102Naruto hit the bottom of the dead city's whirlpool and thrashed awake, fighting the thrust of the current in vain. He gagged on water that had filled his lungs while he was unconscious, his insides burning with the same heat that they had when he'd fought Roshi. He was finally thrown from the water by gravity and the whirling current, bouncing off slick rock and landing on all fours.
He hacked and vomited up bloody water. The sight set off primal alarms in his head, yet as he cleared the last of it from his throat he felt ready to fight. His body burned with adrenaline in place of pain. The stomach wound from the jutsu that put him in the whirlpool, a javelin of earth thicker around than his wrist, had been wiped clean by caustic red chakra.
Naruto bounded up the walls of the cave, hands and feet sticking to the slippery surface with unnatural ease. His chakra followed his intent like it had a mind of its own- which, he realized with some discomfort, it did. He shook it off. No going back now.
The cavern was massive, and as he scaled the walls of it Naruto saw it was littered with the same wreckage as the surface. Broken buildings, uprooted trees and stone, all stretching out into the darkness of what looked like an cavernous network of underground rivers. Naruto struggled to make sense of it.
It looked like the village's central heart had been crumpled into a ball and spiked through the earth.
Whatever it was, he didn't have time to wonder. Naruto dug clawed fingers into the stone, concentrating chakra into his hands and feet, and leapt up into the whirlpool with all the strength the Kyuubi had given him. The surface of the water hit him hard, but not hard enough to stop him. He shot up like a thrown kunai and flew into open air.
Sensations he had no words to describe assaulted him from three sides. He reached for some frame of reference for the vile feelings and found memories. An old shop keep chasing him out the door with a broom, a mother with wrinkles around her eyes pulling her daughter away, the look on Sasuke's face as he loudly declared he'd beat her in their next spar. Naruto spun through the air and landed on the water's surface, his chakra holding him aloft while he reeled. What the hell was this?
Clarity. The Kyuubi's voice rumbled in his head. See humanity as it truly is.
He found the sources of the ugly sensations in the three Iwa nin that had ambushed him and Sakura. They didn't seem surprised to see him. In fact, it looked like they'd been expecting him to come back swinging. Naruto threw himself sideways across the surface of the water to avoid another stone javelin and raced for land.
He set his sights on the woman hurling projectiles, a long black ponytail and a beige flak jacket distinguishing her from her teammates. She finished a string of hand seals while he closed the distance, burying her arm to the elbow in the earth and drawing another javelin. Horrible sensations assaulted him from both sides, and he slammed to a stop, watching the other two nin rocket through the space he would have been with weapons bared.
He dashed sideways to avoid the next javelin, leaping across wreckage on all floors in an attempt to circle around them. One source of the stomach-churning sensation threaded the distance between them in a split second, and he threw himself flat against the ground as a man with a scar on his left cheek drilled through a stone wall that would have been him. Naruto hit him as hard as he'd hit Roshi, tackling him through stone and riding him to the earth.
The Iwa nin rolled and crossed his arms over his face and neck, and that was all that saved him. Naruto flayed the skin of his forearms with three swipes of his clawed fingers before he realized what he was doing, horror wrestling control from the furious haze of the Kyuubi's chakra. He jumped off and made space just in time to feel the approach of another nauseating sensation.
Naruto scrambled back from the third shinobi's jutsu, a wave of mud that blocked him off from the injured Iwa nin. He felt the kunoichi circling around, seeking a vantage to fling another projectile. The third shinobi rushed to engage him, absolutely seething to Naruto's senses, and his hands were covered in intricately brushed ink.
They will bind you.
Like hell. Naruto ran, forcing his muscles past their limits as his mind raced for a solution. Every second he spent here was another second Sakura and Sasuke had to contend with their three nin. He cobbled together a plan in the moments it took him to adjust his position, and when he finally cemented it he pivoted and dove through a broken window, slamming into the kunoichi's blindside.
A choked shout was all she managed before he formed a cross and buried her under a pile of clones, and for the first time he got an unobstructed look at his altered appearance. Clawed fingers and toes, skin that turned rain drops to steam as soon as they made contact, jutting canines, and the Kyuubi's own eyes. He looked like a monster. He was a monster.
