Chapter XVI

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Following Sasuke's advice, Naruto waited until his day off from training to approach Kurenai with his question. She was seated in a small dango booth, chatting unconcernedly with Anko when Naruto found her. When he requested a private audience with the illusion mistress, she stood up at once, her curiosity piqued by the odd request. Naruto had never sought her out before.

When they had retreated a short distance from Anko, Naruto took a deep breath. "Kurenai, I want to ask you something. It's about the Kyuubi."

Kurenai winced, glancing around. "Come with me," she whispered. Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed his hand and towed him behind the building neighboring the dango shack. She released him and leapt up to the roof of the building. Nonplussed, Naruto followed.

Only once the two of them were settled more-or-less comfortably on the roof of the building did Kurenai speak, and even then only in a whisper. "How do you know about the Kyuubi?"

"I thought everyone knew," Naruto said, avoiding the question. "Even your team knows."

This momentarily diverted Kurenai. She had to ask. "Really? How do they know?"

"I told all of the genin."

"You what? The Kyuubi is a Konoha secret! Talking about it is punishable by the Hokage himself."

"It's my secret. Anyway, I know the Hokage personally as well as all of the people I told. I would trust any one of them with my life. If they or you get in trouble for talking about the Kyuubi with me, I'll have to have a word with Sarutobi-sama." Kurenai still hesitated. Naruto pressed on, "Can I at least ask you my question?"

Slowly and reluctantly, the illusion mistress gave an affirmative.

"Alright. Thanks. Last time I visited the Kyuubi and spoke to him inside my head, I felt as though I was gone for maybe an hour at most, but I woke up several hours after I went in. Do you know of any way that I could come back only a few minutes after I leave?"

Kurenai did not query how Naruto was able to speak to the Kyuubi. She simply sat in silence, chewing over his question. Finally, she spoke, "I have no prior knowledge of this kind of situation. Dealing with bijuu, I mean. Therefore, my advice may not work. All I can say is, when you arrive in whatever place you come to when speaking to the Kyuubi, make note of where exactly you are and be sure that you're in the same place when you're ready to leave."

"So, just make a mark on the floor where I come through and stand over it when I want to be sent back?"

"Exactly."

Naruto stood. "Thank you for your help, Kurenai-sensei," he said formally. "I'm going to go and try it now." Naruto walked toward the edge of the building. He paused before jumping to hear Kurenai's parting words.

"Naruto? Tell me how it works out."

Naruto nodded without turning around and leapt, quickly vanishing from sight.

Naruto found Sasuke waiting for him, most unusual behavior in the Uchiha. "What do you want?" Naruto asked, before Sasuke could say anything.

"Sure, don't look so glad to see me, someone might notice," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. "I know you're planning to talk to the Kyuubi again. I want to watch."

"You'll be wasting your time," Naruto said flatly, "all of the talking goes on inside. On the outside, I'll probably just be asleep for a while. A few minutes if I'm lucky, a few hours if I'm not."

"You're trying to put me off," Sasuke said sulkily. "I don't care. I've never seen that kind of thing before and I want to."

Naruto raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Hey, if that's what you really want, who am I to stop you?"

"Where do you plan on being while making contact?"

"How about training ground seven? It's pretty secluded there, and I don't want to be interrupted talking to the demon who everyone in Konoha would love to kill."

"Fair enough," Sasuke agreed.

Naruto got settled on the ground leaning against one of the posts in the tiny clearing. He made a small prayerful gesture to the Almighty Log in thanks for the support provided by the post. Sasuke opted to remain standing and leaned against the post beside him. Naruto closed his eyes, trying to recall how he had found his way into the mindscape before. He tried imagining the Kyuubi's room with its stone walls and tall metal bars that reached up to the shadowy ceiling. In his mind's eye, he saw a silvery-blue thread connecting his consciousness to that room. He allowed the thread to draw him toward that place- to guide him.

