The Wanderers pt. 2
"The Black Fox"
A war was raging in Minato's head.
Minato hated war.
And another part of him, a new part, a dark part, loved it all the same.
He couldn't say how long it had been since he fell in the lake. Maybe it had been hours, or only minutes, since he had felt his feet glide over the rough wood on the porch. Minato didn't know.
He couldn't remember.
He didn't really care that he couldn't remember, and he didn't really care because there was something alive in Minato that night. Something that kept the war in his head loud and riveting. Something that kept his heart pumping harder, faster, than it should have.
Minato did remember Enma's voice in his ear. He remembered the fox, half its face eclipsed in shadow. It had rumbled like a god.
He remembered reaching out to it, and the anger that lanced through him like a needle after. It was sharp and unrelenting. He couldn't soften its bite.
And oh, it hurt.
Thieves, the fox had hissed as Minato stepped lightly onto the porch. Mikoto was singing, he noticed. He'd forgotten his shoes again, because he could feel the rough wood beneath his feet.
Stolen half your life, boy. Hidden it from you.
And Minato could feel the energy of the fox, as if it were gliding over his skin in a coil.
Taken pieces of who you are so you would never rise to become more than what you already are.
Sweat beaded on Minato's brow. His upper lip. His heart, he thought in a sudden wild panic, was going to burst. His family, he thought, was a lie. and that was when his little sister saw him. And maybe Mikoto could feel this new raw pain and this terrible hate ebbing off him in little black eddies to float away into the night. It's how he felt.
Angry.
Everything hurt.
Minato was angry. He was angry because he'd never been allowed to go to school. He'd watched Enma go, and grow, to become someone he only daydreamed about. Someone he envied most days and despised the rest, just for all the things he could do that Minato couldn't. He was angry because, for an entire summer, he'd actually believed his fathers had found him on the side of the road. He was angry because Dad hadn't trusted that he could handle the fox inside of him. He'd waited until Minato was "old enough" to get it.
Minato was angry because Enma was dead. He was angry because he had envied him, and some days he'd despised him, and the rest of those days he had loved him. He was angry because the Guardians had burned the Kobayashi house to the ground when half-starved rogue nin fell asleep in the basement, trying to find a place to rest for the night.
"They were conspiring," the Guardian had said.
Nowadays, Minato had heard Father sneer at once, nin are never what they could be. And maybe Father had been right, because the rogues hadn't been too hard to catch.
Minato was angry at the fox, who tickled his ear. Whispered. Laughed. Minato stood still and listened to it. Mikoto stopped singing. Everyone turned to look at him.
Where were you? asked his Dad. Where were you? Father asked, but not aloud. Minato could see the question in his one eye. And suddenly everyone in the backyard was staring at him. Waiting for him to say something. They kept waiting for him to say he was ready to go.
His fathers were smug, Minato thought, weren't they? Because they'd controlled him for so long. Hadn't they? They had kept him in the house. Away from the rest of the world. Kept him from questioning or knowing anything at all. Growing at a pace they could handle.
There was an angry buzz in Minato's blood. He could still feel Enma's ghost, and for a split second, a night shadow blown by the wind made him flinch. The fox tickled his ear from the black place in his heart where it was kept in waiting. The world was a spinning blur, full of shadows and dark things, and it only spat lies and half-truths. His Father's voice grated on his ears.
What truth have they ever told you? When they kept their names from you? When they kept your sister from you, like a naive babe?
Father was angry. And Minato could remember a handful of times he'd made him make this particular face. The face where he went pale, like his anger sucked all the blood out of his face, and the way his lip kind of curled like something wild about to growl.
When Minato was younger, that face used to scare him. When Father made that face, Minato listened. He stopped saying whatever he was saying, because obviously, there was something wrong with it.
Now, it made him grin.
There was a war raging in Minato's head, and this new part of him ached for it.
Minato shook his head, and suddenly the world seemed to right. The night cleared and it was piercing, cooler than he'd thought. The dog on the porch was vivid and bleeding. The fox quieted. Everything hurt a little less. His thoughts curled away until the roar in his head became a whisper, and that whisper shrank away behind the bars it lived behind. The anger began to abate. Just a little, and he felt like a hot coal that had been thrown away to smoke and cool.
He passed by the dog, trailing after his fathers, wiping the sweat from his lip. The dog whimpered and tried to lick a torn a pad on its paw. Its ears pricked as Minato's passed, and Minato stopped beside it. He wondered if he had whispered everything he'd thought, even though he knew he hadn't. The dog's nostrils widened, and it snarled. Minato stared at it, lip curled, mildly surprised. He wondered what it saw. The dog's lips pulled back from its teeth, and for a moment, Minato wondered if it might bite him.
"Stupid pup," raged the dog. "What have you done?" Minato stared at it.
"Minato!"
"What have you done?" whispered the dog, and Minato bent close to look at it.
"What have I done?" he asked quietly, and he knew his eyes were spinning, bleeding red. The dog growled low, hunched close to the ground, ears flat.
"Minato!"
The dog curled into itself the longer it stared at him, a snarl bubbling into a startled yelp before tucking its head between its paws, eyes closed. Minato stepped away.
His fathers were calling for him. Mikoto was staring at him from Dad's shoulders, her little hands cupping his Adam's apple, her chin in his hair. She looked at Minato in a way that might have unnerved him earlier. Her face slack-in that emotionless mask she wore whenever she thought too hard. It was that face, thought Minato, that made her look older than she really was. Like she knew things other people didn't.
Minato stared back at her.
And that was when, as Father turned to shout, calling for Minato, that the dog summon suddenly seized. Minato turned, and it felt slow, so slow.
He turned and the dog's throat began to swell. Its eyes bulged. It screamed. A rat burst through its skin, and Minato was too stunned to care about the blood that sprayed his feet.
An enemy summon.
It was the largest rat Minato had ever seen. It looked up at him with pink eyes and blood-matted fur to say, "So this is the little demon."
Then it began to grow.
