4
Pain
"Because I love you."
The leader of the Akatsuki, Pain, watched with nonchalant bafflement as the young woman before him took on a peculiar stance - both of her palms came up, with the fingers loosened up - and her pearly eyes throbbed with power. Dôjutsu, he guessed straight away, the most notorious one from Konohagakure after the Sharingan - the Byakugan. Her lithe movements and the black hair flowing in the wind to the side spoke of her Hyûga heritage from the start.
At her unexpected declaration, Uzumaki Naruto merely stared as she prepared herself to throw away her well-being for him, at a complete loss; he couldn't do anything to stop her, regardless of how much he tried to free himself. The alien chakra surged through the metallic rods that pinned him to the earth, rendering him motionless. He was a sock puppet with his strings cut off, discarded along the road, powerless to make a difference and prevent more casualties. Everything that had happened up to that point, all the companions that had lost their lives in this battle, was beating down on him: first Pervy Sage, then Kakashi-sensei, lord will know just how many shinobi of the Leaf were claimed during Pain's invasion just to get him.
He had learned Sage Mode to prevent more deaths, and here he was, a dead weight while more comrades were to die before him. Twice had he failed to bring Sasuke back, and then Gaara had to be saved by someone else.
What kind of Hokage would he be, if he can't save his friends?
All he could do was cry out - shout at Hinata to get the hell away from here. But she wouldn't have any of that.
So, Hinata swooped down on Pain, pinwheeling with gentle fist strikes aiming to claim the man's head, but Pain easily fended off them, even if she had managed to force him back.
Channeling her chakra into her fists: chakra lions roared to life in the form of gauntlets, and she prepared for her coup de grâce:
"Juho Soshiken!"
The heiress failed to realize that Pain wasn't pulling back because he was in a dilemma; he just wanted to create enough distance between the two to unleash his next attack, and she had fallen right into his ruse, leaving herself exposed to any attacks.
Despite her all-seeing eyes, she never realized her blind spots, despite how egregiously large they were then when she flexed both arms preparing for an attack.
Therefore, Pain seized that chance.
She never stood a chance.
"SHINRA TENSEI!" Pain's booming voice intoned, carrying through the barren crater where Konoha had once stood.
Nonchalantly, he swung about his open palm in front of her, and an ethereal blast smashed Hinata straight into the solid ground, right in front of Naruto's shell-shocked eyes.
The Hyûga rolled brokenly on the ground, before collapsing to the side, with her gaze vacant and glazed - the eyes of a corpse. Blood pooled from the side of her mouth into the ground, and her silky-smooth hair, sank on the ground, covered with debris.
Watching his gruesome job, Pain marched forward, manifesting a metal rod on his right arm, stopping before the unconscious Hyûga.
When he caught a glimpse of the chakra conductor gleaming ominously under the pale sunlight, Naruto tensed with a sinking feeling growing in his stomach more and more, becoming like a massive rift of dread. The monster's scornful glare towards Hinata, a wolf staring at a half-eaten hare, reinforced his greatest fear. He lifted the black piece of rebar, his hands tightly grasping it by the end with a grim clank, preparing the kill.
Naruto shuddered. His muscles went rigid, gnashing at his hand, the agony from the metal sinking in both no longer registered.
"STOP IT!" Naruto shouted out, his face contorting with horror, veins even popping in his temple. His eyes were wide and frantic as attempted to struggle himself free, "DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER! YOU HEARD ME? STAY AWAY FROM HER!"
The Tendô Path stood inhumanly still on the spot, towering over the young girl's battered body with clinical detachment: a looming predator lying in wait to sink its fangs on the helpless target. A wind brimming with vengeance and indifference ruffled his bristling hair.
The eyes of Samsara bore no mercy whatever - it was the bitter cold of winter itself, and a sharp knife slashing into the sternum.
