Chapter six
(Naruto)
I sighed as I stared at Kyuubi's complicated lock down system he put on the front door. The back door was probably my best bet if I wanted to leave the house. Scratching my messy mop of hair, I strolled into the kitchen. There was no reason to even think about stepping foot outside just yet. It was midafternoon when I finally woke up and dragged myself out of my bed. Ha. My bed. I can say that now. And I can sleep in. I can wake up and be lazy. I don't have to rush out of sleep like an axe is about to fall on my head.
This was the life.
The fact that Kyuubi was out there right now, probably fighting, made my chest ache like something was coiling around it and squeezing me tight. I'd smile though. I'd wake up, grateful and happy. And I'm going to go into this nice, fully stock kitchen and make me the most fattening meal I can think of.
Why?
Because Kyuubi is out there right now. He's fighting for me and for this. If I didn't smile, if I didn't enjoy this life he's given me, it would be like a slap to his face. No matter how badly I want to run out into the freeze and find him, I'll sit tight and stuff my face. No matter how scared I am that he just won't come back, I'll wait with his share of whatever I make. He probably won't eat it seeing as how I can't even boil an egg, but it'll be there.
Kyuubi, I'm scared. I miss you. I would never tell you that out loud. I would never let you know that each time you leave I want to beg you not to go. Take me with you. Take me with you. Come back. Don't fight. Don't kill. Don't die. Kyuubi, I'm scared. I'm scared.
As I take the first bite of my burnt scrambled eggs, a tear I just couldn't fight back dripped down my cheek.
Yeah. This was the life.
(Kyuubi)
It's cold. Stupidly cold. Ungodly cold. I hate this country.
"Stupid weather," I growled as I trudged through the snow deep enough to drown a man. My tails splayed out around me, distributing my weight evenly so I wouldn't sink. It took me an hour to figure out and perfect that trick. I'm sure I resemble an octopus with an extra leg slithering around a white ocean floor.
Again, I hate this country.
Bitter, icy wind cut through me like a knife. The blizzard was gathering speed as I pushed deeper into the wastelands. There was nothing out here except snow and more snow. And, you guessed it, more snow. I had yet to find any sign of life. Any foot prints were swept away and my nose was so numb I doubt I'd be able to smell a skunk if it was perched on my shoulder. I considered for a moment the possibility that I could freeze to death. I've never been exposed to such low temperatures.
This is stupid. I can't freeze to death. Bullets and flamethrowers barely scratch me. I doubt a little ice will take me out. I huffed and folded my arms. Pausing a moment to scan the area, I found what I expected to find. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Suddenly, a red streak cut across the gray sky, blurred by the chaos of the blizzard. As the bright red reached its peak, it blossomed and burst into dying embers that faded just as quickly as it came.
"A flare?" I spoke to myself, head tilted slightly in wonderment. No one was supposed to be out here, besides the invaders. Ha. So, they decided to risk being caught by the enemy rather than freeze to death. They must be pretty desperate. "This is my lucky day." A wicked grin curled onto my face as I began trudging again.
As I grew closer and closer to the flare's launch site, I picked up a few scents. They were faint and I couldn't exactly separate the smells into defined numbers. Yet it wasn't the number of invaders that bothered me. There was something else. It was the only scent that stood out among the blur. And something about it smelled like danger. Big bad wolf kind of danger.
My claws elongated just as I reached the edge of a dead and frozen forest. The trees were thick and tall, their empty branches reaching crookedly up to the gray sky. "Well, doesn't this look like a cheery hideout?" I joked. It looked nothing but ominous.
I walked into the forest and scanned the area. The scents grew stronger and more defined. I could pick up three so far. I sighed, thinking about how the hell I was going to drag three, mostly-likely frost bitten men all the way back to the capital.
Well, I didn't have to worry about that for long as I had just stumbled upon the invader's meager camp. Two man-sized lumps lay limp on the ground, covered in snow, their bodies clinging to a fire that had long since died. I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned.
"I know you're there," I called out. The camp was empty from the looks of it besides the corpses, but I could smell pumping blood. I could hear a beating heart. Bum bump. Bum bump. Bum bump. It was slow and steady. It was the heartbeat of someone who was unafraid. And considering the situation, I would say it was the heartbeat of a warrior. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to take you back to the capital." I looked to my right, focusing on a tree just outside the camp's circle. "No more people need to die today."
"I don't trust you," a voice murmured from behind the tree. The wind picked up the voice and made it hard to hear, but I knew something was off. Well, then I realized….Crap.
I can't believe this.
"Come out," I growled. "Come out right now, Damn it, or else I'll drag you out."
Silence followed when a boy no older than Naruto revealed himself. He was hunched over, arms wrapped around his small body as he stared me down with black eyes. His pale face was shadowed with even blacker hair, tossed by the wind. He was shaking. Not from fear. I could tell he wasn't afraid.