Naruto howled and the sound of it was all wrong. But it served its purpose. The kunoichi's teammates converged on him, and in turn were assaulted on all sides by demonic clones. They were better nin than him, better fighters, and if the Kyuubi was telling the truth they even had a way to bind his new strength. But he could feel them, and so could his clones. He could ambush them without ever seeing them. He could win.
Fear. Disgust. Contempt. He finally identified the negative sensations rolling off the three enemy nin, felt sick to his stomach with the weight of them. The Kyuubi had given him its sense for negative emotions. It made him want to throw up. It was the best weapon he had.
Naruto cast his senses wide and felt five more points of horrible emotion in the distance. Two were approaching the whirlpool while the other three remained behind, one terrified, one grim, and the last- the last roiled with layers of such vile negativity it made Naruto's head spin.
He shook himself like an animal and made two more clones. They went wide on either side of him, howling and raising hell while he made a beeline for the three that had remained behind. Every exertion of the Kyuubi's power stoked the flame in his gut, made him madder. He was growing stronger by the second, but a faint burning in his veins warned him that he was reaching too far. Doing too much damage.
Tunnel vision nearly ended him when he kicked off a wall and found himself hurtling into a gaping hole in the ground. He panicked, crossed his fingers and made clones by the dozens. They fell screaming into the pit while he dashed across, using them as footholds. He recognized the jutsu, and that saved him from the rising walls of a dome that would have put him out of the fight as sure as any javelin or seal.
The ruins shifted like waves, rising to absurd heights and crashing down with fatal force. Naruto bounded through the chaos on all fours, an orientation that felt all too comfortable with the Kyuubi's chakra snarling through his veins. He set his new senses on the vilest of the three signatures, crashing through a window and leaping over a toppling refrigerator as he closed in on them. He tore clear through the ruined apartment walls and pounced on the source of the nauseating hatred-
Sasuke cried out as he bulled into her, tearing her free of the restraints she'd been partially buried in and sending them both tumbling.
"It was you!?" Sasuke? He'd known she had issues, but this-
"Naruto?" For a moment she had that same disbelieving look in her eyes, but it quickly gave way to something darker. "What are you, idiot?"
A monster. "Tell ya later. We need to get out."
Sasuke didn't look happy, but she didn't push him. "The field manipulator is close by. Sakura is-"
"I know. I feel 'em." He grimaced at the look she gave him, waving a clawed hand. "Later. Follow my lead."
He made more clones and they took off howling into the shifting rubble. Within seconds he remembered the deaths of half a dozen, fallen into pits that opened and closed like mouths at their creator's signal. But more kept on moving, kicking up hell and drawing attention to themselves. He could feel the two Iwa nin he'd drawn off on his way over doubling back. They'd have to be quick.
Naruto loped through the waves, slower at first, but when Sasuke made it clear she could keep up with his top speed using some new jutsu she'd stolen he took off full throttle.
"You grab Sakura while I distract this guy, and then we're getting the hell outta here," he explained as best he could with his teeth crowding up more space than usual in his jaw. Sasuke spared him a contemptuous look in between sprinting bursts.
"Distract him how?"
"I'm gonna hit him hard."
"Hit him hard," she echoed.
Naruto grinned, and it was all fangs. "Really hard."
The shinobi in the eye of the doton storm saw them coming and abruptly all of the waves and fissures rippled to stillness. Naruto didn't even have time to process the warning Sasuke shouted before the enemy nin slammed both palms to the ground and everything in sight tilted on an axis the enemy controlled. The village itself rose up, obscuring the man from view, overtaking the stormy skies, and then falling. A tidal wave.
Naruto surrendered himself to noxious red fury, urged as much of it through his limbs as the fox would give him. He raced across the waves so fast that he lost all control of his senses, all but one, and followed the beacon of the Iwa nin's contempt to its source.
He slammed through the man's jutsu like it really was nothing but water, and found him within arm's length. A kunai was brought to bear and Naruto didn't waste time trying to parry it. The fox had healed him once. It could heal him again.
