FicWad

ICARUS
By: Revanant Dragoon
**
Genesis-Bull-rider
**
"Men were not meant to fly, nor were you meant to act as one. If you continue in this vein, you shall become Icarus and crash amongst the rocks and surf."

**

A scream. A shout. An explosion. Pain, burning through his system. A pair of blue eyes staring at him, resignation in them. A smirk on a whisker-scarred face.

"Parole-time, furball." The pain grew unbearable. Fists clenched, biting down on his lips so hard that it drew blood...

Fingers?

Lips?

Blood that tastes like humans?

...Why was it so hard to think?

Eyes snapped open to a world he thought he would never see again. Was he free? He couldn't tell. There was a fog surrounding his mind, keeping him from remembering what happened, where he was, who he was.

He was free. He knew that much. But from what?

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Again, but what? He cursed the haze that was draped across his brain.

"Uzumaki Naruto..."

...He knew that name.

--"Hello there, young man." An elderly man said, looking down at him. His eyes were shaded by the wide-brimmed hat, but he could tell the old man meant him no harm. "And what's your name?" He scrunched up his face in thought, trying to manipulate his facial features through the thick folds of baby-fat.

"Uzumaki Naruto" He responded, smiling happily at the old man.-

He jerked, coughing. What the hell was that? It was at that point that some of the fog lifted in his mind.

Kyuubi no Kitsune.

That was his name. The greatest of the youkai. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. Chained within a human for over two decades. But what was that...memory? And why did that name seem so familiar? The fog swirled again, coughing up another part of his memory.

It was the name of his jailer, his vessel, that damnable brat. And why the hell would someone be addressing the brat if he had broken free?

--"Parole-time, furball."-

There was a feeling in his gut, like it was caught in a vise. His fingers clenched into fists of rage as he imagined what his tormentor for over twenty years might...have...done...

...Fingers?

The vise around his innards clenched tighter. He slowly and hesitantly moved his eyes downward. Then he slammed them shut, hissing in rage.

Orange.

Mind-boggling, eye-searing, 'here-I-am-am-come-kill-me' orange. Orange his captor always wore. He was afraid to look again but he couldn't help but wonder what had happ-

--"Oi! What the hell?" He screamed up at the man behind the counter. The cashier's face twisted into a scowl.

"And just what are you complaining about?" The blonde thrust a defiant, accusatory finger up at the man. He was standing in the middle of a clothing store. A bundle of somewhat frayed clothing was sitting on the counter. The man had just told him that the clothes he had picked out cost more than his allowance for three months.

"That's frickin' impossible, you old bastard! There's no way in Hell that shit costs that much!" The cashier's scowl, amazingly, deepened. He personally didn't think that was physically possible, but that wasn't important.

"Of course it does you damn brat. Not my fault you can't add." Okay, now he was plain old pissed off. His addition skills were damned good. They had to be or he'd wind up without power for up to a month. Before he could argue any more, the cashier reached back behind the counter and slammed a cardboard box onto the middle of the desk. "Look kid, I'll give you this outfit for twelve ryu if you just leave me alone."

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. Twelve ryu? That was nothing! He started reaching for the box before he stopped.

Why would the man give out such a deal? What was the catch? Was the box rigged somehow to explode in his face? That had to be it. Confident that he had figured the man out, he nodded to the cashier.

"Open it." The cashier stared at him for a second. "C'mon, it's no big deal! I just...want to see what I'm buying." He smiled inwardly, proud of his lie. He nearly giggled while he waited for the man to open it box and catch a face-full of whatever was rigged to explode inside.

He was sorely disappointed when the box came off completely without any explosion. Then he saw why the outfit was going for such a low price.

Well, orange was his favorite color.-

He jerked again, short of breath. 'Damnit!' Why the hell was that happening to him?

"Uzumaki Naruto!" The voice broke into his mind again. The fog swirled again, and he had to bite back a roar of frustration. He was so close to the answers he could literally taste them.

Who the hell was talking anyway? He cracked open his eyes, deliberately looking away from anything remotely orange. Then his eyes fell upon the old woman standing there defiantly. Her face was twisted into a sneer and her hands were held together in a seal.

"Uzumaki Naruto. It's time for you to accept your destiny."

Destiny?

What kind of destiny? And more importantly, why did she think he was the brat? Wouldn't she have felt it when the seal broke way and he trampled the boy's soul?

Wait. He couldn't actually remember taki-

--eyes stared at him, resignation in them. A smirk on whisker-marked cheeks.

"Parole-time, fu-

It took every ounce of his will not to scream as the fog once again tantalized him with knowledge he didn't have. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on where the fog was thickest in his mind. The fog began peeling back painfully slowly.

--Naruto whipped around, kunai clutched in his hand. There was nothing there. His eyes narrowed.

He was being toyed with.

Quietly pooling chakra into his free hand for a Rasengan, Naruto focused his senses on his surroundings.

