Pure Naruto Idea
Disclaimer: Naruto/anything else drawn into this story are the properties of their respective owners and are just being used for amusement.
Story premise: The Kyuubi is much more intelligent than portrayed in the actual Naruto-verse and makes a decision when sealed to take advantage of *her* position to influence Naruto in her favor. The basic jist of this idea is that if the Kyuubi were smart enough, it would have contacted Naruto early in life, say after receiving mistreatment on his birthday due to the festival. Kyuubi could easily insert itself in a maternal role. The story would continue on to have Naruto act like how he is expected to act, and anytime something good happens to him (like the Hokage giving him an apartment and ANBU guards) could be twisted into an attempt to keep him loyal to Konoha according to his mother figure. It would be extremely easy for Kyuubi to convince a child that she had a reason to attack the village and that she is the only one looking out for him. If Naruto is told his heritage, Kyuubi could point out that it was concealed from him until it would reinforce his loyalty and that documents could very easily be faked, including a blood seal. After all, a blood seal merely takes the blood of someone related, and Naruto has bled plenty before. I've written a very brief prologue to this, but I really don't know the Naruto-verse well enough to be comfortable writing a story that isn't primarily a crossover. Still, it wouldn't leave me alone and I wanted to write the idea down when I had it.
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Four long years had passed since the Forth Hokage had sacrificed his life to seal the Kyuubi into his newborn son to stop its rampage across Konoha and save the town and Kyuubi decided to take on a female aspect to contact her host for the first time. Like all kitsunes, well, at least all sufficiently powerful kitsunes, the Kyuubi was a true shapeshifter and could take on male and female forms equally well. Initially, she had been furious and had raged for hours against the holy seal of the Shinigami that bound her to her mortal prison. But time had cooled the rages and allowed Kyuubi to analyze the situation. The Bijuu were on the whole far more intelligent than humans gave them credit for, they merely lived by their own rules and morals which were largely incomprehensible to the mortals.
When she was first sealed, the kitsune had sworn to make her container's life hell for daring to imprison her, but the citizens of Konoha seemed intent on doing that already. Kyuubi had lost track of how many times she had already healed Naruto from a failed assassination attempt or cured him of poisons. Initially, she had planned to get the brat killed at the first opportunity, but upon studying the Forth's seal, Kyuubi realized that the death of her host would prove a major inconvenience to her future plans as it would banish her from that particular plane of existence temporarily. Furthermore, there was absolutely nothing she could do to altar the seal from the inside-only Naruto had access to make changes or release the seal and even minor alterations would take years of dedicated study of fuinjutsu.
Shukaku, the one-tailed raccoon, enjoyed being sealed into a container and torturing them until they were mad with bloodlust. In fact, aside from one thirty year nap, Shukaku had spent less than seven years continuously free in the world in the past millennium. Killing was far too easy when free, Shukaku preferred to act by way of its container whilst destroying any chance its container had for happiness. Nibi, the two-tailed cat, Kyuubi knew preferred a symbiotic relationship with its hosts, reasoning that life inside the seal would be more pleasant if the container's life was pleasant as well.
After years of reflection, along with the realization that the Third Hokage probably intended to indoctrinate Naruto to care for Konoha more than his own, and more importantly her own, life once he was of age to become a ninja, Kyuubi realized that Nibi actually had the right idea. Her best chance to escape the seal was to turn Naruto into an ally rather than an enemy. Beyond that, after all the years of protecting the kit, he had grown on her.
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-Two years later-
Fear. A small, dirty boy in trashy clothing bolted down an alley, desperate to escape the mob behind. Shouts of "Kill the demon-brat!" echoed in his ears. 'Why?' he thought, choking back sobs, 'why do they hate me? What did I ever do to them? At least I got away, I just wanted to see the festival…'
Pain, sharp burning pain blossomed in his leg. He looked down and saw a kunai dripping with blood, stuck halfway through his calf and shrunk fearfully back from the large man approaching down the alley.
