A/N: Can anyone see this? Site keeps glitching out and resetting profiles. That said!
We're baaack~!
Every review truly does help, large or small, anything is better than nothing at all.
I have a new co-writer by the name of Dark helping me out these days, allowing me to revist old stories and give them a much needed touch up.
Do let us know what you think of the revival~!
Update schedule is a bit scuffed again, sorry. After the last chapter of Welcome to Heaven, Dark and I determined that story needs more time in the oven. Its still being updated, but we want it to have quality chapters with actual plot, not a madcap menagerie of madness no one understands.
Additionally, I'm the next few days, but I'll endeavor to update Thursday.
So here we go. The fate of this story depends on you, the reader. Your feedback determines the fate of this tale, and many others. I'm just a humble author trying to make his way in this wild world, one word at a time. Time and feedback will determine if this remains a story. Simple as that. In other words...its up to YOU, the reader. Do let me know~!
As ever, we own no references, quotes, themes, or memes.
They're tributes, one and all!
Quote is a hint at...
...things.
"What's that saying you lot are so terribly fond of?
Ignorance is bliss...?
That's the one!
It really is, isn't it? Sometimes we're betting off not knowing the truth. For once your eyes are truly opened, they can never be closed again.
Every age, it seems, is tainted by the greed of mankind. Rubbish to one such as I, devoid of all worldly wants!
Hmmm, I dunno, maybe its just the way we are. Greed is Greed. Life is Life.
I'll stick you in my prayers.
A fine Dark Soul to you~!"
~Trusty Patches.
Making a Choice
In an instant, Naruto found himself swept up beneath the sky, staring into fire.
Kurama was seated across from him. No—curled. A great beast, foxlike, flame-wreathed, body twisted into something almost divine. Not a feral chakra avatar, but a godlike being cloaked in infernal serenity. In this world, the Kyuubi did not live in a cage of seal and soul, but rather beside him—in the woods, in dreams, in whispers. A fragment of his past, unbound.
"You remember everything now."
Naruto nodded. His voice was a broken whisper. "Yeah."
Ignorance was bliss.
Kurama's tails twitched once, brushing ash from the wind. "Good. Then we don't have to pretend anymore."
"I wasn't pretending." He clenched his jaw, hard enough that he tasted iron. "I just…didn't wanna hope."
Between one blink and another, he was swept back to reality.
Kurama stood before him, wearing that body of flesh just as before, her bright red eyes gleaming in the gloom.
At length, she sighed. "My apologies. This constant exertion tires me. I am not as I once was."
A blond brow rose. "You're not whole?"
"Not completely." Kurama raised a clawed hand, scowling at it. "When I was reborn in this form, my power was shattered. Scattered. I'm still trying to reclaim it." quick as a flash, those blood-red eyes locked onto him like an arrow. "I need you to help me kill eight other demons wandering this world, each holding a fragment of my strength. You'll help me, won't you?"
He crossed both arms before his chest. "Sounds like an awful lot of work...
"Oi!"
Silence passed between them like a drawn blade.
"Your mother's dying," Kurama said at last, abandoning all pretense of levity. Not cold. Not cruel. Merely stating fact. "Slower than some, faster than most. She won't wake. Her lungs are already drowning in themselves."
Naruto closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw her again—Ruka Rengoku, smiling as she held him, smelling of paper and incense and faint rain. Her warmth lingered.
Kurama stood, casting a long shadow across the clearing. "I can save her."
Naruto did not move. "As a demon."
"Yes."
(.0.0.0.)
The others found him that night.
He hadn't returned to the Rengoku estate in three days. Kanae was the first to track him down—of course it would be her. Quiet. Observant. The type to smile until she was the only one still standing, bloodied and certain. She found him at the edge of the training field, staring at an unlit lantern as if it might ignite on its own.
"She's worsened." Her voice was soft. Not prying, but not letting go either. "You knew, didn't you?"
He said nothing.
"That girl you left with...she told you something."
Still, nothing.
"You're planning something."
And that made him turn. Slowly. His eyes had once been sky blue. Now they burned with something deeper. Something older.
"…It's not that simple."
Kanae didn't blink. "Then make it simple."
Kyojuro came next—thundering through the woods like a spark seeking a wildfire. He grabbed Naruto by the collar, shaking him with that same force he used to shatter training dummies and doubt.
"You idiot!" Kyojuro bellowed. "You disappeared! You didn't come home! She—she—"
He couldn't finish it.
Naruto gripped his twin's wrist, eyes brimming red beneath the skin. "Would you let her die, Kyojuro?"
His brother flinched. "That's not fair."
"It's not meant to be."
Of course Kurama chose that moment to introduce herself.
Kyojuro tilted his head. "And who is this?"
He could feel Shinobu and Kanae staring at him.
Well, this was going to difficult to explain, wasn't it..?"
Kurama smiled innocently, the very picture of humanity once more.
Damn furball. She was gonna make him say it, wasn't she?
Naruto scratched the back of his head.
"Its...a long story."
(.0.0.0.)
They argued. All four of them. Beneath the stars and the cracked moon.
Kurama looked on from afar, saying not a word.
