Smashing day for an update, innit? I was going to pop down to the local pub to have a pint with the lads, but it's too early for blokes like me to get drunk so I went to take a dip in a pool of wo'ah instead.

Anyway, join AizenTheGoat's discord server, bruv. It's active everyday so you'll never run out of lads to banter with and there's a lot of skilled writers around, including grumpywolf, Helghy and a few others.

If you're looking for ideas with a story, want help with what you've got in progress, are looking for motivation or just want to hang out with readers, writers and everything in between, feel free to join.

The link's: https/discord.gg/gBCv8a48J

PS: This chapter won't have much action if any and he won't officially start the vigilante stuff till the next one. I'm planning on using this one to make him aware of his powers and stuff.

PSP: I ain't chop nothing today. Finna wanna gonna soak some garri soon.

PPSSPP: I just wanted to put this here.

Let's get it.

Dreams were considered by some to be glimpses of the future. Others believed it to be windows into the events occurring in realms not too far from, but never coinciding with that in which the dreamer dwelled. But for all the differing definitions of dreams, the only true common ground was that they were visions of…something.

That something was what Naruto was having difficulty comprehending.

He was asleep. He knew he was asleep, but he could feel his body as though he were awake. He felt discomfort from his fever as his body alternated between sweating from heat and shivering from cold. Even as the fever persisted, his discomfort changed to pain as his body changed. His muscles tore and mended themselves, as if working towards some goal only they were privy to. His bones shifted and hollowed, as if to make space for something and there was an ache in his head so terrible, he was sure it was his brain in pain despite the lack of nerves.

It hurt. It all hurt so much, and yet it all paled in the face of the itching and the ache. The nasty ache in his jaws and the ever persistent itching in his wrists that made him want to gnaw them open with his wrists. Maybe that would stop it forever. See how they'd like it…

He wanted to move. To scratch, to bite, to cry and to talk, but he could do none. He was a consciousness trapped, denied control over the very shell he had controlled for years. Minutes slipped into hours and hours became days.

The first day had been the easiest to record. The second had been a blur and now, he couldn't tell how much time had passed. The only constant in his existence was pain, constant and sharp and all encompassing.

As the time flew past his consciousness, his pain morphed into fear for his life, fear that he would slip away into the void and the sheer helplessness of his situation made him want to scream.

He experienced it all, just as he watched. His mind was split into two, forcing him to feel, just as he watched or dreamed, the pain in his head forcing his vision into a kaleidoscope of crimson, gold and colors he could not gather enough coherence to recognise, much less name.

He watched/dreamed of spiders, their black eyes glinting as they traversed webs that pulsated with hidden life. They passed him by, the chattering of their mandibles carrying whispered undecipherable messages into his ears. He heard their unpleasant laughter as they realized he could not understand them.

He dreamed that he was a spider, crawling on a web not of his choosing to a destination not of his knowledge. His hands screamed in pain as he skittered along the soft line, but they obeyed him without him ordering them as they carried him towards the final destination. His finger sunk into the web and he felt it.

Life.

How he knew, he could never say. The spiders had gathered behind him and even with his head throbbing with pain, he felt appendages push it down, forcing him to gaze down into the web on which he moved.

He dreamed of himself, smiling, crying, sleeping, running, soaring in the air. It was everything he had done. Even with agony chorusing through him, he felt the peace of sleep, the reluctant satisfaction of waking up and the soothing sensation of water splashing on him

It was everything he would do. Food filled his mouth, stinging his teeth in a manner that would have made him shriek if he could. Music made his head spin, pain in his hand. Hot pot. Glass pierced his side, a metal python wrapped around his body. Sand filled his mouth and he felt claws scrape his face. Sharp pain in his chest, electricity striking his back. Something yanking him into the air, sludge on his arms. Bells in his ears, he was punched in the face. Sulfur and brimstone, he was in hell…was he?

Passionate intercourse made his loins stir, his lover's voice breathy and warm against his ear. He knew not who she was, but he didn't have time to think before he felt himself thrown off an edge by unseen hands before something metallic and long struck him in the chest. All was within the web, the ones that had happened, the ones that were happening, the ones that would happen.

He saw, he did. He smelt, he felt. He heard, he tasted. The things he had done, the things he was doing, the things he would do. He knew yet he did not. He saw, but he could not understand. He heard, but he could not listen. He tasted, yet his tongue swore nothing had touched it. He were going mad. His life was not slipping out of his fingers, but he could feel his mind retreating from him, slowly but surely.

A quiet chuckle filled his ears and his body acted on its own, turning to the left to look at a figure obscured by tightly spun webs and crawling arachnids. Their eyes met his own as they moved, but he felt no fear, nor did he feel joy. He didn't feel much of anything as he saw them.

