New Year
By: EDelta88
Rated M for language, violence, and because I said so
Insert Disclaimer Here
Background and Beginning Notes:
This is another FF of my original Wrath of a Woman Scorned that spawned from an offhanded comment that I started playing with for shits and giggles. One thing lead to another, it slowly grew into a semblance of a fic and then I decided it would make a nice New Year conciliation prize for you guys.
Anyway, background is that Aki does… something, either way it makes the people of Konoha desperate enough to try something stupid on the off chance that it might work. Long story short, they got lucky and it ended up throwing Aki across a few dimensions and when she gets there she finds something important enough that she chooses not to return to gut them all… though, she might throw back a Kage Bunshin or two in order to fuck with them.
And this is what is waiting for her there…
Prologue
'Thrice damned jikukan seal! Where the hell did they send… the Market District? Those incompetent fools didn't even transport me past the walls?' Aki wondered, her opinion of Konoha's forces dropping even further. They went to all the trouble to organize an elaborate ambush to throw her through time and space in order to be rid of her and this was the best they could manage?
Snarling under her breath, Aki dug the ball of her foot into the ground focusing fire nature chakra for what would be an admittedly theatrical but none the less terrifying Katon Shunshin when she heard a scream… a child's scream.
Without even thinking Aki redirected her shunshin, forgoing theatrics in her haste and appeared on the roof of a building some two blocks from where she'd previously stood. Her fury temporarily forgotten. When she appeared in the faintest whiff of fire Aki froze for a brief moment, her eyes going wide with confusion as she tried to process what she was witnessing..
'What in all the hells?' she wondered, staring down at the scene playing out in the street. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, what she was sensing.
A little blonde boy was running through the streets away from a small group of angry adults including at least three ninja, bleeding profusely from a deep gash in his side. It was a scene eerily familiar to Aki...
Especially when she took into account the disturbingly familiar facial structure, whisker marks on the boy's cheeks, and the unmistakable chakra of the Kyuubi no Yoko she could just barely feel stewing behind the seal in the child's belly.
Then the boy fell, the villagers catching up to him within seconds.
Slowly, Aki's eyes narrowed to furious slits, cobalt blue bleeding to angry crimson.
Chapter 1: No Mercy for the Misguided
Konoha, 5 Years Post-Kyuubi...
"Leave me alone!" Naruto cried, holding the oozing gash in his side as he dashed through the streets as fast as his little legs would carry him.
"Stop running ya little brat!" one of the men yelled, one Naruto was pretty sure was a ninja.
Naruto didn't bother to answer, he just kept running.
"I said, stop!" the ninja snarled, hurling a kunai at Naruto's leg.
"Ahh!" Naruto cried as the kunai buried itself in his calf causing him to stumble and fall only to frantically scramble toward the opposite end of the alley, heedless of how it aggravated his wounds as he tried to escape.
"No more running for you brat, he he he," the ninja chuckled, a cruel smile spreading across his face as he advanced on the now helpless boy.
"No!" Naruto cried, throwing his arms up in an attempt to protect his head.
Thud...
Suddenly there was a girl, at least Naruto thought it was a girl, standing in front of him facing his attackers, her forearm raised to stop the blow.
Through the gap in his arms Naruto watched the man's eyes went wide in surprise. "Wha-" the man gasped as the girl drew her arm back...
Wham!
This time it was Naruto's turn to look surprised as the girl delivered a crushing backhand to the man's jaw, shattering it and snapping his neck at an unnatural angle, sending him flying into the stone wall of the alley… he didn't get up.
Then the girl took a single step forward, her other hand reaching for the woman with the black hair and mean look that had been standing behind the ninja, grasping her hair...
Crunch!
With a vicious jerk, Naruto's savior bent the woman in half burying her knee into the woman's chest, splintering her ribs like kindling and forcing them deep into her chest cavity before dropping her to the ground to drown in her own blood.
Then she turned to the side, toward the man with the meat cleaver. Eyes wide with fear, the man took a step back, preparing to run. The girl never gave him a chance, twisting sideways…
Crack!
She lashed out with a lightning fast kick, destroying the man's leg and sending him to the ground screaming...
Crunch!
Only to be silenced a moment later as she brought her heel down on his neck, snuffing him out like a cockroach.
The others were running now. All of them sprinting for the mouth of the alley in a desperate bid to escape the devil that had descended upon them.
The girl stared after them dispassionately for just a moment…
Woosh!
Then she vanished in a flicker of motion, appearing in their path and snatching the man, another ninja, that had almost made it out, lifting him off the ground by his neck…
Crunch!
Then he fell, crumpling to his knees, eyes wide as he clutched at the gaping wound that used to be his throat.
