Chapter 18: Too Far Gone

He hadn't provoked him. He didn't threaten him. He kept his distance. Naruto intentionally came to him and attacked. Shikamaru had done nothing. Naruto didn't even have the excuse of mistaking him for an enemy. He deliberately wanted to hurt him.

The fox in him had taken over. Those were not Naruto's eyes. These weren't his actions. This was an aggressive fox bent on violence.

Naruto's jaw clamped down hard and pulled away, taking a chuck of Shikamaru's neck with him. Blood poured from the open wounds and ran down his shoulder, down his leg and to his hoof. Naruto snarled at him, narrowing his fox eyes.

He turned back to the villagers and hissed, making them flinch.

Then he blinked. His eyes were blue again. He saw the villagers looking frightened, cowering in the middle of the street. Some were bleeding, some were holding broken pieces of wood in their trembling hands. Naruto's body was in pain. He ached. He licked his lips and tasted blood. It was fresh. Had he been injured in a fight? Why couldn't he remember?

He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand. There were tiny hairs in the blood. It looked like brown fur. His fur wasn't brown.

He turned around to find Shikamaru frozen in terror, an open wound on his neck. It looked like something had bitten him, tearing out some of his flesh. His eyes were focused on Naruto, his breath quivering.

Naruto's eyes winded, putting pieces together and coming to a horrifying conclusion. "Sh... Shikamaru..? Did... Did I..?" Did he attack Shikamaru?

Something was in his mouth. He spat it into his hand. Shikamaru's flesh and fur. He had attacked him. He's the one who bit Shikamaru. He injured him.

"Oh, my God..." Naruto felt sick to his stomach. He had just attacked his friend. Judging from the wound, he intended to kill him. He just tried to kill Shikamaru. "Oh, no..."

Naruto was beside himself with horror. He didn't remember doing it. He knew he had bouts of fox instincts taking over and random fits of rage. He knew he had lapses, but this was the worst one he ever had. This was the worst thing he had ever done. He just tried to kill his friend.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my..." Naruto took a step closer. "Shikamaru... Shikamaru, I'm so sorry. I didn't-"

Shikamaru turned on the spot and bolted. He ran from Naruto into the forest.

"No! Shikamaru! Wait! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to..."

Shikamaru was gone. He must have feared for his life. He was frightened of Naruto.

"I didn't mean to..." Naruto fell to his knees and sat in the dirt. There was blood on his hands. There was blood in the dirt. There was blood in his mouth. "I didn't mean it."

He didn't mean it.

"I'm so sorry, Shikamaru. I didn't mean it..!" Naruto started sobbing.

What had he done? This was his doing. He didn't mean it, but he did it. He just attacked Shikamaru. He could have killed him. He tried to kill him. He just tried to kill his friend. What sort of monster was he becoming? He had no control over himself. He didn't remember any of it. Not a thing.

This was even worse than Naruto thought. Far worse than he expected. He was warned they may become dangerous. That he may end up attacking someone. He was warned. He passed it off as only a theory. He thought he could resist it. He thought it would never happen. He was so confident that he would never attack his friends, no matter how he changed. It was unthinkable. He would never do such a thing.

He thought it would be fun to be a fox. He didn't see any danger with it. He thought he could handle it. He never thought he would ever become so violent. He never thought he would be capable of hurting any one of his friends. He never thought he would attack a fellow animal. He would never attack someone afflicted with the same curse as himself. The one he spent these past six days traveling with and protecting.

What had he done?

He just drove everyone of his friends away. He tried to strike Shino when he only wanted to help, he attacked Shikamaru and couldn't even remember doing it. That was much worse. He was not in control of his actions. He didn't know what he was doing. What else had he done when he blacked out? What else had he done beyond his control?

What had he done?

What was worse? Attacking his friends and knowingly doing it? Or trying to kill his friends and not remember doing it? Either way it was bad!

This was no way to live. What was the point if he ended up alone? If he had no friends and tried to kill the ones he had? He would be alone. A murderer. A monster. A beast.

"I don't want this!" Naruto wailed. He slammed his head into the ground, half expecting this whole thing was a dream he would wake up from. "I don't want this!"

He didn't want to hurt his friends. He didn't want to become a threat. He didn't want to live like this.