Out of the webs, a hand, clawed and black as night stretched out and waved at him. Naruto knew he was a spider, yet, he felt his own hand, human in design, wave back.

"Impressive that you've been here this long, but we're not quite ready to see yet. You'll find your way here when you are, perhaps. Maybe I will bring you back." The voice, contemplative in its tone, came from everywhere in his head, but he did not panic. It felt familiar somehow, right even. "We'll meet again, little spider."

The hand clicked its fingers and everything fell apart. The spiders dissipated and the intricate systems of webs unraveled and he felt taut fiber slacken beneath him until it refused to bear his weight and he fell. No wind rushed by his form as he plummeted down unknown depths and the life that had once been confined within white walls now surrounded him, granting him glimpses of himself and others.

He fell and he fell until he felt himself becoming undone as his sight faded. Soon, it all became black and within the blackness, the light of the waking world, blinding in its intensity, returned.

…

Naruto woke up with a loud gasp to frequent high-pitched beeping. A sharp pain in his arm made him look down to see his blood forming an increasingly large bead around a needle placed in his forearm. He gingerly pulled it out with a wince just as a woman in a labcoat came into the room and her eyes landed on the wound.

"Oh my God, why would you take it out?" She chastised him as she quickly picked a piece of cotton, doused it in spirit and dabbed it on his arm. "You finally wake up and the first thing you do is try and mangle your own blood vessels."

"What?" Naruto's voice was hoarse from his clogged throat. He looked at a tag on her coat. It had the term 'doctor', but he couldn't see the name in time before she moved away.

The doctor gave him a concerned glance as she gently massaged his wound. "How are you feeling? You're looking pale." And with a look at his darkened gown that clung to his body, she added, "sweated out a bucket load too."

As if on cue, his gown moved a little and gave him the unpleasant feeling of damp fabric sticking to his body.

His shiver didn't go unnoticed by the doctor who smirked. "Honestly, I'm surprised you even woke up so early. The doctor figured you wouldn't be up for another week with the state you were in."

"Wha-" Naruto paused to clear his throat and spit out phlegm into a bowl the doctor placed near him. "What do you mean?"

"You looked like you went into the middle of a buffalo herd and blew an airhorn when your friend dragged you here. He said something about how you got bit by something but we couldn't find any puncture or bite marks on your body," the doctor explained as she put on a pair of gloves.

"You didn't?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "But you gave us a hell of a scare when you started to show strange symptoms but there were no observable internal changes, much less telltale signs of anything foreign in your body, so we just kept treating you and hoping whatever was up didn't end up killing you."

Naruto didn't remember much of what happened at the expo or after but he vaguely remembered hearing Flash's voice and the hum of a car. He made a mental note to buy the jock a sports card.

She looked him over again. "The external is another matter."

Naruto frowned. "What?"

"Your eyes. They've gotten darker." The doctor pointed at his eyes. "We're not sure why, but if you did get bitten, chances are the venom actually bonded with some part of your junk DNA and forced it out of dormancy. It would explain why we couldn't detect it."

She tapped the mouth of her stethoscope. "We ran a few tests, but we couldn't detect any out of the ordinary so we decided to wait until you woke up. Do you…see anything differently? Is your vision darker? Blurrier? Anything?"

Naruto squinted as he looked around the room. Save for the sleep grit that pricked his eyelids everytime he blinked, nothing felt different. "No, not at all."

The doctor hummed. "We'll just file it as a change in appearance only but do notify me if you feel anything different, okay?"

Naruto nodded. "Has anyone come to see me?"

The doctor counted her fingers. "The guy who brought you here, some kid and a redhead who said they were classmates of yours, a few other people and a woman who claimed to be your guardian."

Naruto sighed. "Let me guess, blond?"

"With a big…height."

Naruto chuckled and unconsciously scratched his wrists, another thing that didn't escape the doctor's notice. "Something wrong?"

"Hmm?" He blinked before looking at his hands. "Oh, my wrists feel itchy."

"It's most likely due to the inflow of blood. We might raise your arms but it's not the same as using your own muscles to do the work," the doctor theorized. "It should go away in a few minutes."

"Right. So when do I get to leave?"

"Depends. How do you feel?" Before he could respond, she added, "other than weak and hungry."

"Fine." Naruto replied.

"Hmm, alright." The doctor nodded. "I'll just carry out a quick examination, prescribe you some drugs and sign you for an early discharge."

"Thanks. Can I call my guardian?"

"She said she'll be back by fifteen hundred hours but you can call her. Phone's in the lobby. I'll take you there when you clean up."

Naruto shrugged. "Alright."

"Alright." The doctor smiled. "Now let's get this done. If you'll be so kind as to lift up the gown and put this thermometer in your mouth."