Minato's eyes spun, he reached for a shuriken star on his belt, releasing a burst of pure wind energy along it. Still unable to contain it as neatly as his dad, the energy blazed forth with a wild, fierce strength. When Minato swung it, the rat moved with unnatural speed, twitching and dodging, kicking up shreds of grass and dirt with its claws. The shuriken shot through a boarded up window, slicing clean through the railing on the porch.
It should have been the rat's head.
But by then, his fathers were there. Father, with Chidori. Dad, with rasengan, and Kosuke, whose cheeks were already swelling with the onslaught of a water jet. Mikoto was quiet and pale on the road.
"GO! GET YOUR SISTER!" Father screamed wildly, the screech of his lightning nearly drowning his voice. He leaped, and struck. Dad barreled ahead on the side, all brute strength and speed. The rat's tail lashed like a whip, and now it was the size of a small elephant. Its tail swished, and with his eyes Minato could see the harsh glow of raw chakra surrounding it like a blade. Something moved to his left, and from the river, swarms of rats began to haul themselves out of the water, scurrying onto the bank. They grew with each step. Minato recoiled. Dad looked back and gestured with one hand.
"GO!"
And for a moment, Minato wanted to wait, just for a moment, just so he could be angry with him. So all the pain eating him alive would make sense. But he took a step back. He watched his fathers collide with the beasts together, and it was the first time, he realized, that he had ever seen them fight. They moved like two pieces of the same unit, fast, faster, quicker than he could have anticipated. And suddenly the name Uchiha didn't seem so far fetched. Ahead, the rat his fathers were fighting rose its fearsome tail. Gritting his teeth, Minato turned and ran, scooping up Mikoto in one swift movement. The rat brought down its tail, cracking it like a whip. Everything went up in a cloud of dirt and grass and a bang.
Minato fell, thrown by the blast, skidding over the gravel road, and he half expected Mikoto to scream in his arms. She was quiet and still. Her eyes were impossibly wide and wet.
He had no time to think, or to pause and wonder about the anger that burned inside of him. To wonder how his fathers were doing.
His ears were ringing. Minato stumbled to his feet, wondering if he was holding Mikoto too tight. When he looked back, the house was overrun with rats, squirming, shrieking, in the dark. Little eyes flicked onto him, and suddenly, a group broke free to race across the road, down to Minato. His stomach twisted, then let go. He did not see his fathers. Minato ran.
Mikoto screamed. "Wait! Not without Daddy, not without Father! NO!" she screamed. She slapped him. Minato ran on. She pounded little fists on his shoulders, kicked her legs and wriggled. Minato ran on.
The rats were fast. Minato watched them burn with a black fire, and he knew, at that moment at least, that his fathers were alive. He stumbled into the darkness, losing the last half as the brush caught fire.
The forest sped by in a blur. Somewhere down the road, Minato could hear screams. But all else was quiet. An attack. Why? Minato cursed.
"Fuck!"
He leaped into the trees. Mikoto fell quiet again. Everything blurred together. Someone screamed. Minato fled deeper into the wood, down an old path he'd once forgotten. It was a dirt road that wove through the trees and led to a little house where an old man Minato didn't know very well lived with his dog. The old man, Shuji, came out of the house with a knife. Minato pulled himself into shadow the instant the door burst open, spilling butter-yellow light onto the grass.
"Who's there?"
But something else was coming, someone else was coming, and Minato clamped a hand over Mikoto's mouth. He pressed himself tightly against a tree, moving quickly into a thicket. He closed his eyes with a frown and did his best to conceal his chakra. Slowly, he tilted back his head to look through the cracks of foliage. Above them, a three-man cell moved through the trees.
So quiet.
They moved so quietly.
Minato thought of a spider. These were no Guardians.
Minato shivered. Mikoto began to squirm. She was crying, he realized, her tears seeping through the cracks in his fingers.
The hunters fell out of the trees. Shuji stumbled back. Minato held his breath. He watched. They each wore masks. He saw a dog. A cat. A mouse.
"I don't want no trouble," he cried, brandishing his knife, and he looked pale in his swath of light. The hunters were quiet. The old man's dog slinked behind in the doorway, whimpering. In the distance, a shot sounded. Someone had a lancer. Shuji looked back at the hunters incomprehensibly.
"What-what's going on?"
"This village is rogue territory," began one of the nin, and her sweet, high voice contrasted with her black disguise and ruthless stance. It was eerie, slipping from under the whiskers of her cat mask. "If you cooperate, we will escort you off the mountain safely. There is no need to worry."
Shuji gulped audibly. Minato watched.
"Rogues?" parroted Shuji. He licked his lips. "Ain't no rogues here. Just honest, hard-working families." He didn't drop his knife.
The kunoichi in the cat mask nodded to her companions, and without a word, and faster than Minato had ever seen anyone than his fathers on the mountain move, they skirted around Shuji and went into his house. Mikoto trembled in Minato's arms. He held her tighter. The ninja waiting outside the door looked around. Something shattered in Shuji's house. The old man startled.
"Hey!"
"L'emme go!" The rest of the team returned with a young woman in two. One held her firmly by her braid. She was still in her nightgown.
"Name," asked the kunoichi boredly. The girl in her nightgown looked terrified. She choked on her own words.
"Name?" she repeated, more slowly, and there was a new hardness to her voice.
Shuji tried to intervene. "No, no-it's just my daughter. It's just my daughter, please!"
"She was hiding in a crawl space in the attic," said the man in the dog mask. The woman hummed thoughtfully.
"She's no trouble, I swear!"
The heady smell of woodsmoke began to snake through the trees, and Minato looked to the sky. Black smoke choked the moon, rising from the direction of his family's house. He stared at it, and he didn't dare wonder.
"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!"
The leader of the team calmly flipped through her book. "This village is rogue territory, as I've said. You're housing enemies of the Fire Country. We're here," she said, seeming to find what she was looking for in her little book and tapping a gloved finger on the page, "to contain it."
