Han looked deep into the faces of the flames. "I'm the one that lit the fires."

Silence had settled over the stone cellar with acute discomfort. After retrieving and reattaching his facemask, Han sat largely unbothered, meditating, but would peek an eye at the staircase across the room every few minutes, as if seeing it empty assured him he was safe.

The fire still cackled between them, between the young Genin who could count on one hand how many people he'd seen die, and between the Old-World Shinobi of lore who'd swept battlefields and flash boiled peoples' innards. One had seen the ideals and principles of the world, the other had seen brutal, practical examples. They were supposed to be mortal enemies- and yet here they sat, together as Jinchūriki. It was mind-bending and required focused mental acuity to truly think on.

Naruto's method- curling up into a ball at the foot of the flame and staring into the coals like he'd never seen fire before- was a bit different than meditating, but he was just as mute. It wasn't meant to last, though.

"What happened back then... I forgive you," Naruto said quietly, his eyes drilling into the coals. His bare, slightly burnt fists clenched and unclenched- it was obviously hard for him to communicate his thoughts. Han nodded easily.

"You had to do it. It was war... it wasn't right, but you're not like that anymore," Naruto said, an undertone of conviction in his voice.

Han leaned his head. "Forgive me, but you only know the things I've told you, which aren't many. You trust too easily. What makes you say that I've changed, Uzumaki?"

Naruto smirked. "Because you didn't kill me even when you knew where I was from. If you still hated people from my village, then why not kill me?" He shrugged. "I think you're a good person now, even if maybe you weren't back then."

"I could just be capturing you to take you back to Iwa."

Naruto nodded and stared Han dead in the eyes. "Something tells me you'd be a lot meaner if you were actually evil."

That got him; Han laughed, and it echoed back twice as loud. "You're an interesting little creature. Still think this is my evil lair?"

"No," Naruto said, looking away from the giant, "but whose is it? It's weird and it kind of sucks, as far as lairs go. Pretty sure if this were Orochimaru's it would have, like, eyeballs in glass jars, at least!"

Han peaked an eyebrow. "There's no way you can be on a first name basis with Orochimaru of the Sannin and still be alive." Naruto crossed his arms and straightened his back, trying to exude confidence through body language. It failed, but the fire in his eyes didn't.

"Yeah, I know all about that creep! He's Jiraiya-sensei's old teammate who went crazy! He even smacked a seal on me and Sasuke during our Chūnin Exams, and he killed the Old Man! I wanna beat him to a pulp but... he's strong. I've got a lot of work to do before I go after him."

'Jiraiya-sensei? Jiraiya of the Sannin? Would that mean Itachi and Kisame took Naruto from him?' Han paused."Consider yourself very lucky, Uzumaki, that you are alive. I've heard that Orochimaru likes to play with his food before he kills it."

Naruto shuddered. "He does this weird thing where he wears people's skin or something, it's gross."

"I've heard," Han nodded in agreement. Orochimaru was the closest thing to a Shinobi boogeyman you'd hear about. A Ninja who could kidnap another Ninja without anybody knowing? Terrifying, to say the least.

Naruto stood up slowly, making sure what little fabric of his pants that was left was covering his bits, and strolled through the open room with a very non-Shinobi-like fearlessness.

"Careful, I've set traps," Han warned.

"I'll be fine!" Naruto called back.

At that moment, Han felt a surge of power, a spark, a flash. It was white hot and breathtaking and hair raising and-

And then it was gone. Han spun to Naruto, now an unconscious pile of flesh topped with a golden head of hair. Han picked him up and dumped him by the fire. He didn't stir. What had happened to him?

Han couldn't help but see an overlay of another blonde-haired man he'd known years ago, an apparition, a spirit floating above the unconscious boy. His features were hard and angular, not unkind but not dull, either. He was a man that was supposed to be dead, but if he could cheat space and time, it'd make sense if he'd somehow cheated death too.

Han puckered his lips; Was this karma?

A while later...

The boy stayed down for the next hour. Han's meditation ceased and his thoughts roiled over what to do, what to do, what to do...

Rōshi was captured at best, dead at worst, and Han doubted he'd find out before it was too late, if it wasn't already.

But why switch the boy and Rōshi? If the Akatsuki's goals were the Biju, why not keep the one they'd already had? It made no sense... unless they couldn't keep him. Han prodded the fire with a thin plank of his armor.

