Immortal Phoenix

Author: The Phoenix is Immortal

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor am I making any profit from this work. I do own my own original character Akarui.

Chapter 5: What to do Now?

What were we to do indeed? We could not come back to the orphanage, as stated by the Matron human. So that left Naruto nowhere to go and sleep. Not to mention he did not eat yet. I had not eaten either. Now is that not fantastic?

Well, food could be easily solved, I thought. I would only have to go outside the walls and hunt something down. The only problem was to bring myself and the food back without being noticed.

What were we to do? I turned to Naruto. "We need to get some food, and a place to sleep. Is there any way that we can get those things without the orphanage?"

Naruto kicked at the ground before responding. "No, I don't have any money." Money? Their currency? I guessed that they use money to procure the things they needed. I did not have any either, having just come here.

My first day, and it was not ending well. I had a friend, but said friend did not have anywhere to go…and no food. Great. "Did you have any in the orphanage?" I might be able to get it.

"Yeah, I did…but we can't go back there…" He seemed so sad.

"I may be able to get it. Your room had a window. If you could point out which window led to your room, I could break in and get them!"

"You can do that?"

"Yes I can, now we have to go back to the orphanage. Try not to let any humans see you."

Naruto and I headed back to the orphanage. The streets were empty, so we did not have to worry about any humans seeing us. Then we were near enough to the orphanage for Naruto to point out his window. I did not want Naruto to get to close though. The Matron human might have eyes that could see through walls or something and catch him.

"Point out your window please." I hoped that he would send me to the right window. It would not do to get the wrong room.

"It's that one!" He pointed at one of the windows at the front of the orphanage. "Well, I think it is!"

He was not sure of his own room's window? I hoped he picked the right one. I opened my wings and flew over to the window he pointed at. There was a small ledge outside of it, which I landed on.

Now, how to break in? I could break the whole window, but that would shatter the window and make noise and possibly attract attention. I would rather avoid detection at this point. I could scratch a hole large enough for me to get through. I could also melt a hole in the window. Too bad I could not just have been able to open it from outside…

Scratching a hole seemed easiest. I enlarged myself a little, so I could scratch a hole large enough for myself and whatever I was taking out to fit through. Raising a talon, I reached forward and applied one of my claws to the glass. I sliced through the glass quite easily when I put pressure on it. I cut a hole in the glass, one large enough to fit me and whatever I was suppose to drag out. The piece I had cut down fell on to the other side of the window with a soft "clink." Now there was a large hole in the glass, but at least I did not make much noise.

I shrunk myself back to sparrow size and entered the room. Was this Naruto's room? It looked the same…I hoped it was. I flew over to the cabinet, the storage piece of furniture. Now how to open it? I did not have hands. This was quite a dilemma. There was no way I could open it the way I was. Then I remembered something.

I had heard that phoenixes had the ability to turn into humans. I had overheard a conversation once in a Makai, and I heard that we had that ability. I had not known that before I heard. It was not common knowledge. That had interested me, but since I did not need to do anything with that information, I had simply filed it away for future use.

Apparently that future use was now. Now how to turn into a human? That was the part I still did not know. I would have to find out. I landed on the ground and began to think of humans.

A normal human had two arms and hands, two legs and feet, a torso, and one neck and head. I had two legs and wings, along with a neck, head, beak, and body. We both stood on our two legs.

I willed myself to change into a human; into a human's strange body. I held the image of a human in my head. This was the only way I could think of to change myself into a human.

Then I felt the changes. Legs changed shape and lengthened. The knees reversed. Wings lost their feathers and the bones changed to form the bones in a human's arm. Hands and fingers formed at the tip of my wings…arms now. My main body changed too, into a human torso. I lost my bright feathers. My feathers! Oh well…humans did not have feathers. My beak disappeared, replaced by a human's mouth. I no longer could feel my tail feathers. I had lost them…

I could feel the changes that happened to me; they did not hurt, but it was a strange feeling. My sense of smell and eyesight did not change though. How curious.

I held the image of a human for a little bit longer, but nothing else changed. I was finished changing, it seemed. The transition from a bird into a human had apparently taken only seconds. But to me, it felt like an eternity.

I examined my new body, moving the new parts of myself. How fascinating. The fingers moved when I commanded them to, and so did the feet. I tried to open my mouth and I succeeded. I tried to form a word, but only a strange strangled sound came out. I would try again later. I did not have any…clothing. Well, it would have been too much to ask for the transformation to include the clothing. I had never taken this form, and clothing was not something humans had automatically. They wore those, but it was a separate thing, not like my feathers.

I moved my legs and feet, putting one in front of the other, and stumbled to the cabinet. So…unsteady. I managed to hook my…fingers around the handle and pull the doors on it apart. It opened. Inside there were shelves and a…mirror on the top.

I looked at the reflective surface. Scarlet eyes stared back at me, with the black pupil being in the center. I touched the mirror with my fingers, curious at my new appearance. Hair the color of the stars came down around my face. Silver hair? Where did that come from? Well, gold, scarlet, and silver were my favorite colors, so I did not mind it too much. Who knows? Maybe the fact that I liked the color had had some influence on my hair color.

