Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 1: Painful Beginnings
Three year old Naruto Uzumaki was having a rather bad day. It had started nice enough; three of the ladies working at the orphanage had taken them into one of the public parks to play. None of the other children had wanted to play with him. They never did. Unfortunately, that didn't stop them from bullying him. He had been sitting peacefully in the grass some distance away from the others while playing with random stuff like sticks and pine cones. They never let him play with real toys. Occasionally he had glanced wistfully at the other children scattered in groups throughout the park.
One moment he had been engrossed in his game, the next one of the older boys had trampled everything. Naturally Naruto had been pissed. The situation degraded from shouting to shoving to scuffling in merely a minute. Finally one of the caretakers had bothered to investigate. The bully had tearfully proclaimed his innocence and named Naruto as the instigator. As always, the caretaker believed the worst of Naruto and had been berating him for his aggressive behavior, promising punishment for later.
Seeing the now smirking bully behind the irate caretaker, Naruto simply couldn't take it anymore. He had needed to get away from everyone. The other children either wanted nothing to do with him or were actively bullying him. The caretakers in general let it happen and ignored him; only interfering if the fights threatened to cause serious injury to him. They did nothing against the countless scrapes and bruises he sustained almost daily. If they were looking at him at all they glared at him coldly, although they did pay him more than his fair share of attention concerning punishments. He was always punished for whatever disturbance he was involved in regardless of his guilt and occasionally even without any reason he could discern with his childish but developing mind. Naruto didn't understand why they did it. He tried to be friendly and good, he really tried. But nothing what he did seemed to make a difference, and now it had become too much. He had needed some time alone.
With eyes burning with unshed tears, he had turned around and had run away as fast as his short legs could carry him. After he was out of view he had taken a sharp turn and entered a small obscured path between two bushes. It led to an old gnarled oak with a large hollow he had discovered on a previous visit to the park. He had crawled into the hollow and curled up, now letting his tears fall freely. After a short while he had fallen asleep.
If he had looked back he would have seen the caretaker's angry expression morph into one of satisfaction. She patted the bully on his head and even gave him a piece of candy for a job well done. Her plan to get the demon boy away from the other children had worked better than anticipated. After all, she could assign additional punishment for the boy's running away. With a little more luck they would even have to search for him by the time they had to return to the orphanage, warranting even more punishment. How they could let one like him stay around other children she would never understand. Humming a merry tune she returned her attention to the bulk of the children in her care, putting Naruto completely out of her mind.
Said boy had woken much later. Upon leaving his hiding place he had found the park abandoned. Now he tried to make his way back to the orphanage. It was somewhat difficult as he didn't know the precise route. He was pretty sure he was walking in the right general direction, but it would have been better if he could ask one of the adults. The only problem was that almost no one was in sight.
The streets were almost completely deserted and all of the shops closed, most buildings had boards nailed over the windows. The few people visible seemed all in a terrible hurry. The wind was steadily gaining speed and the temperature dropping, the formerly blue sky was heavily overcast and growing darker by the minute. Naruto felt a shiver course through his body; he was only wearing a thin short sleeved shirt and short trousers. He tried to approach one middle-aged man who was straining to pull a handcart laden with various items with two girls not much older than Naruto sitting on top.
"Hello, I'm lost. Please could you help me find the orphanage? "
The man turned towards him and was about to answer when he noticed the whisker marks on the face of the young boy. His kindly expression vanished instantly and was replaced with one of anger and disgust.
"You! Get away from me and my family or I'll tan your hide," the man spat.
Naruto didn't know what was happening. Why would a man he never met before hate him on first sight? Apparently he had stayed too long for the man's liking, as said man gripped a bludgeon he had previously been carrying behind his belt and threatened to attack Naruto. In his panic Naruto lost his footing and was forced to skid backwards awkwardly on his behind. He was momentarily dazed when he hit his head on the wall of the house behind him. When his head cleared, the man had already returned to his handcart and departed. Naruto could faintly make out a short conversation.
"Daddy, who was that?" One of the children asked.
"Keep away from that one, he's nothing but trouble. The likes of him are the reason you don't have a mother anymore."
Naruto was confused. How could he have done something to the family of a man he didn't even know? His musings were interrupted when he felt something wet splash on his face. Apparently the clouds had decided to shed some of their load. He got up and continued on his way. Not even five minutes later he was wet to the bone and freezing from the cold drizzle.
Finally, he managed to reach the orphanage, but there he found another problem. The door of the orphanage was locked and the windows barred. He pounded on the door and yelled.
"Hey I'm out here! Please let me in!"
He continued his yelling and pounding for several minutes until he was completely exhausted, but no one answered. He leaned against the door to catch his breath. Where was everyone? A loud thunderclap caused him to jump. The drizzle had increased to a heavy downpour with the occasional hailstone mixed in and the wind had grown so strong it became difficult for Naruto to keep his balance. Random pieces of debris were flying through the air. The sky was almost black and still growing darker. The first thunderclap had only been the beginning; lightning began increasingly to arc between the clouds. Naruto couldn't stop his own trembling; his small body's warmth was easy prey for the cold wind and rain. He needed to get out of the open; the gateway he was standing in offered almost no protection against the elements.