But why not? He was young and weak, easily controllable and manipulated. It made more sense to try and indoctrinate the boy and use his hidden power than it did to try and force someone as spiteful and nasty as Rōshi to bend to their will. The fiery Jinchūriki would probably resist them purely out of spite, even after he'd been broken into pieces. A strong will, that one.

He stirred the coals of the fire in front of him aimlessly, hoping an answer would reveal itself from the flames, but nothing came except ash and sweltering clouds of heat.

It made no sense. None of it made sense.

He stabbed a bit too deep into the flames and scattered a few odd coals from the central fire. They glowed with power, but separated from each other, they sputtered and died. Like the parable goes, even a red-hot coal dies separated from the fire.

And weren't Jinchūriki the same way? Without Rōshi, Han surely would have been overwhelmed by both Itachi and Kisame. He expected this was the Akatsuki's strategy, to isolate and ensnare them like wild rabbits before crushing them within a trap. The Jinchūriki seemed stronger in groups, but even then, their survival wasn't guaranteed.

The thought made the water in his furnace boil. It was infuriating to be weathered down into prey for a pack of power-starved savages.

No; not savages. Not all of them, at least. Han thought of Itachi's words and they flowed through him like cooling water. They shared experiences that were still raw to both of them, even between generations in a profession that people were not meant to survive in. The bond they shared meant something, it had to.

And this intentional act of trading a strong man's life for the feeble boy's in front of him had to mean something, too. It had to mean Itachi was protecting him from something beyond Han's understanding, and in a world where demons the size of mountains could dwell in a child's stomach, this unknowing was all the more dangerous. He flicked the blackened coals back into the flames and watched as they were rejuvenated with heat.

Separating from the boy would prove costly. Han was not fast enough to evade his pursuers, even alone, so leaving this barely clothed child alone in the woods of a foreign country to afford himself a chance to flee would prove useless. And there was no taking him back to Konoha; Han would incite the next Shinobi World War if he appeared in Hi no Kuni with a missing Konoha shinobi, hostage or not. They'd try to capture him and use him against Iwa, and that was something that could not happen.

He could take the boy with him and protect him. If they evaded long enough, he could even help Han push back the predators that were all of a sudden nipping his heels. A longshot, but most definitely an option. And then they could walk their separate ways, all things jolly and dandy in the world! Of course. He repressed the thought immediately.

He could take him to Iwa and be called a god. He could put Naruto on a stake, too, just like the others-

Stop it stop it stop it stop it

It wasn't in him anymore. Besides, Ōnoki acted too volatile at the mere mention of blonde-haired individuals. Between the Yondaime Hokage and Deidara, he'd been scarred. Adding a third to the list would be unkind to everybody involved. And then the idea of going on the lamb resurfaced, like it had to break water to find some new air to breathe in, because this time Han couldn't help but stare at the unconscious child across from him with glowing admiration.

He'd saved Han's life. Whatever he'd done, he'd done it in the nick of time, whether he meant to or not. In that way, Han owed him a debt. The least he could do would be to care for him until it was safe for them both. Like he and Itachi, he and Naruto had a circumstantial bond as well, if the markings on his exposed stomach were any indicator.

"It is settled, then," Han said quietly. He spoke to the flames in front of him with a low, earthy tone. "I will see to it that no harm befalls you until our lives are not endangered."

Fate must have heard him, because from the ground behind him, a man phased through the floor and his entire torso sprung above the earth. Han did not spin and fight, though, because another man in a black cloak with a spiraling orange mask appeared in front of him. His sandals touched the stone floor with two sharp clacks. The figure behind him propped himself up on his elbows. His lower half was still buried in the earth, but his half black, half white face was slightly hidden by a massive Venus Flytrap's maw. He seemed to be part of the plant itself, and Han thought about how effective a fire jutsu would be against a man that was half-plant.

"Hello, Yonbi," the one in the spiral mask spoke. His tone was casual and young, like he'd bumped into a friend at a festival. "You have something we want. I am here to see that it is still in good condition." His single red eye never broke Han's stare. No one moved.

"I do not think it is wise to trifle with us Jinchūriki, masked one. We hold power that is out of a single man's control." Han expected the veiled threat would not be well received, but the man's rose-red eye closed and he laughed for a moment before he disregarded Han completely in favor of the boy at his feet. With a swift kick to the midsection, Naruto's body lifted from the ground and then curled around the masked man's foot. He laid as unconscious as he was before, a troubling sign to Han. The masked man wheeled back to him in a twist of brevity.