This time, he arrived in the Kyuubi's room directly rather than in the dimly lit sewer beyond. He could hear the rushing water in the distance but was pleased to see that the floor, wooden bench, and censure that he had left before were still there, the flames from the censure casting writhing shadows and flickering light. Naruto held out a hand and envisioned a piece of chalk appearing in the air and rolling into his hand. The thin white cylinder formed directly in the palm of his hand. Keeping his feet as still as he could, he crouched down to trace around them. Then he set down the chalk and took two steps forward to be sure that he wouldn't smudge the lines later.

The Kyuubi crouched in his cage and watched Naruto's efforts before speaking. "Back again, brat?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "No."

The Kyuubi's look instantly turned sour and he exposed his canines. "Save your nasty attitude, brat. You owe me for allowing you to return to this place so easily, and for the information I gave you when last we met."

"I don't think I owe you anything, really. I haven't been nearly as familiar with you as I am with the Hokage, or as rude. Just remember who can cause the most pain to whom in this relationship." Naruto sat down on the wooden bench, tipping his head back a little farther to maintain eye contact with the demon. "Anyway, I have a couple more questions for you."

"Naturally. I have never known a race of beings as nosy as you humans. It is my hope that you don't come here for the company. If you did, I'd have to make it much more painful to get in here."

"Whatever. I want to ask about shadow clones. I'm supposed to be getting all of the memories that my shadow clones get after they're dispelled, but only a few have been coming back. I guess it's a good thing, because my sensei says that getting them all back at once could knock me out, but still, I might need some of those memories. Do you know where they went? Do you know how I can have them to easily access without passing out? Especially any new ones I might want to make."

"Yes, ungrateful human, I know where those experiences are, how you can reach them, how to access new memories in the future once you make them- I know it all. I also know exactly what would have happened to you had I not blocked most of those memories that your clones made from entering your conscious mind. An action that must undeniably place you in my debt."

"Sure. Whatever. Just tell me what I want to know."

"I see that patience is not your virtue. Your memories are right here." The Kyuubi shifted to one side, not an easy feat for the massive fox in the confines of the cage. Behind him was a floating sphere the size of the Hyuuga clan compound. It was a brilliant scarlet color that emitted a very faint light in the shadows of the cage. The Kyuubi raised a foreleg and caught hold of it, bringing it around in front of him to float at chest-height for him, though Naruto still had to crane his neck to see it. Behind the red barrier, Naruto could just catch glimpses of what looked like insubstantial blue ribbons, looping and swirling and flickering. "I would suggest allowing me to retrieve them. It would be ill advised for you to enter."

"And why is that?" Naruto asked, hoping that his skepticism hadn't been as obvious in his voice as he thought it had been.

The Kyuubi gave him a blank, nasty look. "Because they exist without definite form, save for faint chakra signatures."

"So? What's your point?"

"At this moment, they sense your proximity and are all attempting to rejoin you simultaneously, the consequences of which would almost certainly paralyze you for a time. I have surrounded them in a bubble of my own youki to stop that from happening. If you would like, I can return them to you while you sleep over the next few nights so that you will not experience the effects. In future, I can do the same, providing immediate access to important memories and give you the rest while you sleep."

"That sounds ideal. How do I experience them once you put them in my consciousness?"

"They will be accessible in the same way your own memories are; you will most likely see or hear something that will trigger a recall."

"Okay. That's pretty straightforward." Naruto kneaded the back of his neck with one hand. "Ouch. It's kind of inconvenient to stare up at you whenever I have to talk to you, Kyuubi." Naruto paused, thinking. "How would it be," he asked slowly, "If I figured out a way to make you a bit smaller? Then you could walk out of that cage and explore. It should be fine if the seal is undisturbed."

The Kyuubi snorted derisively, "It is a pleasant image you paint, human boy, but it would be beyond your power to change my size without changing my form as well. What do you intend to do, turn me into one of your kind?"

"Why not? What good has being a fox done you? At least if you were human-shaped, you'd been human-sized, too. You really could just walk out of the cage. I mean, as long as the resizing wouldn't change your ability to filter my clones' memories." Naruto looked up into the Kyuubi's red eyes with anxious blue ones.