Perhaps he could find shelter in the tool shack on the other side of the yard? It was normally secured with a big metal lock, but he knew a secret entrance on the backside where two boards were loose enough to create an opening. But he would surely be punished if they found him there. With a loud CRACK a lightning bolt smashed into a building not too far away. That decided it. His mind made up, he turned around and ran across the yard.
He was halfway there when suddenly his world went white and he knew no more.
Natsuko Kokawa, the matron of the orphanage, gritted her teeth in anger. Sometimes she wondered if her subordinates came up with their crap to deliberately annoy her or if they were really that stupid. She glared at the women standing before her desk in the small private room she had claimed as her own in the emergency shelter.
"You three are telling me you lost a child in the park and noticed only now that we are safely sealed in the shelter and can't leave to look for him nor contact anyone? And not only any random child, but Naruto Uzumaki? The boy the Hokage delivered to us in person? The one kid whose disappearance he will assuredly take a special interest in should he learn of him vanishing? Especially if said vanishing happened during an emergency evacuation because of an approaching storm of unprecedented size?"
Two of the young caretakers had lost the somewhat smug expressions they had been sporting since they came into her room to report the incident. The third one was still smirking.
"With all due respect Natsuko-sama, the chaos of the evacuation is a perfectly acceptable explanation. Children run away and get lost all the time; we simply were all too busy to notice. It just happened to be the dem- Uzumaki boy on this occasion."
"A nice tale. Pray tell, what do you think will the Hokage do if the boy stays missing or resurfaces injured or dead? Do I need to remember you what happened to the nurse that had 'accidentally' switched the milk powder with rat poison and was about to feed it to the boy? I realize that was before he was given into our care, but you surely heard of the fate of all the would-be assassins in the first few months of the boy's life?" Natsuko asked.
"But... but you said we can do what we want with the boy." The formerly smirking woman had grown nervous at the lack of the support that she had expected from her superior while the other two looked as if they were getting ill.
"I said that what you do with the children is your responsibility as long as there are no serious injuries and I hear nothing about gross abuse or neglect from one of my workers. I do not have time for all these details. If someone asks about the boy, you better have answers. I will not shield you from the consequences of your own actions." Natsuko countered.
The young women turned white as a sheet at that.
"But we all thought the boy was with one of the others. We…" One of the other caretakers said.
"Spare me your excuses, they do not interest me. Save them for Yamanaka-san when he entertains you in his interrogation cells. Now leave me alone and better pray the boy turns up hale and healthy as soon as we return to the outside. "
After the three now thoroughly frightened young women rushed out of the small chamber and closed the door behind them Natsuko tiredly slumped back in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. As if she didn't have enough problems. On days like this she really felt her age.
The greatest storm in recorded history was about to hit Konoha and the village was in lock down. The storm was unusually fast approaching; they had received the storm warning only late this morning via messenger bird from an outpost to the south. It was barely enough time to make the most necessary preparations to secure the buildings of the village and evacuate the populace to the shelters. Personally overseeing the transfer of more than two hundred frightened children to the emergency shelter was no fun. The fact that the orphanage didn't have a large enough basement to serve as shelter and they had to cross a significant part of the city didn't do a thing to make her task easier. That a group of children was away in the park and had to be recalled only added to her difficulties. The boy's disappearance was the icing on the cake. She stared at the ceiling and wondered what she had done to be saddled with these problems.
In contrast to most of her civilian employees she didn't hate the boy for being the container of the Kyuubi. Only utter morons without a shred of knowledge of the sealing arts would mistake the container with the contained. That didn't mean she liked him or wanted him anywhere near her other charges. He was far too dangerous for that. If it had been up to her she would have the boy shipped off to some secure and secret location far from the village. There she would have him trained by carefully selected tutors to try and form him into a reliable weapon for the village without endangering the many citizens of Konoha should he lose control of his demon. Because of her own experiences during the Kyuubi attack she kept her interaction with the boy to a minimum. Every time she looked at him she was reminded of the moment the blasted demon fox took everything from her and had to suppress the urge to lash out at the boy. Doing such a thing would reflect badly on the reputation of her clan and that pride was one of the few things she had left that kept her from committing suicide.
While no expert, Natsuko had some knowledge on the subject of jinchuuriki. They were aptly named; they were indeed the 'power of the human sacrifice'. The entire life and mind of a child was sacrificed by sealing a demon into it in exchange for a shinobi with the potential of nearly unparalleled power. She recalled vividly the tales her great-uncle Shinji told them. The old man had originally been a civilian of Iwa and worked as an assistant of one of the local seal masters. In this role he had come to know the host of the Gobi, the five-tailed Dolphin-horse. The host at that time had been a young child, a boy from the Tsuchikage's extended family. He was one of the early hosts after all of the villages had begun to seal their beasts into humans.