"My name is Tobi. As I am sure you have guessed, I am with the Akatsuki. You two may have seen some associates of mine recently. I promise you, Yonbi, that the next time you see red clouds, they will be the last things you see. And you'd better hope I am not the one wearing them."

"It is bold of you to assume I'm going to let you leave alive," Han threatened. His furnace had gotten noticeably warmer.

The one named Tobi narrowed his eye. "I am going to be very frank, Yonbi. A time will come where the Akatsuki will require that which is sealed inside you, and we will take it from you. But that time is not now. The boy is not ready, and we are not, either. Now, I will only give you this offer once: Take the boy and flee. Scurry like the rodents you are. Hide in every hole you can think of. Run to the ends of the Earth. But just know that one day we will find you, and we will destroy everything that stands between us and your Biju. Your village, even, if we must."

Han tightened up. He could chalk this up to be an empty threat, but if there were others like Itachi and Kisame looking for them, then the danger was very real.

"Why let us go?" Han asked.

He bitterly chuckled at Han's skepticism. "The hunting aspect is a draw for a few of my associates. They'd be a bit discouraged if all of you were rounded up within the week. Besides, there are other things at play that you simply cannot understand. Leave, Yonbi, and pray that when we meet, you find me in such a merciful mood again."

The arrogance of his words left Han both speechless and cautious. Was he just a heady foe who knew he had a numbers advantage, or did he indeed believe himself to be that strong?

Stone grating against stone interrupted Han's internal struggle and he twisted from the fire to see a pathway being opened in the far wall. When the stone was done moving, nothing but a dark passageway remained.

"Off you go, Jinchūriki," Tobi motioned. "It is rude to overstay your welcome in your host's home, didn't you know?" He lifted Naruto by his gaunt waist and slung him over the flames and into Han's arms.

Han caught the boy effortlessly but found that he couldn't pull his eyes away from the Sharingan that stared back at him. Was this all a trap, a trick? A Genjutsu? It seemed too incredulous to believe that he could walk out.

Tobi sighed. "Must I close my eyes and count to ten? Run, you fool!"

He did. He ran as hard as his large frame would allow. The stone floor crunched under his steps and he heard laughter that had to come from the man buried in the ground; it was a cackling, low, evil thing, and it echoed and followed Han all the way to the surface.

He sprung into the night with the moon sitting in its own shimmering, silver glory. As Han's feet left the stone tunnel and sank into the mud of the surface, the tunnel contracted shut. He kept running.

He would run all night to escape those monsters.

With the fleeing Jinchūriki's back to him, Obito listened to Zetsu's horrid laugh try to find its way outside the stone room. It failed and echoed back one too many times. Obito wrinkled his nose. Zetsu was a strange creature.

"Zetsu, please help me set the room," Obito called. Zetsu turned to him and nodded. They didn't have long to work. Konoha shinobi were closing in.

Obito reached into his kamui dimension and pulled out items that Zetsu began placing around the stone room. Glass jars full of body parts, ancient books, handwritten notes, illegal rugs from Hi no Kuni, medical charts with detailed writing along the borders, and piles upon piles of dead bodies.

Along with sets of steel tables and some other lab equipment, the supplies were placed haphazardly around the room. In a short time, it looked as if someone had gone quite mad with their experiments. Limbs and joints were laid out in the style of botched surgeries. The bodies were thrown in a corner and left to rot while the jars were pristinely lined along a new shelf, just above a bookcase of illicit medical text concerning the removal of organs from still-living hosts. They all had the same author: Orochimaru.

Obito breathed deeply and pulled one last thing from his pocket dimension. It would sell the cover he was trying to put over everyone's eyes.

Said thing glided through the portal and then gravity forced it onto the stones. It was slick with a watery membrane that squelched when it fell.

It looked like a photocopy of the blonde boy that was just here. And in truth, it was the closest thing to a copy one could get: a genetic clone. Made from one of the boy's baby hairs Obito had taken when he'd held him all those years ago. The clone was a bit pale and had never truly lived; It would serve its purpose, though.

"Zetsu," Obito called again. Zetsu sprung from the wall behind Obito, horizontal with the earth. His face was hidden, but Obito felt the wretched smile that stretched across it. "You know what to do."

Zetsu grabbed Naruto's clone and whipped him onto a steel table. A hanging light illuminated the gruesomeness that followed.

Obito refused to watch.