"No, I don't think it would effect my powers. However, wouldn't that make us equals in your eyes? Two humans? I would rather remain a fox."

"A trapped fox rather than a free human? Your pride is more important than your comfort?"

"Yes."

"As you keep saying, I owe you. And-"

"You're going to repay me by changing my form whether I want you to or not?"

"Yes. And since I have no idea what I'm doing, your cooperation would probably help to make this as painless as possible."

"Even from a mortal, I would not have expected a course of action so foolish. You won't dare try to change me against my will."

"Oh yeah? We'll see. Now shut up before I knock you unconscious to make this easier."

"Don't even think about it. Don't you even think."

"Is that an order?"

"Yes, brat, it is."

"I don't know. I think it sounded more like a challenge to me. I'm going to change you and then maybe you'll recognize that your power doesn't count for anything in here." Naruto stopped for a beat, remembering his very first shadow clone and what that clone had said. The demon interrupted his thoughts, however.

"You dare defy me? I am the most powerful of the-"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm starting now. If you value any nerve endings you possess, you will be quiet now." To Naruto's satisfaction, the Kyuubi did indeed fall silent, though he was not still. He scrapped his claws across the floor, eyes narrowed to malevolent slits. Naruto took a good long look at the demon fox, fixing the image firmly in his mind. Then he stood up and closed his eyes. In his mind, he pictured the Kyuubi. Then, he altered the picture ever so slightly. Now, to his mind's eye it looked as if the Kyuubi were a large fox-shaped net of red chakra that was filled and kept in shape by the densely packed youki inside. The net was, in fact, the Kyuubi's skin. Naruto reached out with imaginary hands and took hold of the red glowing net. So focused was he that the heat searing the skin from his hands of his body in the mindscape barely registered. He wove his fingers into the net of chakra, tangling them until they had pulled the fox's skin every so slightly out of shape. Then he began to twist, as one would to the neck of a plastic bag full of air to make it pop. Instead of popping, Naruto could feel the youki that filled the Kyuubi crowd together beneath the skin as he twisted it smaller and tighter. On top of that, he was using whatever of his mind that was not concentrated on this task to will the huge fox to become something closer to his own shape and size. He persisted for about about a quarter of and hour before it registered that the Kyuubi's presence was now definitely smaller, though he didn't dare open his eyes. In any case, making the towering demon 'much smaller' did not mean that the Kyuubi was anywhere near human size.

Naruto persisted, twisting the net and gathering the slack parts which he then draped over one arm. He gave a further tug and the air was shattered by a scream of pain. Naruto's eyes jumped open automatically and it was only sheer luck that he did not release the net of chakra. The Kyuubi's eyes were rolled back and he was practically thrashing in pain. Naruto barely noticed that he was half the size he had been before.

"What went wrong?" Naruto gasped, horrified.

"Nothing," the Kyuubi choked. "Keep going. Stopping now could be worse than continuing until the end." It was getting more and more difficult for the Kyuubi to draw even breaths.

"But it's hurting you!" Naruto exclaimed.

"I've felt worse. I can take it. Anyway, it's hurting you, too. Don't stop."

Naruto looked down at his hands. The ropes of the net were faintly visible leading from his hands to the Kyuubi, glowing a translucent red. Beneath the ropes, his hands were blistering and peeling and there were long welts were the chakra ropes touched his skin directly. Now that the Kyuubi had drawn attention to it, he could feel the pain in those welts; starting as a dull throb and rising to such a sharp peak that his vision was momentarily obscured by a series of black whorls and blobs. He shook his head, forcing the pain to the back of his mind. He couldn't deal with it just then. He had to finish what he'd started.

He closed his eyes again so as not to see the pain he was putting the demon through and willed stronger than ever that the Kyuubi assume a human form. He twisted hard and fast trying to minimize the time it would take. He did wish that the Kyuubi would stop making those distracting screams, though.

