Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of it’s characters.
Summary: Sent to a mental ward as a child, Naruto has spent thirteen years in a closed environment of insanity and secrets, until Tsunade finds him. Will her greatest mistake be letting him out into the world?
Threshold
Changes
“Your problem is that you cannot seem to accept the disappointments that life is sending your way. Most people in the world do, which is why for the most part, they live out there and you live in here.”
The blonde person sat in the fading white chair in the fading white room, and stared at the man in the fading white lab coat. What the man had just said belonged to a long list of disturbing nonsense that was daily shoved his way. That it made almost no sense to him was no longer important since he first decided to ignore the jargon the men often spout his way. He had completely mastered the vacant expression of glassy eyes and slightly ajar mouth. He was now able to transport his mind to a happy place, a place in which the lab coats completely disapproved of. However, if they ever sat a moment in his seat and listened to the crap that spewed from their lips, they too would find any means of escape. But of course, that would never happen and, according to the lab coats, this was his initial problem. He was not accepting what was happening to him.
But he had accepted everything. How could he not when he had spent so many years living in the fading white room, sleeping on the fading white bed? How long had he been here? Since he was seven. Or was it six?
No.
It was five.
They sent him here after he had bitten that man. The one with the oily smile and the hot hands. He hadn’t like those hands so he had taken a bite at them
They sent him here, to the mental institution, because they didn’t want to put him to sleep-or more like they couldn’t. The old man had said no.
Put to sleep.
Ha.
One would think they were talking about a rabid dog.
“Naruto. Are you sleeping?”
He wished he was. If anything, he loved to sleep. When he was asleep, he would enter his own sanctuary, a place of grassy hills, infinite blue skies, and that damned demon slinking behind his view. Always watching him.
“Have you eaten at all today? You know that food will solve almost any problem.”
Food. Another thing that the lab coats spouted out. They were all under the impression that food was going to make them happy-or was that it? It had become clear to him years ago that the lab coats had no credentials in the psychological field. No body who went to them ever came out enlightened or sobbing with relief.
They are scientists in disguise, the demon had whispered once when he had watched a patient leave a room laughing and unstable. Later he had found out the reason for the strange laughing patients.
Shock therapy.
Even thinking about it made him groan. Why the lab coats thought strapping a person down and sending a couple watts of electricity through their body was a great way to improve any mental and emotional problems was beyond him. Even the demon was a bit puzzled at their antics.
He, unlike other patients, did not leave the room laughing, nor did he leave the room smiling. Instead, they would drag him away to solitary confinement while he screamed and bled from his eyes. Then, after he would spend an hour clawing the fading white walls and losing his fingernails, they’d come in and sedate him for the rest of the day.
Why they thought that locking a hysterical person in a small confined space would help them in any way, was beyond him.
But the demon had said that they had been watching him the whole time, for they were scientists and we were the lab rats.
It constantly annoyed him that the demon seemed to have more wisdom than the stupid lab coats. What was the world coming to?
“Have you eaten?”
“No!” he shouted, unable to hide his annoyance. “It’s seven-o-clock in the morning! You know I don’t eat breakfast! I can’t stand breakfast! You know this yet you ask me every day!”
The lab coat was staring at him with wide dark eyes. He could feel the guards just outside the door tense up at his shouts. Sometimes, when he was angry, he would become aware of minute things like people outside doors.
“Why do you keep asking me! I’m not going to eat because you are torturing me with your stupid repetitive questions. Ask me something useful for a change!”
He slumped back into the fading white chair. Maybe it was because he didn’t sleep well yesterday. Maybe it really was lack of food that made him so cranky. After all, humans weren’t made to live on one meal a day. But so many humans lived on one meal a day all the time.
But did that make them happy?
“All right,” the lab coat said suddenly. “I’ll ask you something useful. Do you talk to the demon?”