I noticed that I was not nearly as midget-y as Naruto, being nearly as tall as some of the adult humans I had seen, but still not quite there. The midway stage between a child and an adult, perhaps? That was where I was as a phoenix, so it made sense that I was there in human form.

I looked at the shelves. Maybe there was some clothes I could use in there. I shifted them around, but they were all too small. Naruto was not my size. Then in the back I could spot some bigger clothes. Those did not belong to Naruto…maybe the previous owner of the room?

I put them on. It took me a bit to figure out what limbs go through what holes in the clothing…but I managed. It did not fit perfectly, but it was acceptable. They were dark clothes…which was not to my liking. I liked the more flashy, bright colors, like my feathers. If I changed back to my original form…would I still have the clothes when I took human form again? Hopefully I would. That would solve the being without clothes problem in my human form. Humans seemed to need clothes, having no feathers and all.

I then turned my attention to the rest of the cabinet, looking at the other shelves. There was a big pouch there…I could use that to hold the items I needed. I placed some of Naruto's clothes in it. That would be useful to him. I also put the larger clothing that was in the back of the cabinet in it too. For me, if I planned to keep using this human form. Human hands were really useful.

Then I noticed an oddly shaped…bag of some kind. It looked like one of the frog demons back in Makai. I opened it, and I saw that there were some round objects in it and some green papers in it. Maybe this was the money? I did not know. I had forgotten to ask Naruto what the money looked like. My mistake, not that I would admit it to Naruto. Anyway, I was sure Naruto would like the green bag back anyway. It was kind of funny looking…but it looked like something Naruto would like to have back.

I looked at the rest of the cabinet. There seemed to be nothing else besides the clothes. That frog demon-shaped pouch must be the thing containing the money, since there was nothing else on the table. Finished with my inspection, I walked, a little unsteadily, back to the window with the hole in it, carrying the clothes pouch and the frog-demon bag.

I would have to enlarge the hole in it to fit the pouch with all our clothes in it, I realized. And I myself would have to enlarge my phoenix size to carry the frog-demon pouch and the clothes pouch. I should have planned a bit better. The hole I had made was not big enough to fit everything like I thought it would be.

I decided to take my original, real form. I imagined myself as I really was. A phoenix. I started to shrink as the human arms once again returned to form wings. My legs shortened and the knees reversed to the correct position. I grew feathers and regained my bird body. Soon the change was complete.

I felt much more comfortable in this form. This was my form, not the human body that I had imitated. I also noticed that the clothes disappeared along with my human form, instead of falling around me. Maybe when I change back to human form it would still be there? Hopefully.

I enlarged myself some more. I was no longer at my sparrow size, but the size of one of the big birds of prey that I had seen in the forest.

I looked at the glass that was the window. Once again raising a talon, I extended a claw and applied it on the glass, a distance away from the hole I had previously made. I cut around the hole I had made before. Now the hole was large enough to fit everything through.

Behind me, I could hear footsteps heading towards the door. I would have to hurry. I grabbed the frog-demon pouch with my beak and tossed it out the hole in the window. I did the same with the clothes pouch. Then I myself slipped out the hole.

The knob on the door had been turned by now and the door was slowly opening. I could hear Matron human's voice. "Now that the demon brat is finally gone, all I have to do is clean up his room and then I would be rid of all traces of him. He probably left behind the money that the Hokage always gives him!"

Too bad for Matron human, I had already cleaned out his room. I grabbed the frog-demon bag and put it in the clothes pouch. Then I grabbed that pouch with my talons and flew off the window sill. Back to Naruto. This was all done before the door was completely opened. Matron human was a really slow door opener, it seemed.

Matron human would probably notice the huge hole I had made. But the human would not be able to do anything about the fact that I had already gone in and taken Naruto's possessions. So it did not matter if the human noticed the hole.

I flew back to Naruto. He was waiting for me.

"What took you so long, Akarui-san? And why are you so big now?" This was not said with any annoyance, just curiosity.

"I met some…complications. And I can change my size." Stupid cabinet with its handle that could only be opened by humans!

Before he could say anything about the fact that I could change size, I handed him the clothes pouch that also contained the frog-demon bag. He opened it and then saw said frog-demon bag. "Yay! Gama-chan!"

He had named the frog-demon pouch. Strange…

"The money is in that, right?" I asked. I had to make sure I had grabbed the right thing.

"Yup! It's in Gama-chan! See! He's full right now!" He showed…Gama-chan to me. I just nodded. What else was I supposed to do?

"So, where do we go to eat?" I was hungry, and I am sure Naruto was also.

"Can we go to Ichiraku's? It has the best food ever!"

"Of course, why not?"

Author's note: I managed to find some time after all and finish this! I was not as busy as I thought I would be. And there, you got to see Akarui's human form. Naruto did not get to see it yet, though. To my reviewers: Thanks so much for the reviews and the information in them! It is really nice to get them!