While he was on the ground sobbing, the villagers sneaked up behind him with their broken weapons. It would be so easy to kill him now. His back was turned, he was distracted. It was time to put down this beast before it hurt anyone else.

"Stop!"

The villagers stopped their attack and spun around. A woman in a green shawl was sprinting down the street with a small lantern.

"What are you doing? He's just a boy!"

"This boy just attacked our village and put many people out with horrible injuries," said a man. "He's a beast!"

"Move it." The woman came closer and looked at Naruto. She saw him covered in injuries and his clothes were torn. His shoulders were moving up and down as he sobbed into the ground, curled up tight. "This is no beast. He's a child!"

"Don't get too close, milady! He's dangerous!"

"Yes, it could be a trick."

She wouldn't hear of it and bent down beside Naruto, placing a hand gently on his back. "What's your name?"

He borrowed deeper into himself. "Just go away."

"Please tell me your name. I want to help you."

He sniffled. "It's Naruto."

"Naruto, is it? Pleased to meet you. I am the healer in this village. My name is Vena."

He sniffled.

She looked over his body. She looked at his tail, his ears and his paws. "Naruto. Are you cursed?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Please come with me to my home. I know this curse. I can help you."

Naruto lifted his head. His face wasn't human anymore. His nose and jaw had elongated. He had a snout and a cold wet nose, which may have been from crying. "You know the curse? You can help me?"

If this woman was telling the truth, it meant Naruto could change back and no longer be dangerous. This was the hope he was looking for.

Naruto followed her back to her house, which was a small wooden house at the end of a street. The front yard was filled with flowers and there was a stone walkway leading up to the door. The inside of her home was so clean, Naruto felt ashamed to walk in with his dirty paws. Actually, just being inside made him uncomfortable, much preferring the outdoors. He forced himself to enter, hoping it would help him remain human for a while longer so he could hear what she had to say.

He sat down at a wooden table and she served him something warm to drink. Thinking it was a magic potion that had the cure he was looking for, he gulped it down quickly. Then she told him it was just tea and there was nothing magical about it.

"So... Vena." Naruto wasn't sure how to put it. "How do you know about the curse?"

"My mother told me about it. Rest her soul. She taught me a lot."

Naruto's ears twitched. "Was your mom Anamary?"

"No."

His heart sank.

"That was my grandmother's name."

Naruto's heart practically leapt out of his chest. A descendant. He was on his feet with excitement. "It's your grandmother?! So you're a member of the Susumu clan?"

"Well, my grandmother was. My mother married someone else and took their name and I never married. So I suppose you could say..."

"Never mind that! You can fix this, right? You know what cursed us in the first place? Please take it back! Get rid of this curse! I don't want it! Please!" Naruto had to convince her that he could not stand having this curse for one more second. "Please! I don't want to hurt my friends. Please change me back."

"I cannot cure you."

"Please! Please! I'm begging you!"

Vena put her hand on his head and forced him to sit back down. "I cannot cure you because I have no cure."

Naruto fell back into his seat, his heart sinking again. "So... there's no cure?" What an overwhelming feeling of despair. There was no way out of this. He was doomed to live this way forever. Maybe if he chained himself up he wouldn't hurt anyone. That was no way to live either.

"There is a cure. But I don't have it. There is one, however."

Naruto lifted his head again. He wanted to tell her to stop toying with his emotions but he decided that could wait until later. "There is a cure, though? Right? What is it? Where can I get it?"

Vena pointed to her chest. "You have to cure yourself. That's how the curse works."

"Huh?"

"You brought the curse on yourself so only you can take it away."

Naruto wasn't sure what that meant at all. He slid onto the table, pouting. "I don't even know how I got this curse in the first place."

Vena sat across from him at the table. "Well, my mother told me the story about her mother, Anamary. About the night she left her land for a new home."

"Oh, yeah. About her husband dying and everyone getting mad at each other." Naruto nodded into the wood. "I heard it from that Susumu guy. What's-his-name?"

"That's what sparked the curse in the first place. They say when someone's emotions become too great, strange and powerful things can happen. Simply by wishing something hard enough, it can change fate and have it come true."

"So what does that have to do with the curse? I'm not part of the clan so why did Shikamaru and I get it?"

