Friendly Neighborhood Nine-Tails
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto.
AN To clarify something, it was stated last chapter who Naruto flipped off: Random Inuzuka daring some friends to pee on Naruto.
For every famous shinobi, there are three more unknown shinobi of similar power levels. While not true all the time, it was a good rule of thumb. Various shinobi of great skill didn't collect great fame and/or notoriety around the world for various reasons. Some, like the "God" of Hidden Rain or the mysterious "Tobi" intentionally kept themselves a secret from most of the world. Others simply have bad luck or lack any chances to show their merits in a way that would catch attentions. A few were just lazy or content being "just another shinobi" wherever they were.
Then there were the ones that were too good to be noticed by the majority.
Hidden Grass had several of these with one such being the Kusa-Gensui, the General and Leader of the Hidden Grass Village, Shiroyasha the White Night. Unlike their southern neighbor in Rain, the Hidden Grass had openly flourished under Shiroyasha. This was thanks in no small part to her skills and influence in diplomacy, but also her unique love for her country. Some ninjas would do anything to put their nation or village on top of the world. Shiroyasha had only one goal: to protect her country, not to make it a great power. And being the small fish in between four of the five big ones meant knowing how to read the winds and tides.
That said, for all her wisdom...
"Well, I'm stumped."
Karin face faulted at her leader's casually admission. The woman was almost unearthly beautiful, with light-blue, almost white hair and golden eyes. The black kimono with strips that matched her hair hugged her form generously, the red sash on her waist displaying her grass headband. But for all her shrewdness and beauty, and the sheer reputation of Grass being hard to read, Shiroyasha could be surprisingly blunt.
"Gensui-sama, please take this seriously," Yu requested calmly, utterly used to this.
"I am," Shiroyasha said with a smile as she pointed to the air with a folded fan. "The Kyuubi is free. This means we're all potentially fucked. That is simple to understand," She stated, far too calm and cheerful about their potential destruction for Karin's taste. "Its chakra changed. Makes absolutely no sense, so leave that alone for now. It headed back to Konoha? This is good! For us, at least. Granted, I don't hate Konoha, but they might survive that whereas we would have a better chance against Deidara of Iwa with a clay factory," she answered with a grin.
"Shiro-sama...," Karin whimpered. She normally liked this woman, she really did!
"But now it's just...stopped in Konoha? It's chakra is still calm?" Shiroyasha asked rhetorically, faking disbelief before grinning. "This part does not compute in any direction."
Yu sighed in resignation, "Then what should we do, Gensui-sama? Send an inquiry to Konoha?"
"That is Plan B! For now, we go with Plan A!" She declared, pointing at Karin, who blinked and leaned back. "You! Please check again."
"...Do I have to?" Karin asked hesitantly.
"I shall let you borrow from my porn stash," Shiroyasha offered bluntly.
"And cover any potential medical bills?" Karin requested with a hungry grin.
"Deal!" Shiroyasha declared as they shook hands while Yu sighed.
"Okay, but I need total silence for this," Karin stated as she closed her eyes and swallowed to steel her nerves.
Meanwhile
"What do you mean the Kyuubi was sealed into Naruto?!" Ino yelled with a jaw drop, looking ready to rip her hair out. "When did THAT happen?!"
Kakashi sighed as he looked over the non-fluffy genin, the five of the Rookie Nine and the two not hospitalized members of Team Gai, gathered around him in a semicircle with their teachers behind them. He decided to tell them all, allowing his fellow jonin to help spread the information while getting the younger shinobi to head to the bunkers to start getting the civilians out and, hopefully, keep panic to a minimum.
"Obviously it happened when the Kyuubi attacked when Naruto was born, Ino," Sakura stated evenly.
"What are the odds of that?" Shino murmured, mostly to himself. Kakashi made a point to not glance at him. The topic of previous Kyuubi-containers was something they would have to bring up much, MUCH later when Naruto was acclimated to his...situation.
"Did you know about this?!" Ino hissed at Sakura. Normally the pinkete would yell back at her friend, but now she just gave her a blank glare.
"No, Ino, I did not know my teammate had a giant mass of living chakra in his gut," Sakura answered stoically.
"...Are you being serious or sarcastic?" Ino asked with a narrow, searching look.
"Sakura didn't know," Kakashi spoke up with a firm voice. "The Third made a law to keep anyone from mentioning it, in a failed effort to give him a normal childhood. Naruto didn't learn about it until he became a ninja himself."
"Well, this explains a few things," Shikamaru muttered, scratching his chin.
