Me talking: The beginning of the next segment: a mystery in three parts! And maybe a little boy/boy love in Chapter 7. Since I've already written most of Chapter 6, by maybe I mean "yes." But only because Naruto has a hidden gay crush on Sasuke.
Naruto dreams. Sakura is fluttering in and out of his sight, like a butterfly rocked by the wind, or a hummingbird. Something beautiful, because she will always be beautiful to him, her arms rising upward and her voice low. Her back arches and she is a dolphin and then gone. A dark shadow shifts in the background, rising up.
He wakes at predawn. He hears a wailing and expects it to stop once he registers the sound, thinks that it must be him. But it doesn't stop; it only intensifies and he slips off the blanket and gets to his feet, graceful as he is only when no one's there to see. He treads lightly to the window, looking at the snow starting to fall, blanketing the inn. The entire world is dark and light at the same time, stained sickly yellow by the guttering oil lamp outside, no other light from the already-set moon or the soon-to-rise sun.
Naruto shifts restlessly. The wailing has not stopped, and he knows it is just the wind. The dreamlike quality of the night shatters when Jiraiya's thick drunken snore hits, droning on and on. Just as Naruto is called to reality, he sees a shadow slip in the corner of his eye, outside on the snow. It is a familiar shape, a familiar motion, and he is frozen, breath held in and eyes wide. It is, it cannot be anyone else, but the longer he stares the more it becomes nothing at all, eyes open so long everything turns black, and with his blink all phantoms real or imagined are gone. The sun is rising.
Naruto goes back to bed, prepared to stay there until noon. When he sleeps he dreams of shadows, always approaching but never arriving.
He wakes to find the light muted, though he thought it would be late. Jiraiya's snore is laboured now, breath puffing out from his nose, visible in the cold. A stream of drool is visible on his chin, slick and muted in the dimness. Gross.
Naruto slips on his undershirt and black pants, unusually subdued by the atmosphere. Not to mention that his orange clothes are all in the wash. The wash water is probably frozen, and Naruto wonders how long it will be until he can actually get them back. It doesn't matter much though. Jiraiya will want to stay for a few more days, and Naruto can't find it in himself to object.
The inn, more fairly a brothel, is large and clean, several sleek wooden floors. Most of its guests are fat and wealthy, and Naruto still can't figure out how they got rooms. Jiraiya, he knows, can actually be charming when he puts his mind to it, but Naruto doesn't want to think about it in any closer detail than that. Though, he muses, pushing back a screen to reveal a short passage blocked off by a very subtle entryway, it could just be professional courtesy. After all, Jiraiya does write those crap books. Naruto pushes open the screen, discrete as the screen itself – secret passage, Naruto thinks – to enter the main balcony, wrapped around the central area of the inn itself. Four floors tall, it is the highest place Naruto has ever been, with the exception of the Hokage's headquarters. He stands quietly in the shadows of the fourth floor, overlooking the tiered balconies and the central hot springs. The entire inn is built around the hot springs, with both men and women already soaking up heat. The sections aren't separated by gender, and Naruto watches with only vague interest as a man his companion fuck with enthusiasm.
Standing there hidden by his own uncharacteristic stillness, Naruto smells something so familiar and elusive it winds into his brain and burrows down. There is nothing for him in that moment but finding and recovering the sensation of some point in his past, when he was a boy in truth instead of the half-man half-boy hybrid he is now, when his breath never caught in his chest, snagged on old wounds buried there. He doesn't move, but instead feels the world turn over. He collapses onto the ground, one leg buckling and then the other, like dominoes. In his head he can almost hear the voice, Did you just faint when you smelled me, idiot?
And then the world stops spinning and he gets up, leaning on the railing unsteadily. Naruto looks down to the hot springs, only to see a different man and a different woman, but still fucking. He envisions himself down there, but he's young, he's hot stuff. He could do better than that old fat-ass. Then Naruto feels ashamed of himself; he's not mean usually.
He moves down silently, jumping down to the third floor, the floors tiered and easy to jump from. The world tilts again but not all the way, and he prowls forward, ready to strike at anything that moves. The corridor is empty, but behind discrete closed doors ineffectually blocking the sounds of moans and snores and the occasional grunt there are people, sleeping or otherwise occupied in bed.
He listens closely but does not hear the only voice he cares to hear, right now. Instead, he can almost feel Kyuubi's rumbling in the depths of his body. But not really. Naruto shakes himself sharply, trying to shake himself out of whatever funk he's in. Too late he notices, subtle but pervasive, the odor of incense on the air, herbs and opium.
A door slams open and a girl bursts out, flowery pink kimono gaping open to reveal a prepubescent body. Naruto is repulsed to see a older man follow, laughing like it's all fun an games. Naruto knows it's not, because he had a chance to see her face; he follows after them silently, moving from rafter to rafter. The man is drunk, or something else, but Naruto can't tell. His sandals clop along the floor loudly, wooden heels just ready and waiting to wedge into some convenient gap in the floorboards... like the one that Naruto pries open with his claws, hiding himself as much as possible in the poorly-lit corridor.
