Confluence
By Violet Garnets
Chapter Nine: Myriad Memories
o-x-o-x-o
Bleeding. Was he bleeding? Was it blood that ran down his shirt? Or was it hope, trickling out as sharp beads of anger slipped their way inside and tore at him like a flurry of shuriken?
Naruto groaned and clutched his side. A spontaneous agony coursed through his torso. "Danzou, you asshole."
He received no reply from the bandaged old geezer. Instead, a stifling pain rose within him and tore through his very core. Out the cut on his side a frightening fire raged. It grew and contorted into massive proportions until it formed the shape of the greatest of demons— the Kyuubi. Its tails ascended upward into the dark oblivion in a thundering roar. For a moment Naruto thought they looked like beacons of light, but quickly realized they were more like torturous spires than anything else. It radiated a searing heat so intense Naruto took a step back to give himself some air. The Kyuubi's angular nose was right in front of Naruto, no farther than two meters away. The demonic, slit eyes peered down on the young Jinchuuriki.
"Uzumaki Naruto."
"Crazy old fox." He bit his lip as he muttered. The pain was lessening, but it still hurt like a bitch. He looked down to see the last remnants of demon chakra exit his body and unite with the Kyuubi.
"Perhaps I am. For what reason should I be graced with your most esteemed presence, container?" Its mouth hardly moved, each word said through clenched teeth. Teeth as sharp as the blade of a newly forged katana.
"A duel," Naruto replied, furrowing his dark blonde eyebrows. "I need to beat you."
The monster suddenly roared and rumbled. Its tails flared and sparks spurted in every direction. It took the teen a minute to realize that the demon was laughing. "A duel? One little boy against me, master of all youkai?"
"This little boy's been keeping your ass in check for the past seventeen years," he quipped back. "Plus I manage to get sufficient demon chakra from you every time I need it."
The Kyuubi fell silent for a moment, recollecting itself. "True. You prove to have your father's speed. Swiping chakra from a youkai is not a simple thing to do."
Naruto resisted sticking his tongue out in triumph, partially out of self-respect but mostly out of the fear that he would bite off his own tongue if he did so.
"I do not understand, however, the reward for defeating what is already contained." The Kyuubi retained its expression of cunning but Naruto could tell the demon was genuinely curious.
"I gotta beat your ass so I can shut those assholes up!"
The tails shifted in the darkness.
"And, uh, you know...so I can be Hokage!"
The Kyuubi blinked once, its keen eyes still focused on the young blonde.
"Oh, and...protect people I care about! Like Sakura-chan, and Gaara, and Tsunade-baachan, and Kakashi—"
"Ah," the demon finally rumbled. Naruto sighed to himself. He had been getting increasingly nervous at the creature's silence. "Ankoku no Ookami no Shigeru. I did not know the gods would reincarnate him in such a manner."
"Reincarnation? The hell?" Naruto grumbled, then gasped. The stabbing in his side which had been ebbing away made a return. It seared through his side, as if someone had lined explosive powder from his ribs to his hip and set it on fire. He winced and clenched his teeth together. Unbearable.
"You will find out in time. But if he is Shigeru...then you..." The Kyuubi growled softly. "You must be Eien no Akira."
The blonde belted out a scream. Perhaps the name was a trigger, perhaps it wasn't, but the pain began to consume him entirely. He screamed. Screamed, until he thought his throat would bleed from the strain. He felt something (not something, someone) emerge from within him, ensnared him in its being. His body arched backwards and he wanted to collapse from the pressure, but a power kept it standing.
He stood at the forefront of a crowd full of faces, smeared with mud and graced with cheeky smirks. "Taichou, we're ready," they shouted in unison.
"Twenty moons…" he whispered to himself. Twenty moons since that one had passed on, since he had decided to quest for revenge. Now was the chance. He would destroy those men tonight.
He felt adrenaline coursing through his body alongside a feeling of pride, of utter fearlessness. "Let's go, men. We've got some stomachs to gut." He raised his weapon – a bow, not a sword – in front of them and released a guttural noise—a battle cry. The ensuing shouts pierced the sky and, for the briefest of moments, he thought that even heaven would shatter from the sound.