"You mean like that red chakra he used against Neji?" Tenten commented with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, that, and Naruto saying he had a real demon inside him," Shikamaru answered. He blinked as he found the ten and a half pairs of eyes on him. "Um...in fairness to Naruto, he was talking to Gaara at the time."
Kakashi and Asuma both face-palmed at that.
"This still doesn't explain what happened to turn him INTO a Kyuubi...The Kyuubi?" Kurenai rambled lightly as she glanced upward in thought.
"Let's just stick with New Kyuubi or just Bijuu," Kakashi recommended. "As for what happened? Sasuke, being powered by the Curse Seal- Guys, Kurenai, please explain to them what a curse seal is later if you can- used the Chidori on Naruto-" He paused as Hinata gasped with a horrified look on her face while Sakura just grit her teeth. The others, minus a grim faced Shikamaru, just looked pale. "And drove it into his gut. More exactly, the seal. Sasuke almost definitely didn't know that and I doubt he would have done it intentionally."
"If he did, I think his brains should have been in question well before his loyalties," Asuma quipped, seeing nothing good coming from hitting a seal like that. The fact said seal required summoning the Shinigami itself made that feeling even stronger.
Kakashi gave him an annoyed look before pushing on. "By some...miracle or another, instead of dying or the seal imploding, Naruto seems to have absorbed the old Kyuubi and become one himself."
"Did Naruto tell you all of that when you found him?" Shikamaru asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No, I just guessed and he confirmed it," Kakashi answered with an eye smile.
"Who guesses that?!" Shikamaru, Sakura, Ino, Tenten, and Asuma all yelled in annoyance.
"I shall assume it was a logical deduction on your part, Kakashi-Sensei," Shino stated simply.
Kakashi wasn't sure which group was mocking him more.
"That is...not how I recall seals normally working, My Eternal Rival," Gai commented awkwardly.
Kakashi fixed him with a "Really?" stare. "No part of this situation was normal, Gai, even before we got to Bijuufication," he stated bluntly. "If it had been normal, it would have been us instead of our genin on this mission, if not many ANBU. Add in Jinchuriki fighting against something cooked up by Orochimaru and you have a new section in the guide book, manual book, rule book, history books, medical books and just about every other kind of book."
"You raise a correct if vicious point, my rival," Gai conceded, rubbing his head with a sigh.
"Speaking of which, I have to remember to check in on how Interrogation is doing with that red head," Kakashi mused to himself out loud.
"Umm, Senseis?" Lee spoke up cautiously, raising a hand and getting their attention. "I am not an expert on Bijuu and other giant creatures...but should Naruto's chakra be doing that?" he asked curiously, pointing towards the Hokage Monument.
Everyone's gaze immediately shot towards their local mountain of golden fur. Kakashi had to admit, he had been getting a bit worried by the lack of commentary from Naruto. His friends were all learning his big secret! He at least expected him to chime in and mention Mizuki, another traitor, was the one that told him about what was sealed inside him.
Still, he had assumed the enormous blond had just finally gotten to sleep. But looking at him now, he was starting to see what Lee meant. It was almost undetectable, but Naruto's strands of fur were swishing weightlessly as chakra slowly but steadily seeped out of the giant fox. But why couldn't they sense it? The very air should be getting heavy by now!
"Oh my!" Hinata gasped, this time in disbelief. Kakashi glanced at her and saw that both she and Kurenai were looking up. "N-naruto's chakra, it-it's moving through the sky, lots of it."
"And leaving the village, by the feel of it," Kurenai finished with a scowl.
Kakashi nodded, both to them and himself. Naruto's chakra wasn't felt because it was physically above them still. "Just what are you doing, Naruto?"
Meanwhile
Karin gasped as she fell to the ground. "I-I'm sorry, Gensui-Sama, I c-couldn't discover anything new," she apologized as she took deep, deep breaths to calm herself down…only to stiffen; both from the lack of response and because the surface below her was dirt, not wooden floors. "G-gensui-s-sama?" she asked in dread as she looked up.
She was in a forest, a dense and dark one, and on a dirt road. The sky was dark and she could see only one light.
Herself.
Her form gave off the slightest of glows. To her fascination and confusion, every movement left a brief yet misty afterimage.
Waving her hands back and forth, she only had one question. "Where...am I?"
*hrum*
The only answer she received was a dull and disan-
*Hrum*
Dull and not-so distant thump that gentl-
*HRUM*
Violently Shook The Ground Almost Out From Under Her!
Karin felt absolute terror at the following silence, slowly turning to face what would likely be her doom.
She was not prepared.
It wasn't Just a nine-tailed fox. It was huge, spying her from over tree tops while still half a mile away. Every inch was made of pure, blazing chakra that seemed to singe the very shadows as light simply poured off it. The eyes, if they could even be called that, were two ovals of bright blue, Glaring Right Into Her Soul.