He turned his attention back to the Jinchûriki sprawled motionless in the dirt a couple of feet away from him, regarding his fierce expression in what was almost a taunting sort of way, as if taking in how helpless he was to stop the unavoidable at that moment.
Shlick!
Just like that, leading the dreadful black rod into her exposed side, Hyûga Hinata stopped moving.
"See this?" The murderer inquired, pushing himself up, inclining his head in a curious fashion. "Just like this, my parents were killed by Konoha shinobi right before my very eyes. I was completely powerless to do a damn thing," A pool of blood began to collect under her corpse, becoming larger with every second and staining her lavender clothes with a bright hue of red. "Because love exists, so does sacrifice... and that sacrifice ultimately leads to hatred..."
Pain kept touting his own belief, but the increasingly loud buzzing in Naruto's ears had choked out any other sound. His brain kept on looping the sight of his comrade's death time and again, as well as concocting vivid flashes of what must likely have happened to the Pervy Sage and Kakashi-sensei.
Pain's chakra conductor had gone through Hinata's side and had most likely damaged one of her lungs. Soon it would fill up like a bag full of blood; from the little he grasped of medicine, that meant a guaranteed death. Had Sakura even made it through the whole invasion? Even if she had, with all that was going on, by the time Hinata was found, she would be long dead.
Naruto couldn't swing his gaze away regardless of how much he wanted to, he was unable to yell at Pain, he couldn't even throw him a venomous glare. He was more confused beyond his wildest comprehension. He had slaughtered another of his comrades, but why was he just unable to feel anything and move, as if he had been rendered catatonic? It felt as if the very ground beneath him unraveled and a vacuum swallowed up the whole world.
The pulsing in his ears beat like a war drum, and his sky-blue eyes grew dimmer as they widened even further. The deaths of his friends and the devastation of the village came as chaotic whirlwinds crashing down on the dam, but what happened to Hinata finally brought it crashing down. It was as a wave of sickness washing over him beyond the physical retching. His lungs felt caked with a rancid tar searing through everything, spreading like the worst heartburn he had ever experienced. The blood spilled was a disease to his emotions, twisting his innards as any other infection would.
It all returned then: the crater smoking that once was his home, the smell of damp soil filling his lungs, and Pain towering above him like a massive mountain, impossible to claim. The searing in Naruto's gut flared up, deeper than it had ever been. He tore his gaze away from Hinata's body and began to sob in silence, grieving.
"... one comprehends Pain" Pain finally stated, his eyes squinted, bereft of all emotion.
What anguish he had melted away, and he was overcome by a strangely familiar, hot tendrils of emotion creeping under his skull. An unfathomable rage seared through all his limbs. Both hands, rendered numb a moment ago by the piece of black rebar anchoring them fixed to the ground, grinded the earth underneath them. To Pain, it looked as if Naruto was going to burn and crumble into the ashes scattered across the bleak wreckage of his once village. His whole body was convulsing, and his eyes were blazing - on fire, like the eyes of a raging beast.
Finally, the voice came booming in his burning brain. He knew it was coming. Was it ever in doubt?
It always arose in moments where loneliness was suffocating, the confusion ungraspable and everything hurt.
And at that moment, Naruto felt more confused than ever. More hurt than he'd ever been. And the loneliness was a sea he was drowning in. How had everything gone so wrong so fast, and so horribly? He knew it, no matter how hard he tried, nothing would ever be right.
It might have been better if he had never had any friends in the first place; then surely they would all still be alive. And he would not have to grasp a loneliness as horrid as this one.
For a moment, that voice, her voice quieted as if to allow him to grieve, but it was only for a moment.
COME TO ME, she says. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ON YOUR OWN ANYMORE. YOU'VE LOST.
I SHALL DO WHAT YOU COULD NOT. JUST SURRENDER YOURSELF TO ME.
The voice was swept away by a rising red wave. A red wave bubbled up from Naruto's stomach, raging through his entire body, boiling his lungs and mouth.