Despite it all, Naruto could still hear Kyuubi chuckle and speak. "Ah. You are. I suppose I have to choice in the matter now. I submit myself to you..."
Then, just like that, it dissolved into the darkness. First its head, then its body, and one by one the tails extinguished themselves. He could feel the chakra returning to his body, forcing its way back in. As the ninth and final tail disappeared Naruto fell to his knees, his arms the only thing holding him up. Painful tears arose from his eyes. He felt exhausted. Every bone and muscle in his body ached, shaking and trembling. But the pain, at least, had disappeared.
"Are you going to begin with your face already in the ground, Uzumaki-kun?" Danzou's voice rumbled from above. "You cannot possibly be that foolish."
"I'm…not," the blonde grumbled. "If you hadn't noticed, I've been a little preoccupied for the past ten minutes." He finally summoned the strength to look up and meet Danzou's eyes, which displayed the slightest amount of confusion.
"I have only just set the genjutsu," the elder said. "When I finished the hand seals, you were there on the ground."
Naruto choked. Seriously? All that had happened within seconds? He could have sworn it had been far longer.
Danzou made a noise to catch the jinchuuriki's attention. "If we may begin."
Slowly, the genin struggled to his feet. He took four, consistently deep breaths and closed his eyes. "Yeah. Start already."
The darkness shifted and swirled into the more familiar streets of Konoha. The signs of stores came into view, names he had seen many times before. Naruto was almost comforted, save for the fact that he knew what was to come. Tsunade had given him a general idea of what to expect from this sort of genjutsu, and how to succeed.
He sighed and furrowed his brows. "Here I go," he muttered and began to sprint towards the eastern gate. He had no idea how much time he had until it all began. In the meantime, he began to fiddle with his chakra levels, shifting them around so they focused towards his limbs. As he reached for the demon chakra, he felt it come to him much more smoothly than it had in earlier situations. Was it an effect of the genjutsu? But that didn't make sense. He was supposed to prove to the Konoha elders that he could take on the complete power of the Kyuubi. So what did this mean? Whatever. He'd figure it out later.
As expected, he found a fifteen year-old version of himself at the gate. It had been a while since he had seen that jumpsuit; it had been a while since he had worn any sort of jumpsuit, actually. He quickly returned his attention, however, upon seeing his younger self's face. Tempestuous tears trailed down his face and blue eyes were quickly narrowing and turning into a murderous red.
"Fuck you! Fuck this!" the genjutsu Naruto screamed as a huge chakra tail emerged from him. "I can't believe you would do this to your own home!" The tail surged into the air and the sky turned a murderous black.
"It is not home until it is under the right hands," an ominous voice stated, smooth and chilling to the core.
Naruto stopped at the gate, fury seizing him as he saw the speaker. He could already feel his anger matching that of his younger self. Tall and of a thin frame, the man was enshrouded by the scarlet clouds characteristic of black Akatsuki cloaks. An orange mask covered his face. Naruto clenched his teeth, breathing rapidly through his nose… Akatsuki no Tobi— or rather, Uchiha Madara.
o-x-o-x-o
Kakashi frowned from behind his Icha Icha Tactics book, his train of thought splitting into forty different directions. Naruto had assumed a cross-legged position when Danzou set him under the genjutsu. The boy held an impressively straight posture, his eyes closed and brows knit in deep concentration. The lightly wind-chapped lips set themselves in a frank and slightly downturned position and every now and then Naruto unconsciously opened his mouth to reveal clenched teeth, as if in pain.
The jounin couldn't sleep the night before. Not having any strange dreams was certainly an upside and he had spent more than enough consecutive nights without sleep on various missions that one night wouldn't particularly affect his health. Stress from trivial matters like a kiss was a completely different story. Thinking about Naruto for seven hours tore his brain to pieces. Thinking about those sparkling blue eyes when the blonde pulled down the mask, how they shone with sheer bliss when Kakashi had promised that he would never give the younger man up for anything or anyone. About how his voice embodied something that sounded a bit like Kushina's energy and inner strength, but amplified and much warmer (the wife of the Yondaime, while bubbly, always held a coolness about her that relaxed those around her rather than excited them). About the way Naruto's feet turned to the left when he was nervous. About how those pliant lips had kissed him with such fear, touched on his own in the most extraordinary of ways.
