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Attraction	By : gelfling Category: Naruto > General Views: 1846 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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Standard Disclaimer: Applies At All Times

Attraction
By gelfling

Gelfling8604@yahoo.com

//Thoughts//
::Invading Thoughts::

***

See the knot.

See it glitter, this knot of paper-thin silver threads, each one a multicolored mind moving and thinking, webbed out over the village. Minds aren�t separate things, not in a community this small. Thoughts tend to leak over into each other by association. No one truly owns his or her own mind.

They share them, on a very small impersonal scale, mix and match ideas. They carry each other around in their head, wonde wha what to get them for birthdays, what they had meant when they said that, how she had gotten his phone number�that sort of thing. Picturing their daughters in their minds. Wondering what their dads were doing right now. Hoping their friends would let them borrow some lunch.
See the knot.
Now they were all thinking a little harder about each other, because they are made to. A little stronger. A little more often.
See the knot.
That�s their minds. That�s their minds thinking. And since their thinking more, it�s easier to see, easier to touch. Easier to mold.
Now.
See the knot.
Take the knot.
Rip it apart.
***
There should have been screams.
There really should have been some screams, Naruto couldn�t help thinking. After all that preparation, after all that careful, meticulous work, so very delicate and nearly impossible work. After all that damage he knew he had done, all the death he knew had been caused just now. There should have been screams or explosions or fireworks or something. Sirens at least.
It was all rather quiet.
Roughly more than half of the village had just suffered immediate brain failure, and most of the rest had experienced immediate cardiac arrest. Like tumors growing in their brains, something had suddenly caused the gray matter to go splat! Most of them probably had no idea it had happened or that they had even died. But they had. They were dead. There was a big silence in Naruto�s head, in his ears, where their voices had spoken static. How many? Three hundred? A thousand? More? How many died in a single at?
?
Who cared?
Naruto opened his eyes.
He hit the ground.
Buried into his jacket, three kunai vibrated with impact.
His eyes darted up, and he skittered backwards and to the side, seeking cover against the wall before getting out of there.
Of course, his attack only worked if one didn�t know how to guard one�s mind against foreign agents. Only worked if one couldn�t tell that something was off with their head, that someone else was inside it. Only worked with one really trusted their intuition, trusted themselves.
People like that are a small number. But in a shinobi village, it was a large number compared to the whole.
Naruto pulled two kunai out, standing and sliding into the shadows, while a copy silently slipped though a window at blinking speeds.
He was hit in sho shoulder before he threw them, fell hard to the ground and disappeared in a poof of smoke, a smoking log in the middle of it, thunking to the concrete flooring. A few seconds later the illusion broke, and Naruto again lay limply on the ground, eyes closed.
::Let him go now!::
He continued to lie on the ground, eyes closed as if dead, and his shoulder bleeding slightly. He hadn�t dared dodge the attack even slightly; it would have ruined the illusion. Since when would a substitute doppelganger care about getting hit? Naruto waited.
There. A slow increase of energy to the southeast. Naruto sent it a little mental nudge, just enough to tell Gaara he was near, and that he was watching him.
The energy exploded.
It was frantic and high and feverish. If that didn�t get everyone�s attention, he didn�t know what would. The sky over the south became hazy with dust, turning the sun a gritty color. You would have to be blind not to feel that chakra, dark and panicky and hurt, and all the angrier because of it.
Gaara might live through it, but it was just possible he would not. His wounds had been horrible, and the amount and rate of energy he was expending right now would take him out easy if he wasn�t careful.
But it would be enough for a distraction.
And Gaara had some protection�provided he didn�t do anything stupid like kill them on accident. Knowing Gaara as Naruto did, he just might do that�
Time for the real work to begin.
Naruto sent his mind out, skimmed around, and found that most of his doppelgangers had been discovered and taken care of. So here was the real work. Here was the real challenge.
The knot was destroyed, exploded, gone. The remaining threads on peripheral vision weren�t bright or obvious enough to tie together and yank in one pull, but they were active and observant enough that he could send them little messages easily, little messages that they would think they were seeing themselves.
He could pick at their control, make them see all of the sleeping cold people around at their feet, make them feel their responses to it. He didn�t let them ignore anything. He picked at their control, at the cold professionalism, picked and picked at it until he created a crack wide enough to wiggle through. He made them see all as they were supposed to, made them feel it like they were already fighting not to. He was just helping their instincts push open the door.
Some of them fled. They were caught.
Bring on the haze.
They could feel the chakra, the ancient evil energy, malicious and potent and hateful, south in the forest, south in the village. They knew it would come for them, for entrapping it. The older ones remembered Nine Tails, what hell it had been fighting that demon and losing,htinhting that demon until finally Hokage had trapped it in that child. They remembered the fear, and the pain. The people who died. They remembered the fire.
Dark indigo gray blue misty haze, like the haze over the sun, like the haze in their minds, so heavy and bulky it was hard to move with it inside their skulls. Brains were such useless things, didn�t do anything right. The darkness lived inside your head. The darkness didn�t live in the closet or in blue eyes, the darkness lived inside your own *head*.
Loud, maniac laughter filled their ears, bone marrow chilling and so selfish. A man screamed suddenly in shock as his body rebelled against him, his arm snapping so far back it broke the bone. The muscles didn�t obey, the body seemed to go into seizures or arrests, flailing so hard that the bones broke and arteries bursts so people actually drowned in their own blood! In their own fluids!
Naruto cracked up and laughed like mad! He was near doubling over, leaning against the wall as the laughter and strain took him, laughing and laughing so damn hard!
Hearts began to pump even quicker, urged on by the adrenalin and hormones that they were making themselves! They wanted to find him so hard, so very badly that they were stopping their own blessed hearts with the effort! They were giving themselves heart attacks! All by themselves! It was so funny!!!
All Naruto really ho doo do was push them a little. Break down the composure, the little flimsy toy wall of control they built up.
They had suffered so many losses in so little time. They had lost men. They still weren�t sure what they were fighting! Two whole ninja tribes wiped out! They couldn�t see right, couldn�t walk right�a whole lot of them couldn�t even breathe.
The pride of Konohakagure, leveled because everyone was so afraid to go into his or her own minds. Terrified to have somebody else in there, looking at all their dirty little secrets, throwing them and plastering them in their faces.
Look who raped their girlfriend when she wouldn�t say yes. Look who cheated on the test even though they weren�t supposed to. Look who rigged the test, because he didn�t want his rival to get too far a head of him. Because he was jealous.
::Look at your dead mom, killed because you weren�t there to protect her. Because you were selfish. Look how pale she looks, how bloated. Disgusting, looks like something out of the freezer. Look at the little kid you killed, assassinated, because it was your job, because he was born into the wrong family. Was your reputation worth the kid�s life? Does that money taste good in your mouth?::
::Was it worth his life?::
::Is it worth yours?::
::Look at all the ones you left behind. All the ones you failed. You failed them, failed your village, because you weren�t good enough. Weren�t skilled enough. Because you cared more about yourself than you did about them. Because they had good hearts, so they had to die. You lived. What�s that make you, buddy? What�s that make you?::
::You bastard. Hear them scream. Hear them call. Retrieve their bodies, see their slack mouths and cold skin, and don�t you dare cry for them. You don�t deserve to. You worthless piece of shit. You don�t deserve to at all.::