After what seemed like an hour of twisting and suffering through the pain in his hands, he felt a very final sort of jerk and opened his eyes to see the last few strands of the Kyuubi's net stretching back into the darkness of the cage. He was sure that the Kyuubi was as small as he was going to get and equally sure that whatever was going to come out of the cage wouldn't be quite human. He unclenched his cramped and bleeding hands from around the net, which fell to the floor and seemed to dissolve from the visible spectrum. Naruto watched it completely disappear before turning his eyes to the cage.

The silent and apparently lifeless shadows that the cage held were unusually sinister to the young blonde. He sank onto the wooden bench as his physical and emotional aches caught up to him. He sat unspeaking for several minutes, savoring and yet unaccountably frightened by the hush. The only thing he could hear was the quiet rushing of water in the sewers beyond the chamber. Finally, when he felt up to it, Naruto raised his head and called in a soft voice, "Kyuubi? Kyuubi no Yoko? Where are you?"

There was a slight pause of several seconds before an answering voice came from the depths of the cage. "Here." Naruto was relieved to hear the voice, quiet though it was and little though he actually liked the Kyuubi. He was startled, however, at how low to the ground the voice was. The process must have worked to some extent.

"Come out here where I can see you," Naruto said. There was a small shuffling noise as a figure came into sight. Naruto balked. The once-so-mighty Kyuubi had been reduced to the form of a human child no older than five or six. He would have been half Naruto's height if Naruto were standing and was clothed in a red tee shirt and black shorts. That was the least of the strangeness, however. The diminutive figure's hair was curiously and unattractively done in nine plaits that that were braided tight to his scalp and hung almost to his shoulders, a look that did not go well at all with the red-gold color of the hair. Naruto lowered his eyes slightly to meet the accusing glare of the small child's red, slit-pupil eyes.

"What did you do?" the Kyuubi asked in a low voice that seemed to radiate malice and contempt.

Naruto wasn't quite sure what to say. He settled for holding out a hand and manipulating the mindscape in such a way that a small round mirror arrived in it. He held it up for the Kyuubi to see into. The child's eyes widened. "What the hell did you do?" he asked turning his head from side to side.

"I don't know what went wrong. You are probably the ugliest child I have ever seen," Naruto said, unable to hold back a malicious grin.

The Kyuubi glared at him. "This is entirely your fault, human. I told you not to try and change my form in the first place!"

"Hey, you can't call me 'human' anymore! You're one too! Anyway, I say this form is an improvement. You can't talk down to me anymore, either. What should I call you?"

"Insolent brat! You will continue calling me by my name, Kyuubi no Yoko."

"Aww, are you going to throw a tantrum now?" Naruto asked in a mock-concerned voice. "Is the little Kyuubi's new form affecting his brain patterns?"

The Kyuubi gave a low growl. "Keep it up, brat. Much more and I might just decide not to give your memories back at all." The Kyuubi's expression of fury gave way to one of cruel satisfaction as Naruto made little spluttering noises of indignation.

"You don't mean that, do you?" Naruto said incredulously.

"Unfortunately, no. I am fully aware that you will be able to control and compel me even more completely now that I am in this shape." Something in the Kyuubi's voice gave Naruto pause. There was resentment there, but there was also wistfulness and, unless he was mistaken, a great deal of pain. It occurred to him that the Kyuubi's displays of power and ferocity were driven by more than pure anger at his captors. The great demon might claim to know nothing of the emotions of human beings, but perhaps he knew the meaning of pain better than most people Naruto knew. The Kyuubi had been brutally imprisoned and the bars that had always restricted him had proved less of a physical barrier and more of a psychological one, constantly and cruelly reminding the beast of his powerlessness. Perhaps some of the reason for his displays of power when he had met Naruto had been the same as Naruto's displays of disinterest to the civilians of Konoha; that he did not want to admit how much he was hurting on the inside.

In realizing this, Naruto realized that he had been just as harsh to the Kyuubi when they had met as the Yondaime had been in imprisoning him. Hadn't he asserted and demonstrated his own power by taunting and then injuring the beast? Hadn't he just further humiliated him by overriding the demon's objections and changing the beast's very form? Naruto felt a deep sense of guilt. Perhaps, deep down where it really counted, he was every inch the horrible demon that everyone in Konoha had always told him that he was.

