“Open up! ANBU!”
Naruto groans and pulls his pillow over his head.
“Mmm’go ‘way!” he yells, cursing under his breath.
“Open this door, or we’ll break it down, brat!”
Naruto opens an eye blearily, and with a few blinks he registers that it’s 3:43 in the morning.
“Goddammit!” he yells, pushing himself out of bed, wincing as his feet touch the cold floor.
He strides across the floor of his small apartment and wrenches open the door, “You had better have a fucking good reason for this!” he yells into their faces, “Do you have any idea what time it is?!”
Yes, Naruto likes his sleep.
“We were ordered by the Hokage to come and collect you,” one of the masked figures says, his voice filled with malice.
“At three in the fucking morning?” he spits at them, completely awake by now.
“Yes,” another figure says impassively.
“What the hell is so important that it can’t wait until morning?” Naruto asks, shivering in his thin pajamas.
“Get dressed,” the first shinobi says.
“Not until you tell me what the hell’s going on!” Naruto snarls at them, wishing he made a more impressive figure.
They laugh and slam the door in his face.
“Get dressed,” they say and Naruto angrily complies.
He knows only too well what will happen if he doesn’t.
They take him to the old man’s office and Naruto opens his mouth to yell at him and make him tell him what the hell’s going on and why he’s being dragged out of bed at this ungodly hour, but he stops at the look on the Sandaime’s face. He looks older and much more serious than Naruto has ever seen him and suddenly Naruto feels a strange sense of foreboding. He looks around the room and sees there are other people there, about fifteen of them. None of them look familiar, but they’re all staring at him with a look that Naruto only knows too well.
“What’s going on?” he asks the old man.
“Naruto…” the Sandaime Hokage says wearily, “We have a problem.”
Possibly the biggest understatement of the century.
“More specifically,” a severe-looking old women says, “A problem with you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Naruto asks boldly, but fear is growing in his gut.
“Your latest mission report…” the old man says, “Included something…we did not expect.”
“Sarutobi!” A tall man of roughly the same age reprimands, “Get to the point!”
Naruto frowns, he can’t think of anything that happened during the mission that would warrant him being dragged out of his bed.
“It appears,” the Hokage continues, “That the seal that hold the Kyuubi inside your body is eroding.”
Naruto doesn’t really understand and no one really explains anything to him. To tell the truth, Naruto doesn’t understand what really went on in that room until months later. They spend what seems like hours taking about probabilities and percentages and pros and cons. Nobody asks what he thinks or what he wants and before Naruto knows it, he’s packing his bags and being sent out of the village on ‘probation’ with a nameless ANBU who’s supposed to watch over him.
Naruto reflects that he shouldn’t have been surprised when he wakes up one morning and even his guard is gone.
Chapter Three-
Uzumaki Naruto isn’t really sure whether to laugh or scream his lungs out. It’s a reaction that he really should be used to by now, but Naruto has always been a little slow. He groans and throws down his desecrated picture book onto the floor and groans again.
“Fuckin’ crazy bitch…” he mutters, “I can’t believe it…I liked that book…”
Naruto closes his eyes and leans back onto his bed. He moans into his pillow and picks up the book again, his eyes traveling up and down the written over pages.
“Well?” a feminine voice says, “Do you like it?”
Naruto glares at her, “You ruined my book!”
She shrugs, her long brown hair rippling with the movement, “I made it better.”
“You made Momotaro (1) a demon!”
“He was born in a peach! C’mon, he couldn’t be human!”
Naruto moans helplessly into his hands, “Gahhh!”
“Oh, don’t be like that!” she snaps.
Naruto mutters obscenities into his hands, “Fuck you, Tsuyu.”
The jinchuuriki grins manically, “Anytime, anywh-”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it!” Naruto says, planting his hands firmly over his ears and squeezing his eyes shut.
The holder of the Nanabi doesn’t look at all put off by this, but scoots closer to him, “Oh, you know you want i-”
“Like hell!” he retorts, forgetting that he was ignoring her.
“Methinks thou doth protest too much!” Tsuyu says, putting her hand on his thigh.
“No!” Naruto yelps, “There can never be too much protesting. Really! I don-Fuck! Help! Rape!”
Naruto leaps out of his bed and runs out of his room, screaming his lungs out. He runs down the hall, skids to a stop at another door and bursts inside.
“GAARA!” he screams, waving his arms melodramatically, “TSUYU’S TRYING TO RAPE ME!!”