::They died. You survived.::
::You bastard. You should have died with them.::
::Look at their eyes. Remember when they were alive? How you laughed together, pushed each other around just to feel skin against skin. Just to know you weren�t alone? That you were alive? Look at their eyes. See their dead eyes looking back at you. See the dead looking at you, see the dead *seeing* you. Feels good, doesn�t it? Taste their still blood, their cold sweat. Eat them up. They were stronger than you, that�s how they could die while you lived. You need their strength, to become better. Take their strength, eat their strength, eat their flesh. Become strong. Become better.::
::Become better. That�s all that matters now, you worthless piece of shit. Become better, if you dare. Eat them, if you�ve got the stomach for it. If you�ve got the courage for it. You don�t have it, do you? You�re still so damn weak, despicably weak. You don�t deserve to live. You don�t deserve to live while they died. You contaminate everyone you touch with your weakness. You�re killing your children, the children of the future. You bastard. You�re killing the future with all your stupidity, all your incompetence.::
::You weak bastard. Look what you�ve done. Look how many you�ve killed. Look how many have died, while *you* lived.::
::Here�s your chance, sonny-Jim. Here�s your chance, honey. Do the right thing. Do the brave thing. Join them. You don�t deserve to live; you never did. You let them die, you let them *down*! You failed. The weak don�t live. Do the right thing. Take the knife. Do the right thing. Take the knife and do the goddamned right thing for once, you motherfucker. Do the right thing. The only right thing, you�ve ever done in your whole life.::
::Do the last thing you�ll ever do in your life. Do the right thing. Do the last right thing.::
::Do it. Do it now.::
Wild golden savage laughter pealed through the streets, stampeded through the houses with their closed windows where the secrets were kept, tore through the souls and commercial avenues. Tore through it all and more, this wild golden vicious laughter. Tore through it all.
::Do it now!::
Dust and sand covered the sun, slowly turned the noon day to summer�s twilight. Darkness falls.
This was so EASY!!!
Slowly, Naruto began to change. His body became taller, longer, and more muscled while still incredibly flexible. The world around him began to change, the colors becoming uniform like really bad color television that still looks like black-and-white TV, but everything was also clearer. He could look into shadows and see everything down to microscopic detail. His hearing tuned to his own heartbeat, the wind rushing wildly to the north, and his sense of smell was outrageous. As was his teeth. And his claws.
Naruto concentrated on the buildings on the other side of the street from his spot in the alley. He jerked one hand swiftly to the side, then grinned loudly when both sides of the street suddenly caught fire!
Not �caught fire� as in smoke started trickling out, but �caught fire� as in the glass flew out and shattered, that pieces of stucco and wood exploded outwards due to the pressure, the heat enough to set skin aflame without even touching it. Caught fire as in brilliant inflammable gasoline and natural gas raining down harder than hailstones that exploded in your face and took your head off! Caught fire as in caught fire! Not caught fire as in caught smoke.
Fire whipped around his shoulders, down his fingers. Naruto closed his eyes and swung one arm backward. He was gratified to hear the subsequent fwuuuumm, and laughed madly, screeching high in throat.
::I�m ba~ack::