Suddenly the girl slumped, and it had been so quick Minato had missed it when he'd looked down at Mikoto. Shuji yelled, screaming a scream so horrible Minato covered Mikoto's ears and looked away. Mikoto whimpered quietly. Minato stiffened. The kunoichi's head snapped back to glare into the shadows. Minato held his breath.
Minato held still, trying, harder than he ever had in his life, to contain his chakra. There was this sick feeling of adrenaline coursing through him now that he had felt the same day he'd fought with Enma. He knew he could do it. It was easy. But now a mistake could kill him. Or Mikoto.
He kept his eyes on the girl on the road as he concentrated, watched Shuji kneeling beside her, sobbing. He thought of his fathers and the rats, the smoke climbing into the sky, and something terrible, horrible, crept into his mind.
Let me out, whispered the Kyuubi. Free me, and I'll help you find them. We do, after all, have a deal.
On my terms! reminded Minato, annoyed.
I will help you. You will not be alone. And the demon sounded almost sweet. Sincere. Understanding. Minato shook. He swallowed back fire. Mikoto's fingers pinched into his skin, and he concentrated on her nails, digging into his neck. The demon within him surged, restless, and Minato imagined he could feel it pressing against his bones.
He didn't think of Dad, sitting on the hard floor of the living room, one eye closed, and saying, concentrate.
Minato didn't need it. He could do it on his own.
Not yet, he thought.
The ninja took another step. Minato trembled, but not from fear. There was a rip, and a roar, deep in his chest. Her eyes met his through the forest shadow, and his brow furrowed. She couldn't see him. Not yet.
"Boruto," she called, and the one in the mouse mask stepped to her side. Minato scowled. Without a word, the nin lifted the mouse mask, and Minato saw a young man's face. There was something about him that made Minato believe that maybe the boy had killed someone once before, but another glance at the innocent look on his face made Minato doubt it. The boy's eyes wandered over to the shadows. They were white. The hairs on the back of Minato's neck stood on end, and Mikoto's fingers pinched deeper into his skin. He wondered what the boy could see with his white eyes. Minato clenched his teeth. Prepared to reach for his tanto.
"Byakugan!" the boy grunted. Minato held his breath. The boy stared at him, and Minato knew he could see him. He knew, because of how sharply his gaze lingered. Then slowly, the nin looked away.
"No one," he said, and he said it like he was bored. His eyes lingered on Minato's position a moment too long.
"No one?" asked his superior curiously. She put a hand on her hip and fingered a shuriken star. Without much warning she tossed it into the shadows. The boy before her winced. Minato held still. The star thudded into a tree trunk. Blood trickled down his neck. It had clipped his ear. His skin felt too tight. He struggled to hold his breath, so it wouldn't hiss between his teeth.
"Hmm. I thought I'd heard something. But remember, Bo, no one here is innocent."
Finish it now, said the demon. Release me. You cannot handle these men on your own.
But then they received a radio signal, and the leader spoke into her headset. She spat a curse. Without another word to old man Shuji, they dispatched. Minato didn't move for an entire ten minutes. When he did, old man Shuji watched him from his spot on the road. Shuji hadn't moved either. He'd shed his shirt, covering his daughter's face with it.
Minato sneered. I don't need you yet, he thought. The Kyuubi said nothing.
"Honest, hard-working men and women," Shuji said thickly, pausing to inhale a brittle breath. "We never hurt anyone. This," he nodded at his dead daughter,
"-this was supposed to be over. She never did anyone wrong. She wouldn't even have been able to fight them. She never even graduated." He squeezed his eyes shut, made a strangled noise.
"We won the war. Why are they doing this?" He bent his head. Mikoto wrapped her arms around Minato's neck and buried her face in his shoulder. There was a silence. More shouts on the horizon. Minato walked away.
The first night, he stuffed himself and Mikoto into a small, natural cave near a cliff side. The ceiling was low, and he had to hunch and crouch. Water trickled in from the river. Rocks jutted into his thighs, his back, and it was cold, cold, cold. Mikoto cried. Minato shivered. He stole heat from the Kyuubi until his palms burned. During the night he woke seventeen times. He'd counted. Once, he woke to a black heat bubbling off his skin, and he thought he was stuck in a nightmare, being dragged down, deep, deep into the water by something dark and venomous. But when he'd blinked again, it was all gone.
Just a little more, sighed the demon. Minato hushed it. It was tied to him now, but it felt like it was crawling under his skin. He bit it back so hard he tasted blood in his mouth.
Once, he could hear the kunoichi's sweet voice. She was walking on the water of the river, her steps careful and precise. He held Mikoto and concealed their chakra.
If the boy, Bortuo, ever noticed them, he never said anything.
The next time Minato woke, it was to a dark figure crouching a foot away in the mouth of the cave. Minato brandished his tanto, holding a sleeping Mikoto with his other arm.
"Please," said the boy, and he held up his hands. "Can I hide in there with you?"
In his arms, Mikoto snored.
"Please, man," said the boy, and he started to cry. "Please. She's following me. I lost her an hour ago-but-" he couldn't finish. He wept. "It's a mad house. They're locking down the village. Not lettin' anyone in or out, and I got a record. Please-Holy shit, is that you, Minato? C'mon, man. Please! You know me. Right? It's fucking mayhem man. You know they're saying the Fire Lord's assassins are here and they're trying to pull an assassination attempt on the new guy? Every rogue here's in for it. Guilty by association, right? And I dropped out." He babbled, trying to elbow his way into the cave.
He's loud, said the demon, and Minato knew it was true.
Minato did know him. It was Ayato, the boy who used to hang with the group that gave Minato a black eye once. The boy who'd beaten on him for being with Ruriko the year he'd turned seventeen. So one day, Minato had given Ayato a black eye, too. He'd broken Ayato's nose that day. He could still see where he'd broken it, along its crooked ridge.
What has this boy, the demon wondered, and Minato could remember as it spoke, ever done for you? He's taunted you. Hit you. Humiliated you. What do you owe him?
