Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Sub Rosa	By : TwinEnigma Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1732 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the characters therein. I do not do this for profit or monetary gain.

Chapter List
- 1-Mukyū
- 2-Jukkyū
- 3-Kyūkyū
- 4-Hakkyū
- 5-Nanakyū
- 6-Rokkyū
- 7-Gokyū
- 8-Yonkyū
- 9-Sankyū
- 6
- 7
- 8
Karin is standing in a large, darkened room. Windows vault towards the ceiling, curving into delicate arches at the top, and are framed in eerily incandescent curtains of white lace. She turns, her feet echoing on the marble, and brushes past an ornate brass candelabra. Lightning flashes outside, revealing a high, gilded ceiling and dozens of portraits along the walls.
One portrait in particular grabs her attention. It is a woman with a familiar face – a name echoes fleetingly through her head – and she knows somehow that this woman is trapped here, within the portrait, far from her lover's light.
She feels eyes on her back and turns, but there is no one there.
Karin shivers and steps outside into a bright and busy marketplace. Immediately, she feels the sensation of being watched again.
A blond child, dressed in blue, emerges from under a table. "I don't want to be watched anymore," he says and crinkles up his nose.
The whisker marks on his cheeks lengthen and now she can see the pointed ears on the sides of his head, the claws capping his fingers and the bushy tail that twitches with his movements. Fox youkai, she notes and floats behind him.
"Take this," the fox says, giving a man a candy shaped like a flower, and as soon as the man eats it, Karin knows the man is a blank spot, unable to be seen by the presence that watches them.
Again and again, the little fox approaches others, feeding them and making them blank spots. He passes by the old man, a writer Karin is sure she's seen a poster of.
"He could help us," she suggests to him.
But the fox doesn't listen. He practically wiggles down the walls and around her, tail whipping. "We need to rescue the Guardian before we can free the others."
Karin knows instantly of whom he speaks – she is a woman familiar to her, with long, long red hair and immeasurable wisdom. She can help, Karin thinks. She knows things that everyone else has forgotten.
"This way," the fox tells her and guides her through rows of white stones.
Two guards in black armor appear. Their heads are covered in black helmets and, beyond them is a shimmering doorway.
"We'll never get past them," Karin says. They cannot see her because she is hiding behind a white stone and she knows they will see her if she moves. The flower candy hides them from the watchers, but not from plain sight.
The fox sinuously moves over the stones, winding around the guards, and taps them on the head, drawing something from them. One by one, they fall over and the fox grins triumphantly as he returns to her. "She's this way. There's a maze, filled with traps, but I won't know more until I fully absorb their memories."
He points a clawed finger at the doorway and suddenly Karin is there, looking into a room filled columns and crystalline chandeliers.
"This way," the fox says, bounding inside and in-between the columns.
Karin struggles to follow and is alarmed to note they are being followed by the guards. They are doing something bad – the Queen does not want them here and the guards will execute them if they are caught!
The room narrows into a long hallway, but the guards do not slow down. There are more and more of them.
In the room of portraits, the trapped woman weeps.
A column appears in the center of the hallway, the hall splitting into two paths around it. The column opens up, revealing a doorway and a set of stairs winding through its core. The fox darts around one side and the guards dart around the other.
There is a splash.
Karin peers around the corner. Suigetsu and a second Suigetsu are sitting on the floor, water splattered around them as they each rub their heads in pain. They stare at her in confusion.
"Join me," says one of them, standing. The other holds out clothes and then they are one entity, a singular Suigetsu with the dress in hand.
"Don't listen to them! Stick with me," the fox says. He, too, holds out clothing, but he has a hat and a giant pink bunny rabbit to compliment the outfit she is suddenly wearing.
Karin twirls the black lace umbrella in her hand, hugging the bunny in the other, and resists the urge to giggle as Suigetsu complains, like always.
"Shh, shh," the fox says and beckons them down another corridor. They pass a garden. There's a woman there – the Queen, Karin knows this immediately – and she is holding a child with pink hair and red eyes.
"She is not the Queen. The child's looks are proof of this," the fox tells her.
"But the Queen had pink hair," Suigetsu interjects. "That's what it was in the original draft."
The woman's hair is bleached, white as bone, and nearly translucent. Something has drained away all the color in her. There is the vague impression of a dark-haired man in violet beside her and Karin thinks he looks familiar.
Dirt crunches under her feet and they follow the fox into a small, spotless restaurant on a cliff. They all sit and the waiter comes to take their orders.
"Did you see the fight in the marketplace? I can't believe it!" the waiter gushes, scribbling on his order sheet. "Attacking in broad daylight, the nerve of those awful rebels! The Queen is the greatest thing that ever happened to this place – she gave us peace and happiness! Who wouldn't want that?"