The boy had been a pleasant child, and his parents and the villagers cherished him as one of the future champions of Iwagakure. Then the murders had begun. Villagers and shinobi alike had turned up dead, with only their bones and clothes remaining. All searching for the culprit had been in vain, until one day the Tsuchikage accompanied by some shinobi had made a surprise visit to the house of the boy while his parents were away. The timing had been purely coincidental; they had wanted the boy's input on a present for his mother's upcoming birthday. But they surprised the boy as he was about to hide a large bag in the basement. Startled, he let it slip out of his hands. The contents spilled across the floor for all the visitors to see. They saw chunks of meat. Human meat.
His secret discovered the boy immediately moved to attack them with steam-based powers, injuring several of the shinobi. They were about to subdue him when his parents returned. Not understanding the situation they shielded the boy against the attackers. Said boy played innocent and hid behind them. When it became clear in the ensuing argument that his parents would finally surrender him to the Tsuchikage for examination the boy saw his chances for escape vanish. He proceeded to boil his parents alive with his steam before anyone could act. In the resumed fight the boy was quickly defeated. While powerful, he was still several years from completing his shinobi training. He had no chance against several experienced opponents who were expecting his attacks.
The following investigation revealed a hidden breach in the wall of the basement to a neighboring abandoned cellar. It was furnished as a storage area for meat. Apparently the boy had approached single targets that were eager to help, led them to an isolated area and killed them with a surprise attack, boiling them completely with his steam. Then he would scavenge all available flesh and leave. Nobody ever suspected him. He would feast on the flesh almost daily, seeking new victims when his supply ran out.
The most chilling discovery had been that the boy was still mostly in control of his body and mind. He didn't remember what he did during the times when the demon took over and kept asking what happened to his parents. Luckily the demon was still bound and had only access to a fraction of its power, but could take over his host within a moment's notice. In the end, they had no choice but to transfer the demon into a temporary non-living prison until they figured out what was wrong with the seal, killing the boy in the process. Shortly thereafter uncle Shinji had deserted the village as well as his disgraced master and after many adventures ended up joining Konoha and marrying into the Kokawa clan. This incident and similar occurrences in other villages were largely the source of the resentment towards jinchuuriki. As the seals grew more elaborate it became less frequent an occurrence that a demon was able to wrest control from its host, but the fear and resentment remained.
Natsuko had personally seen what kind of damage a released demon could do in the second shinobi war. She had been sent on a solo observation mission to scout the lands contested between Kumo and Taki. From her well concealed observation post on the slopes of a nearby mountain she had observed an important mountain pass. Kumo had concentrated a considerable force to establish a large fortified camp in a valley where several mountain roads converged, thereby securing considerable territory. A small patrol from Taki had the misfortune to unknowingly run into them, slipping through the outer perimeter without either side noticing until they were trapped without a way out. The ensuing battle had been short and brutal. All but one of the Taki shinobi had been slain in a short amount of time. That last one had been different. He was far more powerful than his comrades, but ultimately even he lost against the overwhelming odds he faced.
The battle had paused somewhat, with the lone heavily bleeding Taki shinobi standing in the center of a clearing surrounded by enemies. Natsuko had seen it all clearly from her vantage point. The man had looked around, obviously assessing his hopeless situation. After some time the man had closed his eyes and turned his face towards the heavens and said something. She had been too far away to understand anything and the distance was too great for lip-reading. Then she had felt the chakra spike. It was far greater and more malignant than anything she had felt before in her life. The man had been shrouded in a sickly green glow that prevented her from observing the details, but what she had seen was enough to haunt her nightmares for years.
The man's belly bulged until it was impossible large. With a wet tearing sound audible in the entire valley the skin had finally burst, releasing an unidentifiable winged creature and uncountable strands of chakra into the sky. The creature had grown larger while absorbing all the strands and blobs of chakra that were floating in the air. That was when Natsuko finally recognized the creature. It was the Nanabi, the seven-tailed beetle, and it was finally free after years of imprisonment. It proceeded to slaughter every living creature in reach. The Kumo nin never had a chance, and none managed to escape. Natsuko had cowered in her hideout and suppressed her chakra as far as she was able while praying the entire time to her ancestors for the monster to overlook her. Someone must have listened, because she was still alive hours after the sounds of destruction subsided. When she finally found the courage to leave her shelter, the valley was an image of desolation. All trees had been uprooted and thrown around, broken rocks the size of houses littered the valley floor and the fortress was a smoldering ruin. The Nanabi had been resting in the distance, half obscured by a mountain.
Natsuko had hightailed it out of the valley as quickly and stealthily as she could. The Nanabi had obviously taken a liking to the place and blocked all traffic for months until eventually some Taki nin managed to seal it again. That was the kind of danger jinchuuriki posed, and she had one under her roof. And not a random one, no, it was the one with the Kyuubi sealed into him of all things, the most powerful of the demons.
The Kyuubi. The damned fox had cost her everything. The Kokawa had been a shinobi family originally hailing from the Land of Rivers. They had taken a beating in one of the countless struggles before the time of the hidden villages and the few survivors joined Konoha during the reign of the Shodaime Hokage to avoid complete defeat. Some years after the end of the first shinobi war they had gained enough members and influence to attain minor clan status. She had been but a young girl at the time, but she still remembered the celebration. During the following years the Kokawa had slowly increased their strength and reputation. They couldn't boast of any famous exceptional single ninja like other clans, no, most of their number never obtained a higher rank than chunin. The first jonin in their clan had earned his promotion shortly after the end of the third shinobi war. They had been all so proud of young Keichi. Instead of focusing on producing a few shinobi of high skill the Kokawa relied on hard work and reliability as well as an unusual high percentage of clan members suited for the life of a shinobi. Most clans were lucky to have a third of every generation become ninja. In Natsuko's clan this portion reached almost sixty percent.