Vena explained. "According to what my mother told me... Anamary was so upset with the merged clans that her emotions brought on the curse after she left. Perhaps after she died her spirit possessed the land and made the curse. Maybe it was something else. Anyway... what had her so upset that night was how everyone was blaming each other for what had transpired and no one took fault. She wanted the people of the two clans to not only own up to what they've done but to not put blame on others. Mostly, to say what they truly believe in their hearts."

Naruto lifted his head off the table. "Hm..." He still didn't fully grasp what that all meant. "So... you get the curse by lying? If that's true, then I get why we changed. Because we pretended not to be ninja and did their game or whatever it was and broke the rules. But if that's the case then why isn't the guy who lives there an animal? He was the one who lied in the first place when he hired us. I don't get it. Does it only work on outsiders?"

"It's not so much lying as putting blame on others and not admitting to one's faults. It's in your heart. What you truly know. What you feel, what you think. That's how I see it," said Vena. "If you do that on the land, you become cursed by turning into beasts. That's what my grandmother compared them to the night she left. She went to another village, had my mother, and years later moved to a new village. When my grandmother died, my mother moved to yet another and got married. Eventually, this became my village. We moved a bit. However, the curse always seemed to occur on that land where her husband was killed and nowhere else."

Naruto was still trying to make sense of the curse and why it happened in the first place. "Ok... So... Um... So, it's... It has to do with blame? Not admitting to your faults?"

"For the most part. It only effects the ones who did that. No one else is effected unless they did it, too."

Naruto tried to think. "Fault... blame... Fault and blame... Hmm..."

He remembered what Shikamaru had been yelling at him when they left the village after failing the mission. He blamed Naruto for failing. He said it was all his fault that they failed.

"Then I said it wasn't my fault and that I didn't do anything." Naruto gasped. "I did this. It is my fault."

"Did you figure it out?" Vena asked.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I think I did. I didn't take responsibility for our mission and said it wasn't my fault. That did it. Didn't it?"

Vena didn't say anything. Maybe there was nothing for her to say. Or maybe it was because even she did not know all the details of the curse or the exact reason for it.

"How do we fix it?"

"You have to admit to the one you either wronged or had that spat with and make amends. You have to admit to each other the truth. If you wronged someone then both will be cursed. You have to go to each other and admit the truth and take fault where it's due. That's all I can tell you."

Naruto nodded, feeling very relieved. There was a way out of this. It could all be fixed. "Great. Now I just have to find Shikamaru and make amends with him and everything will be fine."

"Oh." Vena snapped her fingers, remembering something. "I almost forgot. The curse becomes permanent after a week. Then you're stuck this way forever with no chance of changing back."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "What?!"

"Yes. After that you become an animal forever. Mind and body. You won't be yourselves anymore. The curse works slowly. You may have noticed lapses and blanks in your memory. Those times you cannot remember are all the things you will become and do once the week is up."

Which meant he was going to try to attack Shikamaru again. He would try to hurt people and no longer be able to stop himself. He won't be Naruto anymore but a beast.

"I've... I mean, we've been animals for six days."

Vena jumped out of her seat. "You only have until sunrise on the seventh day to reverse the curse. Dawn is in less than an hour! You must find your friend now! You have until sunrise to do it! Today!"

Naruto was screaming his head off. "I have less than an hour?! I have to find Shikamaru!"

Vena opened the door for him and Naruto ran past her as fast as he could. "You both have to make amends or it won't work! Both of you! Or you're both stuck forever!" she called after him.

Naruto's feet couldn't keep up with his will. He kept stumbling and falling. He could only run if he was on all fours. He looked down at his hands. His thumbs had become tiny stubs and were in a different location, higher up his arm. He had paws for hands now, too, complete with fur. His body was changing even faster. Before it was more spread out with minor changes. Since this was the final day, it seemed his body had sped up the changes. He didn't have much time left.

"Shikamaru! Where are you? Shikamaru, please answer me!"

His chest was hurting and not from the running but from guilt. If he hadn't bitten him, Shikamaru wouldn't have run off. He shouldn't have frightened him off like that. He knew how timid he was now.

Where could he be? He knew he wasn't going to be in the village. He prayed Shikamaru wasn't still running. He hoped Shikamaru wouldn't run when he saw him. This was their last chance.