Well…now that was new. Yet, he felt such alarm radiate from the demon that he settled for a vacant stare. Of course he and the demon talked. Who was he supposed to talk to in this false place of fading white walls?
Naruto slumped down in his chair and stared at the bite marks on his hands and wrists. Sometimes, he couldn’t help it. The demon, was a creature of action, a creature of violence and death. The only violence the two of them ever saw was the occasional angry patients of shock treatment. This was obviously not enough for the demon and so Naruto often found himself biting his fingers and wrists, and watching the blood ooze out of the marks. With each bite would come the taste of copper, salty copper, and the sweet erotic pangs of pain that would lash up his arms.
At one time, crouched in the corner of the fading white walls, and enjoying the sweet pain of each bite, he and the demon had been annoyed at the presence of the lab coats, who had crowded at the door to watch him in his masochism.
So they knew, knew that his violent ministrations on himself were because of the demon. Scientists, the demon had said. Would they try to take him apart? Try to find the creature within himself? He hoped not. That would mean he would be truly alone…alone in these fading white rooms.
What a despairing thought.
“Naruto. What are you thinking about?”
What was he thinking about? He looked at the lab coat, with his dark hair and rectangular glasses. His dark, dark eyes…so full of secrets.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
Naruto nodded and remained in the slumped position. In the back of his mind he could hear the whispers of caution from the demon, feel him retreating into a dark corner.
The lab coat sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes.
“Naruto,” he said, and for some reason Naruto was compelled to give him his undivided attention. “Things are going to be different soon. Things are going to change a bit around here. Do you like changes Naruto?”
It was a good question. Did he like changes? What did changes consist of? How could anything change in this place? This place of repetition and opaque mysteries. The way this lab coat said changes, he obviously didn’t approve of it. However, that didn’t mean that the changes were going to be bad…were they?
Naruto decided that changes were bad…in his case.
“No.”
The lab coat nodded.
“I don’t like changes either Naruto. Not unless they are in my favor. These changes won’t be. Naruto? How old are you?”
Another interesting question. How old was he? Naruto frowned and thought over the time line of events, eventually coming up with a number.
“Eighteen.”
The lab coat nodded and continued to gaze at him without much expression. Then, he inhaled deeply, put on his glasses, and leaned forward toward Naruto.
“I’m going to be very honest with you Naruto. I know that you’re a very bright boy-er- man.” He glanced at the camera in the corner of the fading white room. Then his voice became a whisper.
“We-they’ve been watching you since the day you were sent here. They’ve been waiting for the right time- the right age in which to begin the experiments. They asked for you…when they heard you were being sent away. They want it Naruto, and they’ll tear you apart to get it. You can avoid this by keeping quiet about-well-It.”
It? Oh…the demon.
Huh…so it seemed, for the first time in thirteen years, a lab coat was not only saying something that was making sense, but also it was to his advantage. Naruto sat in the chair and stared at the lab coat, and for the first time, wondered what his name was.
Suddenly, the fading white door opened and one of the guards poked his head in.
“Is everything alright sir?” a burly voice asked, making Naruto cringe inwardly. It was Takezo. Takezo’s job was to strap all the patients down at night in their beds; Naruto did not like his wandering hands. Now there was something he wouldn’t mind a change. Takezo’s absence.
“No. Everything’s completely under control.” The lab coat said as he stood up. Takezo and the other guard, who’s name he did not know, entered the room. Naruto remained in his seat and careful began to process all the information in his mind as the guard calmly took hold of his arm.
“Up and at ‘em,’’ the guard murmured. Naruto slowly got to his feet and allowed himself to be led out of the fading white room and along the fading white walls…
Of his fading white prison.
It was around noon when they came to retrieve him for lunch. The guard took him by his arm and calmly led him toward the mess hall, where all the patients that could be trusted with sharp plastic objects ate. The mess hall was a large room with five long rows of tables. Patients often sat where they pleased; the institution was a place of one sex…all crazy men.