After a while the boy was nearly unrecognizable, just as Obito had demanded. Zetsu had cut with the precision of a skilled surgeon, with the experience of someone like Orochimaru who knew where and how to cut, but no longer cared for the body in front of them.

It was gruesome. It was perfect, Obito thought. His mind flashed to the dead Kirigakure forces that surrounded him after Rin was murdered. It was as gruesome as that but with a bit less force involved.

This would throw Konoha and Jiraiya for yet another loop. They'd focus themselves on Orochimaru and let the Akatsuki fade into the background, at least for a little while. Jiraiya would be so emotionally invested in Orochimaru's involvement that he'd worry less about Itachi's sudden reappearance close to home and more about Orochimaru.

The entirety of Konoha would like to see the Snake of the Sannin be stomped out nowadays. It'd be a great way to start off the next Hokage's reign as well. Yes, Orochimaru would be their top priority, and men in black cloaks with red clouds would fade into the haze of memory like a scary story told to a young child. They'd go dark, and then take the world by force.

Obito chuckled as he and Zetsu faded through the stones of the former hideout. It was too easy to manipulate the Five Great Shinobi Nations.

Madara was right: 'I taught you that in order to control people, you need to use the darkness in their hearts. And if there's no darkness, then you just create it.'

The sun was just past its pinnacle in the great wasteland of the sky. It'd floated above and burned them for daring to cross through its brilliance unsolicited. Despite the itch to find respite, not once had Jiraiya stopped charging forward, hot on a trail. It did not take a Yamanaka or a dōjutsu to see that the heat had gotten under Jiraiya's paling skin. Where the others slowed from fatigue, Jiraiya became more restless in his pursuit. It was like he could hear the clock ticking.

He burned through brush, skated over currents strong enough to topple an elephant, and flew past the migratory birds making their way south for the winter. He never stopped and Sasuke thought he never would stop, until a toad head and shoulders above Jiraiya himself appeared in a plume of heavy smoke. It put an arm in front of Jiraiya and physically stopped him from continuing forward. It sat back on its haunches in the middle of a flowing creek with every bit of poise as the Daimyo himself would have.

With its red and navy striping covered by a sleeveless war vest and an air of royalty about it, the toad's very presence compelled Jiraiya to sit. If a toad was summoning itself to Jiraiya, then there was urgent news, news that could not and would not wait. Out of respect for the toad summon, the rest of the group hung back. They were not sages; they had no right to enter into whatever conversation was taking place.

Jiraiya was so far ahead of the group that the conversation wasn't audible, but it was not a good one. First came the dim, animated yelling from Jiraiya, then the low, croaked frustration from the toad, and finally the wailing of a man who'd lost everything again. A dim pop signaled the toad returning to its homeland, but the heaving sobs continued. It sounded like Jiraiya's time had run out.

Naruto was gone from the Toad Summoning Contract, his name etched out just like the Yondaime's before him, which meant one thing: he was no longer in the land of the living.

Sasuke didn't know what to do. He didn't believe Naruto could just... die. Not after what he'd seen him go through between Haku and the Chūnin Exams. What scared him was the genuineness in Jiraiya's pain because he knew that pain. The emptiness caused by having everything ripped away from you was something Sasuke woke up and went to sleep with. It was a hole in a busy road that would never be filled. And now Jiraiya would feel it, too.

By the time Sasuke and the others arrived, Jiraiya's tears ran into the creek below and went with the current, to wherever the hell all the rivers in the country go. Tsunade had tried to console him; he pushed her away and screamed about dead students and cursed hands and ruined prophecies. The ANBU stood placid; death to them just meant the failure of the mission. Sasuke knew that from Itachi's time with them.

Death did not matter to those trying to die. They couldn't console him, so they stopped trying.

They traveled forward with a much more subdued, somber pace. It felt like a funeral march from a shrine to a burial place, and the irony was not lost on Sasuke. The sun still blazed above and dried the sweat from their bodies as it dispersed.

The ANBU were hesitant to continue following the trail and suggested they escort Tsunade to Konoha, but she made it clear she wasn't returning without Jiraiya and his protégé. On they marched.

When the sun began to slide below the horizon and an orange glow shimmered atop the flowing creeks and rivers, they found what they'd been looking for. A giant shark's fin jutted from the earth. It was made of two granite blocks angled together into a point at the top with a wide crack running down the backside, almost as if the two stones had been clamped together by unnatural forces and held into place.