Naruto sighed and did as she asked. He grunted in mild pain when she poked him in multiple areas.

"Does it hurt?"

"A bit."

"Good. No nerve damage." She placed the stethoscope on his chest and listened for half a minute. "Healthy pulse."

She took the thermometer out of his mouth and her eyes widened. "Oh God, I made a mistake. It's a rectal thermometer."

Naruto paled. "What?"

She grinned impishly. "Pulse increased at a steady rate."

He glared at her. "Are doctors allowed to mess with patients like this?"

She chuckled. "Just a bit of harmless fun, kid. Now breathe in."

He did.

"Deep breath."

He inhaled deeply and at her request, exhaled slowly.

She hummed again. "No breathing irregularities and your ribs have realigned properly."

"That sounds good."

"It is. Now I'm going to flash a light in your eyes, alright?"

"Alright."

Naruto could almost feel his pupil narrow when a beam of bright light struck his eyeball. The doctor did the same with the other eye before alternating between them both and after a minute, she finally flicked the light off.

He blinked repeatedly to get rid of the dark spots in his vision. "Do eye exams usually take that long?"

"No, but you're a special case," the doctor said.

Naruto nodded slowly before speaking again. "Do you really think nothing bit me?"

The doctor moved her head thoughtfully. "Mosquitoes poke a hole in your skin and suck out blood via the proboscis but the resulting swelling is called a mosquito bite, not a mosquito poke."

Naruto blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She twirled the light absently. "It means 'bit' is a very vague word when it comes to insects. Most people only say they got stung whenever the insect they saw was a wasp or a bee. Everything else? Bit. So you want to know what I think?"

"I mean, that's the whole point of me asking."

"You might not have been bitten specifically, but something did attack you and we don't know what," she said. "Chances are, you're the first victim of some unidentified species capable of altering eye pigmentation with its venom."

"You know, you're being awfully blase about this," Naruto remarked.

The doctor smiled. "Your case doesn't even make the top ten in the list of weird things I've seen in patients."

"That bad, huh?"

"You have no idea. Anyway, you seem alright but you have to come back for tests in a month or two. Make sure to wash the bandages frequently, alright?"

Naruto nodded.

"Good. Now let's get you to the showers." She helped him get off the bed and frowned in concern as he leaned against her. "You're awfully light."

"Is that normal?" Naruto asked.

She nodded. "Supplements and IV fluids don't make up for real food."

"Then there's nothing to worry about?"

"Nothing." The doctor said, but didn't stop staring at his eyes. "Absolutely nothing at all."

…

True to her word, Tsunade showed up at the hospital at fifteen hundred. His initial reaction would have been to go for the usual snarky greeting that would elicit her equally snippy response but when he saw the look on her face, he just let her hug him and lead him to the car where he sat in until she was done with signing him out. It was until they were well on the way home that she finally spoke.

"You've gotten thinner," she said. While his clothes had never hugged his body, they now hung loosely off his body.

"Not eating anything for a week tends to do that." Naruto jiggled so his shirt fluttered in the breeze of the air-conditioner. When he saw Tsunade's frown deepen, he sighed. "Seriously, granny, I'm fine."

"If you knew what you looked like when you got brought to the hospital, you wouldn't believe you either." Tsunade momentarily took her eyes off the road to pull a piece of paper out of the glove compartment.

"Hey, eyes on-"

"Shut up." Tsunade cut him off and handed him the sheet. "You didn't tell me the trip to Oscorp got canceled."

"I didn't know until I got to school either." It was a half-assed excuse and even Naruto knew it.

"And when you did?" Her tone got tighter. "You couldn't have called or sent a message that you were going somewhere else?"

He didn't bother responding. It wouldn't stop what was already coming.

"If I hadn't happened to call at the same time one of the workers went to charge your phone for you, it could have taken days before they decided to try finding your next of kin. Who the hell knows what could have happened in days?" She was close to yelling at him now.

"It wasn't that bad, granny."

"It wasn't that bad?" Tsunade repeated. "Naruto, if that Thompson boy hadn't been there, you probably wouldn't have made it out. You had broken bones, bruises, a concussion and you were only a step away from having a full on convulsion."

"That's not even counting what happened to you at the hospital," she continued. "You got so hot, your sweat scalded a nurse. Your spasms tore your muscles and your bones, Naruto. Your bones were moving! When Thompson said you got bit by something, we thought it was some new kind of venom we couldn't identify."

"If it wasn't for them working around the clock till you became stable, you could have died, Naruto, because what happened to you wasn't just unusual, it's usually fatal." She said. "You could have died and I might not have even heard of it until they decided to ID your corpse and contact your next of kin and it would be because you decided to go for some stupid tech-con!"