He tried to banish the feeling, reminding himself of the hundreds of people the Kyuubi had killed in his attack against Konoha. But then again, before Mizuki had set him straight, he had always assumed that he knew everything about the Kyuubi attack. Had always assumed the Yondaime had completely won out over the beast and was the noble hero of the picture. Though bits of that story were true, the big picture was looking more and more confused and incomplete with every passing minute. Could it be possible that the part of the story containing the Kyuubi's willingness to attack was flawed? At the very least, he had an obligation to the demon to hear his side of the story. But not yet. Naruto knew that he would need more time to think over these revelations before he was ready to broach the subject with the demon himself. For now, a change in attitude would be most appropriate.

Naruto's gaze, which had been wandering along with his train of thought, came back into focus and searched for the red orbs of the Kyuubi's recently altered eyes. To his slight surprise, he discovered the small child-like form perched on the farthest end of the wooden bench from him, arms wrapped around his legs and chin resting on his knees. He looked unusually vulnerable like that, and Naruto's newfound uncertainty about the demon's history deepened. He gave a small throat-clearing cough and the childish face turned to his, red eyes locking onto blue.

"Yes?" the Kyuubi asked, a note of hostility in his voice.

"I've just been thinking."

"About time," the Kyuubi grunted. "Out with it, brat."

"Well, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" the Kyuubi interrupted again. "Do you pity my imprisoned condition? Save your sympathy. I don't need it, nor do I want it."

"No, I was going to say I'm sorry for putting you through that transformation without discussing it with you. I know it hurt and I had no right to do something like that to you."

"Oh, but you do have the right. As master in this body and this mindscape, you have the authority and the right to exercise your power in any way you want to. I may not like it, but there is nothing I can do about it. My kind, the demon kind, that is, is set farther below your own every time an old Jinchiriki outlives its usefulness and a new one is created. I am bound by your will and must fulfill your wishes in every way. This is not a new concept, nor are you my first jailer."

Naruto was unwilling to pry into such a painful topic, so he let the subject of the Kyuubi's previous hosts pass uncommented on. "I know, Kyuubi. I know the way things are. Let me tell you, after what I've seen and done and heard today, I do not blame you in the slightest your resentment. I would feel the same way in your position, and would probably be handling it much less gracefully." Naruto broke eye contact just long enough to stand up walk over so that he was directly in front of the Kyuubi and kneel down, intentionally setting his eye level several inches below the child's. The Kyuubi was surprised enough to release his grip on his knees and let his legs slide forward and dangle from the edge of the bench. Naruto continued, "After the way I have personally treated you, I will not blame you if your attitude toward me does not change in the least. All I want is to treat you like a person, instead of a kind of temperamental chakra battery. From now on, I will do my best to allow you full control of my mindscape, particularly when I am not here, and I promise I will consult you if I ever need to use your chakra for anything. What do you think?"

"I think you are insane, human. I am a demon, no matter how I appear at the moment, and you are talking about putting a level of trust in me that I have never known. I don't know the human words for gratitude, but that is what I want to give you. Your trust is a gift that I will remember even after you die and I am moved to another body."

Naruto nodded but still did not rise from his kneeling position. "Is there anything else you need to tell me or ask from me before I leave?"

"Actually, petty though I know it will sound, I have one request."

"Name it."

An emotion that Naruto found hard to place flitted across the pale face. It seemed to be a combination of apprehension and shame. "This child's body seems to be playing havoc with my emotions. I would be obliged- that is, if it's not too much trouble- if you would keep visiting me from time to time. Tonight I will return your memories as promised, but you are a most intriguing human and I feel certain that I will want to speak with you again."

"Of course, Kyuubi-kun." Naruto rose and offered a hand. Slightly uncertainly, the Kyuubi shook it. Naruto gave a brief smile and walked away, eyes scanning the floor for the chalk outlines of his footprints so that he could, in theory, return home only minutes after he left.