Steel sunk into the juncture between his neck and shoulder and Naruto lunged through it, pumping chakra into his hand until his fingers were rigid with it. He slapped the veteran shinobi aside and felt ribs shatter beneath the blow.
The man crumpled just like Kakashi had. And just like Kakashi, he didn't move again.
Naruto staggered and fell beside him, pawing at the knife and struggling to breathe. The Kyuubi would heal him. He'd be alright. He just needed to pull it out. One quick yank and it'd be over. Just grab it-
He made a shadow clone. Pointed at the knife in his neck. His clone cringed, but gripped it in a clawed hand.
"Grit those teeth, boss."
Even monsters had limits.
Sasuke was sick and tired of running away. She was sick and tired of nursing a broken wrist, of never being dry, of eating toads and snakes and whatever else could be found in the muck. She was losing patience with herself, more and more each day that Kakashi's assassination technique eluded her. She was at her limit with Sakura, who had been annoying before they'd been thrust into this mess, and hadn't gotten better since.
Beyond all that, though, Sasuke was sick to death of not knowing what to expect from Uzumaki Naruto.
Sakura cried out in alarm, nearly falling from a tree branch as their teammate hurtled past, running through the trees on all fours like an animal. Sasuke cursed and flickered after him, burning chakra that she really needed to be conserving.
"Naruto!" she shouted, but if he heard her he didn't show it. He kept barreling on, a blood-orange comet that made her sharingan ache just looking at it. "Hey! Idiot!" A branch cracked and broke under him, and he went spiraling to the dirt.
He didn't get back up. Sasuke flickered and landed beside him, alarm overtaking aggravation as she watched him writhe on the ground. He was in bad shape, of course he was- the things she'd seen him do to get them out of that dead village... Sasuke hissed as she took a good look at him, and saw that it wasn't just his chakra that had turned an angry red. He looked like he'd been scalded from head to toe.
"What have you done to yourself?" She fumbled for her canteen and dumped its contents over his exposed skin. It didn't help. Naruto screamed through clenched teeth- no, not clenched. They'd grown again, like the first time, and locked together. He twisted away from the canteen, scrabbling at the skin that had been doused, and Sasuke lunged to seize his hands.
They came away covered in his own blood. He had claws. Sasuke racked her brain for any technique, any piece of learning they might have done in the Academy, that could explain it. Was it a family technique? Something forbidden? She had no idea, and she hated it.
A scream broke her train of thought, and this time it wasn't Naruto. "What is that!?"
Sakura had caught up. Wonderful. Sasuke grunted as her stupid teammate thrashed in her grip, trying to escape with strength he really shouldn't have. She released the arm she was holding down with her broken wrist, pressing it down with her elbow instead. Sakura, meanwhile, kept on babbling.
"W-what is- Sasuke, who- no, what-"
"It's obviously Naruto," she snapped. "I don't know what's going on either, but we can find out when he's not dying. Help me."
Sakura inched closer, but every time Naruto thrashed or made a noise she flinched back. Useless. Sasuke was considering the merits of just battering his head with the ring of a kunai until he passed out when she heard someone crashing through the treetops behind them. Damn it, not now, not when they were so close to escaping-
"Sasuke!" Naruto called, and Sasuke whipped around to see another copy of the idiot barrel out of the trees and land heavily, unbalanced by the Iwa nin slung limply over his shoulder. Sakura lurched away from the clone, terrified by his vicious appearance. The original- if he even was the original- tossed her off in the moment of confusion. She threw herself back on top of him, wrestling his hands away from where they'd been clawing at his throat.
"What have you done?" she demanded, recognizing the field manipulator, Ittan. "Why would you bring him here? And why are you like this?" She jerked her head at the Naruto underneath her.
"I couldn't just- he's dying, Sasuke," the clone said desperately, laying the enemy nin down with absurd care. "It was that new jutsu you showed the boss, he was just trying to knock the guy out but it hurt him real bad and-"
"So?" Sasuke snarled and slammed the original Naruto back to the dirt when he tried lurching up. "They're the enemy, you fucking idiot. You think they'd care if you died? You think they cared when Kakashi died?"
