, as other ninjas in the village were leaping over the other rooftops near and far. "It seems that something unyouthful has come our way, my masked rival and Kurenai-san."
Kakashi said to Kurenai, "That the Kyuubi hasn't covered its host with a shell thicker than the jinchuuriki chakra cloak. The seals won't work unless the contact is skin to skin."
"Then how about I punch a hole through the shell, Kakashi!" Gai shouted. "The springtime of youth does not quiver from evil!"
"And do you have a plan B?" Kurenai asked.
"Jiraiya-sama also gave me a suppression seal, but it's less effective. In Naruto's current state, the best it could do is distort the Kyuubi's possession and control for five seconds before the Kyuubi manages to burn the seal."
"And plan C?"
"We make one last stand," he answered gravely.
"A noble way to die, I suppose," Gai said, this time quietly and solemnly, beside him.
"Hm? Oh, Gai. I didn't see you there."
Curse you, Kakashi, and your very hip ways!
"Naruto!"
The kid's semi-existence within the mindscape shattered and was engulfed in a cloak of deep red chakra. As if perceiving the threat, Aka-Naruto swiped his right hand to the side, like how one shoos a fly on their face. Since Red was the Ultimate God within this mindscape, Naruto had no other choice but to obey the laws the boy was enforcing. One of those laws happened to be something akin to Kyuubi's prowess: 'one swipe of its tail could summon tsunamis or some sort.' Naruto felt the strong push of the wind from Red's little swipe and he was thrown hundreds of yards away.
Naruto didn't know what really happened. Sure, he might've suspected that the Kyuubi had found a loophole in the seal he placed, but there were two problems with that. One was the nature of the loophole. Naruto created that seal himself, and although it was untested, it should've acted on the eight failsafe codes he had included into the seal's central mainframe and peripheral markings. He even double-checked it minutes ago and it was perfectly fine! He had seen nothing wrong. No damage alert, no escape attempts, nothing. The Kyuubi had been pretty quiet for the past few days—probably conceded to the fact that it was stuck inside that cramped prison. He couldn't figure out why this had happened.
Looking towards the slightly possessed Aka-Naruto trying to fight the Kyuubi's influence while agonizing over the poisonous effects of the demonic taint searing his system, Naruto understood that answers could not be found here. At least quick enough to ensure Aka-Naruto wouldn't die in the process. From trying to save a life, it somehow spiraled down into something into much more dangerous. Now it was not just one life at stake, because the whole village was in trouble if he didn't contain the threat before the seal collapsed completely.
The village was decimated. Nothing was left but rubble. The Hokage mountain was reduced to a pile of giant stones, the faces that had been sculpted at the side became like the rest of Konoha, nothing more than memories of a once powerful village. With only a small band of ninjas, most of the civilians, and a couple of elders left to try and rebuild their Will of Fire during the crisis of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, they were not prepared for the second wave of the invasion barely a week after the first. Madara didn't just want to destroy Konoha, but to make it fall down to its knees over and over until the proud Will of Fire of the people had been completely burned out.
Naruto narrowed his eyes, turned away from the screams of his counterpart, and exited the white room. He couldn't save Aka-Naruto from his suffering the way he was now. It was only thanks to the fragments of senjutsu still in their system that the demonic chakra had been simmered down to roughly a fifth of its potency, like adding paint thinner in a can of paint.
To take down the Kyuubi right away would be to face it head-on. That didn't seem to be much of a problem in itself, but simply taking down the demon fox in a one-on-one fight had unfair odds. His God-like abilities were nonexistent when he was inside that sewer place (the teleportation ability happens to be the exemption), so he had to fight with his own prowess. He didn't mind fighting the Kyuubi, but he was more worried about how long the fight would take. The last time he and the fox had fought (this was when he tried to master the Kyuubi's chakra, so unlocking its cage was mandatory), it lasted for over eight hours, which ended up in a stalemate. Thankfully, he had enough strength to push the Kyuubi back into its cage and lock it again. Naruto didn't think he'd survive doing that again until he had grown much stronger for the next battle. Then he found the suicide jutsu.
Entering the sewer maze, dashing through knee-deep water, he came to the fox's prison, the seals etched all over the walls shining bright red, contrasting the dark orange tint of the light in this place. The seal stuck to the center of the giant cage was half torn, its left side to the middle displaying a very jagged tear, as if it had been cut zigzag.
"That . . . does not look good," Naruto said offhandedly.