This fact was one of the contributing factors to one of the biggest political successes of her clan, the negotiating of a marriage contract on behalf of her niece Keiko with the Aburame clan. The Aburame had suffered heavy losses in the war against the Kamizuru, a rival insect-using clan from Iwa, and were searching for suitable marriage candidates to avoid inbreeding to a dangerous degree. Things had looked up for the Kokawa. The alliance with the Aburame promised further gains in reputation and influence. They survived the third shinobi war largely intact despite some losses and the clan was prospering.
Until the day the Kyuubi came. In a single terrifying day the beast had undone the work of generations and brought the Kokawa to the brink of extinction. Most of the clan's shinobi had participated in the delaying action fought against the giant monster until the Yondaime could take the field. None returned. Natsuko herself had been staying in the clan compound together with the rest of the clan. They had believed the strong walls of the building would offer them some protection. That lasted until the Kyuubi ran one of its tails across the village in an almost playful manner. The Kokawa clan compound had stood squarely in its path. One moment she was playing with the children to distract them from the danger, the next she had been buried under a mountain of rubble with several broken bones. Through a hole in the debris she could see directly into the Kyuubi's eye, or so it seemed. She saw an unbelievable amount of hate and rage in there, but the most disturbing thing was something that seemed almost like joy because of the destruction it had caused. The great beast seemed to laugh at the destruction of all she held dear. In reality the demon was quite a distance away and had probably looked in an entirely different direction, but due to its enormous size it appeared much closer. Shortly after, the Kyuubi disappeared from view and Natsuko fell unconscious.
She had regained consciousness much later in the hospital. By then she was the only member of the Kokawa in Konoha still alive, and only one of two in all of the elemental nations. Her niece Keiko had been out of the village, a young genin on her first long term-mission. She had been sorely tempted to commit suicide in these dark days. Almost all she held dear had been destroyed. Only the thought of the damage to the clan's reputation and the anguish it would cause her dear Keiko had kept her from seeking this quick end to her pain.
As soon as she was healed enough to move she had immersed herself in work. The clan holdings had been completely destroyed. They still had some funds, but with only one woman of childbearing age remaining the clan had no future anymore. They didn't even possess a bloodline or secret techniques that would make others want to join the clan. Luckily the Aburame were still willing to uphold the marriage contract, even if the originally intended groom had died in the battle. Marriage would have to wait for quite some time as the next suitable candidate was only nine years old at the time. The Kokawa clan might cease to exist, but their memory and heritage would still continue within the Aburame.
After she had set the clan affairs in order, Natsuko had found herself with nothing more to do. After a short search she found employment with the help of her clan's good name as the matron of one of Konoha's orphanages. They needed all the help they could get after the influx of the many orphans left behind in the wake of the Kyuubi attack. She had always loved caring for children, and the work gave her a new purpose. For a short while, she had felt better.
Then the Hokage dumped the Kyuubi container into her lap. By this point the entire situation concerning the young jinchuriki had already badly spiraled out of control. Natsuko simply couldn't make sense of the actions of the Hokage. After the Yondaime had died defeating the Kyuubi it fell to the formerly retired Sandaime to handle things again. In Natsuko's opinion the man had to choose between three reasonable options.
Firstly, he could kill the child. Natsuko knew that if the container was killed while the demon was still sealed inside the death of the host would disperse the chakra of the demon. After a few years the demon would reform somewhere, but that would probably be another country's problem. This solution had its share of problems. For one, it was unknown if the Kyuubi would seek revenge against Konoha after it reformed. To Natsuko's knowledge other demons in that situation hadn't done that, but it was still a possibility. Furthermore, it would deprive Konoha of a potentially valuable asset. If worst came to worst, another country would take possession of the Kyuubi and use it against them in a future war.
Secondly, he could treat him like the primed exploding tag he was and raise and train him in a secure location, preferably far from any settlement, and even more important, far from one Natsuko Kokawa and her young charges. Or he could keep him visible in the village as a sign for Konoha's power. She would still keep him under permanent guard and apart from the normal populace most of the time, but it could be done, even if it would be hard on the child because of the general fear and hatred directed at the demon containers.
The third option was to keep the boy's status as jinchuuriki secret and treat him like a normal child. Any abnormal occurrences that would arise could be shrugged off as some unknown bloodline resurfacing, especially with both of the boy's parents dead and the possible powers the Kyuubi would grant his host unknown. It would be grossly negligent to endanger the village in such a way, but it was still a rational course of action if one was a sentimental old fool.
Unfortunately, the Sandaime wanted to have his cake and eat it too. If the old monkey was unwilling to handle the boy like the extremely dangerous weapon that he was and instead insisted upon treating him like a normal child, announcing that he was the container of the Kyuubi and should be treated as a hero was completely counterproductive. He even trotted out that imbecilic argument that the boy was like a storage scroll and the Kyuubi a kunai and one shouldn't confuse the two. Natsuko could only scoff at that comparison when she heard of it later, as did the vast majority of the audience at the time.