But mostly he focused on the fear part. He had officially fucked up. How could that possibly have been a good idea, in any way? They "needed the contact"? Pathetic didn't even begin to cover it. He crossed so many lines…and now they formed a net over him. Suddenly the mask felt like a reminder of other things, suffocating him.
Naruto had been in a state of weakness and Kakashi had taken advantage of the situation to suit his own sick desires. Churning bile rose in his throat at the thought. The blonde was a touchy, affection-hungry person so a chaste kiss must have felt like a natural response. Countless situations told Kakashi that Naruto would never be interested in such a relationship; he was lucky that Naruto had only shrugged it off, probably out of shock. Damn it. Then again, that didn't explain why Naruto kissed him again before he left that night. So…did Naruto have feelings for him? Fuck. None of this made sense. What was he supposed to do from here?
The presence of a familiar chakra flow appeared behind him in the bushes, gratefully interrupting his thoughts. He made no obvious movements, besides taking one step back closer to the foliage. Kakashi glanced over at Tenzou, who nodded once before turning his attention back to the Jinchuuriki.
"How are things, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura whispered.
"Things look fine for now." He kept his eye focused, and fortunately noticed no changes in chakra from anyone nearby. So, they didn't notice her just yet. "You know you shouldn't be here," he drawled. "Anyone else with you?"
She didn't even bother responding to him, knowing full well he couldn't detect anyone else. "How does the genjutsu work again? It just…makes him relive a memory?"
"Essentially. But Danzou manipulates the memory as well, so everything's going to be intensified. Naruto needs to show that he can overcome his instinctual rage and defeat that part of him."
"But…isn't the memory of, the last attack?"
"Yes."
"But, that was six tails! He nearly died! Kakashi-sensei, how will he be able to control anything greater—"
"He'll be fine, Sakura-chan. You know his ability. Believe in him."
A long silence ensued. Eventually he heard her laugh softly. He glowed at the sound. It was the small moments like this one that made Kakashi believe he wasn't too bad as a teacher. He and Sakura always had the easiest of relationships in Team 7. Sasuke had shared far too many similarities with Kakashi so situations always intensified, like adding wood and gunpowder simultaneously to a fire. With Naruto, they were such opposites that they never knew how to properly connect. But between Kakashi and Sakura, it had always been one thing: teacher and student. Not broken kid to broken kid, not perverted old man to unsuspecting boy.
"Thank you, sensei. But promise me one thing?"
"Hn?"
"Promise…that you'll protect him. If anything happens, you'll help him."
"It's my job. I won't fail."
"I know. Just…never mind. Thank you." The bushes rustled for a brief second, but it was timed well as the wind picked up at that moment. He felt her chakra move away, presumably to return to hospital work. He smiled to himself. Good of her to focus on her work. He'd be sure to drop by later and let her know how everything went. At the moment, however, he had another priority to attend to.
Just then, Tenzou gave out a shout of surprise. "Kakashi! Naruto, he—"
Kakashi turned his attention. The boy was still in a tense meditative state, but flickers of demonic chakra began to swirl around him.
"What should we do?" the ANBU captain said, frowning. The other shinobi present had adopted defensive stances, pulling out their weapons or preparing for hand seals.
"How's the seal?" he asked. If things got out of hand and Kyuubi emerged, this number of skilled ninja might be enough, but it also depended on how far the tails would progress.
"Well, fine, but the chakra levels are rising—"
Kakashi shook his head. "No. I believe in him. Just watch…for now."