Behind the cage, the demon fox roared out its contempt at him. It didn't bother using words; just the smell of its breath and the ringing in his ears after the roar annoyed Naruto enough to sigh through gritted teeth. He rarely did that, if ever.
"I suppose negotiations are out?" he asked, to which all he got in reply was another roar along with the bashing of the fox's forepaws on the doors of the cage, which rattled in resistance. "Thought so."
Since talking to the damn fox was out—or rather, it was never an option to begin with—he started scanning through the complex lines of the seals, looking for something damnable enough to warrant his attention. If there was a fault in the seal array, then he'd find it. But it seemed that doing this alone would take too long, so he did the trademark fore and middle fingers' cross handseal and summoned eighty clones, and then designated each of them to a specific area of the array. With the seal he placed covering most of the room, the amount of clones needed was essential. Now while his clones were busy looking for the faults in his seal, the original Naruto turned his attention to the original seal pasted onto the gates.
The lower half of the paper was close to dangling. The tear had grown longer and wider. Naruto wasn't sure if he could be able to fix it properly.
He moved closer to the gates.
The Kyuubi let out another roar, creating ripples and growing waves on the knee-deep water, the force of the wind pushing his blond hair and the long tails of his forehead protector back. It seemed to have grown more aggressive for every time Naruto came closer to its prison, as if it were—
A matching roar from inside Red's mindscape tore through the market square, shaking the equilibrium out of a few rookie ninjas who hadn't felt the overwhelming malevolence of the demon fox at point-blank range five years ago. Its loud, reverberating shriek quenched those traumatized from before with newfound dread. The old scars were bleeding, figuratively speaking.
Kakashi held onto Kurenai's elbow before she fell over from the shock on her equilibrium. It felt like her insides had gone into a screeching halt (her heart skipped two beats; her lungs somehow shrunk, forcing her to release the air inside like how someone reacts to getting the wind knocked out of them; her eyes registered nothing but white for two seconds; her ears experiencing tinnitus, the relentless ringing, a symptom of noise-induced hearing loss) while her legs suddenly gave out on her. She clutched at her left chest, took deep breaths that were broken from her panic, and righted herself before thanking her companion.
As much as her eyes, which were still recovering from their momentary blindness, could see, two new tails had been summoned, totaling the amount to five.
Things did not look—
Naruto sprang into action almost immediately when he realized how severe the situation had deteriorated. This was no longer a simple sealing objective, but now a full blown battle of wills, and sadly the true owner of this body was incapacitated for the moment. So this battle was all up to him. He didn't like the sound of it.
He wasn't sure he'd win against another fight with this Kyuubi. Sure he was able to stretch his old fight with the demon fox to a stalemate, but that was in his reality fighting his Kyuubi no Youko. And while he wasn't sure how being in control of the body as well as the mindscape could help him tip the scales to that astounding tie he and the Kyuubi had been in, he was sure that trying to win over this version of the demon fox would be a lot harder than he'd think. Simply put, there were definite differences between this world and his old one, so it should be wise to assume that his old tactics in trying to gain the upper hand during his earlier skirmishes with the fox would not work for this one at all.
"I . . . will . . . get . . . OUT!" Its deafening bellow pierced his ears to tinnitus oblivion, and Naruto was certain that they were beginning to bleed. The fox's influence and power of the mindscape was vastly becoming stronger by the second, and already his clones were disintegrating from not only the toxic aura of demonic chakra surrounding the cage but also the way the seals burn them into a crisps by the slightest touch. And processing the shocked information from over twenty clones dispersing at the same time, it seemed to have left a lasting impression that those seals were not to be tampered with for the time being.
Unfortunately, his remaining clones didn't get the memo, so it took another two batches of clones dispersing from both the incinerates-you-within-a-second seals and the poisonous demonic chakra of the fox. When caution finally settled into the clones' mindsets, there were only ten of them left.
To Naruto, that didn't really matter. With his expertise in creating an army of himself, processing the onslaught of information became close to involuntarily for his head. It was like a muscle, when you work on it for an extended period of time, it would strengthen and become more efficient in its assigned task.
What really mattered to Naruto right now was calculating how long it'd be for him to keep the demon at bay. The cage was close to bursting from the relentless attacks of the Kyuubi. So far, the best he could do at this moment would be to keep the seal paper at the center of the gates intact, despite the tear slowly increasing in size. He climbed up the cage using the basic tree-walking technique and grabbed hold of the main seal, repositioning the dangling part of the paper to its normal place. From the other side, the Kyuubi let out another roar—not as loud as the previous, thank God—before engaging itself into another pseudo-battering-ram bash. Naruto almost lost his balance from the subsequent vibrations and might've helped along in tearing the seal completely when he, trying to regain good footing on the vertical surface, flailed his arms about with his hand still holding onto the delicate paper. He stopped himself before it could get any worse, but the gravity of the situation still got to him. He couldn't handle this threat alone.