Minato dropped Mikoto, pointed his short blade straight at Ayato's nose. Mikoto let out a startled yelp. Ayato scrambled away, making a lot of noise. Minato winced.
My, what a wicked heart you have, laughed the Kyuubi. Minato twitched, as though its voice had curled around his ear.
Ayato slumped, disbelieving. "Don't leave me out there."
Listen to him whine, snarled the demon.
Minato looked at Mikoto, whimpering and shivering, her legs spattered with mud. She hugged her doll. He looked back at Ayato and out into the night. He didn't drop the tanto.
"Get. Out."
Out, laughed the demon. So you would send this wretched soul away? Oh, Minato, what would your fathers say? The demon taunted him now. It enjoyed his unease, his pain. It enjoyed to taunt him almost as much as it enjoyed whispering sweetly to him, hoping Minato would listen. Minato grew angry. His heart twisted in his chest, and he wasn't sure if he was furious, or sad.
"Shut up," snarled Minato. His tanto shook violently, and Ayato looked frightened, perplexed.
"But-but-I didn't-" The boy shook his head, trying to get a hold of himself. "Please, Minato-"
Minato remembered the rats. The kunoichi. He took a breath, cracked his stiff neck to feel a little more of himself creep into his bones. The fox quieted, but its burn remained. Minato shook. He looked up at Ayato. Ayato stared at him like he was someone frightening. And maybe he was reconsidering hiding in a hole with Minato.
"Not enough room."
Suddenly Minato could feel a presence, and he knew the hunters were in the trees, somewhere. He hissed, "Go!" There was something about him, about Mikoto, he knew, that the hunters wouldn't hesitate to kill.
Uchiha, he remembered the bounty hunter say.
Ayato didn't move. Instead, he grew frightened, sensing that Minato knew something he didn't, and tried hurling himself into the cave. Mikoto whimpered, and when Ayato tried to shove her aside and she screamed, Minato kicked him square in the chest.
"No, no! Let me in!"
They grappled, hunched and low to the ground, trying to keep their heads from scraping the cave's ceiling. Mikoto began to cry.
"Don't, Minato, don't!" she pleaded, and squeezed her eyes shut when Ayato flew at Minato. A swift punch to the jaw had Ayato back on the muddy ground, gasping. He looked dazed, and maybe Minato had broken his nose again.. Mikoto began to sob, and Minato looked back to shush. As Ayato rose up into a crouch in his peripheral, Minato saw his left arm clench.
Know your opponent, he could remember Father saying, if you pay attention, keep your eyes open, they'll tell you what they're about to do.
The anger in Minato's blood ran hot. He tried not to think of Father.
Before Ayato could smash that rock into Minato's right temple, Minato brought the flat end of his tanto down hard. A stunning blow to the face. The fist-sized rock plopped into the little steam in the cave and fell away, useless. Minato crawled over Ayato, gaping and breathing through his mouth like a fish, and pinned him down with his legs. He wrapped cold fingers around Ayato's neck. He looked over at Mikoto. Her dirt-streaked face. Her running nose and the tear in the knee of her pants. She smashed her hands over her ears. She watched him with wide eyes. He wondered what his fathers would have done.
His chest ached. His rage kept his fingers on Ayato's neck, though they never tightened. He didn't think of his fathers.
The hunters were closer. It was hard to detect, but it was there, a feeling that made the hair on the back of Minato's neck stand on end. Ayato fingers flew to Minato's hands, and Minato noticed how cold he was, how ragged and dirty his nails were when his fingertips slipped over Minato's knuckles, white from the effort. His nostrils flared. He cried. Loudly.
Minato never did squeeze.
"You'll just lead her to us," he said, and he said it quietly, like an apology. He could feel the pump, pump, pump of Ayato's artery, jagged against his fingers. "I have to protect my little sister." But Minato had no apologies. Not for Ayato. Ayato stared at him.
So Minato closed his eyes, and when he opened them, Ayato's mouth went slack. Minato backed away, hunched, reaching for Mikoto. Slowly, Ayato moved away from the cave, crawling out of its mouth. He rose, like a sleepwalker, and moved across the river, over the water like a ninja, the only skill he'd ever learned. He stopped by the muddy bank. Minato waited for him to keep moving. To disappear into the trees. He didn't.
"Move, you idiot," Minato hissed. "Move." But Ayato didn't move. Instead, Ayato kneeled in the mud.
Minato sucked in a harsh breath and wondered what he could have done wrong. Father had shown him once-
He shook the thought. He could fix it. He had to. The demon's laughter resounded off the walls of his skull, and Minato's teeth chattered. He rose and crouched back down. Twice. Ayato never moved, and Minato watched the back of his head uselessly.
"Move."
The hunter nin fell from the trees. Ayato said nothing. Ayato didn't care. Ayato didn't care, because Ayato was lost in a trance.
When the kunoichi quickly read him his crimes, then stabbed him cleanly for his attempted treason against Osamu the Fifth by joining the "rogue resistance", Minato thought that at least Ayato had been dreaming. But his stomach roiled, bile crept up his throat. The fox laughed and laughed, and Minato tried to close his eyes against its malice. He could feel pain in his chest. He could feel it burn, and right then, he felt unsure. He thought of when he was ten and had accidentally killed the Kobayashi's dog. He wondered about his fathers. A part of him was still too angry to wonder. He battled the fox and thought, not yet. The nin flitted away.
Mikoto had stopped shivering. When Minato looked at her, she put her head between her knees.
On the second day, Minato and Mikoto were still alone. Once, Minato had thought he'd seen a ficker of blond hair, but when he'd looked, Dad wasn't there.
Minato took to the main road once the sun was bright in the east. The night had been filled with "containing it". Now there weren't very many people to contain. Or so he'd thought. Minato could still taste the smoke on his tongue. The forest had burned all night. Some of it was still burning, and it was creeping through the mountainside. He passed pillaged houses and families waiting on the side of the road with bags and blankets and tired faces. It was quiet on the mountain. Minato kept his head down.