That's when the boy's eyes snapped open, like flashes of blue lightning. Although the genjutsu had clearly finished, the tendrils of chakra still sizzled in the daylight, and the jounin couldn't decide if this was a good ending or a bad one.
o-x-o-x-o
Naruto wanted to call out, shout "Hey! Look this way! Stop, damn it!" But he couldn't. That wasn't how this godforsaken system worked. So he watched, for a brutal minute, watched himself turn into the monster he was— or was it the monster he contained? It was difficult to say, especially as he watched himself grow into such a grotesque caricature.
He couldn't do it. So he turned his attention to Madara. The man simply disintegrated, having done his job. Naruto swore quietly. How could he have fallen for such a stupid, simple trap? But it would never happen again, he was sure of this.
"Hey! Moron! Look over here!" He finally screamed, a sense of relief at having finally said those words. But it was quickly replaced with anxiety, this irreprehensible fear of facing himself— or rather, the monster within himself.
The creature flicked out another tail, then another, until six massive tails blemished the sky. It snarled at Naruto, narrowed its slit eyes and scrunched its face tightly. He took a tiny comfort in the color of the eyes, scarlet rather than his own blue. Fighting a bastardization of him was so much easier than fighting himself. Viewing that destroyer as someone other than himself…
He summoned up the reserves of demonic chakra, felt it fill up his hands and feet quickly, easily, as if he had not been struggling with the problem for the past four years of his life. By this time the six-tailed Naruto had charged him with unbelievable speed and he barely dodged the punch aimed at him. He marveled at his own speed; he just evaded an attack from a superhuman source, completely lucid. The hell?
No matter, he'd figure that out later, talking to people smarter than him. Right now… "I've got a stupid brat to crush!"
With that he whipped around, placed his hands together to create the appropriate hand seals – Tiger, Snake, Ram – and shouted, "Fuuton: Yoko Oroshi!" A huge twister blazed out of his hands and the vortex of wind encased the other Jinchuuriki. It hissed, attempting to amp its power. By this point, Naruto could hardly find any similarities between himself and the other, a monster beyond recognition.
To Naruto's great satisfaction, his own demonic-infused chakra latched onto that of the six-tailed Naruto, locking it in where it stood. Steadily siphoning his own personal chakra in it, the two opposing energies came together through a magnetic pull. It was really a top of the head moment, but he figured that the demonic chakra would want to coalesce and be one, no matter who the original wielder was. If he could contain it and control it with his own power, then the other Naruto was trapped. And he would win. Now it was time to end this.
With his free hand and the quick formation of a lightly glowing clone, a swirling ball of chakra began to swirl. Unlike previous Rasengan, it blazed in a white-violet light, almost painful to look at. The color reminded him vaguely of sunrise over an ocean, that thin line where sea and sun met, an ultimate joining of immense powers. He freed the wind release and charged through the dissipating winds. As he passed, the remnants of the cyclone clung onto the Rasengan and it grew, grew, grew.
"Rasengan…Jigoku Kara!"
The sunrise washed over him, and the unearthly shriek blended into the calm.
"I must admit, Naruto, your growth is most…impressive." Danzou's voice resonated, buzzing in the vacuum. The tone was even, for the most part, although Naruto wondered if Danzou didn't sound a little intimidated. At the very least he sounded exhausted. Naruto couldn't wait until the genjutsu broke and he got to see Danzou curled up like a newborn from the pain.
"Hell yeah it is," he sneered back, rather disgruntled by the geezer's presence in such a pleasant environment. It wasn't often that he got to experience being literally bathed in light. "So what happens when you break the genjutsu? Will you all leave me alone?"
There was no response. Naruto lurched forward as the light shattered, and once more he found himself in darkness. He opened bleary eyes to see Danzou collapse and to hear the crowd of shinobi gasp, but the world began to spin.
He fell back into a strong hold before blacking out for the third time that day. His final thought was really rather simple:
This shit has got to stop.
o-x-o-x-o
Er...yeah. I have no excuses for the quality, but I've been away for two weeks, so that excuses the lateness! Thanks, as always, for all the comments, favorites, alerts, everything~. You guys are fabulous people. Does all this make sense to you so far? We'll do some more unraveling in the future chapters! Thanks for reading!
Comments are always appreciated!
Ja ne,
Vi