The clone made an awful expression, torment twisting his bestial features into something nightmarish. "We're not them, bastard. It's not right."
"You're not going to be anything if we don't stop whatever is happening to your boss," she said, sharingan straining to parse the movement of his chakra. It was roiling through his body independent of any hand seals or intent, from what she could see. Wherever it passed, the idiot's muscles spasmed and his skin darkened to a more alarming red. Why was he still channeling chakra? How was he still channeling, despite his condition?
Sasuke looked at the clone, fretting over the limp Iwa nin, and the cord of blood red chakra connecting him to the original.
"Naruto."
The clone looked up. "Yea-" Her kunai drove through his right eye and he burst into chakra smoke. The Naruto underneath her arched up, heaving a strangled shout through his crowded teeth, and then collapsed. Sasuke held him down for a few moments just to be sure, and then leaned back. He didn't move.
"Sasuke..." Sakura said, quietly. Her voice was shaking. "This is too much. I can't do it anymore."
"Do what?" Sasuke snapped. "You haven't done anything, Sakura." It was harsh, she knew. Watching her teammate's eyes fill with tears didn't give her any satisfaction, but Sasuke was just so tired.
"We're just genin!" Sakura sobbed, collapsing back against a tree as everything she'd been holding in finally split her open. "I know what they told us in the Academy, I knew there'd be a risk, but this- this isn't fair! We're supposed to have Kakashi. And Iwa is supposed to respect the Hokage's word, they agreed." She slumped down onto her butt, scratching frantically at her scalp. "This wasn't even our mission!"
"I know it isn't fair. Giving up won't change that."
"What if it did?" Sakura asked. "They could have killed us back there, but they didn't. What if they've been following us for another reason?"
"Don't be stupid, Sakura," she said, looking Naruto over. His skin wasn't clearing up, but it wasn't getting worse either. The gouges, though...
"I'm serious! We know we're not anywhere near Fire Country, so what if they just want us detained? Or- it could be a preemptive move, taking us into their custody before Hokage-sama finds out what happened to s-sensei and tries to find us. Maybe it's better if we surrender. They could offer us back as hostages-"
"Look at me," Sasuke demanded. Sakura did, and she felt sick at the sight of her. Tear-stained cheeks, with more welling up in exhausted green eyes, ragged pink hair coated in grime. That was it. A little mud, some bruises. She was at the end of her rope, and for what?
"You see these eyes?" They had started to ache sometime during the fight, and had only worsened since, but she needed them as they were. "The sharingan is my clan's greatest strength. It's the greatest bloodline technique there has ever been, and I am the only one left to bear it." Or would be, soon enough. "Countries have started wars over bloodlines half as famous as mine. Do you honestly believe Iwa would just... give me back?"
Silence and more tears were her answer. Sasuke sighed.
"Give me your first aid supplies."
Sakura made no move to help while she patched up the worst of Naruto's self-inflicted wounds. The last of her adrenaline was on its way out, bringing the throbbing of her wrist into stark focus while she tried to maneuver his dead weight and the bandages. Whatever healing it had been doing was shot. It might have been worse than before. Add that to the fact that the idiot could apparently bleed again, and things weren't looking good.
"They were right, weren't they?" Sakura asked, so softly that it could have been the wind.
"Hn?"
"About Naruto. Your parents told you, too, didn't they? Ah, I mean- before they-"
"Died?" Sasuke said, impatient. "No, they didn't. Why would they?"
Sakura looked shocked. "Nothing? They didn't tell you anything?"
"Sakura." The girl flinched back at the tone of her voice, shifted her eyes away.
"My parents told me to stay away from him, when I first started at the Academy," she said. Softly again, like they weren't the only two conscious people there. "They said he was no good. Dangerous. It wasn't just them, either. Have you ever seen him walk down the street? People avoid him, like he's sick. Or feral."
"He saved us," Sasuke said, hating the taste of the words. "Whatever he is, he's the reason we're still alive. Why should I care what other people think of him?"