He could hear it in Pain's voice - the pride he had in having taken everything he knew from him just to prove that hatred is an intrinsic part of human nature and that even someone like himself was no exception. The crowning arrogance he flaunted, preaching about the era of peace he would usher in, as their master had longed for, over the bodies of god knows how many people. How had he been so blind as to lose sight of the very reason Pain should die? He was nothing more than a murderer with a god complex who had just killed countless innocents to find him.
And to achieve that, he needed even greater power than senjutsu itself, to vanquish this blight that infested the world. He hated him; it imbued his body with a monstrous power beyond his wildest dreams, and he welcomed its warm embrace.
Pain cocked his head to one side, and the ringed eyes bore into his soul. Naruto could feel his own skin peeling off as his muscles, along with their bones, warped into talons. Coherent thoughts began to dissolve, filled with the murderous urges of a rabid dog. He wanted to pounce on him and tear out those fucking eyes that think they can see everything, gouge them out, and devour them-
"It'd be best if you surrender the Kyûbi. You cannot resist any longer."
But he's gravely mistaken. The only thing Naruto could do, at that moment, was to resist: one last act of spite. Even if his friends were dead, or on the brink of death, his village was lying in ruins, and he was crippled, there was one last thing he could do...
Unleashing all the hatred out on him.
"Think you can live with it, Pain?" he snarled.
Pain snapped back, apparently sensing something was off.
Naruto grinned, looking more like a rabid, vicious animal coated in his own blood. His canine teeth had stretched out, cutting his lower lip. His skin was boiling away, and his vision was dyed red.
"Here! Take it!" he managed to growl, barely managing to cling to the few surviving threads of sanity that remained.
Finally, he let it all go, and Uzumaki Naruto stopped existing with a final growl of unbridled rage.
"TAKE IT ALL!"
The Jinchûriki howled, his voice dissolving into an ungodly animalistic roar, and a beam of pure chakra shot straight up into the sky. The hair of Hinata's lifeless body flew against her neck, seized by the heavy wind that gusted from the immediate explosion.
A dense, crimson explosion of power erupted, vaporizing the rubble beneath his feet, and upon clearing, there was no trace of Naruto left. A monster stood in his stead, crouched on all fours, its jaw distended, fangs fused to where its gums and lips should be unnaturally, and eyes staring fully circular and flashing white. Its leathery mockery of skin was nothing more than a shroud of red and black chakra swirling around wildly like rain. It awkwardly struggled itself up - no longer from the foreign chakra that restrained Uzumaki Naruto a moment ago, but more from his misshapen new form - hunching slightly, and the chakra receptors clattered to the ground in a scorched state.
"Do you despise me?"
The monster then shifted its attention to Pain, snarling low. The air itself seemed to hum with killing intent. It dropped down to all fours once again.
A sixth tail sprung into existence out of nowhere. A skeleton materialized upon the Kyûbi composed of ribs, spines, and limbs strung above the creature, joined to its shell with chakra ligaments. A canine skull rested on the monster's face, like a helm. White bone contrasted dramatically with the crimson red of the creature. It radiated so much heat that any water nearby would have instantly been evaporated.
"Do you still believe people can truly understand each other?" Pain said conversationally as if still talking to Uzumaki Naruto.
The beast bellowed furiously as a response.
Pain snorted. "As you wish. But in the end, you will find... my pain is far greater than yours."
"Ahh! Damn it!"
Yamato had never run so fast in his life. He had to make it back to the Land of Fire and Konoha urgently. He swore inwardly for volunteering to take part in the mission to track down Yakushi Kabuto's whereabouts as it meant wandering off from the village and the Land of Fire as a whole, and - the matter that concerned him the most - Naruto. Weeks ago, before his unexpected demise, Jiraiya had made them known of a direful fact: the seal the Fourth Hokage had placed on the boy sixteen years ago was unraveling fast. The angrier Naruto gets, the more the seal breaks, and the stronger the beast within gets. If there was one thing holding it together and maintaining the beast on its lid, that was Yamato himself. Holding the First Hokage's cells due to Orochimaru's experiments on him meant only he could mend the Kyûbi's lid if it whenever it came loose; he'd done it a couple of times before, thanks to the First Hokage's necklace Tsunade-sama had given to him.