"Didn't you even stop to consider that Tony Stark could be attacked there? He's been attacked at every single public event he's held since that bodyguard of his showed up and you didn't think about that? Did your mind really not go there at all? Not even once? Did it never occur to you that you could have very well been collateral damage because some armoured psycho with a grudge decided your life didn't matter?"

She let out a choked laugh. "Of course it didn't. It never does, it's like a common trend with everyone close to me. Minato, Kushina, Nawaki, Jiraiya, Dan. All of you. You never think, you just do. That's what got them all killed and if things had gone different, it would have gotten you killed too."

Naruto sighed heavily. Even if the majority of her words were influenced by her emotions, it didn't help with the guilt he felt. "Granny…"

Tsunade's fist came crashing down on her steering wheel, causing the car to honk loudly. "Don't granny me, dammit! What do you think would have happened if you died, Naruto?! What do you think would have happened to me?! You might not want to accept it but actions have consequences, Naruto! Consequences that affect other people, people like me!"

Her voice was beginning to break. "You might not care about your life but I do, Naruto, because if I lose you, I have nothing. You hear me? Nothing!"

Naruto felt like a piece of shit as he watched the normally unflappable woman rant. In spite of her temperamental attitude, it took a lot to shake her and seeing her in the state she was really reminded of just what they were to each other.

When his parents died, she was the only one of his relatives who even offered to adopt him, much less actually go through with it. She'd raised him together with her husband, Dan and when the latter had been killed in action, she'd taken on the responsibility of supporting him alone.

And with the death of her husband, her brother's murder and the loss of his parents and the disappearance of her best friend, who also happened to be his self proclaimed godfather, he was effectively the only family she had left in the world and even though she never actually said it until now, it was something both of them knew.

For the first time since he woke up, he was feeling glad for still being alive. He didn't want to think of what she'd do if he hadn't survived.

We'll meet again, little spider.

A small part of the dream he'd had flashed through his mind. He couldn't remember the majority of it either, but the sight of a black hand and the feeling of softness beneath his limbs lingered in his mind. He wasn't going crazy, he knew in his gut that something had spoken to him and it wasn't some figment of his imagination. What was it? Had it been involved in the changes he'd undergone?

He pushed the thoughts out of his head. Fever dream later, riled up mother figure now.

His wrists still itched.

…

"...clutching glizzies with the fellas…"

"Dude, my dog literally ate my homework…"

"That formula took me hours to derive..."

"Nah, I had to leave my car at home…"

"I let Keith cum inside of me last night…"

Naruto ground his teeth together as he walked down the hallway, trying to ignore the looks his schoolmates gave him ranging from surprised to sympathetic. It was hardly unexpected; the real surprise would have been if no-one knew what happened, but it didn't mean getting stared at didn't grate on him.

And it wasn't only the looks, it was just…everything. The voices around him had melded into a loud cacophony that made his head ache, he swore he could hear the bulbs in the overhead lights buzzing and very thud of a locker being closed sounded like a firecracker going near him.

He had no idea why his hearing got so strong overnight, but he didn't like it one bit. His alarm going off next to his head had felt like he'd been stabbed in the ears, he could barely enjoy a shower because every spatter of water sounded loud and due to his bike getting stolen back at the expo, he'd been forced to use the train which in itself had turned out to be torture.

All in all, his morning was ruined and he was still on edge. Someone bumped into him and he would have snapped at one of them had he not caught sight of someone jogging towards him

"Hey, Uzumaki!" Flash Thompson called out to him as he got closer. Had the jock's footsteps always been that loud?

Naruto noticed the fading black eye on the blond's face. "Yo, Flash. Thanks for saving my butt back there."

The jock grinned widely. "And miss the chance to have something to wave over your head? Not a chance. How's your bones?"

He didn't hurt anymore, but he only kept the bandages on to keep Tsunade from making a fuss. "A lot better than you'd believe. How's your eye?"

Flash touched the darkened skin with a hand. "If I get another injury by or because of you, I'm avoiding you like an STD."

A guilty smile curled Naruto's lips.

"But," the jock continued. "It turns out ladies love scars when they come from doing something epic. The cheerleading squad's been eating right off my hand."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Of course they have."

Flash grunted smugly as he leaned against a locker. "So why'd you even show up today? I thought you'd take the whole week off to rest up or something."

"Rest is for the weak," Naruto said. "Besides, I wanted to give you this." He produced a box out of his pocket and handed it to the blond who read the words on the cover. "Think of it as a thank you."

"Club competition chrome…holy shit, this shit goes for a hundred bucks, man." Flash's voice rose in his surprise. "You didn't need to get this. I'd have been cool if you got me a beer or something."