The green-eyed jinchuuriki looks up at him from his seated position on his bed without emotion, “Then kill her.”
“Is that your solution to everything?” Naruto demands.
“Yes,” Gaara says impassively and continues sifting sand with his hands.
“Okay, now that’s just kind of creepy,” Naruto says.
Gaara looks up to glare at him and Naruto is about to run for his life when someone else opens the door. Naruto screams and hides behind Gaara.
“DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU- Oh, it’s just you.”
Yugito raises her eyebrows at him, “What the hell is going on?”
“Tsuyu’s trying to rape me!” Naruto says, throwing up his arms.
“Again?”
Naruto hates these people.
“AGAIN!” he yells, “AGAIN? IS THAT YOUR ONLY REACTION, YOU-”
“Shut up,” Yugito says helpfully.
“You’ve got to help me!” he pleads, “I’ll do what ever you want me to! I’ll kidnap babies, sacrifice little fluffy animals, an-GAHH, YOU!!”
“Hey, Naruto, Gaara,” Tsuyu says, smirking.
“Do I not exist?” Yugito asks her.
“Sure you do, but you’re a girl.”
Naruto whimpers pitifully.
“You two on the other hand…”
Gaara narrows his eyes and Naruto cowers behind him planning his escape.
“RAPIST!” he screams out.
“I prefer the term ‘pervert,’” Tsuyu says delicately.
“You got me drunk and s-se-seduced me!” Naruto cries, jabbing his finger at her, “Rapist!”
The blue-eyed woman rolls her eyes at him, “You’re still hung up on that?” she scoffs, “That was two years ago, for God’s sake!”
“You scarred me for life!”
“Well; if I remember correctly, you seemed to be enjoying yourself at the tim-”
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” Naruto screams, cutting her off, “Why don’t you go after Gaara, please!”
Gaara lets out a little cough.
“Erm…I mean, well…Hey…Gaara…DON’T KILL ME!”
Tsuyu flops down onto Gaara’s bed to his obvious displeasure, “But you’re so much more fun to torture!”
Naruto lets out a mournful wail, “Save me, Yugito!”
“What’s in it for me?” she asks shrewdly.
“I’ll make you ramen!”
She just looks at him pityingly.
“…err…I won’t…make you ramen..?”
And then Gaara speaks, “You have ten seconds to get out of my room.”
There is an awkward pause.
“But Gaara-” Naruto whimpers.
“Ten. Nine. Eight. Sev-“
“-if I leave, she’s going to-”
“-en. Six. Five. Fo-”
“You’re counting too fast,” Tsuyu observes, “Hey, Yugito, what are you doing?”
“Preserving my life,” the holder of the Nibi answers, halfway out the door, “I suggest you do the same.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Gaaaaaara! Please let me stay! You don’t understand, if I leave, she’ll-”
“-our. Three. Tw-”
“Well, my time here is up,” Tsuyu says, getting up to stretch.
“-o. One. Ze-”
“Bye, Gaara-chan!”
And with that she leans down and kisses Gaara full on the mouth and is gone before Naruto can blink. And when he does, he realizes that he’s alone in the room with Gaara.
“Gaara…?”
He doesn’t say anything and appears to be frozen in shock.
“Heheheheheh…That good, huh?”
“Out,” Gaara pronounces, “Now.”
“Okay,” Naruto says meekly and flees before Gaara regains the use of his limbs.
There’s five of them left alive. Gaara, Yugito, a mute, twelve-year old boy named Waka, Tsuyu and himself. The Ichibi, Nibi, Gobi, Nanabi, and the Kyuubi. From what Naruto’s heard, the Sanbi was never a jinchuuriki, the Yonbi and the Rokubi were captured by Akatsuki early on and the Hachibi, the first jinchuuriki, died fifty years ago; though Tsuyu says she is pretty sure Akatsuki have managed to extract the demon from his corpse. Out of the five of them that are alive, Naruto probably had the easiest time. He never realized what a blessing it was that the people of Konoha were banned from speaking about the demon inside him.
