Book IV: Kurama

Kurama had to admit to himself that he was somewhat pleased with how things had turned out, though he wasn't entirely satisfied with the situation just yet. The fact that Kakashi had managed to pull himself together in time for Tsunade to kick him out the door as Naruto's retrieval unit was a large part of why he was feeling more settled. He had neither liked nor trusted the Iwa shinobi who had passed through. Their underlying dislike of him made him restless, but what truly pissed him off was the way they had looked at Naruto as if he was expendable.

He flicked an ear in remembered aggravation, lifting his chin to gaze out at the mountains while Naruto stepped up to the open window of the teahouse. Expendable?! Who the fuck did they think they were dealing with?! Some flittering wispy little forest fox spirit trapped inside a wilting delicate butterfly?! Those pompous jackasses were more worthless and expendable than a used tissue! He snorted and swished his tails, dismissing the Iwa shinobi from his mind completely.

The Suna shinobi had been only slightly more tolerable because they had something of a vague loyalty to Naruto. It most likely stemmed from his efforts in saving Gaara, and while it had helped, it had been a detached loyalty borne of a sense of duty. It wasn't the same personal respect that the Konoha shinobi tended to regard the blonde with, and it had been highly irritating to only have one of them swing through for a few days during their second week at the ryokan. Damn that Tsunade! She could have sent more than just one representative over the past few weeks, if only to spare his stress levels.

While he could inherently sense all emotions, it was the negative ones that itched and prickled at his fur, buzzing in his ears and scratching behind his eyes. Positive emotions had become more like a neutral constant; only there to provide a blank canvas for the cold, dark and bloody colors of malignance, hatred and evil that ripped and tore at his nerves until he couldn't take it anymore and he was forced to raze the whole contaminated area into nothing but clean white ash.

It was only in the last two years that Kurama had begun to see a slightly wider range of color, a palette he'd thought long lost and forgotten several centuries ago. Unfortunately, the spectrum was limited and still fairly blank outside Naruto's familiar - and infuriatingly persistent - whirl of warmer colors. He wasn't accustomed to sitting in the sun, and he slept to ease his boredom as well as rest his eyes from the blinding light.

The problem was, for the last three weeks he hadn't been able to sleep at all. Being awake constantly meant he was also constantly exposed to even the lesser negativity he would normally sleep through, and dealing with Masato all the fucking time inundated him with a disgusting amount of darkness. It made him hypersensitive to all the rest of it, and his only sanctuary keeping him from being swallowed up and lashing out was Naruto's steady warm presence. A presence that seemed to have the most disturbing effect of drawing him in, and actually made him want to look for more colors outside the array within his contained world.

It made him feel irrationally possessive of the curiosity that was, essentially, his mortal human cage. It was still a bizarrely pleasant concept that Naruto regarded him as a comrade, and he'd accepted that childish sentiment the only way he could; by agreeing to trust and protect him for the brief span of time they would be together. They had a binding contract, and because the very nature of the mission they were on went against that contract, he was simply on edge.

Naruto was deliberately and calculatingly throwing himself in harm's way, and Kurama had to help him do it. Add to that the fact that - out of the several shinobi who had been sent to 'watch out for Naruto' - there had only been one person who had given off some semblance of a protective aura that spoke of flashing kunai, and the fox had been feeling decidedly waspish until last night. He grunted a short chuckle at himself, having been just as surprised as Naruto at the sight of the silver-haired Jounin sitting in the teahouse.

He'd been expecting the wood-wielder to replace the Suna shinobi, and he hadn't bothered to stretch his senses out beyond the putrid shithole that was Masato. Not only had he been startled at just seeing Kakashi, but the amount of relief that came with it had also been a bit of a shock. He'd attributed it to Naruto's ecstatic reaction, and the blessed knowledge that he wouldn't have to put up with Yamato's itchy trigger finger. The colors of joy were still practically dripping down the walls of his subconscious.