"Too late for takebacks now." Naruto stuffed his hands in his pocket before the second part registered. "Wait, beer? Aren't you eighteen?"

"Don't worry about it." The blond shook his head. "Thanks, man."

Naruto nodded. "Not to sound like you can't have an interest in it, but what were you doing there anyway?"

Flash scoffed. "I wouldn't show up for some techie circlejerk if I could help it, my cousin's a huge fan and I had to follow him and his parents there 'cause I was crashing at their place for the week."

"Figures." Naruto muttered amusedly and grimaced as someone's mathematical set clattered onto the floor at his feet. As the person, a girl, bent over to pick it up, the books she held slipped as well.

Flash frowned at the blond's strained expression. "You alright?"

"I'm okay," Naruto said and looked at the girl who fumbled with her load. "Here, let me help you out."

She looked up at him and gulped. "No, it's fine. I got it." She quickly packed up and the two males watched her leave.

"I think she likes you," Flash spoke.

Naruto's brow went up."Because she bumped into me?"

"She wasn't staring at a phone or anything, man. Either she's the most absentminded person you'll ever meet or she meant to do it," Flash pointed out. "And you scared her off. Seriously man, you looked like you were going to tear her a new one."

Naruto grunted as he unlocked his locker. "Whatever, let me-shit!" He swore loudly as he recoiled from his locker, shocking the jock as well as other people who looked at him strangely.

"What, did somebody try pranking you?" Flash looked into his locker. "Err.."

Naruto pointed at a corner with a trembling finger. "Can't you see, there's a…" he trailed off when he saw what he was pointing at. "What the…it was here, I'm telling you it was."

"Are you sure you're alright now?" Flash asked concernedly.

"I…yeah, I'm fine." Naruto shook his head and straightened his clothes again. "It was probably just a trick of the light."

"Okay," Flash said, but Naruto could see the look he was giving him. It was the look you gave a person when they said they were fine and you said okay even though you didn't think they were fine.

"Okay," Naruto nodded slowly. "Okay."

It wasn't a trick of the light, he was sure it wasn't. There had been a spider in his locker, almost as large as the one that had bitten him.

And it had been staring right at him.

…

Naruto sighed to himself when the train began slowing to a halt with a metallic screech. Surprisingly enough, it had taken less than a day to get used to the newfound enhanced hearing and while he wished he couldn't hear everything going on around him, they had become easy to tune out.

Loud laughter drew his attention to a pair of rough looking males, both clad in dark clothes, watching something on a phone. Someone tried to get them to be quieter, but the younger of the two snapped back at the man before refocusing his attention on the screen.

"Loud, aren't they?"

"Hmm?" Naruto looked at the person who spoke, a woman who looked to be in her forties.

She nodded in the direction of the two. "Those guys. I've been trying to sleep for minutes now, but it's kinda hard to nod off when two hyenas start laughing every ten seconds."

Naruto chuckled. "Unless you're dropping off at the last stop, I wouldn't advise you to even try resting your eyes."

"Well what do you know? I'm heading for the last stop."

"That sucks." Naruto shrugged. "Next stop's mine."

"No wonder you didn't sit down," the woman remarked and as the doors of the train slid open and people began to go out and come in, she unwrapped a hot dog.

Naruto's eyes went to a dark line on the meat. "There's a hair on your hot dog."

The woman blinked. "What?"

He pointed at it. "Near the top, look."

"Right," the woman nodded skeptically, but humored him and was surprised when she found what he was talking about. "Wouldn't even call this a hair, it looks more like someone cut an eyelash in half. How'd you see it?"

Naruto frowned. Was it really that small? "I have good eyes."

"Good eyes," she nodded. "Anything else you notice?"

Her eyes were red like she took drugs, one of her bangs were shorter than the other, her necklace was turned around so the hook was in her front and her shirt's topmost button was almost loose but he had a feeling she wouldn't take kindly to him telling her all that so he shook his head.

"Nope, sorry." He smiled apologetically and moved out of the way as people began to shuffle past him. Soon enough, someone occupied the space between him and the sitting woman and all he got from her was the sound of the hot dog getting consumed. She chewed loudly.

As the train began to move again, he took out his phone. After idly going through the unread messages, he pocketed it again with a light sigh and looked outside the window at the blurred tunnel wall. Eventually, his eyes finally went up to the roof and he froze.

Perched on the hand he'd clasped around the train's handhold was a spider, more regular looking than every other one he'd been seeing and just like the others, it looked to be staring at him. His first instinct was to try throwing it off, but he was quick to gather himself. It seemed no-one else could see them aside from him and he'd rather not come off as a crazy guy on the train.

He looked around for a few moments before looking back up. Like the others, the spider was gone. He sighed. What the hell was happening?