He had a feeling she was enjoying this.
Kanae tried reason. "Turning someone into a demon, even if they don't serve Muzan, even if you have control—it's untested, unclean, unstable. You would wake her, yes. But would it still be her?"
Shinobu was more blunt. "You're tampering with death, you fool. This is the same path that made the monsters we kill."
"And what if I can control it?" Naruto asked. "What if she's just as she as. What if Kurama's method works?"
"And if it doesn't?" she snapped. "If she wakes up and slaughters a village while you sleep?"
He bridled, glaring at the growling girl. "She wouldn't."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
Shinobu scoffed. "You think your will is enough? Your emotions?" She gestured at his chest. "The boy who couldn't lift a blade without flinching two years ago wants to rewrite the cycle of life and death?"
"Yes!" He stepped forward, butting heads with her." Because I remember a life where I failed to save people! Where I let Kurama die! Where I let others carry my burdens! I won't fail again! You either help me, or you get the hell out of my way!"
Kanae laid a calming hand on his wrist and drew him back. "What are you talking about...?
Crap...he hadn't meant to say that part aloud.
Fox was out of the bag, it seemed.
Kyojuro stepped between them before they could come to blows. His face was pale, more serious than Naruto had seen in years. "Enough. All of you."
The silence that followed was sharp.
At length, his twin turned to face him. "Can it be done?"
Naruto hesitated. "Kurama thinks so. I've seen what she can do now. She's like nothing from this world. Here, she's something else. Something… divine." he gestured expansively when the trio glanced between themselves worriedly, "Look, there's a lot to explain, but believe me, when I say this; she says she can sever the link that binds demons to Muzan. That he could make mother into something new. Immortal. Free."
"And would she want that?" Kanae asked.
Naruto looked at the dirt. "She said she wanted to live. I heard her say it. Not in some poetic, 'I wish I had more time' way. But as a cry. Like a child afraid of the dark."
"Then let her go." Shinobu's voice was cold steel. "She's earned her rest."
Something ugly rose in him, something dark.
"No."
That one word hung in the air like a funeral bell.
(.0.0.0.)
Later, by the fire, Kyojuro sat beside him.
Their shoulders brushing, breath syncing; alas, the same couldn't be said for their thoughts.
"I don't want to lose her either," Kyojuro murmured. "But… I don't know if I could bear watching her become something else."
"She wouldn't be alone," Naruto stared into the fire. "Kurama would guide her. And me." he added after a moment's thought. "And you."
"What if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll pay the price."
Kurama had been right. There was no price...for him. He didn't have to give her anything. Ruka -Mom!- would be making the sacrifice in her stead; abandoning her humanity, forced to become something she had no choice in, never wanted to be. She didn't want to die; he knew that, but she may very well hate him for what he was contemplating. She would survive, yes, but at what cost?
What was better? To die a human? Or live as a monster?
The fire crackled.
Sparks danced.
Kyojuro reached into his haori, pulled out a thin piece of paper. A letter. Ruka's final one. Her handwriting was weak, but clear.
Live without regret.
Love without shame.
Burn bright, even in the dark.
"She'd forgive you," Kyojuro said. "Even if you did it. I think Father might as well...given time."
"But would you?"
A long pause. Then a smile. Faint. Cracked. Real.
"I'm your brother. You fool. I'd walk through Hell with you. Just try not to drag me there too soon."
(.0.0.0.)
Dawn broke.
The decision loomed.
Uncertainty lingered with it.
Naruto stood at the threshold of his mother's room, hand trembling on the door. Behind him, the others waited. Kurama, a shadow among shadows, watched with quiet patience.
Ruka did not stir. Her body remained frail, breath shallow. A porcelain doll trapped between this world and the next.
Naruto stepped inside.
Alone, for now.
The door closed behind him.
Fire flickered in the mounted lanterns on the walls.
Fire was red.
Until it wasn't.
Until it became violet. And writhing. Alive with hunger and memory. Until it wore a smile of teeth and tails and crimson eyes that glowed with cunning and fury and something close to sorrow.
Kurama stepped through that flame and sat beside him.
Always had to make an entrance...
"...You've changed," Naruto murmured, eyes locked on the creature before him.
The demon's grin widened. She stood tall, tail coiling through the air like flame given form. Her chakra pulsed through the ground like a heartbeat.
"Well," she purred, voice sultry and sharp, "you left me alone for five centuries. A girl gets bored."
"Kurama."
"Lady Kurama now, darling." Her eyes flicked over his body. "You're looking half-dead. Fitting."
Naruto sighed.
He knelt beside his mother, cradling her head in his lap. She was barely alive. Breathing in shallow gulps. Her aura was cracked. Soul tether fraying.
"I don't have time for games."
Kurama stood strode forward, hips swaying, flames kissing her ankles as she moved.
"Then let me heal her."
He narrowed his eyes.
"What's the price? What do I have to give you?"
She stopped inches away. Smiled.
"No price for you," she said, surprisingly soft. "You owe me nothing. You are my summoner, after all. And my friend. And…" She lowered herself to his level. "...the only reason I'm still sane after becoming this."