Now.
//It�s time for those screams//
***
An irregular vibration, a confused feeling of panic woke Iruka up. He was lying on stone, inside somewhere because he could smell the smoke heavy from the fireplace, and the back of his head and his guts ached. His head felt sluggish, heavy, like he had been drugged.
By degrees, he sat up, and managed to get an idea of where he was. He was not, he noticed inside. And the fire was not coming from the fireplace. Sluggishly, his brain tried to process the information his eyes were sending it into a logical picture.
//�no. This is a nightmare�I�ve to be dreaming�this can�t�//
The smoke kept on getting into his nose even though he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, nails digging into his arm to make the pain wake him up. This couldn�t be happening. This couldn�t be happening.
�Actually, it can.�
The sound was a twisted grin of pig-iron. Perverse satisfaction oozing and dripping flaunted anger. Sounded like it was laughing. Red-black laughter.
Iruka didn�t turn around. Didn�t move or take his eyes from the sight in front of him. No. This wasn�t real. This couldn�t be real. No.
::Should I fight?::
He couldn�t fight. He couldn�t even turn around. He couldn�t even speak.
//�daddy�no�no�//
Iruka began to shake his head slowly side to side, slowly concentrating on waking up. This couldn�t be happening. This couldn�t be happening.
Naruto winced involuntarily. His mind hurt so much. Naruto swallowed. This wasn�t what he had wanted. Damn. His smirk slid back into place easily after a thought. Quietly, Naruto invaded the other�s mind.
By degrees, then.
When Iruka opened his eyes again, he didn�t see the village he loved on fire. He didn�t smell smoke on the air when he inhaled deeply, only the faint smell of grass and wood. He didn�t feel the cold roughness of the stone of the Hokage monument cliff top. He wasn�t on a rock at all. He was sitting on some moss, nice thick light green moss some distance away from a smooth lake, with slender beige trees all around.
Slowly, his heartbeat began to slow down from the panic-attack state it had been in, pumping at roaring rushing speeds in his ear so fast that it had frightened him, to hear his heart going so fast. Hs sus sure he was going to have a heart attack. The adrenalin was still heavy in his system, and Iruka wiped sweat from his forehead, looked at it glisten in the lazy afternoon sunshine on his sweaty palm. He was alive. He was alive. God he had been so sure that�
He had been a kid again. He had been a kid again struggling and fighting while his father and mother died fighting a demon.
God.
Oh god.
It was�It was just a dream. Still a dre He He was still dreaming. This place�this place had to be a dream. It didn�t feel like he was dreaming, but if he wasn�t�
He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming.
Oh god.
He was alive. His village wasn�t being hurt. He was dreaming. He was dreaming.
Oh god.
��What kind of sick dream is this!�
�My kind,� said a voice behind him. Iruka�s eyes widened. He knew that voice. Sasuke had reported back, and as a former teacher and close associate, Iruka had been questioned closely. Very closely, and thoroughly, as had Kakashi. But he hadn�t�
Even though they told him, he hadn�t believed it. It didn�t�
�It does work. It works if you see it through. But it does work.�
Now that wasn�t his voice. Not his student�s voice. This voice was deeper, older, and completely alien to him. But Iruka was running out of choices. He couldn�t turn his head around to look because his body was paralyzed, couldn�t stand up or twist around. It was like trying to walk through a wall.
But he could still move his eyes around, could still touch the moss and tear it out of the ground. Could shuffle his legs. He just couldn�t turn around.
�What�s going on?�
There was no answer. Iruka tried to call out, tried to speak his name. He couldn�t say his name, not even a little bit. He couldn�t say his name at all. Couldn�t think it. After a while, the voice spoke again�off to his right, Iruka noticed�but didn�t answer his question or come into vision.
�I�ve been what people wanted for the longest time.�
�I�ve been that damn fox Naruto. I�ve been hated since before I knew life, for crimes I didn�t commit, hated without knowing why. Without even knowing why, Iruka-sensei.�
�Don�t you dare call me that,� Iruka cut in angrily, the minute he had heard that name spoken.
He still co�t t�t turn around. He tried to speak�ask what was going on, why wo�t h�t he let Iruka see him, what was he afraid of�and found again that he couldn�t speak. The voice behind him continued smoothly like he hadn�t spoken.
�You hated me too, fotimetime, but I can almost forgive that. Pay back the favor, so to speak. But the truth is, Iruka-san, that I can�t forgive everyone else. I guess I�m just not that compassionate! I guess maybe I am a cold-blooded murderer, a real demon among demons, and the villagers�you especially Iruka-sensei, really don�t deserve that. You really don�t deserve me. You�re a nice guy, I should know�and you really don�t deserve to have a guy like me around. I�d probably never be a good ninja��
Iruka stared straight in front of him. He didn�t think this was dream anymore. He couldn�t move still, and if he concentrated hard he could�nearly imagine the smell of smoke. Nearly.
�So I�ve decided that I�m going to repay my gratitude to the people of this village, who took care of my upbringing, my development�my childhood memories, as it were, by becoming exactly what they want. By becoming exactly what they desire. By finally granting them that long awaited wish they�ve held so close to their hearts.�
Pause.
Naruto grinned widely to himself; a thin stentorian growl edged his voice.
�And I present it to you now.�
Iruka�s face stayed stiff. He could smell the smoke now, easily. He could still see the lake in front of him, but he couldn�t smell the water. The wind on his face didn�t make the water ripple or branches rattle. He could still see the moss under his legs, but felt cold hardness under his hands.
�I am the Demon Fox creature Nine Tails. I am Naruto Uzumaki, the Forbidden Child. I am the Demon King of the Northern Land. I am�the worst plague upon the earth like that which has never been seen before.�
Naruto smiled widely.
�And only a few select like yourself will survive my wrath.�
Naruto stood and shifted his stance, looking every inch the proud father to absolutely no one at all save himself, and stated:
�As I speak, the village town�and all her libraries and storages and hospitals�is up in flame, and the survivors are being hunted down now. And so far�no one�s come to stop me. I think I�m a little disappointed.�
Iruka felt eyes burning into the back of his neck, felt the frigid condescension with a touch of perverse sadistic enjoyment misting out rotten green from behind, the alien feelings pricking his skin like real things.
�Not everyone can be a forgiving idealist like you,� Naruto said coldly. �I know I won�t do it. I don�t get anything from it. Just pain. Pain and stupidity, and I want more than that. I can get more than that.�
Naruto smiled sweet as gently warmed honey on fresh baked bread, smooth as butter on a balmy summer�s day. You could hear that smile in his voice.
�I will get more than that.�
Iruka looked out of the corner of his eye, and could see while whatever he focused on was indeed the brilliant green moss and pale tree trunk; his peripheral vision only saw shades of gray. The voice behind him came again.
�I think Gaara-san finally ran out of energy. He�s always real fun when he�s angry.�
Iruka seemed to fall back asleep.
***
Loooosers!! Wanna-be�s! You don�t have what it takes to do something this low! I rule, and you drool!