"Damn," I cursed and dragged my fingers through my hair. A kid. He was just a kid. "What are you doing invading Kurama with a bunch of Oda's solders?" I asked.
"None of your business," he replied, voice quivering slightly as his fiery gaze began to fade into exhaustion.
"Good point. It's not my business. It's Jackal's," I said as I walked towards him. He didn't back away. He just stared, eyes unfocused, yet still filled with something close to rage. He was a spunky little thing. "You can explain yourself when you met him." I gazed down at him and his knees began to give out. Before he collapsed, I grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him up into my arms.
"L-Let go," he hissed between clenched teeth. His hands pushed against my chest weakly as I settled him in my arms the way I carry Naruto when he's asleep.
"Relax, Kid." I grumbled and started to make my way out of the forest.
"N-not kid. I'm Sasu—e," he murmured as his eyes began to flutter open and closed.
"What?" I put my ear closer to his lips.
"S-Sasuke, my name is-Sas-uke." His voice was a whisper when he finally fell into unconsciousness.
Rule number one when surviving freezing temperatures: Don't. Fall. Asleep.
At least that rule applies to humans.
"Great," I huffed. "Well, Sasuke, I would love to say it's nice to meet you, but," I stared out into the vast fields of snow as the blizzard raging around us grew hungrier by the second, "as you can see, nothing about this situation is 'nice.'"
The capital was over twenty miles away. I can't exactly run. The snow would swallow me whole. It's a 24 hour trip back and that's if I keep moving at night. The brat won't survive another hour out here.
Well, worst case scenario, the kid dies and I go back to Jackal empty-handed. That's not too bad. I shrugged at the thought.
"Kyuubi," Naruto's voice popped into my head. A memory from two years ago suddenly invaded my mind.
"What?" I hissed between clenched teeth, fangs protruding viciously past my lips. One of Oda's solders struggled against the grip around his neck as I held him off the ground by his throat. Naruto was behind me, crawling out from underneath the desk where I hid him. An entire platoon of solders crashed into the abandoned building where Naruto and I made camp. They were all dead as doornails now, except for the one I was preparing to skewer. We were on the edge of Oda's territory. The tyrant was getting desperate. Oda sent platoon after platoon to retrieve his little weapon gone rouge. To Oda's surprise, I wasn't coming back anytime soon.
"Don't kill him," Naruto said as he brushed off some dust from his shirt. He came to my side, grabbed my sleeve and tugged my arm. I didn't budge. I just stared at Naruto, then the solder, then Naruto and back again.
"Why?" I growled.
"Because there's no reason to kill him," Naruto replied as a matter of fact. "He can't hurt us now. Let him go."
"But why? There's no reason to let him live." My red eyes bore into Naruto's cerulean gaze. There was no fear in his eyes. No doubt. No anger. There was only calm and something else I didn't really understand then.
Naruto sighed and tugged my arm again. "He might have a son or a wife. Maybe a mom and dad."
I looked at the solder. His beady brown eyes were staring straight at Naruto as his grip on my wrist grew tighter. He struggled harder now.
"My s-son," he coughed. "I-I have a son!"
Great, I thought. With that, I threw him. He crashed against the wall to my left and hit the ground unconscious. Naruto looked up at me, frustrated.
"He's not dead," I grumbled. "Just knocked out."
I was rewarded with a big, goofy smile and a pat on the lower back.
"People have families, Kyuubi," Naruto began, "Everyone has someone. So, every life is important. Don't kill unless you have to and save whoever you can. Promise?"
My eyes narrowed into molten slits. "I don't need to promise a brat like you squat. Besides," I said as I plopped down on my back side and stared at him at his eye level, "You don't exactly have someone, so your theory doesn't apply to everyone."
Crap. That sounded a lot meaner than I meant it to. No, actually. I meant it to sound mean. Back then, I was still a stick in the mud. More like a homicidal crocodile in the mud.
I expected to see Naruto staring down at the ground with a depressed expression on his face, but he was just smiling as if he knew something I didn't.
"What?" I asked with a sneer.
"I have you."
That's all he said and, damn, I was defeated. After that he grinned, grabbed my hand and walked us out of the building towards a future I wasn't so sure about.
Now here I am, holding a boy I couldn't care less about, trudging through six feet of snow. And I'm upset. Genuinely upset because I knew I couldn't save Sasuke. If Naruto were here he'd be desperate and stupidly optimistic about the whole situation. What am I supposed to tell him when I get home? Sorry, Naruto, couldn't save the kid. Big bad Kyuubi was too weak to save a little brat. Haha…
Crap.
"I hate this country," I growled and squeezed the boy closer to me as I wrapped my thin coat over him. I had to do something.
Anything.
The blizzard started to pick up speed. My long red hair wiped wildly in the wind as my eyes scanned the flurry of white again and again for anything I could use.