The guard plopped Naruto down on a bench and went to get him his tray of food. Naruto sat there and stared at the rest of the patients. Two were sitting at the next table over, arguing about something he was sure had no value. Another man was sobbing in a corner, probably frustrated at the jargon the lab coats were spouting. This made him smirk in wry amusement. This prison…would be the death of them all.
A man around his own age suddenly was dragged into the room, cursing and spitting at anyone near him. His mane was white like the rays of the moon, a beautiful halo of silky mess and his eyes the palest green like the early spring grass that dotted the distant hills outside Konoha. His face was delicate and pale, nose straight and aristocratic. When his eyes fell on Naruto, the angry leer on his face disappeared, replaced by unconcealed lust. He never did try to hide his tastes-but then…neither did anyone else.
He jerked his arm from the guard and sauntered over to the table, sitting down next to Naruto and staring at him intently.
Naruto continued to stare straight ahead, face giving away nothing. The man lifted a slim pale hand to touch his face-but was stopped when Naruto murmured gently, “Do not touch me Ashitaka.” Naruto’s face remained impassive and leveled straight ahead, but his eyes lowered to stare at the table, causing his pale eyelashes to almost lay gently against his cheeks.
Ashitaka shivered and lowered his hand. Naruto had no idea what he did to people, what he was continuing to do to people. Ashitaka’s hand itched as he thought of what it would feel like to run his hands through that golden sunshine nest of hair that framed Naruto’s lovely face. What it would feel like to have Naruto trapped under him, holding him by that wild pony tail that hung past his buttocks.
Speaking of buttocks…
Ashitaka laughed out loud and grinned at the blonde.
“Can I at least tell you how much I have missed you?”
Naruto continued to stare at the table for a moment before lifting his eyes and turning them on Ashitaka. Such pale blue eyes, with the blackest pupils, pupils that seemed to expand and contract at the merest whim. At the moment, as he stared at him, Naruto’s pupils became large, expanding to a point that the pale blue was almost consumed.
Ashitaka swallowed and lowered his eyes from that all-seeing gaze.
“You know something we do not,” Naruto whispered, causing Ashitaka to look up at him. Naruto suddenly slid closer to him, close enough to make Ashitaka excited and frightened at the same time. “what do you know, Ashi my love?”
Ashitaka stifled a gasp that was trying to push its way out of his throat as Naruto lifted a thin hand, perhaps to touch his face. Unfortunately, they were interrupted by a returning guard that placed a tray of food in front of Naruto, who blinked at Ashitaka and slid away from him.
Ashitaka sighed and waited for his own food to arrive.
Another day Naruto…another day…
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WAKE UP.
Naruto’s eyes opened, his pupils began to expand as he stared at the ceiling.
LISTEN. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY.
The demon’s voice was the stuff of nightmares, deep, chilling, and full of ancient darkness. But Naruto had grown up with that voice, that voice telling him to pay attention, to think about certain things, to listen to others when they thought no one was listening. Naruto felt a piercing pain in his ears, and felt his hearing sharpen and expand. He could hear a thousand heart beats, some slow and restfull, others quick and panicky. He could hear the silent breath of the person next door, and the whimper of Takezo’s victims two floors up. He could also hear the anxiety of a certain lab coat as he murmured to another.
THERE.
Naruto felt another twinge of pain as his ears zeroed in on what the man was saying.
“I don’t know what could happen. Now that the Godaime knows he is here, she might cause the others to try him too early!”
“Maybe she wants this to happen. We really don’t know how she views the Demon Child.”
“No longer a child now. He is an adult. But she’s coming to see him- the others won’t like it. Would if she hires a real psychologist to see him?”
“Shhh! Someone’s coming!”
Naruto’s hearing contracted back to normal as he lay staring at the ceiling.
CHANGES.
What did Ashitaka know?
Naruto closed his eyes and allowed himself to escape into his dreamworld, the place of never-ending sunshine.
Changes…
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