"Where are the clans?" Sasuke asks. He sits with them, dressed strangely, like a civilian from the big cities. The Uchiha crest shines on his belt buckle. "What happened to the clans?"
"Oh, they attacked her and the Queen shut them out entirely. That was forever ago," the waiter says, sliding away.
Karin shakes.
It's suddenly all wrong. The Queen wouldn't... There had to be a reason.
"Then it's decided," Sasuke says. He narrows his eyes and turns his thumb down, towards the table. "The Queen must die."
The fox shakes his head, frowning. For a moment, his visage ripples with the echoes of an older, long-haired blond man, and then he is the fox child again and the world around them has changed.
Karin now stands in a dimly lit throne room. The Queen sits before the throne, her body curled protectively around the pink-haired child, who sleeps as one dead. Behind her, in the shadows, the vague shape of a man lingers. His bone-white hands rest on the Queen's head, leeching away her life.
The fox turns to Karin. "You must free her."
Karin nods and steps forward.
"You mustn't be here," the Queen says. "Please, stay away."
"No," the fox insists. Forget-Me-Nots cover his kosode. "If you want to truly be free, you must help her, Karin."
Karin chews nervously on her lip and steps forward again.
"Please," the Queen begs. "You must leave. It is not safe for you!"
The shadows behind her stir, red pinpricks of light appearing in place of the shadowy man's eyes. They are shaped like six-pointed stars, and he smiles sinisterly.
"To defeat him, you must wake and free the child. The child is the Queen," the fox tells her. "Please, your life depends on it!"
The shadowy man laughs cruelly: "Why don't you tell her the truth, mindwalker? Nothing here is real. She is in no danger, except from you."
Karin knows that voice.
"Shut up, you parasitic worm," the fox snarls. "Don't listen to him. Just wake up the child and everything will be OK."
But Karin cannot move. Her legs refuse to.
"I've been looking all over for you, Karin," the shadowy man says, his teeth a slash of light in the darkness. "I need you. Help me, Karin."
"Sasuke," she breathes.
Her feet move forward of their own volition.
"Help me," he says, holding out a shadowy hand, and smiling. His eyes, the unholy stars blazing, stare into her, through her, as he starts to pull her in. "Help me... Kill the Guardian. Give me the Queen."
Karin lets go, automatically taking a half-step back in horror.
He catches her hand, his lips twisting into a cruel, leering grin. "Where do you think you're going, Karin? You love me, don't you? Don't you want to make me happy?"
She cannot move, her entire body feels paralyzed, and she struggles to find words. Yes, she loves him, but this... this is not Sasuke!
"I want the Queen. Give her to me, Karin, and this will all be over," Sasuke purrs, reaching up to caress her cheek. "I promise."
"No!"
Hands grab her by the shoulders and pull her away. It is the fox, his face contorted in fury. He is suddenly a vaguely familiar blond teen in an orange and black shirt. The whiskers on his cheeks are pronounced and his eyes are a strange and unsettling amphibian yellow. He tenses his legs and springs, pulling her along with him. Shadows and black flames explode beneath them and she swears she can see a burning, skeletal hand reaching for them before they disappear into the clouds.
They land on the deck of a flying boat, moored in the mountains.
"That should buy us some time," the fox tells her. "We'll try again in a bit, when things have settled again."
She shakes her head, her legs wobbling beneath her in fright. There's no way she's going back there!
"Don't be afraid," he says, soothingly. "I'll be there to help. I won't let you get hurt."
He pauses and suddenly flickers again to that older blond man, with the long, long ponytail. "But you will have to face him again. I'm sorry."
She doesn't know what to think.
"If you want your memories back – your real ones –, you'll have to retake control of this world," the fox adds. "It won't be easy, but I promise I'll be right there with you every step of the way."
But she doesn't know who he is now, and there's something alien and terrible about what he's saying, a truth she can only barely comprehend. It scares her, scares her to death.
Karin turns and runs, disappearing below decks, and ignores the fox's voice begging her to come back.
She does not wake.
Karin's eyes move back and forth beneath her eyelids with rapidity. Her fingers twist in the sheets and her breathing quickens. Her pulse is fast, thundering. On the windowsill, a vase of Forget-Me-Nots and a get-well card are haloed by the setting sun, silent witnesses to the patient's worsening state.
The pink-haired nurse withdraws her fingers from the girl's wrist, frowning, and jots a note on her clipboard.
She waits, watching her charge with a wary eye as the shadows lengthen.

AN: Inoichi is harder to spot this chapter, since he appears as Naruto/Shippo-esque Naruto to Karin.
You may also notice that in this chapter I do not cut away to Ibiki and Inoichi again. This is because Inochi is now much more active within the dream.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Sub Rosa