So I was reading over my past chapters for this and I was seeing all my mistakes and cringing…. I'm also wondering if anyone caught my first mistake in spelling in the first chapter? And also I am so very, very sorry that I took so long to update. *cringes* So many other things took precedence. Like College. Which is what I should be doing work for, but instead was struck with the need to write this, so I did. I was writing this for over two hours, and in between getting inspiration from facebook and pinterest.
Warning: This chapter will contain some violence. Live with it.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I wish I did. A few of my friends and I would have quite a lot of fun with them. *wink wink*
The nine-tail fox lay down on the table. Sasuke pulled his legs up into the chair, and put his arms around his legs. The fox sighed.
"It is not easy to begin this, especially since he does not really want you to know. "
Sasuke tilted his head inquisitively, and then laid his head on his knees. The fox nodded and began his tale.
Many years ago, almost 28 in fact, two kingdoms, surrounded on one side by an open plain and on the other by an ancient forest, were being attacked by many demons. There was a powerful man, the leader of the demons in fact, who was possessed by a greater demon and he wanted to control the two kingdoms. He told the Kings of both to send their greatest warriors. If that warrior were to defeat him, he would leave the kingdoms in peace, but if said warriors could not then he would have control of both kingdoms. The demon gave the Kings a fortnight to decide on the men who would face him, and he told them that they would battle it out in a clearing between the demon army and the two kingdoms. The Kings both put their heads together and spent almost a week of their allotted time trying to decide on who the greatest warriors in their kingdoms were. In the end they picked ten of their strongest men, and one healer to go fight the demon.
"Why a healer?" Sasuke asked interrupting the fox.
"If you want to know, then you cannot interrupt me." Growled the fox. Sasuke nodded, and looked apologetic. The fox sighed, shook his head and picked up again with his story.
The warriors spent the week practicing and saying their goodbyes to their families. The healer, whose name was Minato Namikaze, spent the week harvesting more plants, making bandages, and spending time with his wife and newborn son. When the men's time was up, they headed to the field to battle the demon. They did not expect to come back.
Naruto had noticed that Sasuke had wandered off, and he tapped into his powers to locate him. He began to slowly follow the path that Sasuke had taken, and soon realized that he wasn't just following Sasuke, but also his own shadow. What strangeness is Kyuubi up to now?
The demon saw these men, and laughed. "These are the best warriors that the two kingdoms could come up with between them?" The demon laughed even more. "Come at me however you like." The men did.
The first one who attacked was one of the smallest, yet quickest of the men. He darted around the demon and landed several small wounds with his two katana. The demon smirked, and backhanded the man so hard, that his neck broke. The other men looked at each other. Two men who were actually twins, lifted their makhairas* and rushed the demon. Both men actually managed to strike the demon-carrier with what should have been mortal blows, but he simply healed them, and used his claws to behead the men so quickly that none of the others saw it. One of the largest lifted his claymore*, yelled a battle cry, and attacked. He lasted the longest against the demon possessed, but in retaliation he was ripped apart. The men were beginning to feel the fear they should have felt in the beginning. Minato was simply praying that he would be able to go home to his family. He knew he would not be able to heal any of these men. He stayed back and watched as the remaining men charged all at once. The battle was over before it even had a chance to actually begin. The entire thing had perhaps lasted two hours, and the demon stood covered in blood and body parts, and laughed. When he finally stopped and noticed Minato standing on the other side of the bodies and body pieces, he leaned his head to the side looking at the healer. Minato was not a large man, in fact all that was actually noticeable about him was that he was very tall, with blonde hair like the sun, and blue eyes that were darker than the sky. He swallowed audibly. The demon carrier smirked. "Are you the last to go against me then?" He asked Minato.
"No. I am only a healer. I am no warrior." Minato replied.
"Then the two kingdoms are mine, and I will slaughter all within them!"
Minato stood still as the demon rushed by. His family. His family was in one of the kingdoms. If he did nothing to stop the demon, then they would all die. He would never see his beautiful son grow into a man. He wouldn't have more children with his wife, or grow old with her and watch over their grandchildren. He would instead suffer guilt because he would forever wonder if he could have saved them from their tragic fate. He looked up at the sky and thought 'Please God, help me. Help me to save these people. Help me to save my family from this evil.' Minato bowed his head, and fell to his knees. At that exact moment out of the ancient forest, came another demon. This one had not been seen in centuries. It was a nine-tailed fox.