"Look at him!" Sakura jerked a finger. "Look at that and tell me it's the same idiot we left Konoha with. Tell me that isn't exactly what my parents warned me about five years ago! Tell me he's not some kind of monster, Sasuke!"
Sasuke looked, and pained blue eyes looked back at her.
"Talk to me."
It wasn't the elegant break that the silence had been begging for, but Sasuke had never been an elegant girl. Even if circumstances hadn't been what they were, she'd never had the patience for word games or coddling. That part of her had died with the rest of the Uchiha.
Hours had passed since their escape from the desolated village and their pursuers from Iwa. The night was thick with rainfall, insects, and nocturnal birdcalls. They were alone, the two of them, separated from Sakura and their prisoner by a short distance of trees and vines. Close enough to react, far enough to pretend the other wasn't really there. Sakura had taken on the roll of caring for Ittan, who was miraculously still breathing after Naruto shattered every rib in his sternum. She'd been more comfortable tending to an enemy than their teammate.
Sasuke had waited too long already, given the idiot hours after he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep through Sakura calling him a monster. No more. She wanted answers.
"You promised me answers, dead last. What happened to never going back on your word?"
Goading him had always been easy. The monstrous red chakra hadn't changed that. She saw him stiffen, then after a moment shove himself up onto his elbow and glare at her. His eyes were violet in the night.
"I keep my promises, bastard," he said dangerously. Sasuke scoffed and leaned back on her hands. The ground was soft and yielding, as thoroughly soaked through as they were.
"Then talk to me," she repeated. He grimaced.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything." What did he think this was? They weren't in the Academy anymore. They weren't under a jounin's protection. They couldn't afford secrets. "I'm not Sakura. I don't care what the village thinks of you, or what you look like when you use that power. I care about surviving." She met his eyes, her red to his violet, and sneered. "So stop avoiding the question, idiot. What are you?"
After a long, tense silence, Naruto sat up across from her, close enough that their noses could touch if either leaned in just a few inches. "I'm a monster."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'm serious!" he whispered harshly. Sasuke believed him- rather, she believed that he believed he was a monster. But he had no idea what a real monster was. Even Roshi and Suna's little psychopath couldn't compare to the real thing.
"Explain it to me, then," she said, unwilling to argue the point. He could wallow in self-pity all he wanted.
"I'm not... strong." Sasuke very nearly made a comment on that, but held it back. Some vague feeling, a gut instinct, told her that he was one snide remark away from locking up completely. "Not like Kakashi-sensei, not like them. I'm not some prodigy or genius, like you and Sakura. When it really counted I couldn't do anything. It made me so mad."
Blood red chakra seethed outward from a central point in his stomach, slowly, in whisper-thin tendrils that dispersed through his body like blood in water. Sasuke said nothing.
"What do you know about the Kyuubi?" he asked suddenly. Her mind went blank.
Jinchuriki.
"What are you saying?" she whispered, staring at the alien chakra winding through his body with growing horror.
"Me, I didn't know much. It's what I get for skipping class all the time, I guess," he said, his voice giving lie to the airy words. "Didn't seem important, y'know? The Yondaime killed it, right? Everyone said so.
"Turns out." He grinned mirthlessly, revealing canines just long and sharp enough be noticeable. "They lied."
"So that chakra," she ventured, watching it ooze up into his eyes, turning them steadily darker. Not quite red, but far from blue.
"Remember that corny speech Iruka-sensei gave us back on our field trip to the Hokage Mountain?" he asked. She did. It was one of the few times the dead last had actually shown up to class on time, if she recalled. "The one about the Yondaime's sacrifice? Where human suffering goes, the Kyuubi is sure to follow. The Yondaime died protecting us from the consequences of our own cruelty, yadda yadda yadda."
"I do."
"That part was true." His pretend mirth drained away. He looked haunted. Scared. "I should have died out there, Sasuke. That old man killed me a hundred times, I could feel it. But I was too mad to die. Something inside of me wouldn't let me."
Sasuke didn't say a word. Naruto waited, silently begging her to say something, but she wouldn't. She needed to hear it from his mouth.