Yet, there he was, moving across the immediate forest for dear life, pleading with the goddess of luck, if it existed, to let him arrive at Konoha in time. The palm of his hand burned non-stop, lit up with a dire red-hot hue. Yamato didn't take his eyes most of the time from the kanji characters materializing there as he darted from one tree branch to another. Seeing the single word 'SIX' earlier already made his heart lurch with dread.
Just, what in the world had happened while he was out?
There was no sight of any familiar property despite the fact he was pretty damn sure the village wasn't too far away from his current location! The haze of smoke choking the air and an acrid smell of burning wood did nothing to soothe his nerves. Akatsuki was behind the boy as they were with the many Jinchûriki they had captured; had they moved on to attack the village when they least expected it?
As he moved a few minutes ago he'd seen something going like fucking crimson lighting through the coppice. Only someone with the superior visual prowess of a Uchiha or a Hyûga could've seen it - something so quick and furious, making impossible maneuvers as if its whole form was constituted of clay rather than bones and muscles.
Whatever that thing was - whether it was real or his imagination playing tricks on his fears - it was enough to make the former ANBU flinch despite himself.
Then everything went dark. Yes, it was like night. Even though it was still several hours before nightfall. Yamato's head whipped up to see a monstrous sphere of rocks - like a whole damn satellite - crowning the heaven and blocking the sun itself, perhaps a thousand meters in diameter, plunging the surrounding area in shadows. It hovered above the mountains all around the forest, in complete defiance to the laws of gravity.
His hand exploded with searing pain, and when he glanced at it, he saw the number in there raised to 'EIGHT'. His terror swelled.
"No!" he cried out. "Nononono! No! It's almost broken! Shit!"
"Ah, to think it was that powerful."
Pain stood there, transfixed by the monster's seemingly limitless power, with his hands outstretched struggling to contain it within its prison of crushed rock. Had Yahiko's body been alive, he would have sustained mild sunburn from the searing heat that it released despite the several layers of hardened nature. A part of his cloak was torn apart altogether, exposing a part of his chest and arm, along with his scratched headband during the ensuing onslaught. His whole being was bruised, large bags laid out under his eyes and his breathing was uneven. Despite the rubble that smashed straight into the Kyûbi as a result of his trump card: the Chibaku Tensei, crushing the abomination down with large stretches of the mountains and trees across the great outdoors of Konohagakure into one gigantic sphere of dirt and vegetation, the thing refused bitterly to settle down. The purpose of that technique, the pinnacle of Tendô path's gravitational ninjutsu, was as straightforward as it was taxing to the caster to employ: to restrain something even as large and powerful as the Kyûbi and ensure its capture.
But the monster was retaliating against the oppressive weight flattening it, even when its bones should've been grounded to paste, it withstood the power of a God with the push of the very rage thundering through its whole being.
Shortly after moments wrestling to constrain it to little avail, the bijû he had tried to capture made it out of the sphere - or more specifically, the upper half had - with a rumble that shook the forests and engulfed the surrounding area in a scorching heat; first came the tails - eight large appendages made of the densest, and most caustic chakra that easily melted the rocks that came in contact with it - and then came its head. The Kyûbi had grown considerably compared to its previous, unstable form: half of its body measured a quarter of the rocky orb. Bare fibrous tissue dripping blood twisted around the bone structure, resembling more a flayed animal with its spine tearing through the flesh, thrashing around in complete agony, its exposed jawbone snapping loudly with every twitch and mindless snarl its spout.