Sasuke stiffened, and the fox shadow kept going as if it hadn't noticed.
The fox had previously had an agreement with the two kingdoms. He would leave them be, if they would leave him and the deepest reaches of the forest alone. The Kings, who were the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers of the current Kings, were so afraid of his power that they agreed. The fox demon had been disturbed from his slumber by the sounds of slaughter. He had heard all of the things that the demon possessed had said, and he was not happy with it, for he knew that if the demon truly took over the kingdoms, he would not leave the forest alone. The fox walked up to the kneeling man, and nudged him gently with one of his paws. Minato looked up, gasped, and fell backwards.
"Wh-what do you want?" He asked trembling. If he had thought that the demon possessed had looked frightening then he had no idea what frightening was. The demon in front of him was the size of an elephant, and had nine tails. He looked like a fox, but his fur was orange and his eyes were red.
"I do not wish for the kingdoms to be taken over by that idiot. I will help you to fight him, but in return I wish to be left alone forever. No stories, no songs, no homage. Nothing. All will go back to the way it was." The fox said directly to Minato's mind.
Minato stiffened, and asked in a quiet voice, "You can defeat him?" The fox demon simply looked at Minato, who rubbed a hand across his face and said quietly "never ask a dumb question of a nine-tails." He stood up. "I suppose we should go to battle then. How is this going to work?"
The fox stepped back and then leaped, and disappeared into Minato, who bent backwards at his waist as his body felt the impact of a thousand pounds of rock slam into it. His eyes closed, and when they finally re-opened they were a purple color. Minato's senses were so much stronger now. He could hear the screams of the people in the kingdoms, and he could hear the laughter of the demon possessed. Minato raced towards the city faster than he could have if it had just been him in control of his body. He passed so much destruction as he followed the demon possessed. Then he heard a scream that stopped him in his tracks. It was the scream of his beloved wife. His eyes widened and he took off in the direction of the sound.
Several minutes later he arrived at what remained of their house to find his wife dying on the grass and his home on fire. He leaned over his wife, who gasped and said "Naruto. He has Naruto."
Minato held his wife as she died, and then once again, infuriated to the point of losing his mind, he followed the trail of the demon possessed. He found the man holding his son, while brutally slaughtering the palace guards.
Minato yelled, "Hey! Idiot!" and the demon possessed turned around, saw that it was the healer-man and laughed.
"Did you come to die as well? I think I will keep your child and possess him in the future. He will be a strong magic user." The man laughed cruelly. "He will be the perfect host, once he is in his prime."
Minato snarled, and the fox snarled with him. 'No one should ever threaten kits' the fox said in Minato's mind. 'Especially not mine' Minato said back. They looked angrily at the demon possessed, who realized that this was not the same coward of a man he had faced back on the plain. He realized that there was a strange shadow behind the healer, and as he looked closer, he realized that it was a fox with nine tails.
'A Kyuubi has not been seen in this part of the world in centuries, and the only one I know of that is even nearby is….' The realization that the demon possessed man had frightened him, and he ran, clutching the newborn to his chest.
Minato chased after him.
They ran for what seemed like hours to Minato, but in all actuality only a few minutes passed. They ended up in the field where it all had started. There the demon possessed seemed to decide that if he had to take a final stand it would be here.
"What made you come out of your forest fox?" The possessed man asked curiously.
"You did. You and your endless, noisy slaughtering." The fox said through Minato.
The demon possessed laughed. "So if I had been quiet, this coming battle would not have happened?"
"It still would have happened."
"What makes you so certain of that?" He asked in a tone of curiosity.
"Eventually you would have destroyed everything there was to destroy in the two kingdoms, and then you would have set your eyes on my forest."
"How do you know that?"
"It is what you all do, or should I say, it is what you all have tried to do."
The demon possessed snarled, and charged at Minato. Minato grabbed Naruto from the other man's arms, and quickly slid to the side, and the other man charged harmlessly past. Only when he stopped did he realize he was no longer holding the child. He snarled again and charged Minato once more. Minato threw Naruto high into the air, and viciously beat on the other man, before he stepped to the side, and caught the giggling baby.