The man falls flat on his face, and the girl stops to watch, startled by his "whump!" of distress. Naruto finishes him off with a solid blow to the head and drags him quickly back to the room the girl ran out of in the first place. He does his best to act nonchalant, but no one really cares in the first place, and nobody from the hot springs even looks up in their direction. Drugged out of their minds, Naruto guesses, though he doesn't know for sure.
The girl – and she's older than he first guessed, though not by much – she reminds him of Sakura, way back before they had even graduated. They regard each other silently for a second, Naruto really unsure of the etiquette in this situation. How do you leave someone after having knocked out their employer/harasser? Apparently she knows though, because she steps forward and then gets on her knees, leaning forward. Naruto jerks back, repulsed. "Eh? No! What?!? No. Nonononono. Get up. Seriously. Not cool."
She looks up at him with a puzzled expression, like she's never had anyone reject a blowjob (from a early-teen-something girl!). He almost feels bad, like he kicked a puppy or something, because she looks a little rejected and scared too. "Ah, hey, come on, it's fine. Um, so, hey, where can a guy get something to eat around here?"
And she nods her head down and to the side, over to the hot springs, where the just-finished-fucking couple are now downing kebabs and tepid sake, lounging on the warm rocks. "No, like, real food."
She looks at him in surprise, again, and it's an expression he's beginning to suspect she just wears perpetually, like a little rabbit or a squirrel. But she nods, smiling briefly, and then runs off towards a nearby stairwell, recessed and narrow. When she stops and motions him forward, he doesn't see why he shouldn't follow. It's not like some little girl is going to ambush him, right?
Except she runs off in front of him and darts to the side just as he puts his foot on the floor. He suspects its coming, but even then barely has time to register the frying pan hurtling towards his face. He had already started ducking though, and stumbles off the stairs into a crouch, hands raised to deflect further cutlery, thrown, hurled, or whatever. That appears to be it, though, and she looks at him with a chagrined expression.
Naruto holds his hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey, look, don't worry about it. I just want some food, you know?"
She stares at him.
Well. "My name is Naruto, and me and my teacher are staying here for a couple of days. It's gonna be a real bad stay if I can't get some food, know what I mean? I promise, I don't eat little kids." He grins disarmingly, or tries to. He's started to get little fangs sometimes what with the fox and all, and suspects that his grins aren't as wholesome as they used to be.
She stares at him some more. Can she even talk? Has she been brain damaged? But then she shifts forward a little, hefting the frying pan in her hand. "Are you a monster?"
What? "Um... no."
"You have claws," she observes. "And whiskers. I think you're a demon."
"Wha? Or well, yeah, they are claws, but these things, they're just ridges. It's cause I made a nasty face one day, and my face got stuck like this." She giggles, and makes a face, tongue sticking out and eyes crossed.
"Augh, noooo! How horrible!" Naruto huddles and covers his face, wide eyes peeking out behind his fingers. See, he can do kids. Not so bad.
She smiles and nods decisively. "Okay. Even if you are, monsters aren't so bad." And she drops the frying pan with a clatter, running forward again and beckoning him onward. She doesn't look scared anymore, which Naruto takes as a hopeful sign, and he follows her into the gloom of the hallway.
The next room they come to is brightly lit, and free of the drugged fumes that were so pervasive outside. In it about a dozen people are sitting, bustling about with produce and cooking or grouped around a large central table. Most of them are women, but there are several men, one of whom is examining bowls of dough clustered around the fireplace. It's a homey scene, one that takes Naruto back to Leaf for an instant, and Iruka's small apartment smelling of cooking vegetables and ramen.
The atmosphere slams to a halt when they all notice him, en masse. He grins weakly, thrown off by the weight of their stare, but his little companion – who has still not given him a name – gestures him forward and sits him down at the table. One woman in particular gives him the evil eye, like he was a bug or something that had tagged along on someone's shoe.
The girl steps forward, body language much more confident here, in a place she knows and he hopes has people who care about her. "This is Naruto. He's a monster, but he's nice." And with that she sits down next to him and pulls over a bowl of peas to start shelling them. He looks around, seeing that people aren't much happier with that pronouncement. He's not surprised.
"Ah. Hi. I just, uh, ran into this girl in the hall and asked where some food was, you know." He shifts, not sure what else to say.
Finally a large burly woman at the stove says, "Suki doesn't take kindly to strangers. And this isn't a place for guests."