Though he'd only started to recognize and see the warmer colors of positive emotions, he couldn't help but sense an odd shift in the young man's palette from it's usual eye-bleeding splash of radiant chaos. He shook his head and turned his thoughts back to Kakashi as he spied the man at the edge of the trees, pausing along the path that led to the ryokan as he looked up at the teahouse. While Naruto trusted the Jounin implicitly, Kurama wasn't as easily convinced.

Yes, he trusted the man to do his best, to do his duty. However, there was a subtle sort of hesitation in his eye now, and the fox couldn't discern what the real source of it was. He didn't believe it was a lack of wanting to protect Naruto, but any hesitation could be catastrophic regardless of the reason-

An abrupt sensation of malicious savagery bit at him, interrupting his thoughts and jolting him up to sit on his haunches with wide eyes. It was seething with a controlled feral bloodlust, possessive and crouched in the shadows as tense as a coiled spring waiting to be released. Kurama blinked, a sudden understanding of his confusing relief from last night hitting him as Naruto left the window at Maia's call.

Whether he could see the Jounin or not didn't matter, because the fox could still see the glinting of a blade honed down to a razor's edge, quietly snarling fangs flashing in the dark, and the burgundy shades of blood in the moonlight. He could feel the itching down his spine that made his fur bristle, but the typical burning, buzzing, clawing, enraging, foul cloying sensation wasn't there to drag him under. It was an unfamiliar and yet familiar feeling of being back to back with another predator, both guarding the same thing.

He was almost sad when the sensation drifted away and walled itself off. Considering his interest was now piqued, he wasn't surprised to find himself watching Kakashi closely when Naruto bumped into him later on in the hallway of the ryokan. What he was surprised about was the slight change in stride the Jounin made as he walked away, neatly blocking Naruto from being seen by the other man farther down the hall while the blonde stiffened and damn near dropped the linens in his arms.

It just kept getting more and more intriguing as the day went on, and he narrowed his eyes to watch them both carefully while they were in the garden. Kakashi's growling animosity at Masato's presence was sharp and shaded in dark violent colors, an echo of which he could feel whispering in Naruto under the surface. The freesia comment had him almost gaping at the pair. And if Kakashi's continued ire boiling in him even after Masato had left was the icing on the cake, then Naruto's stomping on the man's foot while he shouted several choice obscenities in his subconscious and absently scratched at his ear as if he could somehow remove the feeling of having the rose stuck there was the cherry on top.

Kurama had to fight the urge to outright laugh in wicked delight at the scene unfolding in front of him. He scrolled through his memory, putting little pieces together and working out the possibility of getting the entire puzzle completed sometime in the near future. It was still tentative, still fragile and easily scattered to the wind. That is, until Naruto began complaining about feeling 'weird' after Masato gave him the crystal and tried to cast an unsavory genjutsu on him.

Knowing full well that the genjutsu had no effect on the young man, Kurama started worrying about the crystal and how Masato hadn't touched it with his bare hands. Naruto wanted to know what the genjutsu had been, but the fox had no intention of telling him it had been a series of rather illicit subliminal images that were supposed to make him start thinking about getting into Masato's pants. That would ruin everything.

When Naruto ran into Kakashi, only to immediately turn and run away in horrified embarrassment, Kurama tipped his head back and just roared with laughter. Much to Naruto's enraged confusion, the fox simply shook his head and continued to refuse to tell the blonde what the genjutsu had been. Instead, he prompted the blonde to focus on getting into Kakashi's room as soon as possible so the Jounin could fix the problem. The suggestion brought an even darker blush and a string of vile curses from the young man until Kurama very innocently said he thought Kakashi would probably have some kind of medicinal antidote to counteract the drug.

Curling his tails around his feet, Kurama cackled and watched the kaleidoscope ripple across the walls.

...sorry boys, but you two are so completely and totally fucked...