"Thought you could get away… demon?"
Naruto could smell the alcohol on the man's breath. "Please, just leave me alone," he begged, sobs escaping him as the man dragged him up and threw him back into the street.
Blackness.
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He hurt everywhere. Cracking his eyes open, he found himself in a sewer. Curling up on himself, Naruto sobbed. Why was life so unfair, why did everyone hate him? They had thrown him out like garbage after nearly killing him and left him for dead in a sewer, didn't they realize he just wanted someone, anyone to give him a hug, or a smile even. All the glares, whispered comments and beatings came back to him and he completely broke down. No one wanted him, after all, he wasn't even good enough for the orphanage and was thrown out of stores, spit on by random people, and the other children weren't allowed to play with him. For a moment, Naruto wondered if it might just be better to be dead.
What felt like hours later, Naruto pulled himself to his feet and trudged off down the sewer, he was getting hungry and even though he probably would be stuck eating out from a dumpster once he found his way out, anything was better than suffering the constant pangs of starvation. Eventually, he came to a gleaming cage of what looked like pure, white energy with strange symbols engraved upon it. Inside, a beautiful, red-headed woman with warm red eyes regarded him with a sad smile. "Hello kit," she greeted.
Naruto nervously approached the trapped woman, unconsciously drawn to the gentle aura she was giving off. "Wh-who are you?" he asked.
"My dear, little Naru-chan," she sighed, "I promise I will tell you everything you want to know, but I need you to promise to hear me out first. The village," she scoffed, "has been lying to you for a very long time and I need you to trust me."
"Al-alright," Naruto responded. She was the first person other than the Hokage to ever speak kindly to him and he found himself unconsciously drifting closer to her.
Sitting near the front of the cage, Kyuubi reached a hand out and laid it gently on Naruto's own, causing him to stiffen. "My poor kit, they've abused you badly, haven't they," Kyuubi let a single tear drift down her cheek. "Though it is not my true name, I am known as the Kyuubi no Kitsune."
Naruto backed fearfully away from the cage, sputtering, "St-stay back! You're the monster that attacked Konoha!"
"You promised me you would listen, kit," Kyuubi continued sadly. Naruto sat down back down but didn't look like he would be receptive to anything she had to say and he stayed well outside of arm's reach of the cage. "And I'm no more a monster than you are, though I will admit that I am not exactly a human. Why do you believe the lies the village tells about me, they are no different than the lies they say about you. They call you demon, they call you monster, and they hurt you. Why do you trust their lies about me?" Naruto merely looked confused, but he hesitantly approached the cage. "The truth is, kit, I did attack the village, but why does that make me a monster. You've seen how they act, is it so inconceivable that they weren't the ones at fault?"
Naruto protested, "But ji-chan said…"
Kyuubi interrupted him, "That bastard Hokage is the worst of them all!"
"What! Ji-chan is the only person that is ever nice to me, he wouldn't lie to me!" Naruto hotly responded.
"I see, they've brainwashed you already, damn. They are using you, kit, and he's the worst of all. Don't you see, he's the Hokage. He's always known how people in the village treat you, how could he not? And he does nothing to prevent it, because it plays directly into his plans. After all, what better way to forge a perfectly loyal weapon than to be the only source of kindness that weapon ever receives. The Hokage *wants* you to be abused, wants you to see him as a kind man so you will trust him above all others. He's playing with you, kit, because you can access my power and he wants to be able to use me, through you, like a tool to fight his wars until he has no more use for you and discards you back into the trash," Kyuubi took a deep breath and seemed to compose herself after her rant. "Truth is, kit, I didn't attack the village, they attacked me. They took something very precious from me and I had to get it back. I was blinded by rage and didn't see what was happening until it was too late. What you don't realize, kit, is that you aren't really in a sewer, you are currently lying unconscious in the hospital, the Hokage rescued you from the mob right after you fell unconscious and he will try to convince you that he's protecting you in an effort to make you more loyal to him. We're talking inside your mind, the village trapped me inside of you so that you could wield my power."