"Shikamaru! Please, come out! Shikamaru! Shikamaru, I need to talk to you! Please, Shikamaru!"

He went off the trail and into the woods, calling his name as loud as he could.

"I promise I won't hurt you! Please!"

Yeah, right. He couldn't keep that promise. Not the way he was now.

"Please, Shikamaru!"

He moved swiftly between the trees and over rocks and across tiny streams to the next bank. He moved through the grass quickly, the green blades slapping his face, as if to torment him.

"Shikamaru! Where are you?!"

The forest didn't answer back, mocking him with its silence. Mocking the boy who drove away his friend.

"Please!" Naruto gasped for breath. He didn't know how long he had been searching but his legs were tired and he found it hard to catch his breath. "Please... Shikamaru..." He forced himself to go on.

This was their last chance. Their only chance. If he couldn't find Shikamaru before sunrise then it was all over and they were stuck this way forever.

Naruto couldn't catch his breath and his head was spinning. He felt sick. The soles of his feet ached. He was sweating and his throat felt so dry. "Shika... maru..." His breathing was hoarse and ragged. His head was buzzing and he felt dizzy.

He couldn't rest. He had to find him. That was the only thing on his mind. He could rest after he was cured.

His legs were numb. He forced them to carry him just a little further.

The night had become eerily quiet. The birds had fallen silent. No insects were buzzing, either. The trees were still, staring at him wordlessly. Naruto's appeals had gone unheard. He had driven Shikamaru away. It was only just that his punishment be that he not find him before the day began.

"At least... let him be cured. He didn't do anything wrong. I did." Naruto climbed up the hill, still trying to breathe. "Punish me. Not him. I did this. So please... Let me find him for his sake. Please."

When he reached the top of the hill, there was nothing. Not a single animal. He made his way over the hill, slowly, his legs about to give out. Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Something at the bottom of the hill to his right.

A deer grazing completely alone. A six pronged buck.

Naruto was so happy. He made it in time. He finally found him. "Shikamaru..!" he breathed. He slid down the hill and over to him slowly. "Shikamaru."

He didn't look up.

"I'm so sorry about what had happened before. I didn't mean it. But there's good news. Great news, actually. I know how we can fix this. I know how to lift the curse on us both."

Shikamaru must not have believed him because he continued to graze, keeping his head down.

"Remember our mission? The one that we failed? We got cursed because we blamed each other and I didn't take fault and I was stubborn. So we just have to apologize and everything will be fine. We have to make amends. But we have to do it before sunrise or we're stuck like this. And we both had to do it. We have to be honest with each other."

Shikamaru lifted his head, looking at him.

"I'll go first." Naruto sat down in front of him. "Shikamaru, you were right. You were right all along. It was my fault we failed. I shouldn't have broken the rules. I cost us the mission. I should have listened to you."

Shikamaru stared at him without a word. Then he lowered his head and went back to grazing.

Naruto frowned. "Shikamaru, you're supposed to say something back to me. Please, hurry. You've got to hurry. Sunrise is any second now. Please."

He ate, nibbling the grass, saying nothing.

"Shikamaru, please! Otherwise, we're both stuck like this forever. Please!"

Shikamaru grazed without looking up.

Naruto's heart started pounding. Could this have been a regular deer? Was he talking to the wrong one? No, that was impossible. This one had a bite mark on its neck where Naruto had bitten him earlier. This was Shikamaru.

Then why wasn't he saying anything? Even if he held a grudge, this was hardly the time or place to do it. Shikamaru was smart enough to know that.

"Shikamaru?" Naruto came closer and looked into his eyes.

Shikamaru's eyes had become dull and simple. His irises had expanded so much his entire eye was now brown. Naruto knew this look. This is how his eyes became when he slipped into his animal state. Shikamaru was an animal on the inside as well.

Which meant he didn't know what Naruto was saying and didn't understand anything that was happening. Naruto had wasted his words.

"Shikamaru?" Naruto moved closer, pleading with him. "Shikamaru, say something, please!"

It was no use. Shikamaru had the mind of a deer. The one Naruto needed was gone.

This wasn't Shikamaru. It was a deer.

Oh, no. Is this the end for them?

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