It was mesmerizing. It was mind numbing.
The Grass Ninja did the only thing she could do.
Run.
She ran, and she ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
So great was her fear that the notion that she could use chakra to enhance her speed or run in trees didn't even register.
Meanwhile
It was mildly unnerving for the ninja of Konoha, to see a giant fox grinning in its sleep.
"Well, someone must be having a good dream," Tenzo mused to himself in his tree.
Unmeanwhile
The Kyuubi's...essence, spirit, chakra, whatever it was, outpaced her without any effort. It literally glided over the dark landscape Karin found herself in, her pitiful pace outmatched by its long strides.
She tried to turn away when it now stood ahead of her, only for a human-like hand to slam down on one side of her. She looked the other way and the other came down, right on time. She quickly scurried backwards, like a mere cornered rabbit, until her back hit a tree.
It was leaning down. By Kami, it was leaning down.
She tried to duck behind the tree.
That was her final mistake.
She screamed as its...arms lost all solidity and the golden mass of energy wrapped around her, barreling into her like a river. Like an excessive number of chains, it held her down and only left her head free to move. They held her tight, too tight, as though they might crush her organs into mush. She could only stare and weep as its head came down until the blue mass of energy that was its eye was directly in front of her.
It inched closer as she bowed her head and did the only thing she was allowed to do now.
"Please...mercy."
The silence that reigned was deafening as her final plea was made.
What came next was not...a sound. It was a feeling, a physical sensation as something in this strange world...shifted.
Trembling, she raised her head and her eyes shrank.
She wasn't staring into blue energy as a makeshift eye now.
She was staring into a literal, giant, blue fox eye, surround by black and gold fur.
He whispered three rumbling words that would haunt her dreams and her nightmares both. A sentence she'd never be able to hear again without thinking of this moment.
"I See You..."
The scariest part? Those weren't in her head. She really, really heard that.
Which meant...he really, really saw her.
Meanwhile, for real this time
Naruto silenced himself half way through a yawn, hoping not to raddle any ear drums beyond repair. That was either a very weird dream, or more likely, he just solved one minor annoyance. Granted, he probably went overboard, but again, A. He didn't know if it was real, B. He didn't like her spying on him repeatedly like that, and C. He had winged that entire thing.
Blinking away his sleep, he knew at a glance that the civilians hadn't been let out yet. Joy, he couldn't have slept through that part? Still, the lack of Tenzo or anybody inquiring about anything probably meant that no one suspected he had done anything- if he had done anything at all. Oh well, it was therapeutic in either case. Still, he'd keep that to himself for now. Last thing he needed was everybody thinking he could haunt their dreams or something.
...Would it still be "haunting" if he just came to hang out in their dreams?
*thump*
He blinked as he felt something. He glanced around, scowling as he didn't see any tree or buildings falling over.
*Thump*
There it was again. Was a ninja battle going nearby or something?
*Thump!*
It was only at the very last second that Naruto blinked and realized what was happening. Something had been approaching him from behind. Whatever dream-thing he had been in made it so he needed some time to get all his senses going again properly. And because of the peacock-like mass of tails coming off his rear, he hadn't been able to see what was coming at him.
Fifth downside of being a megaton fox: You have a megaton blind spot you need to be aware of.
"Naruto, move!" Kakashi yelled in alarm just before it happened.
Naruto didn't though. He knew if he did, to dodge or block, there was a good chance he or his "enemy" would fall onto the village and crush a good portion of it.
*RAAAAAW!* That didn't mean he could stop the initial roar of pain that ripped through him as a sword stabbed through his back and a large SOMEONE landed on him.
Now, many would see this as karma for what Naruto had done to Karin moments earlier. Well, Naruto had a habit of doing...things to Karma and he was in a far less gentle mood than normal.
"And the Gallant Hero arriv-" Jiraiya announced as Gamabunta made the strike, only for someone to interrupt.
"YOU FUCKING IDOITS!" Naruto yelled as he harshly elbowed the toad boss, sending the pair flying backwards, the sword still in his back. Said yell and the aforemention roar, thankfully, only destoryed a dozen or two windows.
"Wait? Naru-boy? Is that...you?" Gamabunta asked in disbelief, his toad eyes wide in incomprehension.
"Naruto? How the-? What the hell did you do?!" Jiraiya yelled, too shocked to fully consider his words and the situation.
"Wh-what did "I" do?!" Naruto yelled back in outrage, his yell much louder and much angrier…and much more pain filled.