Nagato made a very huge mistake, and his actual body felt the direct results blazing through his deteriorated body.
It was liquid fire scorching his lungs and coursing through the rest of his emaciated body already left drained from the strain that brought the Chibaku Tensei. He shrunk on his mechanical walker, wrought by a loud, wet coughing fit. When it eased, there was blood trickling down his nose and mouth. His breath had turned uneven and laborious, of a man clinging to life by the skin of his teeth.
The Kyûbi wasn't just a mindless beast but a veritable demon.
This thing was not something to conquer nor challenge, much less attempt to tame, as he had foolishly believed he could have. This demon was far more than just a conglomeration of sentient chakra in the form of a demon fox.
This monster was hatred.
When its tails struck out the mountains he had tried to crush it with; it was hatred.
When it blew out fire from its skeletal maw, rendering the surrounding hills within a radius of several meters; it was hatred.
When it hollered, angered, and roared, it was a physical manifestation of that hate.
It pressed down on the world with an unstoppable weight, knocking away anything in its path, including Tendô. It crashed against a nearby rock formation with dead weight. So heavy was the collision, that Nagato felt it radiating from his back through the rest of his body.
He staggered towards it, the blazing hot chakra still radiating from there.
He had made a mistake, but he was almost happy he had made it.
"The power of the Kyûbi..." Pain panted. "Magnificent."
Pain could use this thing. A hatred as formidable as this could bring about understanding to the world he longed for. It would be laughably easy to stop warmongers and barbarians from causing more wars if he could get his hands on it. Terrifyingly easy, in fact.
"Even still..." he lifted up his hands in the sky.
Perhaps, a larger Chibaku Tensei would suffice?
It was quiet. Naruto was drowning in a massive sea of self-loathing and confusion.
Half of his head was plunged in a familiar, coppery, foul-smelling water that gleamed faintly in the waning light of the sewer prison, upon which he drifted listlessly as he laid flat on his back, staring intently into the abyss. For several minutes he remained borderline catatonic, running over the same questions over and over again.
Why?
How did it come to this?
In his distressed mind, Pain's armor-piercing question from a few moments ago questions agitated him.
"How would you confront this hatred to create peace? I want to hear your answer."
"I don't know..." He squeezed his eyes shut, raising his head, with both of his hands' muscles tensing for a moment before clenching into tight fists, his knees and ankles now sunk into the liquid underneath him. The filthy stuff ran from his hair down into the gutter. Then he threw both hands over his hair, grasping at his head feeling the weight of the world crashing down upon his shoulders. "I don't know! It hurts! I hate this!"
Around him, the water began to bubble up. It was beginning to churn, churn like his own guts at the moment; it was the very core of the sun, cooking everything and anything in it. A bright, orange light washed over the endless sewer prison, like a massive boiler room. Thick billows of steam sprung out all around him, fogging the entire metallic pit despite the new light filling the entire location.
"I don't know anymore!" Naruto shouted out. "What should I do?! I don't know anymore!"
He whipped his head up. "Ahh! Someone! HELP ME, PLEASE! GIVE ME AN ANSWER! I'M BEGGING YOU!"
Just as he was about to drop his head completely and scream his anguish, his eyes stinging with looming tears, a pair of small hands wrapped at both sides of his jaw, briefly stopping to caress his cheek with a pointy thumb, before moving it up.
"It's okay." His sky-blue eyes, now glazed and dimmed, met her fiery red ones. It was the Kyûbi, gently stroking his face damp with the coppery liquid.
Naruto was speechless by just how dazzling she looked at that moment, he completely forgot all of the baleful events that brought him there. She was a goddess; Naruto already heard in dozens of fables and myths around the village that kitsunes generally take the shape of women of uncanny beauty that no men can resist, but standing there, with the light casting over her long, iridescent orange hair cascading over her shoulders, the bells that embellished her large fox ears, alongside that downright radiant smile spreading her rosy lips, almost made her look like an angel more than the demon she normally was.