Neither the fox, nor Sasuke noticed when Naruto slipped into the library, and hid among the stacks. He quietly listened to the story that the fox was telling. If it had been up to him, Sasuke would never have heard it. It was too late to stop the fox now, because he was close to the end, but Naruto would be having some words with his shadow, of that he was certain.
Both men fought for several hours. One would land a particularly terrible blow on the other and the child would change hands. This happened over and over. Both were bloody, and tired. Their demons could not heal their bodies fast enough to recover the damage. The demon possessed barely had any control over his left arm, and was holding the child in his right. Minato was having trouble bleeding because of a puncture in his lungs, and was kneeling on the blood soaked ground. Both were suffering the effects of blood loss.
"Give up. Just give up fox. This body will die, and I will take over the child. The kingdoms will be mine, and you can keep your damned forests. I will turn to other cities and other lands, before I go near your forest." The demon possessed panted between most of his words, and bloody sweat dripped from his brows to land on the forehead of the child in his arms. Minato staggered to his feet, and snarled at the other man.
"I will never give up, while you have my child." He yelled. He closed his eyes, and began to chant one more spell. Slowly a fireball formed in each hand. He threw them at the other man, and one caught his clothing, while the other caught his hair. The demon possessed yelped, and began trying to put the fire out with his left hand, while holding the baby out of harm's way in his right. Minato ran towards him, and snatched Naruto out of his right hand. He kept running into the forest. Before he could run far enough to be sufficiently protected by the trees that grew close together, he felt an arrow pierce his back right under his heart. He fell to his knees and almost dropped his child. He looked down at the baby in his arms. "I'm so sorry, my son. So very sorry." Minato began a spell that would transfer and seal the Kyuubi in his week old son, and when he finished the spell he was swaying in weariness. "When you are older," the dying man said, "You must kill this man. I cannot, and I am so very sad to leave you the burden of this job. It must be done though, and I believe that you will be the only one able to do it. I wish I would be able to watch you grow into the man you will be, but I cannot." Minato began a spell that would send the child to the house of his friend, Kakashi Hatake. Minato had just finished the spell when he felt a clawed hand grab his spine, and he looked down to see it on the other side of his stomach. The demon possessed man roared his fury as he heard the noise signaling a teleportation spell, and realized that the child was finally out of his reach.
Minato died a hero's death that day, even though the kingdoms were destroyed. He had saved his son, and given many others the chance to escape the kingdoms before they were razed to the ground.
Sasuke was wide-eyed as the fox shadow finished his story, and sat up licking a paw. "So did Naruto ever actually kill the demon possessed man? Did he avenge his father? How do you know all of this? Where you the fox from the forest? How…."
"Calm down boy." The fox said. "I cannot answer all of your questions it is not my place. I shouldn't have even told you the story!"
Naruto came out from behind the stacks, and placed his hands on Sasuke's shoulders. "It certainly was not your place to tell that story. We will be having a talk about that later." The fox shadow stiffened and then disappeared.
"Wait! Where did he go? I had so many more questions to ask!" Sasuke said looking up at Naruto.
"Then ask."
"You mean you will answer my questions honestly?"
Naruto sighed. "I will answer them as honestly as I am capable of answering them." Sasuke stared up at Naruto, and then looked down at his knees biting his lower lip. He heard Naruto sigh again, and then felt him remove his hands, and walk over to another chair. Sasuke looked up and watched as Naruto sat down and placed the ankle of his right leg on his left knee. "Ask away."
Ha! Finally finished! I swear I kept getting writer's block. Twas terrible! I hate writer's block! Anyway. Finally I updated! Whooo! Be excited! I hope to get reviews, and any and all spelling mistakes are mine, as I have managed to misplace/lose my beta in some form or fashion. I'm not quite sure how. *scratches head in a confused manner* Anywho. I finally got this done, and I will start chapter 8 later, but I will now be going off to bed. Toodles!
Oh and a Makhaira is a Greek blade that isn't really like a sword, but to me I like the look of it, so if you actually take the time to look it up, you'll notice that I took writing liberties with it and made it sort of seem more like a sword than it is. A Claymore is a Scottish longsword. I did so much research for this chapter it's kind of unbelievable.