The man behind him fell backwards, crying out in horror as blood sprayed across his face. He screamed, scrambling away from the girl as she advanced down the alley sparing him only a contemptuous glance...
Thud…
The man slumped to the ground a look of complete terror on his face as he simply… died.
Eyes going wide with fear the last survivors turned tail and ran for the other end of the alley.
For a moment the girl watched them go and, for that brief moment, the remaining assailants thought they would get away. Then, almost casually, she crouched down and placed her open palm on the ground. "Tensa Higi: Yomi no Toraeru," she murmured, sending a pulse of chakra into the ground.
The next instant chains made of pure chakra erupted from the ground, binding the last of Naruto's attackers.
They fell to their knees, all of them, screaming in terror and begging for their lives as they struggled futilely against the chains.
"We beg you! Have mercy!" one screamed, his eyes wild and terrified.
The girl paused staring at them for a moment before, pointing toward Naruto. "Like he begged you?" she asked coldly.
The man glanced at Naruto then back at the she devil. "We were wrong! We're sorry!" he blubbered.
The girl sneered down at the man, looking disgusted. "No mercy for the misguided," she murmured, her lips curling back as she formed a half seal with her off hand.
Naruto's eyes grew wider as he realized what was about to happen.
"Wait! No please-"
"Tajuu Sosou," the girl whispered, her voice carrying cold and final through the night like the voice of death incarnate.
The last survivors had just enough time to look terrified before the chains gave a vicious tug, dragging them screaming into the earth… burying them alive deep beneath Konoha.
Once they were all taken care of, she turned her attention to Naruto. His first instinct was to scramble away, to run, but while her expression was serious, something about her seemed different. Her eyes were different, like Jiji's. But that didn't stop him from flinching when she got close or whimpering when she touched his wounds.
"Shh, hold still," she cooed soothingly, running her now glowing hand over his wounds, healing the damage and numbing the pain as she went.
As he felt the pain slowly fade, he looked up at his savior in puzzlement. Aside from Jiji and the masked people he hadn't found anyone who would have helped him like this.
'Why's she helping me?' he wondered as he watched the red-haired girl touch her glowing hand to his leg, making the pain go away. "Are you my mommy?" he blurted without thinking, the barest tremble of his voice betraying the hope that he was trying to hold back.
The girl froze in her ministrations, glancing up at him with an unreadable expression. "What makes you say that, little one?" she asked evenly.
"All the other kids say that mommies are supposed to protect them and stop it when it hurts and… and you did. So that makes you my mommy, right?" Naruto reasoned.
A look of pain flashed across the girl's face but vanished so quickly Naruto almost thought he had imagined it. "No, little one. I am not your mother... I'm sorry," she whispered sadly. Rushing to continue when he seemed to deflate at her words. "But I'm going to take care of you from now on, okay?"
"You are?" he asked, perking up.
"Yes, little one," she replied, smiling softly.
Naruto puffed out his cheeks in annoyance. "M'not little," he grumbled, in much better spirits now that his wounds had been tended.
"What?" she asked, not sure if she had heard him right.
"Said m'not little. I'm Naruto," he mumbled, his eyes drooping tiredly even as he struggled to stay awake. Now that the danger was passed, the day was catching up with him.
"Alright then, you may call me Aki," she replied, smirking ever so slightly. Had she been this cute? Surely not. "Now then Naruto-chan, you've had a long day," she murmured as she gently pressed a glowing finger to his temple. "Why don't you get some sleep, and in the morning you'll be right as rain."
"O-Okay," he yawned, his eyes fluttering shut with barely any resistance, exhausted both physically and emotionally.
Scooping Naruto up and situating him comfortably in her arms Aki started walking in the direction where she suspected his home to be. She only made if five steps before she her shoulders tensed, giving an annoyed sigh as her gait became deliberately measured, balanced and catlike.
"Identify yourself!"
"Be quiet," Aki ordered, not even bothering to face the ANBU operative that had dropped onto one of the roofs bordering the alley behind her as she continued toward where she suspected Naruto's home was. "He's sleeping."
"You have killed citizens of Konoha. Identify yourself and surrender for questioning or I will be forced to attack!" the operative barked, obviously not intimidated due to her age… a mistake that would cost him dearly.
Aki stopped, focusing her malicious intent and lacing it with her yin chakra, letting it pool in her eyes."I said be quiet," Aki hissed, turning ever so slightly and locking eyes with the annoying pest as she gave her chakra a practiced twist and launched her intent into his mind like a lance.
Be still...
Suddenly, the ANBU froze. 'What?!' he wondered, confusion and panic welling up in his chest as his body locked up.
Don't move or you're dead...