Jiraiya circled it meticulously, brush and paper in hand, drawing something he could see only because of years spent practicing fuinjutsu at the highest level, and Sasuke found himself with his Sharingan activated, noticing the invisible lines that cubed out from the crack and seemed to engulf the entire structure.

"We don't have time for this," Tsunade huffed. She reared back and smacked the structure right in its crack. The left side of it blew away like paper in the breeze and Tsunade stared into an abyss with a single flight of stairs leading down. She took the honor of being the first down, much to the ANBU's chagrin.

The lines that were so bright moments ago faded into nothing as the connection was broken. Jiraiya was still staring at his paper, brush now discarded. His face had an angry, tight look and he called to Tsunade in a growl.

"This is Orochimaru's work."

Everyone fell in line behind a paused Tsunade and stepped with purpose into the pit below. Sasuke filled in after Jiraiya had shouldered past the ANBU, making a beeline for the stairs. Jiraiya and Tsunade led the charge down, seemingly reinvigorated by their old teammate's possible involvement. Fire was in their eyes and death, the ever-present specter, guided their steps in the pitch-black descent.

It was worse than they could have anticipated. When the torches were lit and the room opened to their eyes, everyone fell silent.

It was a den of murder, Sasuke concluded. The bodies looked like scraps from a giant; every limb was mangled. He could taste the iron in the air from the pools of blood under his sandals. Chemicals assailed his nose and throat even before Jiraiya and Tsunade went ballistic on the shelves of books and jarred body parts. It didn't take them long to discover their former teammate's penchant for certain rugs and the usual carnage he would leave in his wake. They returned the favor.

Sasuke sat in mute terror as Tsunade's fist found a wall and the structure recoiled with an equal amount of violence. Dirt and dust broke from every crevice.

"We should've ended him decades ago," Jiraiya seethed. "And now we're here, in another room full of bodies."

Jiraiya was in a weird stage of anger, Sasuke noticed; he was almost quiet about it. His body jerked and used too much force when it moved, but only because he was melting down. It was killing him to be here. The pain in his hunched shoulders would leave knots for weeks. Sasuke knew about that pain, too; he ached every night he spent in the compound after the massacre.

"Jiraiya," Tsunade called. Her voice trailed into a quiet void. "I think I found him."

Sasuke stepped towards her, towards the metal table. He had to see him for himself. As much as it was going to hurt him, he had to see Naruto to know that he was truly gone.

He wished he hadn't walked over.

There on the table was a horrific amalgamation of torture. An arm had been severed completely, cleanly until the very end. The other arm, still attached, had its fingers removed. And the chest and trunk of the body had been splayed open. The ribs made an ark of bones and bloody tissue. Organs were mashed together in a soup that sat curdled like literal blood pudding. The clincher was a tuft of wilted blonde hair that weakly shone in the firelight. All the other hair had been matted back onto an eyeless, nose less skull. It had begun to be scalped but was left half attached. Even through the gloss of dried blood, Naruto's distinctive whiskers marked his cheeks.

Sasuke felt his body sway, and he threw up. On instinct he grabbed the table, but the cold metal, like cold meat, only made him sicker. That wasn't Naruto. It couldn't be. No one could do that to the blonde terror. They could beat and bruise him all day, but he always came back stronger. This wasn't right. It just can't be.

"Get him out of here," he heard Tsunade say. "He's seen enough." Sasuke didn't fight the hands around his body, and the ANBU led him from the room, back to the surface for a bite of air. His mouth tasted of bile and his nose caught whiffs of mildew from the squalor below. It took him several minutes to reregulate his breathing and calm his mind enough to speak.

"What the fuck," he breathed, "who the fuck does that to someone? What kind of monster-"

"Orochimaru of the Sannin does that," Tsunade said as she appeared from the dark staircase behind him. "And we're going to see him. He approached me before you found me and offered to bring back the dead if I healed him."

"But instead," Jiraiya's deep, dark voice echoed, "we're going to cut him up like he cut up my Godson." And Sasuke looked into his eyes and saw pain. Breaking-point level pain. Vengeance. All the ugly, evil things that made Sasuke feel strong when the seal on his neck was at its most dangerous. Anger, it whispered, be angry. But Sasuke didn't feel angry. He'd spent years being angry. This was much emptier.

Ice, like a crouching tiger, took hold of his heart. In the breeze of the cool night, Sasuke felt his shoulders droop and his strength leave him. He was back to nothing again. His brother was still a mass murderer, his best friend had been viciously mutilated, and his teacher was in a coma. Nothing left to fall on. Was it his fault?