Gritting his massive teeth, he pulled himself up, the blade still through him. Everyone stared in horrified fascination as the crimson life essence, pouring out like small rivers, rapidly evaporated into a golden mist.
"Kid, stop moving! Let me take that ou-" Gamabunta tried to caution, only to be silenced by a tail whipping the ground between them.
Naruto groaned and growled as two of his tails wrapped around the bladed weapon, slowly pulling it out. "Can I not go...one fucking day!...Without being stabbed by my friends!" With a deeper growl, he reached behind himself, wincing as he gripped the bloodied instrument of battle. "At least Sasuke stabbed me through the front, Assholes! You two didn't even have that much decency!" With a glare on his face, he stalked toward the Toad Boss and Toad Sage, his wound rapidly healing with a golden glow.
"H-hey, Naruto, let's talk about this, okay!" Jiraiya pleaded nervously as the nine tailed fox of golden doom and blue eyed wrath came closer.
"Y-yeah, it's not like Jiraiya told me it was you! I just took him at his word that the Kyuubi was free!" Gamabunta tried as well, his summoner gapping in disbelief at being thrown under the bus.
"Shit," Tenzo cursed, having jumped away to another tree. "Looks like I'll have to try and step in after all," he said as he started to go through hand signs…until a hand rested on his shoulders.
"Hold up, Tenzo," Kakashi interrupted.
"Kakashi-Senpai?" Tenzo asked in surprise. "Why are you...?"
"Take a moment to sense him," Kakashi suggested, completely calm as his giant student approached his favorite author.
Tenzo blinked behind his mask, turning to the soon-to-be death match. He didn't see any- "Oh..." he realized, standing up as he understood. "He's not leaking any killer intent."
Gamabunta gave a cry, more of shock than pain as Naruto jabbed the butt of the massive sword into his chin. "If you ever do that again, that sword is going up your ass, you overgrown bag of warts!" Naruto ranted, pointing a clawed finger at the amphibious summon.
"R-right, my mistake, won't happen again!" Gamabunta promised nervously as he clutched his blade, said tool shaking in his grip.
"And YOU!" Naruto pointed his finger slightly upward, causing Jiraiya to stop in his attempt to sneak off Gamabunta's back.
With a brave, fearful grin usually reserved for angry women, he turned to the angry bijuu. "Yes?"
He liked to pretend it didn't come out as a squeak.
Naruto's eye twitched before he just let loose a massive sigh. "Just, just go to Tsunade. Now. No peeking, no stops, no sneaking out of the village, no flirting with the secretary, just GO," Naruto ordered.
"Yes, right, consider me gone, Lord Gaki!" Jiraiya said with a salute before fleeing towards the village at full speed.
That just left two larger than life animals staring each other down with the most awkward silence.
"So..." Gamabunta started, glancing around, unsure what to say. "I'll just be...going t-?"
"Just go home," Naruto stated, utterly done with the situation.
Wasting no time, the toad boss dispersed with a pop of smoke. Naruto, as alone as he could get at present, just turned around. With a heavier, tired movement, he returned to his resting spot. Thankfully, his blood had long since disappeared.
For now, he was going to pretend that he hadn't noticed several people in Anbu uniforms trying to take samples of it while his back was turned, his tails "accidentally" denying their attempts.
Meanwhile
"Tsunade, what in the name of you glorious bo-" Jiraiya started as he jumped through the window, only to come under assault; First by a kick to the balls, then to an uppercut to the jaw.
As he crumbled to the floor, the shocking part was that neither of those attacks came from Tsunade.
The uppercut came from one Sakura Haruno. The kick to the jewels came from, amazingly, Kakashi.
"Low blow, I know, but so is backstabbing my fluffy student," Kakashi explained with a shrug.
"I wanted the ball kick, but Kakashi-Sensei said I'm not fast enough," Sakura admitted, also with a shrug. "Naruto, we've avenged you!" she called out the window.
Jiraiya's tears flowed as the snickering of a great fox rang overhead.
Tsunade just sat there while facepalming, not sure to sigh or laugh at her teammate.
End of Chapter
What's up folks! Didn't see the (relatively) rapid update, eh? Yeah, this was pretty much all planned out in my head. Actually got longer than intented.
To the ones who suggested this happen with Jiraiya, sorry, I had that idea for a long time, but I'm glad we all agreed it had to be a thing.
And Naruto went full Sauron on Karin! And no, Naruto can't just jump into people's minds. I won't explain specifics of just WHAT happened, but her being such a good sensor was part of what made that possible.
While not my original plan, I'm using characters from Problem Children to fill in Grass Country as it is largely unknown. This is somewhat fitting as the world of Problem Children is called the "Little Garden"
Hope you all enjoyed this!