--Naruto, Naruto vol.1
Just because I don�t care, doesn�t mean I don�t understand.

-Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
�Can you imagine if they let someone like that become a shinobi?�

-- Naruto vol.?
***
Iruka found himself literally flying through the trees, not even feeling a bouncing or falling motion as he was dragged through them with the leaves lashing at his body and ascended a huge tree that from the very tips of it, where the branches were no more than a few inches thick and would barely support his weight.
He was dropped on his empty stomach on one such branch.
And for one of the few times in his career as a Gennin and Chunnin, he felt a wave of vertigo they were so damn high. There could have been a small army directly beneath them and he wouldn�t have known it, he wouldn�t be able to make it out they were so bloody high.
He struggled and wavered, careful of the branch�s strength and his own weight and by the fact that if he fell now things would become undeniably interesting. Then he glanced quickly to his right.
A second figure, slightly bigger than he, was crouched on an even thinner branch than his, yet seemed absolutely confident of himself, at ease with his surroundings, and seemed to radiate power.
He wasn�t sure it was Naruto. Because, he was somewhat surer, that Naruto did not have pointed ears a foot long.
The mouth of the creature was slightly open, not because he was breathing hard but mostly because he was thinking on what to say. White pointed teeth that clicked together nicely appeared in the gap between his lips. Three long lines leaning towards horizontal emblazoned on either cheek reaching from nearly his nose to the edge of his face. Light blond hair fell over his face and eyes and down his back, and his eyes themselves were a murky red, bordering on purple.
He was barely dressed, with only ragged thin shorts barely covering the essentials, showing hard muscles like river stones plated over a rangy flexible body with fingers that were long and slightly curled, with a very talon-ish feel to them. There was something wrong with his feet, Iruka noticed. There seemed to be two ankles�
Kakashi hadn�t mentioned this. Kakashi hadn�t seen this. Only Gaara had really ever gotten a good look at Naruto�s half-fox form, and this was it. If he didn�t want people to see him in it, they wouldn�t. A fox�s skill of camouflage, brilliant red in a green forest. Absolute invisibility if he wanted it.
Iruka looked terrified.
The voice was smooth, old, and just a little solemn.
�I�m still me. I can still talk.�
Iruka�s eyes went wide, then narrowed as his body coiled from its shaky spot on the branch. The fear and shock left him, icy cool anger flooding now through his system.
�I�m sure you�ll be sorry to hear this, Iruka-san, but if this had happened twice,� Naruto waved in the direction of the village, a sponge of smoke hovering above it, �I�d do it all the same way again.�
The expression on the face didn�t change, didn�t move at all for anything. Only the lips and assorted muscles moved to form rough cold words, but its eyes just seemed to bore into Iruka�s head�
Naruto wished�for nothing. It was done. And nothing could change how Iruka was now looking at him. That Look. From Iruka.
The maniac, perverse giddiness and ecstasy were gradually fading from the forefront, but he cotelltell he would be grinning mad for days after this. He knew, beyond a doubt, that he had done the right thing. The constant heavy fear and sorrow that he had carried like an iron yoke on his neck was finally gone, and he only felt maniac glee and obscene conceited satisfaction. But it was fading as Iruka Looked at him.
Iruka had always been a bucket of cold water on Naruto�s fun. That hadn�t changed.
It was done, and Naruto wished for nothing now. At first it had been surprise on Iruka�s face, then shock, and now that he knew him, knew he was Naruto�His voice was worse, like a stake through the heart.
�Then you are the demon fox. You were all the time. A demon.�
That voice, cold academic, unyielding�hurt so bad. There wasn�t even anger or hate in it, just calculated loathing. Naruto had hoped it wouldn�t have come to this, that maybe there�d be some way to pull Iruka along even by magic�On Kakashi or Sasuke it wouldn�t have hurt so bad, that voice, that manner, because it was expected; coldness was an element of who they were. On Iruka�
Naruto�s face betrayed nothing.s eys eyes were flat, cold.
�There�s no honor attached to being what you are. No glory, no dreams,� those things that meant something once to Naruto, that were once his whole focus in life. Not anymore though. Not in this Naruto, not anymore. Iruka sounded mildly surprised.
�You really were, all this time. Demons always have enemies. They have no friends.�
Naruto snapped.
His eyes had been wavering before, tingling a little, but he had ignoit, it, as well as the cold sweat and blush on his neck. Now the color in his eyes shifted to deep red, a growl founded his voice. His expression didn�t change much, but his upper lip pulled higher than necessary to show exactly how long his teeth were. His voice was nearly tangible, nearly hitting Iruka�s ears with physical form.
�Like hell they do! What would you know, you�ve never been one, you�ve never felt it! What the hell were you expecting, a miracle, a s!�
!�
//Child//
Naruto paused when the thought hit, and burned again when he realized it had been deliberately sent. He�d finally been figured out too late.
Iruka was more preoccupied with getting himself settled on the branch than with the creature beside him, deliberately turning his head away from him while he sat down.
Again, Naruto�s expression didn�t change, but he spoke.
�Demons hate each other, they kill anything they touch. But guess what, that�s our job. Our function. Born to be hated, born to kill, born to hate. We killed each other, yeah, but the real fuckin� kicker is that we never sacrificed each! We never killed each other and called it morality! Called it necessity! We saw what we were, always saw what we were doing, never tried to�rub some polish on it and call it all right! Demons never did a damn thing to humans that you didn�t do to yourself!�
Naruto turned his head to spit. His movements still flowed like wind and liquid steel, still left echoes of power and grace with every turn of his head and twist of his muscle and lips. It didn�t matter what Iruka thought now. It just mattered that he Knew.
�If you were really so afraid of me when the fox was sealed inside, you should have killed me when you had the chance or taught me what you wanted me to know. You just threw me out there and expected me to land on my feet. Hypocrites. Cowards. Too afraid to bite the bullet and too afraid to raise the ax.�
Iruka snorted again, unimpressed.
�Idiot that wasn�t fear. That was mercy. You wouldn�t recognize it.�
Naruto laughed out loud for the first time in this form ever, the sound coming out like a bark, loudly, honestly, the raw anger dripping from him in one easy movement of relaxation to reform into something stronger.
�No, that was fear. I know more about mercy than you�d ever imagine. Too much�You just didn�t want to choose, afraid of looking bad. So I chose for you. That makes me look bad. I guess that makes me the bad guy, and whoop da dee, so I am.�
Iruka looked sharply at him for the second time, angry, noticed something, and felt the granted world fall out from under him.
He�d taken comfort, as Sasuke had, that it was Nine Tails speaking, walking, manipulating Naruto to its will. It was too probable, too likely. But that voice, even enclosed in the silken cold steel harmonics, that voice still angry and guilty, on the edge of breaking into tears or screams�that face turned down and away with that angry resentful smile twisted on his lips, that pure sorrow lost deep in his eyes�claret purple eyes�
�How many times had he seen that in his classroom, slouched over the desk from his spot in front. How many times on the empty playground? How many times in his empty apartment? The face was young theair air short, the eyes were blue, but it was still the same damn face.
They�they other children�had teased him, Iruka remembered. Teased him hard, a little too hard for any child, but they were only children themselves, so they could hardly be faulted�They knew Naruto had no parents. No one would defend him. He was the perfect target. And had been, right up to when he graduated to Chuunin level. The perfect target.
�Naruto found someone to defend him, someone with fangs and claws�
How many times?
�Naruto,� Iruka whispered softly without meaning.
Naruto whipped his head around to glare at him, lips raised in a closed ready snarl and all set to deal out more, but Iruka noticed�the belligerent part of his mouth, the small angry, significant bit of fear and despair in his eyes�It was Naruto. It was Naruto through and through.
Iruka was gripping the branch with both hands, mouth a little open, and looked exactly how he felt.
Naruto stood his ground as long as he could, before closing his mouth and quickly looking away. His face was set in a resolute scowl, somehow still impassive and cold, convinced that the world was out to get him. His chest hurt. And his eyes were smarting again.
And Iruka wouldn�t stop looking at him.
�What?� Naruto finally snapped off, not daring to turn his head, but still feeling Iruka�s eyes on him. It had been bad enoughh thh the man staring at him like he was some monster from the Crypt Keeper, gawking at his ears and eyes, but it was a thousand times better than the one he was getting now.
Iruka was quiet a while before answering.
�Why�couldn�t you have proven them wrong?�
Naruto�s eyes widened momentarily then dimmed as he looked inside himself. He knew what Iruka was referring to, knew who �they� were.
Hokage.
Them.
Naruto�s voice was still hard, but cooler and a little bit more�quiet, than before. Not guilty, not regretful, a simple stating of old dead facts that still eno enough poison left in them to be treated carefully.
�Because�they wouldn�t have let me. Ever. Majority rules. Even�if I earned the title, I�d still be Naruto the bastard. I was when I left, and I was Jounin.�
How do you say you�re sorry for crimes you didn�t commit? Crimes they have no right to pin on you? For a childhood yidn�idn�t create, only tried to avert and failed? For the lives of the dead who deserved it? For the lives of the dead who didn�t?
�I never want to see you again.�
That was Iruka. Naruto had been expecting it, wanting him to say the words simply to end the suspense and end the relationship; a final clean severing of all ties and now Naruto only nodded silently, unseen. His control finally broke a small crack in the defenses when he heard them, those words, and a single thin line of water trickled out his left eye. His face was still cold and impassive, the tiny trickle the only break in the seam.
Iruka was watching him from the corner of his eye.
It was easy to hate a demon, roaring and fearsome, clearly unnatural. It was easy to hate a faceless gangster who killed for wealth. It was hard to hate his student, who was crying silently, stoically, beside him.
His finger grazed Naruto�s cheek, and wiped up the water. Naruto didn�t move, but he blinked quickly, too quickly, his eyes spastically flicked to Iruka�s face to the woods below.
Iruka swore in his mind, not at Naruto, but at the look in Naruto�s eyes. That combination of old despair and childish hope that would forever be linked in his mind to a late night ramen shop�but children could only be allowed so far.
He didn�t�he was still a teacher. Still. Had students. And when the fire came it hadn�t been selective. Naruto. Hadn�t been selective.
Naruto said nothing, tried hard to do nothing except not cry anymore or fall down when Iruka took his hand away, farther away now than ever. He couldn�t stop his throat from swallowing, so he didn�t, and he couldn�t stop a second trickle of tears coming out of the corner of his eye. One never knew how many contours and dips were in the facial structure until one really, really paid attention to them.