"It's okay. You've done well enough, Na~ru~to~"
His heart fluttered a bit. For the first time since she'd met her three years ago, she had called him by his real name, rather than some scathing names she'd used before. Her voice was sugary, so sweet and alluring to hear, but not concealing any disguised spite like any of the other times he'd talked with her.
"I can fix everything that causes you pain~" the Kyûbi purred, getting closer and closer to her Jinchûriki's face.
Naruto allowed his arms to drop limply to the water underneath the two, they rippled as he did so. He wasn't aware, but the hue of his eyes had changed from bright blue to the darkest shade of red.
The Kyûbi chuckled with delight. That foolish sack of flesh who believed himself a God had delivered the brat right in her grasp. With nothing more to lose, and his spirit broken, the opportunity couldn't be any more perfect if she asked.
"Destroy everything~" her smile twisted into a deranged rictus. "Anything that causes you pain, reduce it to ashes."
The boy's eyes widened; the eyes of a wounded, lost dog. She took special delight in those eyes.
She giggled, practically gluing her face to his, almost piercing into him. "Give me your soul. I will release you from your pain."
She stepped back and watched with bliss, and a frightening smile, how Naruto's jacket was torn open, along with the mesh shirt underneath, by some invisible force, and the seal that constrained her to the boy emerged like ink spinning.
Naruto's head dropped as he stared at it absentmindedly. Soon enough, the seal melted, and the intricate spirals and characters that conformed it shifted, looking more like a gaping, pitch-black hole in his abdomen.
The ink that began to spill from his gut tinted the water around him black, becoming larger and larger by the minute.
"Yes~!" she said, rubbing her face with delight as the ears crowning her head dropped, her face damp with sweat, "Yes~! You're doing it splendidly, boy!"
Naruto began shuffling towards the cage. The Kyûbi watched him go, with an elated smile, her breathing becoming more visible and sharp from the anticipation of the revenge she would bring about upon the world for restraining her. Around his feet, the water rolled and rippled away from him.
"Yes! Yesyesyesyes! YES~!" she thundered, drool glistening on her underlip. "Rip that wretched seal off and unleash my full power!"
A whirlpool of effervescent water lifted Naruto towards the old paper holding the cage together, his sluggish movements resembling more of a sleepwalker. To think something so tiny and fragile-looking held back the fox's power.
Naruto's hand reached forward towards it, as though it had a mind of its own. He stared at it with casual indifference. His index and middle fingers slid behind the paper, and he began to pull. The seal was beginning to tear and the cage was shaking; it was refusing to come out. A strong pull and it would mean the death of Pain - also him, but at that point, it was a price he was more than ready to pay.
The Kyûbi quivered, in an almost intoxicated fashion, feeling the strength from eons ago, when she roamed the earth free, beginning to come back to her.
"Keep going~!" she roared. "YOU'RE ALMOST TOO CLOSE~! JUST TEAR IT ALREADY~~~!"
Who was he to decline? He had failed so embarrassedly, even with senjutsu, and gotten his village wrecked and his friends likely killed; this was the only way he could stop that bastard.
He pulled further, and the cage shook even further.
Yamato stopped, frozen in abject horror, his eyes fixed on his steaming hand.
"Oh god! It's too late!" he clutched it, shaking in fear before collapsing to his knees. "How could this happen?!"
The symbol that burned in his hand was the last thing he wanted to see. Two simple lines: a downward slash, and another moving perpendicularly through it, a straight line ending with a falling hook.
Its meaning was as clear as it was blunt.
NINE.
The seal was broken.
Or so, it seemed.
Naruto was about to undo the seal, when a hand fell on his own, clutching it tightly. This wasn't unlike the Kyûbi's grasp, which had felt warm but with an underlying inhospitality, he had failed to sense just a moment ago. This warmth was genuine, the heat coming from a fireplace in the middle of winter. It spread through him, feeling reassuring, and snapping him back to reality.