He met her gaze.
"Why?"
Kurama didn't answer at first.
She laid her hand on Ruka's forehead. Flame passed into skin.
His second mother stirred a little, groaning in her sleep; her pale complexion regained a bit of color, her hollow cheeks filling out a little as her breathing began to even out.
But she didn't wake.
Naruto shot his former friend a glance. "What did you do?"
"I bought you some time time." Kurama replied quietly. "I owe you that much, Besides…"
She looked up, smile fading.
"I think you're going to need all the family you can get, soon."
Naruto looked back to Ruka. "She'll still die if we leave her like this, won't she?"
"She will. As I said, I bought you time, not a cure. You know what that is."
Ruka would have to drink Kurama's blood. It would be easy enough to pour some into her mouth, pinch her nose, and force her to swallow. What came after however...well. He had no way of knowing how that would turn out. There was simply no way to know until the deed was done. And once it was, there could be no undoing it.
There was no cure for being a Demon save death. If there was one out there, he'd yet to find it.
"If you turn her, she'll be hungry." he palmed his face. "She'll want to eat humans"
"Yes." Kurama made no attempt to sugarcoat her words. "Hunger is something we all grapple with. She can learn to feed on animals as I do."
"Surprisingly noble of you...
She huffed, indignant, but didn't rise to the barb. "You do realize that I may well have to take her from here." her words forced a flinch from him. "Even should she remain herself, and there's a high likelihood that she yet will, our instincts are not so easily bested," raising a hand, she regarded a throbbing vein in her wrist. "Resisting them often brings pain. Agony like you cannot imagine. But I'll see her through the storm. I have allies and friends; those with a vested interest in making certain she remains herself."
It was tempting, so very tempting.
"However."
And then the other shoe dropped, as he knew it would.
"Can you bring yourself to do this, Naruto?" Kurama tilted her head, reminding him of a geisha he'd once seen from afar. "Are you willing to inflict this upon yourself?"
Kyojuro may have made his peace, but your father and baby brother will be distraught. They will want answers."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. "You think I don't know that?"
"What will you say to them?"
He didn't have an answer, not yet.
If he did this, if he allowed this to happen...
The truth? They couldn't handle the truth. Telling the truth would see him branded an outlaw and driven out; he'd be accused of working with demons or worse, being one himself.
Kurama knelt by Ruka's bedside. Took her hand.
And spoke.
We do not hear the words.
We do not see what choice is made.
Outside, the wind shifts.
Kyojuro's eyes closed.
Kanae took Shinobu's hand.
Kurama turned her head and looked to him. "Time to choose."
Naruto took a deep breath...
.
..
...and made his choice.
A/N: But what choice did he make?
The answer will be revealed in the next chapter!
Should this remain a story? Yay or nay! By all means, do let me know!
As ever the Embers rule persists, reviews are my fuel, my fire, my life. Without them, I lose all inspiration, all hope, all ability to write. That's no joke. I have so little time to write these days with two jobs, and silence hurts. So by all means, speak up! Make yourselves heard! Every bit of feedback, no matter how small or large, matters! Really, it helps a lot. Its a joy to talk with you all and bandy ideas back and forth; it really is. Sorry if this seems shorter than usual, working on a tight schedule here.
Reviews are the fuel that keeps me writing. That's no joke. I really am sorry that the chapters are shorter these days, and the updates slower, but I'm trying my best. Silence hurts more than any flame...without feedback, I can't write a single world. Seriously! So speak up! Every word -and every review!- really does matter!
So in the Immortal Words of Atlas... ...Review, Would You Kindly?
Here, have some previews. Lemme know what you think!
As ever, reviews are the wind beneath my wings. Feedback really does help me soar. Without it I cannot write.
And as ever: Possible spoilers! Seriously!
Mostly the same previews here.
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
SPOILERS AWAIT AHEAD!
YOU WERE WARNED~!
(Previews)
She turned to the doorway.
And every shadow on the mountain moved.
Dozens of eyes. Wings. Crawling things. Vengeful shades of hatred. Echoes of pain. Feral demons who hungered.
Kurama's claws glowed.
"I'll handle them."
"Alone?" he asked.
She smirked.
"I am the Flame in the Void, Naruto. The First Demon. I don't need help."
He hesitated.
Then tossed her a scroll.
"What's this?"
"A summon seal," he said. "Just in case you're wrong."
She caught it.
Tucked it between her teeth like a kunoichi blade.
Then whispered the words:
"Set your heart ablaze."
And the mountain caught fire.
You never learn, do you.
He parried the first blow, shunted aside the second, and drove his blade through their chest. "You were saying...?"
"How...?!"
"It doesn't matter."
His sword swung out, cleaving their head from their shoulders.
She took him by the face.
Her forehead touched his, leaving their noses brushing.
Lively lilac eyes gazed into his own. "Then allow me to make my intentions clear."
She kissed him then. Gently at first, then with vigor, pressing her mouth against his, arms linking behind his neck as she rode him down to the bed...
EDIT: Hope this update made your day. May it be a good one and filled with much luck!
Warm regards,
~Nz.
R&R~!