For one, neither a kunai nor a storage scroll had minds of their own, with one mind being that of a century-old dangerous demon and the other one belonging to an impressionable child. To make matters worse, the seal had to connect the minds to some degree because otherwise it would be impossible for the boy to draw on the demon's power later.
Within minutes of the announcement large parts of the villagers called for the boy's death or banishment. Several people who had lost loved ones in the attack shifted the blame to the boy and tried to murder the infant. At least some of them probably acted out of a wish to protect the village from a potentially unstable jinchuuriki. After all, Konoha had never needed one of those before. Whatever their motivations, the Sandaime had them all executed and enacted a law which forbid it to speak of the boy's status as jinchuuriki. It didn't do much good as far as Natsuko could see, the knowledge had already spread. In a perfectly understandable defense reaction most people now tried to ignore the existence of the boy and the danger he posed and wanted him to be kept away from them. The part of the populace that hated him settled for glares on the rare occasions when he left the orphanage.
The boy was a few months old when the Sandaime delivered him personally to her. The assassination attempts had ceased, and he wanted him to have 'a normal upbringing'. He didn't say how she was supposed to achieve that with a severely overworked staff that either hated the boy or wanted nothing to do with him. Still, she had her professional pride and did what she could. She herself couldn't stand to be near the boy, but she made sure no excessive amount of harm came to him. She couldn't stop his isolation and mistreatment as her employees would simply revolt against her if she seemed to favor Naruto, but she could ensure it stayed on a bearable level. Unfortunately the children picked up on the caretakers' attitude and further isolated the boy. Her only hope was that the boy would complain and be removed from their care if it continued long enough. Natsuko resented the Sandaime personally for dumping the boy into her lap and had a hard time to keep her cool when he showed up once in a blue moon to see how the child was doing.
Not that she saw eye-to-eye with the man on lot of other issues. She and her clan had always supported a more martial policy, and the Sandaime with his peace-loving ways and soft approach had been one of their primary political opponents. It didn't help that during the Sandaime's reign the civilian part of the population had been steadily gaining more power and was encroaching on the privileges of the shinobi clans that her own clan had worked so hard to obtain.
They had been neutral to the Yondaime. The man had been a famed warrior of great skill, but he seemed likely to continue the Sandaime's policies. The Kokawa had adopted a wait-and-see attitude, but his reign had been cut short by the Kyuubi before he could leave much of an impression.
Her musings were interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Enter!"
A young man stuck his head into her room.
"Natsuko-sama the youngest children are restless. We would appreciate your help in calming them down." he said.
"Too much trouble for you whippersnappers, eh? No worries, I'm coming. "
With a sigh, Natsuko stood up from her chair and left the room. She had work to do.
Naruto awoke from the sun shining into his eyes. He sat up sleepily, blinking to dispel the vestiges of sleep. He stopped cold as he remembered running across the yard, a moment of white light and then … nothing. He hadn't the foggiest idea what happened after that. He must have fallen asleep at some point.
'Oh no, I will be punished if I'm not sleeping in my bed.' he thought.
Now wide awake, he took for the first time stock of his surroundings. A sight of rare beauty greeted him as the entire world seemed to sparkle. The storm had obviously moved on, and the morning sun was sending its rays through the many holes in the clouds. Some rain still fell in the distance and reflected merrily the light of the sun, as did the countless water droplets on the trees and buildings. It seemed the entire world was covered in tiny gems. As Naruto turned around, he discovered a majestic double rainbow before the still dark western sky. He was stunned; in his entire life he had never seen anything so beautiful. He slowly pivoted on his feet to take in as much as possible of the fantastic sight. All too soon the sparkling faded when some clouds obscured the sun again, snapping Naruto out of his reverie and reminding him that he had to find a way back.
It took him some time to figure out where he was. Luckily he could clearly see the Hokage tower and some other landmarks. He was on the flat roof of a bakery he remembered passing several times on different excursions. He carefully climbed down the steep stairway on the side of the building, no mean feat for a three year old. A short walk later and he was again standing before the closed door of the orphanage. Naruto sat down with his back to the door and waited for some of the caretakers to appear when his stomach growled hungrily. He tried his best to ignore the hollow sensation in his belly by trying to recall the wonderful sight he had witnessed. After a few minutes, he was fast asleep again.
Several hours later he tried to find a resting position where his aching backside could get some relief. The boy had been found sleeping on the orphanage's doorstep by the returning staff and been immediately escorted into the matron's office. Naruto had to endure a long scolding by the matron followed by another scolding and a thorough spanking by the caretaker who had caused him to run away in the park. As further punishment he had been banned from lunch despite his last meal being breakfast one day ago. Naturally he hadn't been able to explain his behavior; he still lacked the necessary skill of speech. At least he had managed to eat something at supper even if he received as always a smaller portion than the others and some of the kids stole a large part of the remainder of his food. Now he was only hoping for some peace.