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He… he couldn't...
Not an inch, not a muscle...
He couldn't move… He couldn't move anything. He couldn't look away. He couldn't even breath.
It was at this precise moment that reinforcements decided to arrive. Boar would have sagged in relief had he the capability of moving at all.
"Boar, report," the Sandaime demanded, never taking his eyes off the girl holding Naruto. There was something off about her, something in the way she held herself. Something unnatural and dangerous despite the fact that she herself was baredly older than the child she was holding.
Boar didn't answer.
"Boar?" Sarutobi called again, glancing at his subordinate but receiving no reply.
"He can't answer you Sandaime-dono," the girl answered, her voice just barely above a whisper as she rocked Naruto ever so slightly from side to side, maintaining a gentle rhythm but never sacrificing her footing.
"And why is that?" Sarutobi asked, the sound of her voice setting the hairs of his neck on end.
"Why, because he can't breath… or move at all for that matter," she replied coolly. "He was being rather loud, you see. He would have woken Naruto-chan if I hadn't stopped him."
'Can't breath?' Sarutobi thought in alarm as he turned to more closely inspect his subordinate. True to the girl's word, Boar wasn't moving a muscle. Not even when Owl gripped his shoulder, performing the genjutsu release. "Perhaps you could release him?" Sarutobi tried. She didn't seem overly hostile, hopefully she could be reasoned with.
Aki stared at Sarutobi for a short moment. As if pondering what he had said for a second. "...I suppose I could," she allowed, before glancing at the immobile ANBU and flexing her chakra.
"Guh!" Boar gasped, collapsing to all fours.
"Thank you," the Sandaime said, giving a small nod.
"See that he behaves," Aki replied cooly.
'Who are you that can so casually face a Kage and his guard?' he wondered, staring down at her. It was hard to tell in this light. 'The hair is a little different than I remember but with that facial structure and that chakra… Uzumaki,' he thought as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. This girl was clearly an Uzumaki, the hair and chakra were a dead giveaway. But those marks on her cheeks… he knew those marks. He had seen them on Mito's children and again on Naruto. 'Which means she has some relation to the fox,' he reasoned. But how? "Who are you?" Sarutobi asked cautiously.
Aki stared thoughtfully at the old Hokage as she considered her answer. Did she tell him? Sarutobi had been one of the few people she had respected but this wasn't her Sarutobi. But by the same token, did it truly matter? She could already sense that no one here was particularly more or less powerful than their counterparts so… why not? "I am him," she replied, indicating Naruto. "I am what he would have been."
Sarutobi's eyes went wide. She was Naruto? What Naruto would have been? Suddenly, the Sandaime's mind was whirring at a mile a minute.
"I am him..." Present tense. She is currently in a state of being so similar to Naruto that she views their states as not just similar but identical.
"I am what he would have been..." Future tense with reference to herself but implying she is in some way the future that awaited Naruto at some point but something had happened to change his fate.
Sarutobi's eyes briefly flickered to the macabre scene in the alley then back to the girl and Naruto,
'Jinchuuriki...' he thought. She was a host… but which one? All the biju were accounted for. The Kazekage's son held the Ichibi. The Nibi and Hachibi were in Kumo and jealously guarded. Iwa made no secret of their two jinchuuriki. Taki had just sent him an update on Fuu. The Mizukage held the Sanbi and Utakata had been confirmed alive. Which left the Kyuubi but Naruto was still...
Naruto...
Suddenly Sarutobi's world acquired an unnatural clarity, his gaze zeroing in on the girl's face, eying the marks on their cheeks. Three parallel lines on each cheek bearing a striking resemblance to whiskers. He knew those markings but had only seen them in two places before today. He'd seen them as a young boy on Mito's children… and Naruto.
"I am him..." she had said, "What he would have been..."
She was the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi… or rather a Jinchuuriki of a Kyuubi.
"Jikukan," he whispered, staring at her in amazement.
"Very astute, Sandaime-dono," Aki replied before turning to leave. "Now, it you will excuse me."
"Should we pursue her, sir?" one of his guards asked as he watched the stranger walk away, still holding the Jinchuuriki.
Sarutobi glanced briefly at Boar who was still crouched on the roof, quivering from the aftereffects of whatever the girl had used on him. "No, I do not think that would be wise at the moment but do keep a discreet eye on them and interfere if anyone else shows signs of drawing the young lady's… attention," he ordered with a meaningful look at the macabre scene in the alley where Naruto had been attacked.
If he was right, this was not something he could afford to delegate. He would have to see to this newcomer personally.
Studying Naruto's scent, Aki managed to follow the trail to his apartment. She had been almost right about Naruto living in the same place she had at his age. He was in the same building but had a different apartment, curious how things work out.