The train ground to a halt, surprising him. It had barely been five minutes since they left the last stop. As the doors opened, he quickly got out and brought out his phone as he walked. He just wanted to get home, eat something, sleep and pretend like he hadn't been hallucinating about arachnids all day.

…

Naruto was being followed.

At first he'd been mildly suspicious when the two laughing guys from the train kept sneaking glances at him mid-conversation and one of them twirled his finger near the side of his head: the universal sign for calling someone cuckoo crazy but when he got off the train and saw that they did the same only a few seconds after, that suspicion had become caution.

He had to give it to them, they did a good job of tailing him. At first, he'd thought they were just happened to be going in the same direction as him to their own place but when they kept taking every single turn he did and kept a pace such that they'd be a decent distance from him but not so far that they'd lose him in a turning, he got very worried.

He'd been mugged before, many people living in New York could say the same and while it was usually a matter of just handing over your wallet and whatever else the robber asked for, he had a feeling in his gut that they wouldn't settle for just taking his money.

He turned another corner, this time, in a direction opposite to his destination. He didn't know if he'd be able to lose them but he'd be damned if he led criminals to his house. He swiped through applications on his phone in an attempt to look oblivious as two footsteps became clearer, a sign that they'd turned the same corner.

When he tried to discreetly glance backwards and his eyes met one of theirs, he knew the gig was up. He broke into a sprint just as the two men ran towards him.

"Hey! Stop!" One of them yelled after him. He didn't listen. "I'll fucking shoot you!"

He responded by increasing his pace with the two men hot on his heels and rounding another corner, pushing the few people in his front away as he did. A part of him felt guilty about potentially throwing them in harm's way without a warning but he didn't need to worry because the yells didn't stop as the men ignored them in favour of chasing after him.

Amidst his mild panic, he still had enough thought to be surprised by how he'd been able to run for as long as he had without feeling the slightest bit of exhaustion. And it wasn't just his stamina, he knew he was running faster than he'd ever been able to, judging by the wide and steadily growing gap between him and the men even with the weight of his backpack slowing him.

At this rate, he'd be able to lose them. He rounded another corner and swore loudly just as he collided with a wall. He'd hit a dead end. He looked up. Save for the fire escape stairs, there was nothing he could even hope to climb up to.

"Motherfucker must be the road runner or some shit cause what the fuck?!" One of the men panted. He had slowed from exhaustion but the other still moved fast.

"Shut up. Guy said he saw him take a left, called that place a dead end and he ain't come out."

"A dead en-all the running and he wound up in some action movie type shit? I don't know about this no more, man. What if he's one of those superhero types? We get there and we won't see him anymore or worse, we see some freak who'll try to kill us?"

"You ever heard of one of them heroes without a mask?"

"Damn, you right. Swear to God, I'll stab this man like two, five times for making me run like this."

Naruto gulped. They both sounded tired, maybe he'd still be able to make it out if he ran now. He tried to book it, but found his hands still stuck to the wall.

"Jesus, what the hell's happening?" He grit his teeth as he tried to detach himself to no avail. He glanced back at the entrance to the cut. They weren't close but they'd reach where he was in less than a minute.

He turned back to look at his hands only to see a spider staring at him and felt his temper flare up. He shook his head vigorously. "Bad time to be seeing stuff. Really bad time-"

Climb.

He blinked. "What?"

Climb. The command was repeated, but he didn't hear it. It sounded more like it had been said directly in his head than outside.

He wanted to laugh. He was going crazy. A stampede, a spider bite, a coma and one day after, insanity. He couldn't catch a break, could he?

No time, climb! The message came again, urgent and loud and he grit his teeth agitatedly.

"Climb what?" He glared at the spider but he didn't know why.

The spider crawled off his arm and up the wall before twisting to look back at him. He eyed the arachnid surprisedly.

"You really are talking to me." He muttered.

Climb!

A spider that talked in his mind wanted him to climb a wall like it had but it either failed or didn't care about the basic facts that he lacked eight legs, weighed thousands of times more than it did and being a human, was physically incapable of climbing anything without holds.

But at the same time, he was stuck to the wall anyway. Maybe it wasn't him going crazy. And what did he have to lose? Maybe the two guys would come around the corner and when they saw him trying to scramble up a wall like a lunatic, they'd think he was just that and move on to someone else. He pushed his body against the wall and moved.

His fingers slid upwards with the fluidity of a napkin across a greasy table and his mind went blank as he tentatively tried and succeeded at lifting himself up the wall. It felt like he was climbing a rock, except that there were no handholds or footholds and he could barely feel his own weight.