The ANBU gave the signal, and the hideout became a hole of fire and brimstone. Jiraiya watched until the flames died and disappeared into the blackness of the night. Then he left, and they followed. His back was a mass of rage and power.

It was going to lead them to death. But Sasuke and his frozen heart didn't care about where they were headed, or what they were going to do.

Orochimaru, Itachi. Monsters. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last.

He could kill them one day.

But they'd come back in some other form, in someone else every bit as vile as them. And in that way, they'd outlast him no matter how many times he killed them, no matter how many times he made strong bonds.

'What is the point anymore?'

Under the shadow of the moon, he followed.

A familiar dripping sound awakened Naruto's consciousness. Like every time before, the air in his sewer of a mind was stuffy, on the verge of ruthlessly suffocating him. He found himself standing in a thin film of water, surrounded on all sides by impenetrable darkness.

A moment of courage entered him but left quickly. The Kyuubi had never called him here. The last few times he'd been here had been forced. He'd needed the Kyuubi's chakra in order to survive.

Naruto huffed. 'No more! I can get strong on my own. I don't need that giant waste of space!' He stalked forward, ready to figure this mess out.

'Waste of space?' A strange, human voice answered back, reverberating. 'That's not a very nice thing to say about your tenant!'

Naruto froze. He'd never heard a voice like that before. It was light, and echoed like when he yelled from the top of the Hokage Monument in his childhood.

"Hey! Who is that, and how are you in my head?! You better have a good reason to be here!" He growled a warning, loud and clear. He stepped into a fighting stance, though he wasn't sure how mindscape battles worked... if they did at all.

Slowly, the familiar bars of the Kyuubi's cage appeared, starting from the floor up to the ceiling in iron pillars stained with rust. A shadowy figure stepped out from behind the centermost pillars, where the seal holding the cage together sat suspended. It had a large tear in the upper part but was otherwise intact.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked. He didn't know whether to be angry or confused, so his face must've settled for a mix of the two, because the shadowy figure laughed.

It paused for a second. "Come closer."

"Not a chance!"

"Please."

Something in the voice made Naruto drop his hands and loosen his shoulders. Was it... begging him? He steeled himself. "I'll walk forward if you tell me who you are and how you even got in here."

A pause. Silence. A sigh. A step. Blonde hair broke the shadow first. From the top of his head down, Naruto felt chills.

An ethereal light coming from somewhere above illuminated the tall, confident figure. Namikaze Minato stood, like a page out of the history books, with his navy tracksuit and Jōnin vest zipped to the top. He looked ready for battle, but the smile on his face was too soft for violence. It was probably the last thing his enemies saw, too. Naruto shook away Han's war stories for now.

"You've got your mother's temperament, that's for sure."

Naruto felt his throat constrict, like his heart had been caught right at the base of his tongue. What could he say?

Minato laughed, low and clear. "What? Not who you were expecting, Naruto?"

"I... how do you know my name?"

Minato gave him a quizzical look. "Well, it'd be pretty sorry of me to forget the name I gave you, wouldn't you say?"

"You named me? Really?" That his idol named him almost made up for the fact that he never had parents to name him. "And you knew my mom? She didn't name me?"

"I mean... I don't mean to take all the credit, but I picked it out! It was really for Jiraiya's sake, poor guy's books never went anywhere. But hey, baby naming is tough! Hopefully you won't find out about that for another few years, kiddo!" Minato itched the back of his head to ease the pain of his bad joke. The scene was too casual for the setting, and Naruto's mind struggled to process.

"I don't understand," Naruto said, not grasping Minato's words. "Who's my mom? Do you know who she is, or where she went?" The way Naruto stared reminded Minato so much of himself, with his golden locks and blue eyes. He saw the ocean of pain in the boy's eyes, and the hope that accompanied a sinking ship's patrons when they know they're being rescued.

Minato started slow. "Naruto... your mother was many things. She was loud, obnoxious, perennially angry... and the most amazing woman I've ever known. I loved her so much, and I know she loved you just as much as I loved you, even if we didn't know you for very long." He punctuated his sentence with a small smile. "It hurts to see you all grown up without us, but, at the same time, I'm really proud of you for getting here by yourself. We loved you then and we love you now, son."