"Hey midget, we heard you caused some trouble for the nice caretaker. We decided to show you what we think of little brats that make life more difficult for these poor women."
Apparently some of the older children weren't satisfied with his punishment and had decided to take matters into their own hands. A sound thrashing and some time later Naruto was lying on his hard cot and tried to get some sleep while shivering under the thin blanket. Naturally his sleeping accommodations were the shabbiest in the entire orphanage, even if the other stuff wasn't that much better.
"Why do they all hate me?" he whispered while burying his head in the pillow to hide his tears. An idea entered his mind. Perhaps by always acting cheerful and smiling at everybody he would be able to find some friends and acknowledgement?
It had all been for nothing. An entire life's work, the labor of more than a dozen generations to help build the clan had all been for naught. Natsuko took another big gulp out of the sake bottle sitting on her desk. Dozens of empty bottles already littered her office. She was dead. Her niece and last living relative was dead. A few days before, she had received the message from the Hokage's office. Her niece had been killed on a routine mission near the border by some foreign shinobi. Out of the two genin and two chunin of the patrol, only a chunin had made it back, and he probably wouldn't live much longer. He had clearly identified the attackers as belonging to Kumo, a fact which was further corroborated by the findings of the investigating team. There was proof beyond doubt that the Kumo nin were the aggressors and that the location the incident had taken place was firmly inside the borders of the Land of Fire.
Natsuko had only continued living to see vengeance done before joining her husband, four children and six grandchildren in the afterlife. And now she knew she wouldn't even get that small comfort. One of her old acquaintances who worked in the Hokage's office had slipped her a copy of the old monkey's orders. Konoha would send a diplomatic note of protest and otherwise sweep the incident under the rug. No reparations would be demanded, let alone the extradition or execution of the culprits. Sarutobi wanted peace and considered almost no price to high for that purpose. There was even talk of signing a peace treaty with these bastards! After all her clan had done for Konoha the villagers didn't even have the decency to avenge them.
In this moment, something vitally important inside Natsu Kokawa's already alcohol addled mind broke. Her sanity had taken a heavy hit in the wake of the Kyuubi attack and never really recovered, not least because she was forced in the proximity of the contained demon far too often. It had hung by a thin thread, and the recent events were enough to finally drive her over the edge. Of course, she had displayed such an impregnable facade to the outside world that nobody had even suspected that there might be a problem. The few mind healers that Konoha had were already overburdened by the countless overt cases and had no time to spare on the seemingly perfectly mentally sound woman. She began to laugh madly even while sobs shook her body to the core. And so it happened that a woman who had served Konoha loyally for decades even after a crippling combat injury had forced her retirement from the shinobi forces turned from loving the village to intensely hating it.
Natsuko was no longer able to differentiate between the population and the leadership, both melted together into the concept of Konoha. The village had sacrificed the Kokawa and spit on their graves. They all deserved to burn in hell for that! But how to do it? She was already in her fifties and no longer physically capable of fighting. Since her injury more than twenty years ago she couldn't even use chakra anymore.
The memory of her last battle rose unbidden from the depths and forced her to relive the events. It had been a hopeless fight against a group of nuke-nin that were their superior in numbers as well as in skill. They had been a group of four experienced chunin and three genin in hot pursuit of a jonin-level nuke-nin who had murdered some tax collector and made off with the stolen money. It should have been a relative straightforward fight with superior numbers on their side. Unfortunately the reports had understated the skill of the target and they had gotten bad intel to boot. Instead of surprising a lone shinobi they themselves had walked straight into an ambush. Their target had joined a group of eight other renegades that had a band of roughly thirty bandits supporting them. Before they knew what was happening their Inuzaka tracker had already gone down with a kunai through his throat and his partner incinerated by a fire technique. Then their enemies attacked from all directions. In the ensuing chaotic melee she had seen comrade after comrade slaughtered until only she and two others were still alive. Some bandits had died, but all the enemy ninja were still in fighting shape. One of her comrades was lying on the ground slowly bleeding to death while the other had his right leg and arm incapacitated. Natsuko herself had a few serious physical injuries but more importantly suffered from extreme chakra exhaustion. She had already been low on chakra before the battle because the group had used her above average genjutsu talents to interrogate some prisoners and add some stealth to group. In the face of certain death she tried to scrounge up some scraps of chakra to weave a genjutsu that would allow them to escape.
Then it happened, fueled by her desperation she inadvertently opened an unknown number of the eight inner gates in a completely uncontrolled fashion. The following surge of chakra overpowered her collapsing genjutsu which promptly burned out the minds of all the enemies leaving them as drooling idiots while she fell unconscious from the pain. Somehow her two comrades had survived and brought her back to Konoha. The medics had found extensive damage to her chakra system besides the physical injuries; should she even try to mold the tiniest amount of chakra it would almost certainly reopen the gates and kill her in a matter of minutes at the longest. That had been the end of her career as a kunoichi, but she had been able to deal with it. She had suffered the injuries while pursuing the ideals of her clan and gained no small amount of respect for it. She had spent the following years mainly enjoying her family life, caring for the young children of the clan and generally handing down her knowledge to the next generation. On the side she had become politically active in a minor fashion. That lasted until the Kyuubi came.