As far as Naruto can tell, Gaara and Yugito had similar childhoods, which is probably the reason they get along so well. All the people in their home villages knew what the were and from a young age both Gaara and Yugito were able to use powers that came from housing a demon. It was a double-edged sword, really. While they were able to defend themselves, everyone was too afraid to go near them and from a young age they became murderers. Once, when Naruto had conned Yugito into drinking with him, she admitted that she had probably killed over a hundred people before the age of ten. Tsuyu, the second oldest of them all, is terrified of enclosed space, which leads Naruto to believe that she was locked up as a child. Waka had the worst childhood. They found him chained, half-dead, in the town square of a small village. He had not only been used for target practice by the local ninja, but also had been sexually and mentally abused to the point where he could no longer talk. After they had freed him, Naruto had transformed to the point where he had five and a half tails and leveled the village before he could be stopped.
It was strange, really, how they had all came together. Tsuyu was the first of the jinchuuriki to leave her home village and she was the one who gathered them all together. She had been a Sound ninja originally, but later had probably been locked up after they discovered how dangerous she was. At the age of 13, she found out that Orochimaru wanted to experiment on her, broke out, and has been on the S-class list ever since. She was wandering around the Lightning Country when she met Yugito, a sixteen-year old Jounin at the time. Yugito actually hid Tsuyu in her home for a while, until Tsuyu finally convinced her to no longer be pushed around and they left together. A year later they heard rumors of Gaara and traveled to the Wind Country. Gaara attempted to kill them when they first confronted him, but failed miserably and got his leg broken by Yugito. Tsuyu told him that they persuaded Gaara that the Wind wasn’t the place to be if he really wanted to kill people, and that being a S-class nin would present a much better opportunity, but to this day Naruto still isn’t sure if she was joking or not. Naruto was found next, totally emaciated in the forests on the outskirts of Konoha. All of them, even Gaara, weren’t completely sure how to react to his obnoxiously orange clothes and loud mouth. If Naruto remembers correctly, Tsuyu and Yugito muttered disparaging things about Konoha and Gaara just stared at him. They tried to convince him to get rid of the orange clothes, shut up, drop his forehead protector in a lake, and throw out his picture of Team Seven, but so far have succeeded on none of these counts. Naruto proudly wears an orange shirt with the kanji for nine on it in blue, is still loud as hell, has his old forehead protector folded reverently in the bottom draw of his desk, and the picture of his old team is tacked to his wall in pieces which Naruto meticulously taped together after Tsuyu ripped it in half.
They don’t meet often. Actually they only see each other once every three months. Most of the year, Tsuyu stays in their underground base and takes care of Waka, Gaara and Yugito scout out Akatsuki and Naruto just sort of wanders. Originally, they all traveled together, but after they picked up Waka, who couldn’t travel, someone had to stay with him. Tsuyu volunteered for the job and Naruto went off with Gaara and Yugito. That worked for a while, but eventually Naruto got sick of their complete lack of respect for life. He didn’t want to get into an argument and he got bored staying at base all the time, so he goes off on his own, sometimes training, other times doing things as basic as sight-seeing. Yugito was a Jounin before she became a missing nin, so she taught them all sorts of techniques and brought an entire library of ninjitsu books with her when she left. Naruto isn’t weak like he once was as a Genin and he can proudly say that it was he who broke Hoshigaki Kisame’s nose when they encountered him several years ago. It’s not the same as Konoha and Naruto still misses Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, and Sasuke, but Naruto’s okay. He survives and he takes one day at a time.
Though, to tell the truth, Naruto doesn’t really know how he feels on the topic of the two Uchiha he’s encountered. Naruto was shocked when he discovered that Sasuke’s elder brother, the one who Sasuke told him he wanted to kill just days before Naruto was sent away, is part of the Akatsuki. He was sickened when Tsuyu told him of the Uchiha’s crimes and felt suddenly extremely homesick when he thought of Sasuke and what he must have gone through. But nothing prepared Naruto for the shock when Gaara and Yugito came back with the news that Uchiha Itachi’s younger brother had betrayed the Leaf and joined Orochimaru. Naruto had been so angry that he chucked the picture against the wall and broke the frame into a million pieces. In the beginning, Naruto had forced himself not to think of Konoha, and he had told himself that they would probably be better off without him. But Sasuke’s betrayal was like a slap in the face. At first, Naruto felt a horrible sense of guilt, he felt that maybe if he was there he could have stopped him. Indeed, Gaara knocked him out for three days straight in order to stop him from marching right into the Sound and knocking some sense into Sasuke. That year was probably the hardest time Naruto ever went through. Akatsuki has just started emerging into the open and none of the other jinchuuriki could understand what he was going through, for none of them had ever been close to anyone who wasn’t a demon holder. Eventually, Naruto was forced to admit that he didn’t know Sasuke anymore and that he couldn’t control him and he had every right to make his own decisions. Naruto hadn’t heard anything at all flattering about the Sound from Tsuyu, but he convinced himself that it didn’t matter and what his old teammate did was hardly any of his business. After all, he has bigger things to worry about. And so, Naruto convinced himself he didn’t care, when several years later, he heard rumors that Orochimaru is dead, killed by his own student, Uchiha Sasuke.