Not having much options now, he turned to the only help he could get.
"Rambo!" he called, "Rambo, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear," came the voice of the ram, echoing around the room as the Kyuubi continued its bashing unmindful of anything else. "Need help?"
"Try to wake Aka-Naruto up! The Kyuubi will take control much faster when he's asleep."
"Right, try to delay the inevitable, you got it."
"That's not exactly encouraging, dumbass," he grumbled.
"Oh, before I forget, some extra help is on the way."
"Extra help?"
"Think back on your experience and you'll know what I mean."
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait, did he mean—"
He didn't finish his sentence as another presence entered the room. Someone familiar, someone he should've known would exist here. He—
Kushina would've lost track of Mizuki after sensing the overwhelming presence of the Kyuubi's chakra permeating throughout the district if she hadn't been prepared for it. She'd admit that she had been preparing for such a scenario where the seal had gone haywire or no longer fit for keeping the beast in its cage, but she'd also admit that she didn't think very far ahead in any of her preparations because just the thought of . . . disposing of the threat made her want to derail that train of thought, like someone looking away from a grotesque, frightening, Lovecraftian image. Despite the slight encumbrance due to the heavy feeling of the malevolent chakra, she carried herself onwards, keeping her eyes on that mop of white hair, wanting it stained with red where her kunai is stabbed deeply into the skull. Kushina was not about to show mercy at all.
But she was also torn with what she was about to do. Her son needed to be avenged, so she had to capture Mizuki, but the awakening of the Kyuubi also put the village and the civilians in danger, so Konoha's forces would need all the help it could get in trying to suppress the beast before any more havoc was wreaked upon them. With her profound knowledge in seals that could almost rival that of her husband and her husband's sensei, the teams dispatched to take control of the situation would gladly need her help.
Her duty to her village or duty to her personal vengeance.
It didn't seem right to pick one from the other—even if her conscience tried to tell her otherwise—but her resolve was absolute. They could handle the threat without her; the Hokage had a better chance of saving the village than she did. Mizuki had to die, and it had to be by her hand.
She didn't look at the tail jutting out above the heights of the surrounding buildings, didn't respond to the blood-curdling roar that could only come out of the mouth of such a vile creature that God Himself was justified in forsaking it, didn't listen to the frantic pleas and screams of the villagers around her. She kept her eyes on her prey, who was as panicky as the rest of the villagers. No doubt he didn't expect this to happen in his plan. The Kyuubi could put even the most veteran shinobi into bouts of terror, as no one could control their sensitivity to the malignant intensity of its demonic chakra. Some were more vulnerable to it than others, and there was no such thing as immunity. If you were susceptible, then you were susceptible; no way around it at all.
And it was in that little known fact that Kushina stopped midstride when another blood-curdling roar surge through the streets, like a giant tidal wave, a growl so potent that it almost made her weak in the knees. The villagers in the street weren't as strong-willed as Kushina was, and so they were stunned by its sheer power and potency. Some fainted right away, others screamed in utter horror that she wouldn't be surprised if their minds had snapped from the strain of processing such an abysmal cry from the demon embodying human anger and hatred. Some of the ninjas heading towards the market square looked unaffected, but they were just the same as her, a trained shinobi and resistant to demonic malevolence: they were all good at hiding their fears.
With some of the villagers going down to their knees, covering their ears to shut out the beast's gleeful growl—whimpering in hushed voices that this was all a dream, a nightmare, nothing could harm them, hahaha—Kushina had a better view of Mizuki in the street. He already caught sight of her too and dashed away, albeit in a subdued pace as while he was more resistant than the villagers, he seemed to be quite sensitive to its malicious aura. She felt the effects, too, but because she was keeping a leveled head in this situation, it took her less time to regain her bearings and continue the pursuit.
"You're mine," she whispered, fondling her last kunai as if it were her saving grace. Just a flick of the wrist and the white-headed chuunin would be eating dirt as he tries to nurse his bleeding ankle. That was all it would take. But she realized she didn't need to.