It was so, so quiet.
He heard two old men talking, exhausted and smoking by the side of the road, and he paused to listen when he heard the name Uchiha.
"Assassins in this village, they say? Haven't seen anything this bad since the war. Back when Uchiha was on the fucking loose."
"Uchiha," grumbled the other. "But that villain's long dead."
Minato walked away.
Later, he tried to pull Mikoto off the road and ignored her protests and whines for something to eat. She held still when she saw a boy digging holes in the fields.
"Come on, Mikoto. Hurry up." He followed her gaze. From down an opposite hill, a cluster of families moved toward the fields to bury their children, friends, siblings, and one husband.
No one cried. Minato and Mikoto waited on the side of the road until it was over.
"Where's Daddy and Father?" asked Mikoto when the road had disappeared behind them. Minato ignored her. He began to wonder.
If they were dead, he thought, he could keep himself and Mikoto alive just fine. If they were dead...if they were dead-
The anger snared him, slow and cruel. If they were dead.
Mikoto dug her heels in and pulled on his arm. "I'm hungry."
Minato said nothing. He tugged at her. The ground was beginning to burn his feet. Minato realized, offhandedly, that he was still barefoot. His left heel was stinging. He'd sliced it open somewhere. They passed a few people wandering through the wood. None of them looked at him. Two of them quickened their pace, and another kept running. Minato wished he hadn't forgotten his shoes. Inside of him, the demon rumbled, and it spoke to him of Ayato. His grip tightened on Mikoto's hand.
He hadn't slept. He'd dreamed of Tsuki, with the shuriken star embedded in her eye. He'd dreamed of Father, picking him up off the ground and washing a scrape of his knee when he was five. He dreamed of the name Uchiha, and Dad saying, wait for it.
Do you not remember how you despised him? asked the fox.
Minato shook his head, as if a fly had been buzzing around his ear. He thought of Ayato again. Of the day he'd broken Ayato's nose. How he'd howled and clambered on top of the other boy, even when he was down. Minato had split his knuckles.
He hated you, said the fox. He hated you.
Stop it, thought Minato, and his felt weary, heavy. But he hadn't realized he'd said it aloud, until Mikoto said, "You stop it!".
By afternoon, he had a feeling he couldn't shake. Once, he thought he'd felt someone behind him, but when he'd looked, there had been no one. As they neared the base of the mountain, he caught wind of the villagers' talk as more moved through the trees, away from the road. The nin were in clusters in town, he heard. Some were still scaling the mountainside. There was fighting. Minato suddenly turned around. He could feel the eyes on him, but no one looked when he looked back.
Another time, he heard rustling in the brush, but when he grabbed his tanto and put Mikoto down, only a cat streaked away. He saw gangs of dirty children and teenagers. One pointed a scavenged lancer at his head until Minato drifted into the trees. By evening, he could hear the fighting at the village gates. The hunter nin returned to the woods. Minato kept to a deer path.
A mile later, Mikoto began to cry. Softly at first, before taking deep, shuddering breaths that shook her badly.
"I want my Daddies!" Mikoto sobbed suddenly, and she dug her shoes-the black shiny ones she loved so much that she was really only supposed to wear on nice occasions-into the earth, tripping herself over a root. Minato could see her tantrum beginning to bubble over. He picked her up. Minato said nothing to her, and when he held her closer, she tried to push him away. She threw herself back with a jerk, her hands on his face, pinching, as she screamed.
"I don't want you! I don't want you!" She swung at him with her doll. He let her.
"Be quiet-" and he could feel that old anger beginning to surge. His eyes flicked nervously to the trees, but he saw nothing there.
"Nooo! Nooo!" she shouted, and she held herself at length, becoming deadweight, bending over backward in his hold. "Where are they?"
"Be quiet!"
"WHERE?"
"Mikoto!"
She hit him in the face with Miki again. He ripped the doll away from her, flinging it into the woods. She wailed louder.
"You're gonna get us killed."
"NOT MIKI. I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"
"That's enough!"
"You're mean," she said. "You're really mean, and Daddy's gonna be mad at you when he finds out!" And she looked at him like she had back at the house before the rats. A bubble of unease popped in his stomach. He sucked in an angry breath.
"Dad and Father aren't here! You have to listen to me!"
"No!"
"Look at me, Mikoto," he breathed. She screamed again, so he grabbed her chin in a vice-like grip and forced her to look him in the eye. He remembered Father doing it, once, the day she was born. He still hadn't forgotten, and neither had his Sharingan as it had swirled. Mikoto went limp after a moment, drifting off into sleep.
A twig snapped. Minato whirled around. He could hear the pop of lancers, shooting off little barbed stars into the twilight, somewhere.
But there was movement to his right. Minato bounded upright, into the branches above, Mikoto in his arms. He had leaped past two trees when a red face suddenly burst into his vision.
"Minato!"
"Argh!" He cursed, and nearly fell. "Kosuke!" he growled, and caught hold of himself. "What are you doing here?"
The toad blinked at him, but said nothing, only hurried forward to look at Mikoto and splay a webbed hand over her forehead.
"Oh, thank the Gods," he cried, and Minato realized he was caked in mud, his little vest gone. "Oh, oh." He gingerly tucked a black strand of hair behind Mikoto's ear. He frowned.
"Come. Quickly. The village is still under apprehension. Things are about to really go sour, but I can get us away-"
Minato didn't move. The toad looked back when he realized he wasn't being followed.
"Where are my fathers?" Minato asked. The toad looked away.
"I don't know." He wrung his hands together as he said it.
There was a heavy silence.
"You left them," Minato said. Kosuke's throat swelled in indignation, but Minato didn't miss the look of shame.
"I was ordered to. Yes."
"You left them," repeated Minato.
"You two were far more important to them-"
Minato snorted. "Now they can keep their secrets." He said it purely out of spite, out of agony. There was a rip and a roar in his chest.