The image of a smiling boy drifted to the forefront of her mind. He had begun doing that since the storm a few weeks ago. She was sure; the damn Kyuubi was looking through the eyes of the boy and laughing at her. Laughing!
A flash of inspiration struck her. She had been searching for a way to pay back Konoha while the solution had been sleeping in the same building the entire time. Her clan's vengeance was only a matter of releasing the Kyuubi. So simple! Perhaps she had misinterpreted the emotions of the monster three years ago; could it be that the demon nursed a justified grudge against Konoha? Who knew what those bastards had done to the Kyuubi, and they should have protected the village better in any case. Than her clan wouldn't have died!
The only remaining question was how to release the beast. She didn't know enough about fuinjutsu to manipulate the seal. Then she stumbled upon the obvious solution. Why, she could simply shatter the brat's mind like she had done to those men all these years ago. Without the boy's will to suppress it the demon was practically guaranteed to take over! If she was lucky she would even live long enough to witness the beginning of the destruction. Such brilliant ideas had to be inspiration from her ancestors and dead clansmen, it couldn't be another way! They all wanted revenge for their death, and she was the one to give it to them. When she listened carefully she could even hear the voices of her dead children urging her on!
Natsuko carelessly threw the now empty sake bottle to the side and prepared to leave. She would fetch the brat and drag him into the small basement. It had a solid door that should give her the uninterrupted time to make her plan reality. The old matron wasn't even aware that she had scribbled some of her mad ramblings on a piece of sake-soaked paper. Far more important matters claimed her full attention, like the impending destruction of all the ungrateful bastards inhabiting Konoha.
Oh yes, she would make them all pay!
The ANBU codenamed Chipmunk was on the second-to-last leg of her nightly patrol route when she felt a strong chakra spike in the vicinity. Quickly pinpointing it to the location of the orphanage she sent her partner to call reinforcements while she investigated. Since the admittance of the Kyuubi container the orphanage was designated as one of the more neuralgic points of the village. Each incident had to be handled with caution. Just as she jumped from the roof in front of the orphanage door it opened and one of the caretakers came running out.
"HELP! Somebody please help us!" the clearly scared woman cried. Then she spotted Chipmunk and gripped hold of her cloak. "ANBU-san, Natsuko-sama has gone mad! She has locked herself and the Uzumako brat into the basement and barred the door. We heard her rambling that Konoha will pay for spitting on her clan and that she wants to release the Kyuubi!"
For a moment Chipmunk's heart seemed to stop. If the claims of the woman were true Konoha was only moments away from catastrophe. The village wouldn't survive a second Kyuubi attack.
"Stay here. Reinforcements are underway," she curtly instructed the woman before she ran at high speed into the orphanage. The chakra spike was still going strong and showed her the way through the unfamiliar corridors. She had to switch to running on the wall as more and more confused children that had been roused by the racket were spilling from their rooms. The ANBU's thoughts were whirling.
'Kokawa-san is classified as trustworthy and such behavior is completely unexpected from her. There is a far stronger possibility that some enemy of the Leaf is impersonating or controlling her. I have to be prepared for everything. The backup will probably arrive too late to do much good. Shit, and here I hoped for a quiet night. '
Finally she reached the stairway to the cellar and bounded down the steps. Chipmunk arrived in an anteroom with some doors leading in different directions. Some agitated orphanage workers stood in front of one of the doors in the room. One of them, a young well-muscled man, was holding his shoulder. He had apparently tried to batter down the door. All eyes focused on her as she came closer.
"Oh thank Kami you are here. Natsuko-sama and the boy are behind that door. We can hear her rambling and the boy screaming, but the screams have stopped a few moments ago."
Chipmunk motioned for silence and pressed her ear against the door she could hear a woman talking and the characteristic sounds of fists and metal hitting flesh.
"…killed all my family and won't even do anything to the murderers, but they will pay. And you will help me with my revenge little fox. Illusion: Sum of all Fears. Still not enough, eh? Then it's time for my strongest technique. How's that for a change. Secret technique: Illusion: Road to Madness. …"
That was bad. That was very bad. The child was obviously subjected to a horrible torture that would most certainly break or kill him, if it hadn't already judging by the lack of screams. Chipmunk didn't know if one could successfully free the Kyuubi by destroying the mind of the container, but a crazy jinchuuriki was bad enough. She had to do something, and quickly. For that she needed room. The caretakers looked at her expectantly.
Chipmunk immediately sent them away. The workers were civilians and would only get in her way. The door seemed to be made out of solid steel and was firmly anchored to the wall. Chipmunk desperately looked for a way in when inspiration hit her. The wall! It was made of old bricks and far weaker then the door. She had just the jutsu for such an opportunity. Quickly she made some hand signs and laid her hands against the wall.
"Lightning Release: Wall Breaker"
As a rectangular section of the wall roughly as high as she was began to glow Chipmunk removed her hands and hurriedly pressed herself against the wall a short distance beside the affected area. With a muffled bang and the crackling of electricity a section of the brick wall simply shattered, leaving a heap of debris on the floor. Before the dust had time to settle Chipmunk jumped through the newly created opening. After leaving the dust cloud she immediately took a defensive stance and tried to assess the situation.