Naruto leaves the base a few days later with a few new jutsu from Yugito’s books under his belt. Their base is on the southeastern side of the Rock Country near the Whirlpool Country, which is a relatively peaceful country. And so Naruto pulls on an orange jacket that hides his ‘jinchuuriki shirt’ and stay a few days in the country which he jokes is named after him. He then crosses the northern part of the Fire Country, and enters the remnants of the Sound. It has been a no-man’s land ever since Orochimaru’s death and several countries are vying for the territory. There isn’t a war going on over it, but there is a lot of tension and the rumors Naruto’s been hearing tell him that negotiations haven’t been going well. It’s this that draws Naruto to the area, the high tempers and the pressure in the air, for it is just the right environment for him to find someone interesting to fight with.
Later, Naruto regrets not taking the saying, “be careful what you wish for,” more seriously.
Naruto almost didn’t see him. It wouldn’t have make much difference if he hadn’t, because the guy turned out to be only a scout anyway.
Naruto is walking on a path just a short way out of a major city in the Sound when he sees something red out of the corner of his eye. He turns and sees nothing but trees on the side of him. He moves closer and slips in between the trees, his right hand sliding down into his shuriken holder. He still sees nothing. Sighing, Naruto vaguely wonders how paranoid he’s actually become and leans up against a tree…which proceeds to squawk in pain. Naruto’s eyes widen and suddenly he’s thrown back against another tree by a quick blow to the chest. He draws a kunai and takes in the thing before him. Naruto doesn’t think he can call it a man. The thing’s head is two different colors and it has something that look likes a plant that’s coming out from behind it that Naruto isn’t sure is part of his body or not. But the thing that worries Naruto the most is that it’s wearing an Akatsuki cloak.
“You idiot!” it hisses in a strange croaky voice, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Naruto snarls and opens his mouth to respond; he’s always hated being called an idiot.
“Shut up!” it says again, only this time it’s voice is lower, almost as if it’s a different person, “Just focus on the problem!”
“What the hell are you?” Naruto asks, horrified.
It looks at him for a second and then in a flash starts to disappear in to the tree again.
“Like hell you’re getting away!” Naruto yells, throwing his kunai.
It dodges his weapon and suddenly it’s above him. Naruto rolls out of the way just in time and the entire earth shakes. He conjures several Kage Bushin and they launch themselves at the thing.
Suddenly the thing is gone and so are Naruto’s clones. He is completely alone. Even the trees have gone and there is nothing but earth under his feet and the sky above him.
“What kind of jutsu is thi-” he starts, but then understands.
“Genjutsu! I should have known! He didn’t look a ninjutsu or taijutsu type anyway.”
Naruto focuses his chakra into his hands and is just about to get rid of the illusion when the sky above him explodes. He looks up and there is a huge crack in the cloudless sky of the fantasy world. He gapes for one second too long and huge almost plantlike tentacles burst through the hole and pull him into the air by his wrists and ankles. Naruto struggles to move his hands into the necessary position to get out of it, but to no avail. A tentacle wraps itself around his throat and Naruto chokes. He can’t breathe, can’t see. Everything is blurry and confusing and-Am I going to die here? The thing contracts even more and Naruto feels his body seize up, his hands falling uselessly to his sides, lack of oxygen taking its toll. His eyelids start to droop and the background fades away.
“Foolish brat!” A voice says inside his head, “Pitiful! You’ll die without my power, won’t you?”
There is a snarling noise and it takes Naruto a few seconds to realize that he is the source. He opens his eyes and rips the tentacles away from him with clawed hands. He falls and hits the ground with a thud, gasping. He regains his breath quickly and Naruto puts his hands together and shouts “Kai!” his entire body shaking with the energy of a Bijyuu. The empty sky and landscape shatter like broken glass and Naruto is again standing in the forest again. The vaguely humanoid thing gasps in shock, and throws something which Naruto is unable to dodge. Two strange looking shuriken imbed themselves in his chest and abdomen but Naruto doesn’t let them stop him. He lunges for it, summoning a huge wind that rips through the forest in order to confuse his prey. He grabs it by the throat and it screams with pain as the poisonous chakra of the Kyuubi comes in contact with it’s skin. He bashes it’s skull against the tree, once, twice, thrice; blood staining the tree’s bark. And then it moves no more. Naruto feels a strange but wonderful sense of elation and satisfaction before he realizes what he’s done.