The demon laughed. Oh, how they have spurned you, it cooed. Minato closed his eyes, made an irritated nose through his nose.
Kosuke gaped at him, oblivious. "You are a brat, Minato." Kosuke had always been quick to call Minato a brat.
It grated on him.
The toad talks too much, though nothing important ever comes out of its mouth, said the fox, gleeful. Does it not anger you? How unfair that it should spout about your fathers to you, dismiss your anger, your pain, when it could have known all along.
Minato eyed Kosuke venomously. "You've always known everything, haven't you?" Kosuke didn't deny it. Minato thought of the two old men on the road, talking about Uchiha. Of the bounty hunter, going for his eye with a knife.
Kosuke shook his head, weary. "Right now, it doesn't matter who they were, only who they are. They have loved you, and cared for you, taught you so much-"
"Yet they couldn't tell me who they really were? Who I really was?"
The toad's frown twisted. "That is none of your business. They'll discuss with you when they deem it appropriate."
Minato grimaced. "Tch."
"Now, come on. We haven't much time."
Minato didn't move. He only asked, "Where?"
"My mountain," said Kosuke, and he coughed up a scroll. Up ahead, the wood began to smell of smoke. The fire was closing in.
Minato watched the smoke rise. "Mount Myoboku?" The Toad Lands. There were nights Dad used to sit by Minato's bed, whisper stories about the world where Kosuke came from. Minato used to draw pictures of what he imagined it looked like when he was small.
"It's been nearly nineteen years." Kosuke said quietly, and Minato wondered if fear lurked behind the faraway look in his eyes. "I-" his webbed hand hovered over the open scroll. "I've been away so long, the door is closed to me." Minato watched him touch a character on the scroll. It lit up, twisted, swirled.
Will you run and hide? wondered the demon.
The fire that was burning was beginning to rage, Minato realized. The smoke was beginning to creep through the trees. He scowled.
Will you run and leave all to burn...as your fathers did?
Minato didn't wonder what it meant, only clenched his jaw. He looked down at Mikoto. She slept peacefully.
Kosuke seemed frightened. "Hurry now-"
Minato, sighed the demon, but Minato ignored it.
"There," pointed Kosuke. "Just place your thumb there. No need for blood. This is different. You just need to be able to come along with me."
But when Minato touched the scroll, something different happened. The characters began to swirl again, and Minato noticed an odd look cross Kosuke's face. The toad held his scroll closer.
"What-?"
The ink began to bleed red, running down in rivulets. In revulsion, Kosuke dropped the scroll with a horrified croak, wiping the ink on his hands in the leaves.
Minato didn't understand.
And that was when Kosuke turned to look at Minato. Slowly, this time, as if he hadn't seen him before. Finally, Kosuke swallowed, and but he didn't look Minato in the eye.
"It's alright. It's alright," but Kosuke seemed to be saying it for himself and not for Minato. "Let me have Mikoto," Kosuke said after he'd taken a breath. "I will take her for you. She must be heavy after a while."
Minato smiled a little once he understood. "You're afraid of me."
Kosuke was afraid, but Kosuke said nothing. He paused. Finally he said, "Don't be foolish."
Minato nodded at the scroll. "What was that?" His bones began to tremble around Mikoto.
Kosuke waved his hands in dismissal, but he twitched. "There is nothing to worry about-"
"Don't," snarled Minato, "lie to me, Kosuke." But Minato thought he already knew, deep in his bones, what it meant.
Kosuke shivered. He watched the smoke in the forest before answering, "Demons cannot cross our gates. We sealed up our path long ago. Ancient jutsus protect the mountain. Sealed inside the belly of a Jinchuuriki is one matter. But a demon-" he stopped.
"A demon what?"
Kosuke looked Minato in the eye. It was foolish.
"What have you done, Minato?" Kosuke whispered. What have you done, the dog summon had asked him earlier. What have you done.
In the demon's cell, Minato remembered Enma's ghost watching him before he disappeared in a cloud of spray. He thought of the Kyuubi no Kitsune's claws as they curled around steel bars.
"Do we have a deal?"
Minato had watched the steel prison warily, on his knees in the pool, his fingers splayed in the water. But Enma was gone. Enma had always been gone.
"Like I'd trust you?"
It paced restlessly, snapping its jaws. "And what can you hope to be without this power, whelp? Does it matter if you trust me?"
"You-"
"And what of me? What am I now, locked away in your dying mortal body, bound forever to your very soul? I am nothing until you say I am." It said this hatefully, and Minato looked up at it. For a long moment he said nothing. The demon swayed in the dark, and Minato could feel its anticipation like a chill on its skin. In this place of heat, it almost made him feel ill, feverish.
"Even here, I am bound in your father's cage!" it roared. "You only need to open it. The door to your own heart. It is not so hard. This seal you see?" It claws raked against the characters pinned to the steel. "Only a reflection of where I truly lay."
Minato was quiet. The pool was still, and he wondered where Enma's face had gone.
"What will you do, whelp?" urged the demon. When Minato said nothing, it snarled and threw itself at the bars.
"If I so desired, do you not think I would have freed myself a lifetime ago?"
Minato watched his hands in the water, clutching at the red floor, where Enma's face in the pool had been.
"Think." And Minato's heart seized in his chest when Enma's ghost melted out of the dark behind the demon's steel cage. Minato stumbled upright.
"Think of what we can do for your world...together." The demon's claws curled around the image it had created of Enma until the apparition again disappeared. Minato swallowed.
"You could. You're the only one who ever could," he remembered Enma saying. "Think about it, Minato."
"You come out," Minato said finally between clenched teeth, and the demon laughed, "only when I say."
The Kyuubi growled. It snarled and paced, until it stared at him from inside the gloom of its prison. It cocked its head. "Very well, boy," it rumbled, and it grinned widely, "but give me proof of your word."
"Proof?"
The Kyuubi snapped its jaws again. "A sign of your loyalty. Give me your eyes."