He whispered, defeated, "It was the Kyuubi. It gave me power then, and it gave me power today. I saw it. The Yondaime might've killed its body, but it's still alive. It told me everything. No matter how many times we kill it, the damn fox can just come back. It's inside all of us. Just needs to find the right monster with nothing to lose."
"So the chakra, the healing, the transformation...?"
"All of it."
Everything she'd seen him do, going from a one-note failure to a monster that could stand toe-to-toe with the elite, that was all the Kyuubi's doing. Simple as that? And it was inside all of them?
"And it gave you its chakra... for free?" she asked slowly. Naruto immediately leaned back from her, lips lifting in a snarl.
"Don't even think about it, bastard." Sasuke lashed out and snatched the tattered collar of his tracksuit. She yanked him in close, her heart beginning to race.
"Answer me!" she hissed. "What did you give it? What have you done?"
He stared at her, baffled. "You mean you don't..."
"Don't what?" Sasuke shook him, unable to believe what she was hearing. "Don't know what you did to convince a demon to give you its power, out of every human in existence? Don't know how you could be even more of a fool than I already thought?"
"I..." he tugged on her hand, but she refused to let go. "I made it a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"It gives me chakra when I need it, and I let it live through me- not controlling me or anything!" he quickly added, seeing the look on her face. "Just, watching."
"And that's it?" she asked skeptically. He winced and shook his head.
"We made a bet." Sasuke slowly let her grip fall away. Their hands fell into his lap. "It's locked up inside me, somehow, but the more I use its chakra, the weaker the bars get. I bet that before the bars break, I'll get so strong that I'll never need to use its power again. If I win, it stays dead for as long as I live. Doesn't mess with anyone else. If I lose..."
His hand tightened around hers. Sasuke hesitated. Then she wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed.
"If I lose, it takes my body and makes me watch. Forever."
The forest's white noise was deafening. Sasuke just looked at him, lost for words, and he looked back at her, bleakly resigned. Distantly, as if she was having the thought outside of herself, she wondered at how violently their world had changed in so short a time. It was a feeling she'd had before, in the days following the massacre. It had barely been two months since they'd graduated from the Academy. Weeks since they'd been pulling weeds and walking dogs. And now he'd sold his soul.
"Why?" It was all she could say.
"Because Kakashi-sensei died so we could get back home, and trusted me to get us there. Because I've never had anything to lose, and now I have you guys. Because it's all I could do."
She bit her lip, warring with a dozen different impulses.
"I'm going to kill my brother."
In the dark and the damp, she opened up.
"Why?" he echoed. Unsurprised, but raptly focused. Sasuke focused on breathing, not on the words. Not the memories.
"Itachi was everything to me. My best friend, my role model, my hero. He was kind, and thoughtful, and made time for me when no one else would. Genin at seven years old, chunin at eleven, and ANBU captain at thirteen. As far as I was concerned, the sun rose in the palm of his hand." She swallowed back bile. "When I was eight years old he murdered everyone in our family and made me watch.
"I still don't know why he did it, or why he spared me. But the why doesn't matter. He took everything from me, so I'm going to take everything from him. Whatever it takes, I will kill him. I will bring my family peace."
"Sasuke..."
"So don't think this is all up to you," she said fiercely. "We both have monsters to face. We both have dreams. If we work together, we can survive this. We have to."
His fingers bled white around hers, and she gripped back just as hard. She watched the demon's chakra thin and fade from his body with cold satisfaction.
"We do," Naruto said, defiant. "But how?"
"You said you can sense people when you're using its chakra?"
"Negative emotions, yeah. I can feel everything the Kyuubi feels, all the worst of people." He leaned in conspiratorially. "You're the nastiest of 'em all."
Of that, she had no doubt.
"Then I have a plan. But it's only going to work if you trust me, no questions asked."
"It goes both ways." He leaned in. "Can you trust me?"
She leaned in to meet him, forehead to forehead. With just a hint of mirth, she said, "If I must."
He snickered. "Bastard."
She smiled. "Idiot."
That was the start of it all.