Mizuki tripped on a collapsed villager and his face hit the ground before he could soften the landing with his arms. He was moving like a half-drunk, his motor skills almost unresponsive but his mind still able to process information like he only had a pint of alcohol in his system. In his methodical means in escaping, panic had seeped through the cracks of his already unstable mind, and Kushina suspected that the presence of the Kyuubi's chakra played a small role in breaking the cage of the panic rat in him. The panic might've been with Mizuki all this time, and due to his emotion suppression training (a training course that had been mandatory in the final year of the Ninja Academy during the first three Great Shinobi Wars) he hid that part of himself better than any of the others. She wasn't sure if panic and insanity went hand-in-hand, but Mizuki sure seemed to have that case in his mentality.
The post-traumatic stress must've done a lot of things with his head, and it pushed him past the boundaries of sanity and morality. She knew a lot of friends who had fallen from the ordeals, the insurmountable weighing down of their minds when they were affected by the shellshocks. She had her own scars to tell stories of, but they were mostly kept to herself; not even her husband knew half of what she had gone through before her seeking sanctuary from Konoha. In this line of thinking, she should pity the poor man, but circumstances were different and there was no denying the righteous anger that pulsed through her veins, demanding retribution.
He went on all fours, trying to distance himself away from her despite its futility. He kept on muttering, "The Kyuubi, the Kyuubi . . . Tsubaki, where are you . . . Tsubaki, you're alive, right, we're gonna get married, have kids, be great parents, and watch them grow up to surpass us and, and, and"—he paused, as if he were pondering over something, and then broke into a grin that made even Kushina hesitate; it didn't look sane—"that's right, that's right, that's right . . . you're not here, you're not here, you're not here . . . hahaha . . . hehe—hahaha . . . not here, not here . . ."
Was this the one who killed her son?
". . . I got you a ring and everything, Tsubaki . . . it even has your birthstone . . ." He stopped crawling and just sat there, whirling his head around like a baby looking into the world for the first time.
Kushina was unsure now. While the anger didn't quiver or lessen at the pitiful sight, she found her morals reclaiming more and more of her thought patterns. She had been so driven by the anger that she hadn't stopped and thought over what she had been willing to do. If she could hear her husband now, he would've been quite disappointed in her. To him, vengeance only led to more hatred, which fuels the cycle that prevents the world from experiencing true peace. And from within that mindset, he also believed in the phrase Kakashi had learned from his mistakes and from his dead teammate: Those who don't obey the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.
"I love you, Tsubaki . . . I love you, I love you so much, did I tell you that I love you . . . hehe—hahaha . . ."
Did she really put personal vengeance over her village, her home?
She shook the thoughts out of her head, but they didn't want to leave. Nevertheless, she stepped forward, holding the kunai in the proper stabbing position. Just one stab to the head was what all it would take. She'd listen to more of his ramblings before she plunged the sharpened tip of her blade towards the center of his forehead, listen to the audible crack of the skull as something foreign pierced through it. Applying so much force in her clenching, she didn't realize that her hand was shaking. She grabbed her right hand with her left, raised them both high, and—
Mizuki looked up at her, his eyes as dead as his ragged face appeared, and said, "They're dead."
An image of her home village in ruins.
An image of the family she had there.
An image of Minato, smiling eternally with a faint blush in his cheeks, just like the time when they first kissed.
An image of Naruto, looking so much like her, smiling the same way her husband did.
Not realizing she had screamed when she slammed her arms down, Kushina could only stare at the dead eyes of an already dead man, dead inside, dead in mind, dead in soul.
And she kept on screaming, also not realizing that the sadness and grief were finally out of their cages and the tears slowly cascaded down her blood-stained cheeks.
Under the cast of orange light pervading the sewer/boiler room, his white cloak flowing up as he leaped up to the center of the gates, blond hair looking almost a lighter shade of orange, calculating blue eyes that seemed to enhance the cold fury hidden behind the poker face, Minato Namikaze slammed his right palm onto the paper seal moments after Naruto released his hold on it when he felt the older blond's presence.
It was only a tiny glimpse before Minato ordered him to move out of the way, but a tiny glimpse was enough for Naruto to recognize the black spiral marking drawn into the Yondaime's palm. In fuinjutsu, the use of the spiral as a binding mark for demon sealing was part of the basics. But such spiral designs were thrice as big as what could be drawn within the boundaries of an adult human's palm, because for demon sealing, size did matter. Naruto knew this; Minato should know this. But instead of doubting, Naruto entrusted Minato with this job. Minato was the Yondaime Hokage, renowned with an extensive knowledge of fuinjutsu. In either reality, this was a true fact. And putting his trust to this decisive moment, leaping off the gate when palm met with paper, Naruto became a witness to his father's genial work in action as his body splashed into the knee-deep water below.