The mangled body of the demon container was lying unmoving in heap in a spreading pool of his own blood. He had several deep wounds and Chipmunk wondered if there was a single intact bone in his broken body in which a kunai still stuck, driven to the hilt into the flesh. A person that looked like the matron of the orphanage and was the origin of the now declining chakra spike was even now standing over him and kicking at his still form. A strong smell of sake was originating from the figure, her hair was a tangled mess and her clothing was studded with wet looking spots and spatters of blood. She seemingly hadn't even noticed the entry of the ANBU and had continued rambling the entire time.
"Why, why, why won't you come out you damned fox? The boy's mind is shattered, his body broken, there's nothing in your way. … I have it; you too are on their side. Bet they bribed you to destroy my family, huh?"
Chipmunk didn't want to attack the person frontally, the possibility that it was a disguised enemy was somewhat reduced but still there. She drew one of her special poisoned shuriken and shouted "Cease your actions at once, you are under arrest for treason against Konoha."
The woman stopped kicking the child and turned around. Chipmunk had to stop herself from recoiling at the sight. Madness shone from eyes that were leaking tears in two streams, while her mouth was distorted into the grotesque mockery of a grin. Strands of spittle were dripping from the woman's mouth and spasms constantly shook her body mixed with some blend of sobs and crazy laughter. Just as the figure had completed her turn, the chakra spike vanished. The woman clutched her breast, stopped breathing and simply keeled over soundlessly, landing on her face.
The ANBU operative blinked behind her mask, but nonetheless launched her poisoned shuriken into the apparent corpse. The poison was a very special mixture that spread almost immediately through the body and caused a complete muscle lockup. It was non-lethal as long as the antidote was administered within twenty minutes. After that time the lung and heart locked up too, killing the victim. The madwoman seemed dead, but Chipmunk wasn't in the mood for taking chances.
She hurried over to the tiny body and sharply sucked in her breath when she got a closer look at the damage, only to let it out as she detected a very faint heartbeat and shallow breathing. A normal child suffering from these injuries would be long gone, but somehow the boy clung to his young life. Puncture and slash wounds covered the body, and she could see the broken bones under his skin. His face was injured to such a degree that it appeared as a single large bruise. Wasting no time she immediately began applying first aid.
Then she felt it. It was the same terrifying feeling from a little more than three years ago that still caused her the occasional nightmare, but it was almost undetectable from any sort of distance. The earlier chakra spike from the woman had completely masked it, and even now she had to almost touch the boy to feel it. A miniscule trickle of the Kyuubi's chakra was constantly released by the boy. If she looked very hard she could see tiny motes of red light dancing in the wounds. Even as she frantically worked to stop the flow of blood she noticed one of the many scratches sealing itself shut. Some of the deeper wounds seemed shallower as well when she got around to treating them. Apparently the demon tried to keep its host alive.
It seemed an eternity until her backup of six ANBU operatives arrived. Without interrupting her work Chipmunk quickly informed them of all that happened. Two of the new arrivals proceeded to secure the corpse of the woman while the medic Badger had already joined her in the effort the save the container's life. One stood guard and the other two left the room after a short survey to keep unwelcome witnesses away. During their work they heard every now and again wet popping and scrunching sounds when something inside the boy's body tried to fix itself. Finally they had him stabilized enough to risk transport. A quick genjutsu later to prevent onlookers from identifying the victim they left the room in direction of Konoha's hospital.
Chipmunk planned to get very drunk as soon as she finished her report and got off-duty. She had seen a lot of things in her career she rather wanted to forget, but the deliberate, cruel torture of such a young child took a prominent place in the gallery of atrocities she had witnessed, right beside the things she had glimpsed in one of the traitor Orochimaru's laboratories. How was it that this crap always happened in Konoha? Weren't they supposed to be the good guys?
Organized thought had long become impossible for Naruto due to the intense pain that pervaded his body and mind. When the pain entered one of the periodic lulls memories bubbled to the surface. He had been woken in the middle of the night by the matron and told to follow her. The lady didn't seem very well, rambled about some stuff he didn't understand and smelled strongly like cleaning supplies, but he had been too tired to question her. Naruto had followed her sleepily through empty corridors into the cellar. Underway they had met some patrolling caretakers that seemed surprised to see them. The matron had sent them away, but one had followed them. They had entered a room with no exits and the matron had closed and barred the door right in front of the nose of the man.
That was when it had begun. The lady had done something strange with her hands and suddenly he couldn't move. Some pretty colored light had become visible around the matron. Then the pain had started. He didn't have any clear memories, but times when something rummaged painfully in his skull alternated with physical pain. Vague feelings of terror and fear and other emotions remained.
Then the lull was over and the pain started again. Something seemed to poke sharply and painfully right into his head. Finally something gave way under the overwhelming onslaught, and Naruto's young mind shattered.
The sounds of the world became faint and distant, only a vague feeling of unease remained. He was cold, so cold. He was falling. There was a cool wetness around him. Had he fallen into a puddle? Somebody scooped him up, carrying him away. Finally, the darkness claimed him, and he felt no more.