He lets go of the dead thing’s throat and it falls to the ground, limp and unmoving. Naruto starts to shake, his bloody hands grab at his jacket as he wraps his arms around himself. He nearly trips over his own feet as he backs away, shaking and gasping for air. He turns away and retches onto the mossy forest floor. Naruto falls to his knees, barely avoiding his own sick. A bloody hand grasps his bangs and Naruto stares at the ground, beginning to hyperventilate.
“Fu-Fuck! Goddamn little- shit…Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
His voice has an element of a sob in it, but Naruto ignores it. He’s shaking like a leaf and gripping his hair and the dirt and the only thing he can think of it that they were right and he’s nothing but a-
“Monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monst-”
“Shut…up!” Naruto says, but his voice is weak
He tries to get up and leave, anything to get away from here, but there’s a horrible pain in his chest that he didn’t notice or realize until now. But he has to get away and now otherwise he’ll go absolutely insane and loose himself andNaruto can’t afford that because he has people who rely on him-
“Do you really?”
-and people who care and would be sad if he-
“-died-”
-disappeared. And Naruto can’t let them down because that’s his ninja…his ninja…his-
But everything hurts too much and suddenly Naruto is dizzy and everything goes blurry. Naruto keels over and his forehead hits the grassy earth. He coughs and remembers the strange shape of the missiles and realizes that they must be poisoned. Naruto tries to reach down and pull them out, but he can’t move, paralysis it must be, and he’s cold, shivering cold and it’s only then that Naruto wonders if he’s going to die.
He doesn’t want to die.
“Damn, I-what the hell? I, fuck…hurts,” he mumbles nonsensically, dirt getting into his mouth.
Then suddenly there’s something pulling him over and he falls onto his back. He can only see the blurry outline of a shape above him. There is noise, talking? Someone has found him maybe? No, finding is bad. Bad people, caught, Akatsuki, dead.
Naruto lets out a futile groan, tries to move his arms, ward them off somehow, protect himself. It doesn’t work. His arms won’t move for him and there is a light pressure on his chest. Pain. Hurts. He cries out and feels his body jerk in response. Strange sounds, tearing, ripping? Colder than before, suddenly. Then pain, white hot flashes. His throat hurts too, incomparable to his chest, and it’s only then that he realizes that he’s screaming. Something wet in his eyes? That’s funny. Naruto doesn’t remember the last time he’s cried…
Sound again. Mumbles, mummers, hums, drones. Voices? Oh yeah, the person. They can talk, can’t they. What are they saying? He doesn’t understand them. It doesn’t make sense. Wait, it’s getting clearer now. Ruto? What does that me-
“…Na…o…Naruto!”
Uzumaki Naruto passes out.
(1) The Legend of Momotaro goes like this: An old childless couple finds a giant peach floating down the river. They cut it open and find a baby inside. They raise it as there own and many years later demons start stealing their stuff. Momotaro goes off with some friends, beats up the demons, and gets their stuff back. The End.
Jinchuuriki info:
Sabaku no Gaara-18, holder of the One-Tailed Raccoon, originally from the Sand. Number on shirt: 一
Nii Yugito-25, holder of the Two-Tailed Cat, originally from the Cloud. Number on shirt:二
Kaikatsu Waka ( 快活 ワカ)-12, holder of the Five-Tailed Bear, originally from the Mist. Number on shirt:五
Asari Tsuyu ( 鯏 露 )-21, holder of the Seven-Tailed Kestrel, originally from the Sound. Number on shirt:七
Uzumaki Naruto-19, holder of the Nine-Tailed Fox, originally from the Leaf. Number on shirt:九
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Chapter notes: Please review and tell me what you think about my story!
Chapter end notes: Hmm…Naruto’s kind of weird, huh? I didn’t realize how weird he was until I reread the chapter. Anyway, next chapter’s going to be third person omniscient (a little bit of everyone’s P.O.V.), just to warn you so you don’t get confused.
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