He reached his harm out to touch Naruto's shoulder. His ghostly fingers stretched to find his long-lost son, to feel him once again in the flesh. The noxious, thick air around the two blondes rippled like when a droplet falls into a still puddle. The sewer got darker and a deep, blood clot red tint cast itself over everything. Minato looked back at the seal nervously and withdrew his arm. He looked back to his son and what he saw made something break inside him, like glass being dropped from too high. It fell from his chest into his stomach and shattered, the shards stabbing and pricking his belly.

Naruto tore his eyes away from Minato's, from his father's, from the man who left him at birth and stared into the liquid waste between his toes. Ruby red eyes stared back, and the Cheshire grin of an Oni laid over his face like an oversized mask. His fists balled into the pockets of his jacket and stretched the fabric until the threading unraveled. Years of loneliness and pain bubbled up through his core. It burned in his chest, but the fire felt good. For the first time in his life, it felt right to be angry about things. It felt right to want to break something, to not take the high road like the Sandaime and Iruka had always instructed him to.

Minato backed away from his son, not out of fear, but to see the line of angry, fiery chakra crawling along the floor from the suspended seal to his son, feeding his rage with thoughts worse than murder. The power emanating from him was palpable; the stale sewage air couldn't refill the space around Naruto due to the sheer heat of the Kyuubi's chakra running through his body.

"I have nothing because of you," Naruto growled. He stared at his face's ugly reflection. He looked too much like the Yondaime, like the man that made him. "I have less than nothing! I have the worst thing ever in me permanently, and it's your fault!" His eyes, red like the blood moon, were wide with slits that cut clean through his sclera. They stayed down.

"Naruto-"

"You don't even know what to be proud of! You don't know how hard it was to see all the other kids go home with their friends and their houses and their families!" His voice transitioned from a wail to a gravelly-undertone, and Minato could barely fathom the effects this malevolent chakra was having on his son's psyche. Every feeling was magnified a hundred-fold, every impulse needed to be obeyed.

Minato knew he couldn't let his son soak in these negative feelings. "Don't let this chakra corrupt your heart! You're my son, you're Kushina's son, I know you're a good person! I know you can handle this burden better than anyone because you're my son, and you've made your own bonds along the way!" Naruto looked up at Minato and his eyes flickered a blue before being crushed relentlessly by a sea of red.

Minato pressed on. "Use them! Please, son! I did not become the man I am by myself. I had Jiraiya, I had the Sandaime, I had Kushina. I had people who cared about me, just like you do! Use those bonds to strengthen yourself!"

Naruto's power output increased, and the wind shot from him like a gust from the strongest hurricanes. Minato anchored himself, but he could hear the Kyuubi laugh in the whirling windstorm.

Naruto's voice was quiet, almost a whisper above the wind that whipped through Minato's hair. "Why... why did you curse me with this burden?" Naruto's voice cracked and broke at random. The pain in his face manifested into twin rivers of tears that had no end. "Do you know how long I've been looking for a family, for a real flesh and blood family?" Naruto whispered. "People who would love me no matter who I was or how strong I was?" The wind died down and Naruto crumpled to a ball on the ground, his sobs coming freely. Minato felt his heart drop into his stomach. His son was ripping himself apart because of things he had no control over.

"Your true friends don't care how strong you are, Naruto. Family is about more than blood, it's about more than strength." Minato paused to let that sink in. "Konoha is my family. I tried my best to protect it from the Kyuubi, and I succeeded, but," he sighed, "but I failed to protect you, and I'm sorry. I should have told the Sandaime to protect you, not to hide you. I cannot fix the past, but I can own my mistakes, and my biggest mistake was leaving you to fend for yourself with such a heavy burden. Hate me if you want, son, but don't you dare turn your back on all those who have helped you get to where you are today." Minato walked forward and laid a hand on the small boy's back.

Naruto's sobs quieted to sniffles as Minato's speech wore on. "Naruto, I say all that to say this: when a person has great power... they shouldn't waste it. The power you've been given, behind these bars, don't waste it! Use it for Konoha. Use it for our home, for the family you have now!"

Naruto's face, reddened by tears and emotions, turned to look at the gate, behind which was empty, but the cord of the Kyuubi's chakra still came from its seal and wrapped around his feet. Instead of detaching it, he stood and walked to the central pillar, where the seal was suspended above him. Minato followed.

Naruto's eyes were wet with tears, but the characteristic twinkle of determination was slowly returning. "How," the young Jinchūriki asked his father, "how do I do that and not hurt my friends? All I've heard about the Kyuubi is that it was evil, and it killed a bunch of people."