He found the outlines and fitted his feet into them carefully before willing his consciousness to assume control of his forebrain and physical self once more.

When his eyes slid open, the sight of the trees in training ground seven occupied his line of vision. He was considerably less sore than he had been the last time he returned from the mindscape, but that was his only reference point for the passage of time, as the trees around him also mostly hid the position of the sun. All he needed was his dark-haired angel beside him to greet him as soon as he was fully conscious. He looked up at the slight sound of movement to see Sasuke staring at him, still standing leaning against a post. Damn, Naruto thought, dark-haired yes, angel no.

Naruto lifted a hand and gave a little wave. Sasuke's incessant staring was starting to creep him out a little. "Yosh, Sasuke-kun. Anyone home?"

"Welcome back, dobe."

"Why thank you, teme. How long was I gone?"

"A surprisingly short time. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you were talking to the Kyuubi no Yoko for the last five minutes?"

"No I do not, teme. I expect you believe that I was meeting with Kyuubi-kun for what felt like three or four hours to me and was apparently five minutes out here. Did you miss me?"

Sasuke ignored the question. "What did you talk about?"

"The usual. Jinchiriki stuff." Naruto gave a fake yawn, relishing how frustrated he was making his teammate.

"It's not funny, Naruto-kun." Naruto looked Sasuke straight in the eyes, taken aback by the honorific. "While you were doing whatever you were doing in there, your body went all still and silent out here. I could barely see or hear your breathing and I didn't even want to check your pulse in case that demon in your head had killed you. I'm your teammate and your friend and I was scared for you. What happened in there?"

"You really want to know?"

"I'm not going to ask again, dobe."

"Alright, I'll tell you." And he did. The Uchiha made a pretty good audience, until he reached the part where he had turned the Kyuubi into a human child.

"You're shitting me," Sasuke said. "You, Naruto Uzumaki, who can barely read, might I add, converted the most powerful of the nine bijuu into a little kid? One, I find that hard to believe and two, if it's true I bet he had something to say about it."

"Hey! I'm working on the reading thing. Sakura's been taking a couple of my clones and drilling them every other day after training. It's not going very quickly, though. Maybe I'll ask Hinata for help. Anyway, that's beside the point." he went on to recount the rest of his story.

The Uchiha shook his head bemusedly as the story drew to a close. "And you really trust that demon?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. I get the impression that he would be pretty good at lying and imitating emotions if he wanted to be, but I really want believe that he was being sincere. All I can promise is that I will keep my word and keep visiting him. If he was lying-" Naruto shook his head, "it might get nasty."

Sasuke gave a low whistle. "Some days, it's hard for me to convince myself that your life isn't worse than mine."

"It is worse than yours!" Naruto said indignantly. Sasuke got up from where he had been sitting in the grass and offered Naruto a hand to pull himself up.

"Whatever, dobe."

A/N: Hi! Happy New Year to all those who follow the Roman Calendar. Several things to address, and please do not skip this author's note. It is very important to me.

1) when Naruto turned the Kyuubi into a small child, the memories stayed where they were: inside of an orb of youki quite some distance from the floor.

2) In his outside (physical) form, Naruto's hands were complete intact and unburned.

3) Worship his Mightiness the Log!

3) (This is the part that I am particularly keen that you should read) Please review. Really and truly. It will take you less time to review than it will take you to read my little rant on reviews. I honestly do not know what the hell goes through your mind when you read this story, as I am not that good a psychic. If you think I'm doing something right, review. Otherwise, I will assume my writing sucks, sink into a depression and not be able to work up the motivation to update for a long, long time. But you can help! just put your hand on the mouse, move the cursor until it it over the little blue hyperlink labeled 'Review This Chapter,' press down on the left button of your mouse, and type in a brief comment. It will take a total of twenty seconds. It is amazingly easy. I know your time is precious, so I implore you to spend what will amount to less than a minute of it making someone who you will never meet happy. Thank you. Now don't you dare not review. The guilt will haunt you. And when you die, so will I. And Oscar. Oh yes. He will.