To my surprise, I saw a shadow in the distance. As I pushed forward the shadow cleared and revealed a depilated house leaning lopsided on top of a hill. It looked like a stain on the snow, ugly and faded. Yeah, it wasn't pretty but it was something.
As I reached the hill, the snow thinned and I ran. The blizzard roared and nipped at my heels. It felt alive and hungry as the cold slithered inside me, making even my bones ache. If I was feeling it, Sasuke must be...well, I tried not to think about it. Because when I did, I saw Naruto instead. Cold, still. Frozen.
Dead.
I didn't want to save Sasuke simply because Naruto would want it. That was only part of the reason I was so desperate. What if one day, Naruto and I would have to run away from Jackal's den? We'd have nowhere to run but north. The wastelands. These fields of ice and wind would be our only choice.
If I couldn't save Sasuke from this land, how could I ever save Naruto if push came to shove? And push always came to shove. You figure that out after a few years of war.
Am I an optimist? Yes and no. Am I practical? A realist?
Yes. Above all, hell yes.
I kicked open the door of the worthless excuse of a house and found that it wasn't just a piece of crap; it was a functional piece of crap. It was sturdy despite the obvious lean and smelled like rotten wood. Yet, it was standing if not tall but strong. Equally decayed furniture was tossed about the room, tattered sheets hanging like faded ghost against the widows. Only one window was broken, letting the blizzard outside sneak its way in. I placed Sasuke down on the couch. When his weight sunk into the stained cushion, it didn't bend. It cracked. A thin layer of ice coated everything.
With a sneer that would make a shark proud, I pushed a cabinet against the shattered window to block out as much of the wind as possible. The cabinet shook against the blizzard, but it held. It seemed like everything in this place was old but damn strong.
Next was the fire. My pyromaniac ways would finally come in handy. I grabbed tables and chairs, threw them in the middle of the living room and elongated my claws. I pressed my claws together. Hand to hand. And then slide them across one another. Again and again. The heat radiated through my claws and up my arm as sparks began to flicker onto the makeshift fireplace.
Who needed a lighter when I had all natural matches attacked to my hand? Not me.
I wasn't surprised when the sparks died the moment they touched the wood. Again, everything was coated in ice. In a sense, that made everything wet. Fire and wet don't mix.
But I'm stubborn and I wouldn't give up. I went from creating sparks to full fledge mini stars before I finally gave up. Nothing would catch fire in here. Great. The house was old, but dependable. Stained but sturdy. Yet utterly useless. I was pissed, because I was the exact same way.
Old, stained, sturdy, but absolutely useless.
"Doesn't get more hopeless than this, Kid," I sighed, inwardly admitting defeat. Taking down an entire country is an easier task than keeping a human alive in the belly of a frozen beast. Whoever said demons were the worst thing to happen to humans never got caught in a tornado or hurricane. Mother Nature crapped out bigger disasters every day that snuffed out more mortals than demons ever could. I bet this land of ice has a bigger body count than even Oda.
But now I'm just being petty.
I turned away from the useless pile of wood and gazed across the room at Sasuke. He was motionless, face half cover by his long, untamed bangs. The skin that showed was coated a pale shade of blue. My teeth ground together as I walked over to him and sat at his feet. I rested my head in my hands, trying to grind the image of a pale blue Naruto out of my mind.
"I'm sorry, Kid," I mumbled. I knew he couldn't hear me. His heart beat was barley a beat at all. It would flicker out just like the fire I tried to build that never even had a chance to begin with. The rest of his organs had already shut down. The heart then the brain was always the last ones to give up the ghost.
"N-Not kid," a voice barely above a whisper seeped out from Sasuke's cracked lips.
My head snapped up as my eyes met his. He was awake, black orbs staring into my crimson gaze. He looked aware, focused and, above all, he looked alive.
"How are you—" I began but let the question die much like Sasuke should be doing. Instead of asking a stupid question I bent over Sasuke and let my face hover over his. Only an inch of frozen air stood between us.
I took a sniff.
And was I surprised to find that Sasuke wasn't exactly all mortal? Yes, I was all kinds of surprised. I knew I smelled something dangerous in the woods. The fact that I forgot about it the moment I saw a helpless kid clinging to life in the damn tundra didn't make me proud.
"You're a demon?" I murmured. Sasuke's eyes never left mine. All his internal organs may have shut down besides his brain and heart, but he was still awake. He might have been awake this whole time.
"Not…exactly," he breathed. "I-I can't move. Can't feel much of…anything. Can't—" With that he was gone again. Eyes fluttered shut.
Well, damn. I made one hell of a discovery. Hopefully this "not exactly" demon could make it back to Jackal's den.
I stopped looking at Sasuke as a kid anymore. He wasn't a possible future Naruto and he wasn't some poor defenseless human clinging to life in the tundra. He was like me. At least, from what I could smell, he was a fraction like me.
Demon but human? Huh.
And I thought I was a freak.
Author Notes
Thanks for reading.