He was going mad. That was the only explanation for any of it. But desperation led to him going on. He climbed the wall as he would a rock and in what felt like less than ten seconds, he found himself on the roof of the building just as the footsteps finally reached where he had once been.

"Fucking hell!" One screeched. "I told you! I fucking told you! We're fucked! That motherfucker's seen our faces!"

Naruto licked his lips nervously as he ran his hands over the rooftop. The voices of the arguing pair beneath him had faded to the background as what he'd just done settled in his mind.

He'd climbed up a wall. Just as a spider would.

…

"Okay now that they're gone," Naruto started. "How do I get down?"

The two men hadn't waited a second longer before taking to their heels after they lost him but even as their voices and steps had faded away completely, he still waited in case they came back with friends, unlikely as it was.

Ten minutes later, they hadn't and he hadn't seen hide or hair of anyone and he was now ready to head home. The only problem was getting down to do just that. He stood at the edge, surprised by his own sudden fearlessness and stared at the ground. How many storeys had he climbed?

A faint clattering alerted him to the same spider climbing up his shoulder. "You again."

The spider didn't respond.

He frowned. "It's bad enough that I've been seeing your kind all day and now, it's like you're talking in my head. What the hells going on?"

Don't answer.

Whatever sounds he had before were gone. The spider was talking to him in his mind. A telepathic spider. "Don't answer? Don't answer what?"

The spider shook. You…don't answer. Talk..we talk…

Naruto blinked. "You…talk? You've been trying to talk to me?"

Connect…you run.

This time, Naruto didn't need to hear the correct words to understand and when he did, he laughed. He laughed long and hard and the spider watched him in silence as he did. His entire situation sounded like something a person would come up with after eating 'shrooms.

Spiders had been trying to talk with him. All day. Spiders of all things. All the time he'd thought he was hallucinating, all the jumpscares, all the time he'd been thinking he was going crazy or going through trauma and it was just spiders trying to talk with him like they were long lost friends that found each other on Facebook or something.

"Oh God, the people living here probably think there's some vigilante sharing funnies on their rooftop," Naruto said as his laughter died out. "Alright, I'll bite. Why?"

The spider's confusion didn't need to be conveyed in words. Why?

"Why? Why have all of you been trying to talk with me all day?" He asked.

Help..you.

Naruto blinked. "What?"

The spider shook again. He'd come to attribute the gesture with effort. It only shook when it tried to make its message more meaningful, like it wasn't used to words.

He supposed it couldn't be helped, he doubted spiders had conversations like human beings.

Help you learn.

Help him learn. He didn't not believe that. It hadn't shown him how to climb a wall like a person, but it had pretty much told him what to do and let him figure it out the rest himself.

"What exactly do I need to learn?" He asked again. "I just crawled up a wall like it was a floor. How?"

We feel…like us.

Naruto stared at his hands and then the spider. "One of you?"

Spider…but man. Hard…

Maybe he was going crazy because the spider didn't even need to use coherent words before he understood. "So I'm pretty much part spider?"

Yes.

"Of course." He sighed heavily. He wanted to react more strongly but the majority of himself was dulled at the point he was. He wanted to deny the spider, but even he knew it wasn't lying.

The hearing, the smell, the sight, the speed, the stamina and if all that hadn't convinced him that something was different, the wall climbing couldn't be argued against.

He looked at the spider again. "How did this even happen?"

Bite.

It all made sense. That spider at the expo. It hadn't been a hallucination, it was just like this one. But that meant if it bit him, then it hadn't just been there at the time, it had been there for him.

"Why me?" He asked. "Why did I get bitten? Why did it choose me?"

The spider somehow shrugged in his mind. Don't know…help you learn.

Of course.

He chuckled to himself. He'd always wanted to have powers and now, his wish had been granted by a disappearing spider of all things. He could imagine it already. Everyone flew, turned invisible, teleported, used lightning and there would be him, clinging to walls and shooting webs out of his butt.

All in all, he felt underwhelmed.

The spider noticed his amusement. Funny?

"I think you already know what it is," he answered. "If you told me a week ago that I'd go into a coma and end up talking to a spider on a rooftop I climbed up a wall to reach, I'd probably call the police on you."

He stretched his arms out. "But here I am."

Life.

"Yeah, life." He nodded and sighed again. "I'm so late it's not even funny. I don't want to think of this too much. How do I get down? I'll leave all this for tomorrow."

Swing.

It was only one word but he thought of a spider he'd seen oscillating off a web strand once and the implication made him pale. "You can't be serious."

Swing, the spider insisted.

"No." He shook his head. "Climbing walls? Okay. Olympic sprinting? No problem. But this?!" He pointed at the ground. "You're asking me to jump."

Swing.

"And do what?" Naruto wanted to yell. "Just go down headfirst and hope I poop out a web? Newsflash, humans don't have spinnerets."