Naruto turned, not letting go of the seal just yet, being greeted by a man dressed in a long, white coat that glistened on the radiance of jail. He didn't need to ask who the man was, the characters stamped on the cloak identified him as the Fourth Hokage.
Sixteen years ago, he had fought the Kyûbi and sealed the beast inside a newborn. The champion of the Leaf and a man of legend. He was there, somehow. The hand clutching his wrist felt too real to be some sort of illusion.
The Kyûbi, meanwhile, stared in absolute horror as her greatest enemy grabbed the boy and pulled him away from the seal before he could finish the deed.
Her reaction was violent. Her whole face contorted in a horrifying rictus of unmitigated wrath. Her whiskers became even thicker, almost merging, and her sclera darkened to the point her eyes seemed like tiny, smoldering orbs of rage.
When she roared, it wasn't the scream of a maiden, nor anything remotely human. It was the timbre of a mindless beast. So deep and unnatural, it was straight from a nightmare.
YOU... YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF MEAT! YOUR WRETCHED SPIRIT FOLLOWS ME EVEN AFTER DEATH?!
"I worked it into the seal's formula that I would appear within your psyche if it ever unraveled to the point you sprout eight tails. You can call it a failsafe of sorts," the hero of the village elaborated, offering Naruto a hand to stand up, ignoring the ball of orange wrath rushing towards him, attempting to tear him apart. "Truth be told, I'd hoped it would never get this far..."
YOU ARE MERELY A LOST, WRETCHED SHADOW! she thundered. AND I WILL MAKE SURE YOU REMAIN AS SUCH, FOURTH HOKAGE!
The latter sighed, finally acknowledging the Kyûbi's presence, turning around with a stern expression. "Especially since I didn't ever want to see your face again, Kyûbi."
OH, ARE YOU NOT CHEEKY, YOU LOATHSOME FILTH?!
She struck forward, her talons grew sharper than before, aiming for the Hokage's head.
Lithely, the man dodged the kitsune's strike, whirling around a full circle, with each of his fingers lit up on blue fire aiming towards her seal, hidden by her baggy yukata. Then he slammed his hand on the kitsune's gut hard, sinking deep into her clothes, and forcing her back. The Kyûbi choked up a scream, gritting her fangs so hard it seemed like she was about to break them.
"You will not lay a hand on my son, beast!" he snarled, his face fierce. "Go back to your cage!"
With an angry thrust, he flung the kitsune several yards backward, knocking her back into her cell.
She banged hard on the brass of her cage and splashed into the water with a rattling thump. But it was not enough to deter her, it only compounded her anger; she ground her fangs, blood spurting from her lower lips as her fangs sunk into them, her face morphing less human and more animalistic. Her pupils had melted away altogether, and the darkness of her sclerae reddened to a bright crimson. His lips changed to black and leathery, resembling a canine's mouth. Her slick, well-groomed bangs spun wildly as if charged with electricity.
She sprang to her feet with superhuman speed, talons sloshing against the rippling water as it boiled from her power in the cage. She dropped to all fours, frothing at the mouth, snarling like a rabid animal. Her breathing was labored, with her chest moving up and down rhythmically.
IF YOU THINK THIS LITTLE CAGE IS GOING TO STOP ME, YOU'RE SORELY MISTAKING!
"I know", The Fourth Hokage nodded. "Which is why I'm making some adjustments to the seal."
YOU WOULDN'T DARE...
"This time I'll make sure you cannot leave that cage," his frown deepened.
She turned uncharacteristically pale for a moment, her eyes twitched, and then she snarled, locking eyes with that of the specter. She reared up and broke into a mad sprint toward him, once again aiming to slash at his throat with her claws, whatever semblance of sanity she had long since forgotten. A few moments later, she had faded to little more than an orange blur cutting through the darkness.