As she toed the door open and silently made her way inside, she saw that it was a little more messy than hers had been. Scrolls of ninja tricks scattered around the floor as if he had been studying them along with a number of empty ramen cups.
'How nostalgic,' she thought bitterly. Back in her Konoha she hadn't set foot in this dump for years. "Something to work on, I suppose," she sighed before moving to Naruto's room to lay him down only to frown at the broken lock on the window.
That simply would not do.
Once she tucked Naruto in she moved over to the window, channelling a little of Kurama's chakra before using one of her claws to slice open her palm. After letting the blood pool for a moment and saturating it with her chakra she quickly carved a series of seals into the window frame. Stepping back, she ran her gaze over the symbols, double checking her work before nodding in satisfaction.
Even if someone was skilled enough to evade her sensing abilities to get through the window, anyone that wasn't her or Naruto wouldn't live long after.
Nodding in satisfaction, Aki left to secure the rest of the apartment. Not as easy as one might think because real security was obviously not something the original builder had in mind when creating this place.
'Get them a few meters off the ground and suddenly they think they're safe,' Aki thought sarcastically as she carved security seals into the fourth window. 'No amount of security is going to make this safe. I'll have to look into finding someplace to-'
"AHH!"
Naruto wasn't even finished screaming before Aki had crossed the length of the apartment and burst into his room ready to kill anyone foolish enough to bother him, only to find him staring wide-eyed around his room and quivering like a leaf.
The moment she burst in, Naruto's gaze fixed on her. "You're here? Y-you're real?" he sniffed, tears welling in his eyes. "When I woke up and you weren't… I thought…"
Realizing what must have startled him, Aki sagged in relief. "Bad dream?" she asked, crossing the room to sit next to him.
Naruto nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Th-the alley. Y-you didn't come," he hiccupped, shivering in repressed terror as he did so. "I was alone and they… they-"
"Shhh," Aki cooed as she scooted closer to him before dragging him into her lap. "It was just a dream. They didn't get you and now they never will."
"But they weren't the only ones," Naruto argued miserably.
'And I won't always be there to save you,' Aki added silently. "Then you'll have to learn to take care of yourself, won't you? Would you like me to teach you?"
"You'd do that for me?"
"Absolutely, we'll start tomorrow. How does that sound?"
"You promise?"
"Pinky promise," Aki replied twining her pinky finger with his, a soft smile spreading across her lips as her eyes flashed with the barest hint of a warmth that had been gone from her gaze since the very earliest years of her life. "But for now, you need to get some sleep, yeah?"
"But the dreams..." he mumbled, once again miserable.
"Well I'll..." she started only to pause as she caught sight of something on the wall. A calendar. Aki couldn't help the wash of amusement that threatened to draw her lips into a rare smile as it gave her an idea. Something she hadn't done in a very long time… something her mother had done once for her.
She sang.
"There's always tomorrow, for dreams to come true... Believe in your dreams, come what may..." she sang, her voice rising to fill the entire apartment as she smiled down at the small child in her arms as he stared up at her in wonder. "There's always tomorrow... With so much to do and so little time in a day…."
"We all pretend the rainbow has an end and you'll be there, my friend, some day..." she continued, rubbing circles in his back as she began to rock him gently back and forth to the rhythm of her voice. "There's always tomorrow, for dreams to come true... Tomorrow is not far away…"
"We all pretend the rainbow has an end, and you'll be there my friend, some day…"she chorused softly as she watched his face slowly relax, his eyes fluttering for a moment, then closing.
"There's always tomorrow, for dreams to come true," she continued, steadily lowering her voice until she was speaking just barely above a whisper. "Tomorrow is not far away…."
Aki smiled down at Naruto to find that he was once again asleep, his breathing slow and even as his little hand fisted in her coat. "Happy New Year… Naruto," Aki whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.
Glossary
Tensa Higi: Yomi no Toraeru = Chains of Heaven Secret Art: Grasp of the Underworld
Tajuu Sosou= Mass Burial
Jikukan: Time-Space referring to ninjutsu such as Hiraishin or, say, a seal that would throw a person into an alternate dimension.
End Notes
So, as most of you have gathered by this point, this is in essence an "Aki raises Naruto" and all the madness that comes from it. For the sake of this story Naruto is male, I'm considering doing this as a full fic in which case I might change that but that is neither here nor there at the moment.
Anyway, if you want to see this as a fic or do it yourself, TELL ME! If you have ideas, don't be shy. I LOVE brainstorming. Seriously, I have PM brainstorming chats more than a hundred messages long.
So yeah… Happy New Year!
-Delta