�You were spared.�
Naruto had a million and one comebacks for that, all itching for that one question to come zooming out of his mouth in all their scathingly logical glory.
//Spared from what? Spared for what? Spared to be thrown to the wolves, spared death because a decoy, a target, a scapegoat was needed? Spared the knife because I was more useful alive?//
There were reasons for what he did. What he destroyed.
//Because they deserved it. Because I could. Because the world isn�t fair. Because I wanted to.//
His voice was broken. He didn�t say anything. Iruka was having verbal problems too.
�You were�the first son�Of the 4th Hokage��
Dangerously sharp stillness.
�We couldn�t�They wouldn�t��
Iruka was a million miles away, listening to an old man in the past. If he had any idea of what he had unleashed, on what new fire he had just sparked, he gave no sign of it.
�You were meant�to be a hero.�
The wind was silent, and still, even at this high altitude. There wasn�t even the scent of smoke, only the faint sharp smell of green wood. Just the cold bitter wind riffling through the hair.
***
He�d�he�d always�
He was so young then. So damn�young.
�So that was logic.
Mercy. Ha. Yes.
But what�
What changed, now?
really
��Why?
�
They had known. Everything. And they�let him loose.
His�on, face etched on the cliff�
No.
He�d done that to�
Your own�
His own�
Fuck this.
�
Fuck this shit!
***
�Naruto the bastard,� Naruto said quietly, standing up, energy rising up along his stance and breath and bones in its subtle uncanny quiet way.
�Naruto the Bastard, now and forever.�
Because it�s too late to turn back now.
Fire blossomed up and out, spreading out rapidly like wild rich vines and weeds throughout the forest fence, exploding the trees and bark and catching on dry and damp wood alike tearing it all apart burning with a hell fire of the scorned spawn of the hero.
It wasn�t just a brilliant scorching flame it had weight and force, tangible as any hammer or bullet and it fired up to the heavens in anger in challenge in insult to all the gods and deities who watched what men did and didn�t do anything!
It traveled faster than wind, before the wind, on the wind and in the wind, not branching out from a single central point but from everywhere and around creating a cage that moved inside to itself like liquid mercury given real power burning hatred spearing and cauterizing flesh and wood and leaf and all the goddamned leaf shit there was lying around and everywhere.
Why the hell didn�t anyone do something about it except they wouldn�t because they couldn�t, because the foxy demon was back baby, the foxy boy was back in black and ready for action and you�re all gonna fry up something awful until life nor green nor scrabbling human mortal filth ever touches this land again!
||Human mortal||
||Keeper||
||Defiler||
Never ever feel or know this world the way foxy could, could never see nor feel themselves like foxy can how weak and petty you are, how lacking in honor or strength, so fragile that nothing is ever won without sacrifice or bloodshed or loss how pathetic how utterly contemptible they are.
Iruka fell off in shock when Naruto suddenly stood and his body erupted in flame, his sandaled feet catching onto the tree trunk by luck right before he felt explosions he didn�t, couldn�t, hear, some distance away. The bark beneath his sandals exploded outward, throwing him into the air again.
Shrapnel and burning stakes propelled by inflammable and reactive chemicals and vast amounts of really enraged chakra sped through the forest in all directions.
This fire had formved ved not upwards or dependent on fuel, clinging and trapped on wood, but as a living water snake with sentience and structure ramming straight through the ancient living trees and licking its flame and biting down on the ants that scurried and threw little sticks and stones at it and through it with real teeth of hydrogen gas and force which was all the solidity it really needed, jetting and zooming into moldable fall apart pieces that dodged the attacks and ate the defense and just ate it all up and all and all and all�
||So give me more I long for more give me more�||
Running fleet-footed through the trees and along the wind and on the air run the ninja, the shadow walkers, the keepers, running away, away, away�so much like rabbits.
They looked like rabbits, dark and soft with flesh that still yielded so easily, so deliciously scrumptiously easy to the teeth, with faces that could still be torn to ribbons with a flick of the claw and they made noises, such noises, noises just like rabbits in heat or in birth or on pain of death a sort of strangled scream they don�t expect anyone will hear and know won�t save them but still they scream the little rabbits.
Still their bones crunch so nicely between the teeth while they try to cut and fight back, like potato chips with crisply fried pockets of blood to chomp and squish out, blood that hasn�t been tasted this way in such a long time, blood still remembered from so long ago so hot and warm and thickly smoothly down the throat with a bitter little bite in it the taste of human blood.
And here comes one to fight the fox, to kill the fox, ah, again they come to kill the demon and who is their envoy this time my darling, who have they sent to keep the fox demon this time?
Ah. Him. Remembered is his scent his touch his voice�the lazy one that sleeps and kills even in his dreams, the perverted old one�his weakness is arrogance, thin strip of arrogance and sentiment and he must, surely he must�
//�have nightmares locked away there in his brain of his daughter ah his daughter I see I do see how devastatingly unfortunate to bring that to the fore�//
||How slow he is, how foolish do these humans learn nothing?||
//�do it baby do it just like that just like that again//