Minato startled, finally looked up into the demon's eyes. "My eyes?" he whispered, and his mind churned.
"Do you think I'm so easily taken advantage of?" The demon cracked a grin. "I wish to be free, but even I know to look before I leap. Let me see through your eyes while you keep me caged. If I am to wait...I desire a little something to sate my hunger." And there was a hunger in its voice. Something greedy, full of need.
"How long has it been," it whispered, "how long has it been since I've seen the world beyond this wretched cage?" The demon curled around its bars once more. It held out a claw and curled it, and Minato could feel the heavy weight of its sadness. Its pain.
"Take it, Minato. Take it."
Minato stared.
"There is so much we can achieve. Together." The demon smiled maliciously. "Take it. It is not so hard."
Minato stood and reached out his hand.
"Minato?" asked Kosuke, and Minato blinked.
"Give me Mikoto, Minato. You don't look well," said Kosuke, and he grew with each breath. Minato eyed him warily. He took a step back. The demon's laugh echoed in his mind. He closed his eyes.
"Minato?" asked Kosuke.
"I have her," he said gruffly, and his hold around Mikoto tightened. He opened his eyes and took a step.
"I know, but-"
"I said I have her!" Minato snarled, and the toad shrank away. In his arms, Mikoto slept on even when he swayed and nearly fell, hunching over the demon's wicked laugh.
"She-" said the toad suddenly, and Kosuke swallowed. "You have her in a genjutsu, don't you?" The smoke curling through the trees thickened. It stung Minato's nose.
"She was too loud," said Minato, and he trembled. Kosuke stared at Mikoto, limp in Minato's arms.
"Give her to me, Minato."
Minato didn't move. Neither did Kosuke. Kosuke sighed. Minato closed his eyes.
"At least sit down. Just for a minute. You look tired." The toad herded him to a rotten stump. Minato didn't sit. He watched the smoke slip past his feet.
"There's a fire," said Minato. Kosuke didn't reply. He croaked.
"It's going to be alright."
Suddenly there was sunlight, and bird song, and Minato was dappled in shadow from the forest canopy instead of huddled under the midsummer gloom. The smoke had disappeared, and it was like there had never been a fire. Minato felt heavy, so heavy.
He wondered why he'd wanted to keep walking in the first place. Where was he going? How could he have forgotten?
"Go ahead. Sit. Your fathers will be along in a moment. Why don't you rest?"
Kosuke hopped forward, leading him to a stump a few feet ahead. Something felt wrong, but Minato couldn't place it. He looked down at Mikoto, asleep in his arms. A bird flew overhead, and he tilted his back to watch it. A rest sounded like a good idea. He took a step forward.
"Open you eyes, whelp," the breeze hissed as it murmured past, and Minato startled, pausing, letting Kosuke pull on him.
"What?"
"You're lucky you gave me your eyes. Now open them, stupid boy."
The grim wood he'd known eclipsed Minato's peaceful little copse of trees. It jarred him, left Minato feeling stunned for half a second, but his eyes were already spinning.
He'd opened his eyes. And with his eyes Minato could see Kosuke preparing for a stunning blow in his left peripheral. There was something else there-a softness, a kind of apology. He hadn't been aiming to kill. Kosuke didn't get far. Minato turned his head at the last second, and Kosuke gaped, eye to eye with the tomoe. His mouth hung open, and he seized, going rigid mid-leap. He shrunk down to the little toad Minato had always known, and flopped uselessly on the forest floor. Kosuke didn't move. His throat kept pulsing, quick, as though he were croaking in his dreams.
Minato watched him for a moment before stepping over him. There was a part of him that had always disliked Kosuke, and then, there was a part of him that wondered what Kosuke could be seeing.
Somewhere beyond the trees and the smoke, Minato could hear voices.
They come for you, said the demon, and again Minato could feel it, pushing against him, stretching his bones. It jarred him, made him sick to his stomach every time it decided to move.
"Stop it."
You bore me, whelp. You're just like your idiot father. Relying on me to stay alive. No matter. Now you've given me...just enough...
Minato dropped to one knee, gasping, and for a moment, he wondered if he was about to split in two. His right hand flew to his chest.
You are every bit as stupid as they are, or were, if Fate is good, said the demon gleefully, and Minato groaned, crying out in anguish as the demon squirmed. He held Mikoto fast to his chest.
Stupid human, the demon hissed. You gave yourself to me foolishly.
"We had a deal-" gasped Minato. "You-"
We did have a deal! Oh yes, we did. And you should know that the minute you used me to break free of that toad's genjutsu, you opened the door, just a little. You gave me your eyes, after all. Use them, and you let a little part of me go with them.
"You lied to me."
"I never lie," laughed the demon. "You were just foolish enough to believe you could trust my obedience with your survival. That your life could override my hate. My revenge."
Minato shook under his own weight, now kneeling in the leaves and smoke, bent over Mikoto.
The demon snarled. NO ONE can contain me!
And in his head, Minato could hear its terrible roar. He could imagine its eyes, bright as embers and large as the moon, wide and hateful. His chest ached, ached, ached, and he fell to his knees. In his arms, Mikoto was still. Her head lolled.
"No," gasped Minato, and Mikoto suddenly felt heavy in his arms. A twig snapped. It grated on his ears. He growled, and it took him a second to realize it came from his own throat. Faster, faster, he had to get out of here. Someone was coming.
He wove through the trees.
You're mine, Minato, laughed the demon, and it pushed again and again. You, and Mikoto, you were always mine.
"Shut up," gasped Minato.
Soon, it said, and it pushed at his bones again. Minato bit back a scream and dropped Mikoto. Soon, you will not be able to stand the pain. You will have to let me go, one way or another. There is something to take away from this, boy, said the demon, and Minato's eyes squeezed shut when a rib cracked. He reached for Mikoto, sprawled in the leaves, silent and still.
Never give a demon your hand, and never give one your eyes when it asks.