The paper seal, its lower section dangling on like a hangman, was implanted with the spiral mark, which was overlapping the kanji. Little by little, the frightening tear was disappearing. It was as if he were watching the event on rewind. Naruto looked towards his father, who had just jumped off from the iron gates as Naruto had, doing a backflip midway before landing on the surface of the water. The aura radiating from the Hokage was just as intimidating, yet also gentle, as when he first met him, back when the Kyuubi had been close to being released in his old world. It made Naruto wonder how much of the tails were already jutting out in reality.
"I don't know if I should be cautious or hostile around you," Minato said with his back to him. Completely defenseless, but Naruto knew this was anything but. "Not after what you inadvertently done to my son's seal."
Naruto said nothing. How could he? The Yondaime was pinning the blame on him because it was true. He was the one who modified the seals, which in all likelihood, started this whole mess in the first place.
"But after carefully observing the purpose of the seals you put up, it was easy enough to deduce that you were trying to keep the Kyuubi under lock and key, although it wasn't exactly enough."
Minato turned around, giving Naruto a small but proud smile. It made Naruto a little confused, unsure which direction the older blond was leading this conversation.
"Your modifications," he elaborated, his right hand gesturing to the molten hot seals drawn on the walls. "They act as amplifiers to the main seal. While I commend you for the ingenuity, since is by far the first time I've ever seen amplifiers for the Eight Trigrams Seal"—he shook his head, looking like a man who has just seen the dishonorable death of a noble warrior—"your seals weren't enough to keep the real threat in."
"What?" Naruto blurted, sounding a little indignant. Minato may have tried being nicer with his blunt criticism, but this was months, if not years, of dedicated work on Naruto's part. Ever since he started studying seals, he already began work on those seals. Many designs had been changed, morphed, cut out, and most usually discarded, before he got to the ones he had used now.
From the other side of the cage, the Kyuubi had turned silent—no more growls, no more cage-bashing. But the malevolent chakra was still seeping into the kid's chakra system, poisoning his coils and his body. The paper seal, however, was fully fixed and looking like it hadn't even been tampered with.
"You didn't notice it, did you?" Minato asked.
"Noticed what?"
He sighed through his nose. "I'm sorry, but my time here is short. So I'll just have to get you up to speed quickly. I know who you are—"
"You looked into my memories!" It was an accusation, not a question. This was his father, but it was also not. And in some twisted way, Naruto didn't like him poking around places where he didn't have the right to.
"Naruto, just shut up and listen!" Minato shouted.
Feeling like an Academy student being drilled by their physical education instructor, he complied without so much as a complaint. Though if Minato had the time to listen closely, he would've heard his otherworld son cursing him under his breath.
"Okay, I know who you are, I know what happened outside, too. Rambo filled me in on that." Seeing Naruto's questioning look, he added, "Yes, I spoke to the sheep. And I thought I'd seen everything when I was alive. . ." He was silent for a few seconds. "After that, I came down here. There is something I've known about for quite some time, but couldn't tell you because of the seal."
"You were only supposed to come out when the amount of tails reached eight."
"Correct, but I'm afraid that in the meantime, only six are out."
"What? But how—"
"Am I here in front of you? Because truthfully, the seal recognized eight tails are out but only six are actually visible in the real world."
"Two invisible tails?" Naruto mused.
"The seal I've just placed won't hold the beasts for too long," he said. "The Eight Trigrams is no longer enough. You're going to have to help me graft a new seal to replace it."
"Wait, did you say beasts? As in plural?" Naruto did not like where this was going.
Minato looked grimly at him. He walked towards the prison gates. "You're not the only one who traversed to our reality."
Naruto followed him, peering into a section of the prison that he didn't bother observing (who would when a giant demon fox was slamming onto the cage doors like a mad ram?). And there lay another Kyuubi—his Kyuubi—looking sick and weak, its fur showing patches of gray, ears flopped down like a whimpering dog, mouth forming a parody of its former sneer, as if it held more of sheer pain than of malice. Naruto didn't need more convincing what this was, because he knew. He just knew that this was the Kyuubi of his old world, unknowingly tagged along for the ride. But . . .
Kyuubi didn't seem an appropriate name for it anymore; there were only seven tails jutting out from it.