No of course not baby how could they, they could never know what it�s like to be the demon child to live in a real hell to survive the fox�s nightmares the demon boy�s world and they don�t know how Foxy survived how Foxy came out oh so much stronger than all their pampered brats and Foxy�ll show �em just what Foxy can do to their precious little people�
Doppelgangers child�s play got that down sensei but Foxy�s got down things you never seen before things you�ve never done before and here�s a new toy for you to play with that�ll break your spine and boil your brain to a chewy sticky goo inside your skull because Foxy can�t let you live sensei, not when they sent you to keep Foxy just over again just after Foxy found his wings.
Foxy�s in the wings of the phoenix, in the wings of reincarnation and god it feels so good just to feel it all rush up bubbling up�
//from my stomach and roiling in my ribcage flowing out of my skin and fingers and god I feel so hard, so unbelievably turned on and sexy and powerful so beautiful baby that I think I�m gonna choke on it but I�d never do something that stupid not when I feel this, not when everything�s so sharp and clear and if I pull this my power just�swallows everything up�//
//Ohhh� Fuck, here he is again. Yeah, that�s right I can walk on two legs and four didn�t you know can�t you feel my power surging towards you, you really thought I�d be so stupid as to let you escape, the woods are no good by themselves I need the humans dead too I need you dead too so copy this now, Copy Cat! Why don�t you COPY THIS NOW!!//
Blue green foxfire.
Blue green flame forcibly ripped it�s way through the bodies, always going for the stomach and neck. Real, natural orange red fire followed in its wake, burning brightly on the bark and gastric juices and skin and dry leaf.
Blue-green light flickered through the treetops, leaving fingerprints of scorched wood or stone where it touched something other than the air. The air itself, under a thick sharp layer of wood smoke, smelled strangely of tin.
Water killed the red-orange fire, as did the dirt and wind. The blue-green light hid itself in the wood, entering the branches with only a burn mark to show its passage and dashed down on whoever walked near it, elements of mist and water avoided by hiding in the earth, wood, or air.
It flickered and struck like lightening hidden in the gleam of light, dancing on fox feet and bird wings and slithering rushing and curling around the trees like a snake in all its serpentine sensual seduction. It raced and tore through whatever it found, played and killed with subtle sly asphyxiation and hard-core up front showdowns. A doppelganger of flame and shadow with a fox�s body and boy�s laugh was even created to give people a clearer idea of what they were to fight.
So funny, so funny�these little humans and their games. Who�s winning now, Copy Cat? Who�s winning now?
People fought on, and ran.
Where the fox roamed, the fox itself, a creature easily as long as a truck and taller, with white blond fur and ruby eyes roamed madness stayed rooted in the air. The fox didn�t need to stay too long, just long enough to touch a single mind with some passing thought or open some hidden door forgotten in the consciousness, a closet for all the twisted perverted and vile ideas and let it all come piling through the eyes and drowning the soul. Come crashing through the mind with the force of a tsunami.
Once one ninja showed signs of madness, once the tension and fear and disbelief really caught up�the jostling in the skin, the jostling of the weapons�Everything added up.
And the fox moved on, often unseen and never touched.
People fought on, and ran further.
There was nothing to run back to. The ninja village had been burned down, was still burning. They could always build another one. But now they had to stay alive. But there were other villages in the forest. Villages not made up of shinobi.
Foxy sniffed the air.
Foxy tasted bitter rum on the wind.
Foxy grinned.
//Let�s play, Demon Hunter. Let�s play little games in the dark, my Demon Hunter, my dark darling angel�//
Foxy licked his teeth.
***

*Naruto does do this in Issue 1 of the manga. He cries with his goggles on so no one can see the tears fall.
Bastard: Someone (male only?) without a legal father.
A/N: In reality, the Konoha villagers would have probably been able to defend, but I didn�t want to create complications. I�m not saying they�re wimps, just that it wouldn�t have worked for them to win. Was that angry enough? Hope it made sense. Naruto vol.1 finally made it here, hence quotes. Tried to make the merger between Nine Tails and Naruto seem complete. The Gaara-Sasuke-cage scene was really Naruto posing in as Sasuke, not Sasuke himself.

First time was the hardest. Everything after that was a matter of logic.==Lyric taken from a Sting song.

Borrow==Pratchett idea. How witches control animals.
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