Never once breaking eye contact with her greatest enemy's strangely calm expression as he just stood there, almost as if taunting her, she narrowed the distance between the two, she was hindered by some sort of energy field between the bars of her cage. Her claws broke off and the chakra obstructing her only way out delivered a powerful electric shock that tore through her small frame, making her howl like a frantic animal.
WHAT IS THISSSSS, HOKAGE?!
"Didn't you hear me the first time?" The Hokage watched soberly. "You will not leave that cage anymore."
She fell backwards, smoke trailing from her body. Some twitches accompanied by sparks of electricity showed she was still alive... and angrier than ever before, if that was even possible for a being made of undiluted hatred.
The Fourth Hokage watched her with something resembling pity.
"You're far more lively than your other half, y'know?" he commented, half-jokingly.
DO NOT TOY WITH ME FOURTH HOKAGE! she snarled from her position. ONCE I GET OUT OF THIS WRETCHED SEAL I WILL DEVOUR YOU! I WILL CRUSH YOU, DESTROY THE REMNANTS OF THAT PITIFUL PLACE YOU CALL VILLAGE!
The man didn't do so much as flinch, as he watched her thrash about in her cage. YOU HUMANS ARE ALL THE SAME! YOU JAIL US AND TREAT US LIKE MONSTERS! YET YOU FOOLS DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER THAT WE'RE ONLY THE REFLECTION OF YOUR SINS! WHO IS IT THE REAL MONSTER HERE, HOKAGE-SAMA? ME OR THE PATHETIC WHORESON WHO DECIDED TO SEAL A BIJU ON HIS NEWBORN SON?!
The Hokage stood up, turning his back from her, approaching Naruto, who remained there, standing up, as he watched the whole exchange completely at a loss.
DON'T TURN YOUR BACK TO ME, YOU LOWLY HUMAN!
"Come, Naruto."
"You... you know my name?" Naruto stammered.
The Hokage chuckled, with an arched eyebrow. "How wouldn't I know the name I gave to my own son?"
Naruto's eyes widened, in utter shock.
"Your... son?"
The older man nodded.
"I am... your son?"
"Of course you are. You are my son, Naruto."
The boy took in the Hokage's appearance for a moment, and only now noticed that they both shared the same hair, down to the same vibrant hue of blonde, alongside the equally blue eyes.
For the first time in a while, Naruto smiled, and it turned into a tearful laughter of sheer joy.
He was his father!
The Fourth Hokage was his father!
"Ahahaha!" Naruto beamed. "Pa!"
Back there, the Kyûbi slammed her hands on the cell.
FOURTH HOKAGE! LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU! she roared. I'LL KILL YOU WHEN I GET OUT OF THIS CAGE! AND THEN I'LL MAKE SURE YOUR SON WILL NEVER EVEN REMEMBER THE SHADOW OF YOUR MEMORY!
Minato pointed at her with his thumb.
"That shrimp's too noisy, isn't she? A lot more than her other half, let's go somewhere else."
And with a snap of his fingers. They vanished from the dismal place.
TO BE CONTINUED.
A.N: Writing this was more of a chore than it should've otherwise been. The problem when I write fanfics is that I'm a bit of a nit-picker with my writing and I don't like something until it's something I feel comfortable with. But I figured that I have to post something or I'll remain stuck for another ten years like it happened with my previous attempts at fan-fiction.
I was also thinking of making other stories. Mostly crossovers featuring Naruto and co. One I was thinking of was a crossover with High School DXD, and another series inspired by an abandoned fanfiction called 'The Legacy of the Most Unpredictable Ninja' by RekkingPride; so depending on how that goes, this might take a bit of a break in the back burner.
And probably post some stuff in Spanish, including a Spanish translation of this story, since that's my mother language.
Anyway, thanks for reading and the 22 favs so far.