The smoke grew heavier, and Minato coughed on it. It filled his eyes, his mouth, until his tongue tasted like ash and his eyes watered. His vision clouded. The demon laughed. Minato crawled through the leaves.
Up ahead, not so very far away, he noticed the dark silhouette of a small public bathroom. It was something hidden away and rarely used. Minato could remember summers when he was younger and his fathers would bring him up here to train, and he used to avoid them because of the old stink of a place that had been used once and never returned to or cleaned again. There were two stalls. A bathroom with a sink. The voices rose higher through the smoke. They weren't far away now. There was a rustling in the trees. He looked for Mikoto, grabbed at her fingers with his.
And when you give yourself to me, whispered the demon, and I burst free from your ribs, I will take her, too. There will be no need for me to wait for her to grow and understand me. I will be whole again. Do you know what it is like, to be torn in half, Minato? It is a reality I live everyday. Do you know what it feels like?
He choked on blood when it tickled his spine and squeezed his stomach. Through it all he cold feel the demon's own pain. Its rage and its power.
How troublesome it is, said the fox. that you leech off my power and heal as quickly as I.
Minato left Mikoto in the leaves. He wouldn't be gone long, he told himself. But he wouldn't have been able to carry her anyway. Minato rose to his knees. He fell.
Why are you running, Minato? Why run, when I've already shown you what kind of man you are? Will they still love you when they know what you've done? Who you really are?
Minato's palms slapped on the concrete slab the bathroom stalls were built on. He heaved himself up. He watched his own blood pool on the concrete before falling through one of the swing open doors. The tile was cool on his cheek. The smoke curled thicker, seeped under the bathroom door. He thought of Dad's grin, of Father's calm smile. He thought of Mikoto chasing him through these woods once, when everything was calmer and greener.
Don't do this to yourself, Minato. Let me out. Let me out, and it will end.
Minato gasped and shook his head. He dragged himself across the floor. On his knees again, he reached for the bathroom sink. Nothing had ever looked so far away before.
As Minato reached for the lip of the sink, he thought of how, when he'd taken the demon's claw, everything that had ever seemed wrong seemed so much worse than it was before. How everything that had ever hurt him, ever angered him, ever pained him, had bubbled to the surface to sting his skin over and over and over again. And when he'd yelled at his fathers, when he'd stood in that moonlight watching the horror creep over their faces, he'd relished it then, because through the pain it felt like he'd righted something that had wronged him. He'd felt powerful.
Now, in the demon's hold, he could hardly stand.
He thought of his family.
"Never give up, Minato! No matter what happens!" Dad had always told him, and when Minato was smaller and covered in dirt or sore all over, he wanted to cry or snap or yell at Dad for even trying to say it.
"No, don't say it!" his younger self would cry.
Dad would laugh, ruffle his hair, and say, "It only ends when you stop trying."
Minato had hated him the whole summer when he was thirteen. He'd hated him, hated Father whenever he chastised him or corrected his stance with a cool stare. He had cried, had loved them so dearly that the thought of his fathers lying him, or that Dad wasn't even his Dad at all, had made him ill.
But he thought of Dad and Father now, and Minato still loved them.
He thought of Father. of the summer he was twelve and training so hard he'd sprained an ankle. Father had taken him to his side and knelt down to look at him. Minato had grumbled, "Guess I'm not strong enough."
Father had only said, "You're already strong, Minato." And to Minato, right then, that had meant everything.
Even when he'd wanted it to mean nothing it always had. It still did.
Minato spat blood into the bowl of the sink. His legs trembled beneath him, but he stood, gripping the sink for support. Something my host handed right down to you. I'm impressed. But there's nothing left for you to do, boy. I already have you. Have you already lost your mind to the pain, boy? What is left here? It moved within him just to hear him scream. It laughed.
Minato grit his teeth. "Yeah," he ground out, "You got me." And he looked up. In front of Minato was a mirror. It was a dirty, smeared slab of hammered out metal, but Minato could still see his face.
He could see the demonic chakra beginning to rise off his skin like a black steam. It bubbled like it boiled. His right eye twitched uncontrollably. The Sharingan stared back at him. The tomoe swirled. He didn't remember activating it, but that was because he hadn't. Randomly, he thought of Ayato.
Enma, was it? said the demon, and Minato trembled. The name of the boy who brought this out of you.
Minato watched his eye spin and swirl, until a new shape of the Sharingan he'd never seen before burned in his reflection.
What an unusual name for a human.
"Stop fucking with me." Minato closed his eyes and opened them. Wondered how much control he had left. He bit back a scream when the demon broke a rib.
Just say it, Minato. It's already over. At an end.
Minato stared at his Sharingan.
He took a breath and said, "Come out."
It felt like chaos, like fire, all caught up in a wind that blew at him full force. It felt like his body was bending, further and further, unbelievably to the weight of the demon.
But still he held on. Still he watched. "Come out," he yelled at it, and the black chakra grew blacker, denser, and then he could see it mold into a vulpine face, like he wore a mask. A black fox. It snarled at him.
It didn't notice the mirror at first.
Minato's Sharingan spun. He never did look away from the mirror, even as the demon roared. Even as he felt himself break and he wondered if he was about to die.
It was called the Mangekyo, he would learn later, and it was the Mangekyo that he stared at in the mirror as the demon surfaced. It was the Mangekyo that swallowed the demon whole as it tried to break free.
A/N: So, that author's note that said I didn't want to stun people with 40 page chapters?
Guess what?
I stunned you with 38. These are just so long. Oh well.
Preview for FINAL part 3:
Sasuke could not see the sky overhead. Only smoke. Naruto was somewhere to his left. He couldn't see. But he could hear him, breathing slow and hard.
"I will ask you one more time," he said, and with his one eye he looked into the sightless pink eyes of the rat summon before him.
"Who sent you?"
The summon laughed. "I am not so easily swayed, Uchiha." She snapped her incisors. "But we will find what we have come for. You have lived in peace for eighteen years. But those years were more than you ever deserved."