"I don't know, son. I genuinely don't know. But if anyone can do it, it's you," his father answered. "I trusted you to carry this burden as soon as you were born. And you've done a great job so far, but the job is not done. Keep doing the right things, and I have a feeling that even the power of the Kyuubi will have to fold to your Will of Fire!"

The two blondes beamed smiles at each other for the first time. Naruto's attention shifted and he could not resist inspecting the decaying bars; some had vines of rust choking the shine from them.

"It's never been so ugly," Naruto said. "What happened to me? I feel like I lost control of something when I tried to fight Itachi and that fish guy."

"The seal as it sits now is broken beyond repair. Something happened with the Kyuubi in here that even I cannot fix," Minato said. "It seems the two of you are... merging, in a way. If I were to fix the seal to its previous state, you'd die. Your body is too dependent on its chakra now, so the seal cannot be as restrictive as it was. I don't know if the recent alterations I made will help you or hinder you, honestly."

"But what does that mean? Am I going to be angry all the time? Could... Could I hurt someone like this?" He turned to look to his father for reassurance, but he was making the same face Naruto was making. It wasn't a good face.

"Possibly," the Yondaime admitted. He bit his lip and sucked air through his teeth. "Naruto... you can't go back to Konoha. If you have an episode like the one you already had, you could kill everyone around you, and if that happens, and you fall into despair, the Kyuubi will eat your soul and break free from you."

Sadness struck Naruto's body and he leaned his face against the closest pillar. "Are you saying that I can never go to Konoha again? That I can never see my friends again, like Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi-sensei?"

"Not until you've fully absorbed it. The Kyuubi is both chakra and, per the legend, the sum of all negative emotions ever felt. You must conquer both its physical and mental power."

"Well, if doing that means my friends are safe and I can go back home, then bring it on! Kyuubi or not, the Hokage's hat is mine when I'm back!"

Naruto smirked and tightened his fists. 'There's no chance I let this thing beat me!'

"It's good that you have goals, son," Minato told him, but then grabbed his son's shoulders and spun his face to his own. " But you can't, under any circumstances, let it roam free. The Kyuubi is a vengeful being. It'll hate you and want to destroy everything you love, including Konoha."

"Don't worry, Yondai- uh, I mean, Dad, I got this!" He flashed a signature thumbs up and a big smile, and Minato couldn't help but believe him.

"I would call you a liar, Yondaime, but you are an impeccable truth-teller. I will indeed raze that hovel once I devour this idiot's will," a deep voice floated from the blackness behind the bars. "Do you really think a child, even yours, can stand against me? I will drive him to kill everything he loves, and I'll make him enjoy it!"

"There's a difference here, beast. You're alone. You fight and survive only for yourself. But Naruto fights for others, for his friends. He has help! The Will of Fire survives the night!" Naruto echoed his father's words, but the Kyuubi could not stay silent.

"Bah! Let them help. He's going to need it, Yondaime. I am going to rip him apart! Do you hear me, boy?!" The beast emerged from the shadows in a full-on sprint and slammed against the rusted bars with violence. The sound of metal bending and stretching reverberated. The beast's maw was feet from Naruto's frozen body. Fear encapsulated him until a soft hand gripped his shoulder. His father's smile entered his vision.

"Don't worry son, he likes to bark because he hasn't bitten in a while. For now, he's toothless here," Minato said.

As if to disprove the Yondaime's words, the Kyuubi's giant lips parted to reveals rows upon rows of alabaster fangs. He let out a seething hiss that shook the sewer and blew the blondes' hair back. Naruto could taste the iron of spilt blood in the beast's breath.

"I'm not afraid of you anymore!" Naruto screamed.

"I can smell your fear, boy," the Kyuubi whispered. "Come the right time, your father won't be able to save you from my claws. I'll finish what I started all those years ago." And with that declaration, the Kyuubi faded into the void of his prison. Red eyes sat watching, until they, too, vanished.

"You're brave, Naruto," Minato told the boy. "And I can't say I'm surprised that the son of Uzumaki Kushina just told the strongest creature in history to go take a hike!" He laughed, and Naruto laughed with him.

"Hey Dad?"

"Yeah, son?"

"Can we talk about her more? What was she like? And how did you guys meet?!"

Minato smiled. "I think we've got time. Now, your mother was a lot like you..."

A/N: It's been a minute. I can't keep a schedule to save my life. Hope y'all like this, though!