"He hit Hisao on the head," Suki pipes in, not looking up from her peas, a task she seems really intent on. "And he didn't want to eat down there with all the adults." And suddenly everyone relaxes, as if this statement really explains something, or maybe it's just that he's a "kid" instead of a guest, and in that context Naruto guess it makes sense. Plus Naruto has always looked younger than he really is, a fact that used to bug him. It seems lucky here though, because with a smile a bowl of rice is put in front of him, along with a buttered roll. Naruto has had both, before, but never at the same time. He's not complaining though, and tries not to inhale them, listening absently as conversation starts up again around him.
There is a peace to the large kitchen, a community of bustle and toil, and more and more people filter in as the morning ages, so that by the time much of the staff is in for breakfast, Naruto has already eaten his fill of firsts, seconds, and thirds, and is just sitting there watching, uncharacteristically silent. Maybe just matching the silence of his companion, Suki. She's done too, and they shell peas together. Cooks and maids bustle about, gathering up breakfast foods of all kinds, some that Naruto has never seen before, and some infinitely familiar (home, their scents say as they waft up and then dissipate).
The room suddenly gathers itself up, and Naruto can smell the tinge of fear in the air. A small side door, opulent and beautiful – Naruto had assumed it was decorative only – is pulled open by one of the kitchen boys and a woman strides through, grand and proud. Her bearing is that of a king in his kingdom, and Naruto thinks her face is too harsh, as though it were carved out of granite rather than more malleable flesh. Her long kimono swishes in the relative silence, as everyone stops talking, though not everyone stops working; rice boils for as long as it boils and bread bakes as it will without regard to big entrances and dramatic pauses.
Her eyes survey the room, black and bold against her heavy white facepaint, and though they pause briefly on Naruto, she doesn't deign to comment, and instead goes up to the woman who had given Naruto food at first, and he realizes now the kitchen must be her domain, because there is no doubt the kimonoed lady in front of him is anything but the owner of the entire brothel. She looks like a courtesan, not someone who belongs here, covered in flour or gizzards. After a brief conference and a distant smile, she walks out. Conversation resumes shortly after she's gone, no nervousness in the air now, so this must be a daily visit, though maybe not always this peaceful.
She exits without flair, turning abruptly on her heel. She strides away (looking like someone who always strides) without a glance at Naruto, so he figures he's okay. It isn't until she's almost gone that he notices her companion, which shouldn't have happened. And right away, he knows the dude is a nin; there's no other explanation. He's kind of short, with wild black hair and dark mischievous eyes. His body is compact, a lot of power concentrated in a small space. Though his mistress (boss? mother?) hadn't spared Naruto a second glance, his eyes lingered on Naruto. Naruto did his best to appear unintimidating and meek. He wasn't sure it was working when the man's gaze sharpened in interest.
"Hi. I'm Ken," he says with a big grin. His teeth are very white, Naruto notices. And his eyes are very blue. And he's wearing a very tight shirt. "I work here. You are?"
Naruto knows he spends the next couple minutes talking about himself, but he can't really remember any of it by the end of the conversation. He regains his senses by the time Ken walks away, casting a smile over his shoulder before walking off. As he goes Naruto recognizes a set of shoulders, so familiar but so impossible to place, the stride both familiar and secretly cherished. But the moment of recognition is gone and Ken once again is a stranger, and he looks like no one Naruto has ever seen before.
Naruto finishes without fanfare, and is reluctant to exit the refreshing atmosphere of the kitchen, but he is hurried out by the head cook – Ma Belle, it means beautiful, and you sure as hell better refer to her as such, one of the older men had informed – once the room gets too full of bustling courtesans to stand up or even breathe.
He's swallowed up by the outside air. It's heavy and moist, and he suspects water has been thrown over heated stones throughout the building. They obviously make an effort to keep the place as hot as possible, probably because so much business is conducted without clothes on, Naruto decides. He's hot in the humidity, and irritable, because now that he knows the air is drugged it scratches at his lungs, clogging them up with invisible grit.
Naruto trolls around the side passages for a long time, trying to avoid people as much as possible. He isn't in the mood for giggling right now, which is all he hears around others. That and moans, anyway. He's a teenage boy, but this is over the top even for him; he could never stand to be so useless. Naruto scratches up the walls just for kicks, claws digging deep into the wood.
Finally, after an hour or so of restless wandering, he stumbles upon a garden, surrounded by paper glazed so thin it's translucent, light seeping through. He sits down by the plants and just breathes, unable to grasp why he hates it here so much.
As the sun gets brighter and brighter, he hears a slamming of doors and a scream, and then another. He perks up, dashing out into the hall, trying to find his way back to a more central area. There's a slamming of feet against hardwood above his head, and then a side panel a few feet in front of him is slid back to reveal several burly men, and with them, Ken.
"What happened?" Naruto asks, realizing that their meeting is probably not accidental.
"The honorable Hisao has been found dead." Ken levels an even look at him, and Naruto is too starved for words to say anything. Shit.