Neither can they climb up walls, his subconscious reminded him.

He ground his teeth. "Can't I just climb down? You can't show me how to climb down instead?"

No. Swing.

He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and his phone began to ring. He fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Tsunade.

Without thinking, he picked the call and put the device to his ear. "Hey, granny."

"Naruto? Where are you? You were supposed to be here minutes ago."

He sucked in air through his teeth. "Sorry, but there were these guys following me and I had to lose them-"

"What?!" Naruto grimaced at the abrupt rise in volume . "Are you hurt?! Do I need to call the police?!"

Would the police even find them at this time? It would take a while before they even reached him, much less get a sketch artist for him to describe them to. "No, it's alright. I got away. I'm coming home now."

"Okay." The relief in her voice made him smile a little. "Just…get here soon."

"You got it, granny." He cut the connection and pocketed the phone before closing his eyes and opening them to stare at the spider again.

"This swinging thing better be faster than taking a cab."

….

Naruto had never been afraid of heights, at least not any more than the average person. He wasn't acrophobic, he was just aware of all the dangers of standing at the very edge of the roof of a building high enough for a fall from its top to be a guaranteed death and so, he avoided any high place he didn't have to go to.

Which was why even as he stood upright at the edge of the one he was currently on and didn't feel afraid, he was still surprised by his own courage. He wasn't even bothered by what would happen to him if he tipped over and fell.

"Okay, how do I do this?" He examined his wrists, specifically the small holes near his his palms that he'd never noticed up until the present moment.

Jump.

He blinked. "I was kidding back then, you know?"

The spider seemed to roll it's eyes. He couldn't blame it, he'd probably be tired of himself too if he was in its place.

Even after the call with Tsunade and him agreeing to try swinging home, it had taken minutes to convince him that he actually had the spinnerets in his wrists and not his posterior, something that brought him no small amount of relief.

And he'd be worried about people noticing them on his wrists but save for the holes that even he had difficulty finding, there was no indication that anything other than blood and sweat could leave them.

The spider had somehow given him a crash course on secreting and firing webs and while he could confidently say he could fire a web at will, creating a line, much less a calculated or single one, was a different matter, hence his hesitation. Math and Physics felt a lot more important now that his life would actually depend on them.

Jump, the spider repeated.

"I know, I know. Just…let me get ready." He huffed and bounced on his feet. "Alright, I'm going to do it." He jumped…

…and immediately regretted it when he began to plummet like a stone.

The ground approached him faster than he thought it would but while he knew he was falling fast, it felt like he still had enough time to hear the voice beckoning him to stretch an arm out and fire a web. Without thinking, he did.

With an almost whip-like sound, a line of webbing shot out of his wrist and latched onto a wall. He gripped the web tight with both hands but his downward journey continued. He was only a few meters away from the ground and the web still remained slack.

When he resigned himself to what would either be an extremely painful or fatal landing, the web went taut.

Naruto gasped as he neared the ground before his own momentum lifted him back into the air and towards the building he'd latched a web onto with a speed that caught him off guard.

Let go.

A part of him wanted to protest, but the spider hadn't led him astray since. And what did he have to lose? If he rebelled now, he'd be dead.

He let go of the web and yelled loudly as he was flung away. He shot another web at the nearest building and grunted as he was once more, swung towards it. This time, he didn't let go until he was nearly halfway up and when he did, he wasn't thrown as far, but he was sent twice as high as he'd been the last time.

He did an unintentional backflip and as he began to fall again, he shot a web towards another building. This one was lower and he found himself already making reparations. He wrapped the loose webbing around his hand as he fell and when he got low enough, he gently pulled on the string and was sent forward again.

The initial fear of falling was gone and in it's place was a rising sense of exhilaration. Naruto found himself whooping excitedly as he swung across the block, his moves sloppy but enthusiastic. The spider's disappearance wasn't of any concern to him, he knew he'd be seeing it again.

He grinned widely as he swung around the same corner he'd taken before colliding with the building. Having made the same mistake once, he was quick to cling onto the wall before pushing himself off with his feet. The force sent him flying farther than he thought and he found himself sailing above and across the wide road dividing his street from the other.

Just as he began to lose altitude, he shot out another web, this time using only one hand and spun around the twisting strand as he drew closer to the ground. Down, then up. Down, then up. Wind in his face, nothing underneath him.

He took it back, spider powers weren't underwhelming!

He swung haphazardly, yet enthusiastically up until the buildings were no longer tall enough to use before rounding a corner and purposely swinging low to touch the ground. He underestimated his speed and as soon as his feet touched the ground and he let go of the webs, he tripped on his feet and fell face first onto the deserted pavement.

They could be easier to control though.