"What?" Naruto blurted, he was stunned but found that he couldn't really discount anything the Kyuubi had said, even if she sometimes talked in words he didn't know. She was kind and gentle, much like the Hokage had been and he realized that he really had no reason so far to distrust her, even if her story sounded completely ridiculous. I mean, the village had painted her as a great monster, and yet, she didn't seem so monstrous to him.
"On the day you were born, the village tricked me into attacking them to seal me into your body. And it had to be you; you were the only one who had a chance to contain me or to wield my power. Has the Hokage ever told you about your family, kit?" Kyuubi asked. Inwardly, she was grinning, she seemed to be getting through to the boy.
"A…all he's ever said was that he knew them but couldn't tell me who they were because they had enemies. He never described my dad, but he said my mom was a strong ninja who died when you attacked!" Naruto shouted angrily.
"Kit, I swear I did not kill your mother. What else did he say about her, did he describe her at all," Kyuubi pleaded while thinking 'please, tell me that fool told Naruto what his mother looked like.'
"He… he said she was a kind and gentle woman who was extremely pretty with long red hair," Naruto replied confused.
Kyuubi grinned mentally. "Well, kit," she grabbed one of her own auburn locks, "does this color look familiar to you?" Naruto fainted. 'Hmm, I guess that was laying it on a bit too thick. Still, I think I have him.'
Naruto woke a few minutes later and stared in shock at the woman in the cage. "Are… are you saying? Are you my mom?" he desperately asked.
"No, not exactly kit," Kyuubi sighed. "Your mother's name was Kushina, but there is a reason I look very much like her. In a way, she was related to me, though I consider you to be my own son and you can call me mother if you like. I'd… I'd really like to hold you kit. This cage may hold me, but you can pass freely. Will you please come to me, son?"
Naruto, still completely shocked, stuck a hand through one of the glowing bars of the cage and found that it didn't impede him at all. He entered the cage in a daze and Kyuubi swept him up into her arms. "Rest now, my dear little kit," she pooled his head in her lap, and completely unused the physical affection, Naruto snuggled deeply into her embrace while crying silently. "Shh… it's okay. Before you sleep, I need you to promise me to keep this a secret from everyone, especially the Hokage. If they found out that you knew the truth… they would do terrible things to you."
"I promise… momma," Naruto murmured and Kyuubi smiled victoriously.
" I will teach you the ways of our people, the ways of the kitsune. Since you know I am here now, we will be able to speak to each other in your mind whenever you are asleep, and once I can teach you enough, we will be able to speak when you are awake. Rest now," Kyuubi soothed. Naruto fell asleep and Kyuubi bit lightly into his neck. She scratched open a small cut on her finger and dripped some of her blood into the wound before healing it. She grinned viciously, he was hers.
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(So, from here, I'd imagine that Kyuubi would shape Naruto into being fanatically loyal to her while maintaining the expected image towards the village. Unlike Shukaku and Gaara, who have a dysfunctional relationship, Kyuubi would win Naruto over by being nurturing and twisting the words and actions of the village against them which would be stunningly easy. She would teach him how to summon and use her power while having him research seals. I'd imagine Naruto gaining control of fire (and potentially foxfire) the same way Gaara controls sand, absently and completely. I'd also imagine that he would gain the ability to truly shapeshift like a kitsune and maybe develop his own hanyou form. Of course, as a kitsune of sorts, Naruto would have to be truly mischievous and the pranks would definitely happen. From there, I've not thought where this idea would go, because I truly do not know Naruto well enough that I would be comfortable writing a story that didn't rely mostly on crossovers. At any rate, I doubt this is anything resembling an original idea, and I have seen some stories where Kyuubi does court Naruto's loyalty, but I don't think I've seen one where she does it by inserting herself in a purely maternal role. I got the idea because Gaara refers to Shukaku as mother, and I could see a kitsune being smart and tricky enough to take advantage of the circumstances like that.)