...There!

He lunged, chakra swirling to form the deadly jutsu. His stomach dropped as hands seized his arm, before a burning pain registered at his stern-"

The crone's voice pierced through his concentration yet again.

"It's time for you to ascend to your lofty place in the heavens! Your eternal reward awaits!" Okay, the geriatric was definitely asking for it. The demon lunged out at-'what the hell?'

He couldn't move. At all. All he could move were his fingers, and the less thought about them, the better. He slowly lifted his head, trying his best to avoid looking at the hideous orange color.

Seals. He was coated in seals. Seals and ropes.

He was chained. He was bound again.

--flames into his opponent's eyes. Pale, haunting blue eyes stared back at him.

Pain lanced through his very soul as he was ripped from his body. Screaming ob-

-- Pain, burning through his system. A pair of blue eyes staring at him, resignation in them. A smirk on a whisker-scarred face.

"Parole-time, furball."-

--lying over the land, trying to keep himself together. He (it? She? Them?) had been rejected again, the fragile control they (she? It?)...no, HE held over himself shattering. She (he?) needed a new beginning, a new...

There.

As it (they...NO-HE) finally came to rest within the new shell, easily overpowering the brute instinct that existed there originally, HE realized that HE finally knew his name.

Kits-

No, he would not be chained again.

He started thrashing against the ropes. Each jerk elicited a painful jolt of electricity from the seals. With each jolt, the voltage increased. Soon Kyuubi was laying flat on his back, gasping for breath.

"Attempting to run from your destiny only prolongs your pain, Uzumaki Naruto." The hag was going to get it when he got out of these bindings.

--Oi! Old hag!" He yelled as he entered the room. He ignored the Godaime's twitching brow and dove straight into his rant. If he didn't, he'd probably wind up staring at her for over an hour. Not his damn fault she looked so good when she was pi-

The Kyuubi gasped as his conscience returned to the present day. Then he smiled faintly. The fog was rolling back away from his mind. He could literally feel his mental capacities return to their full strength. The demon wondered briefly what those memories were. He dismissed the thought, turning his attention to the seal net that was holding him down.

It was well-made, he had to admit. Not what he would expect from a human. But, unsurprisingly, there was a weakness: a section of the ropes that had frayed enough to prevent the seals from binding fully to it. Now it was simply a matter of-

--Stomach dropped as hands seized his arm, before a burning pain registered at his sternurm. The last thing he saw before he blacked out from the pain was his attacker's eyes. A kalidoscopic swirl of chakra burning in pale dead eyes.-

--isten. If Ero-Sennin's network's gets compromised again, we won't know until it's too late and we wind up running into that bastard Itachi again. Dunno 'bout you guys, but I am not looking forward to meeting him again." Naruto groaned out as he stretched out in his chair. Jiraiya rolled his eyes.

"No kiddin' brat. Complaining about it isn't going to do jack though." At this Naruto smirked.

"I ain't the one goin' senile here old man. You think I don't know that? Besides, I got a plan. We need a double-blind." Jiraiya blinked.

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" Naruto's grin was now threatening to split his head in half.

"Yep. I build a second network so we can double-check the information we get." Jiraiya shook his head in disbelief.

"I like the idea, Naruto, but it'd never work. I mean, if for no other reason, you won't have the time to create a network. And even if you could, you'd have to be out of Konoha for most of the time. And since I'm the only other nin to do that, it'd be pretty obvious what you're trying to do, destroying the entire purpose of the double-blind." Naruto's smile was now defying gravity, biology, and several other sciences.

"Eh, actually I think I can make one quick enough. We only need something that can be used to check your network. So it doesn't have to be as in-depth. And it'll be easy to hide that fact, if they think I'm doin' somethin else instead." Tsunade raised an eyebrow.

"And what would that be?" Naruto's smile grew feral.

"Annihilating Konoha's enemies abroad."-

--grabbed the girl as she fell to the floor, pulling her into a protective embrace. It was only after his ears stopped ringing from the explosion that he realized that she was blue. Completely blue.

Her skin, her hair, everything was blue, except her vivid yellow eyes. Eyes that he couldn't look away from.-

--m sorry. I'm afraid the labor was too much for her. She passed just after birth."

He raised a shaky hand to rub his face. She was gone... A muffled sob wrenched from the throat of the man sitting next to him. Naruto looked up at the nurse wearily.

"And the child...?" His voice trailed off uncertainly. She managed a weak smile at this.

"You have a healthy baby boy, sir...if a little blue-

--ruto? What's the ring for?" The blonde suppressed a glare towards the Hokage. It wasn't her fault. She didn't know.

That fact didn't help at all. But smiling through pain was one thing he had always been good at.

"Nothing, Tsunade-baa-chan. Just a reminder.-

--looked into the deep yellow eyes of his son. His mother's eyes.

"Ivan, I-

--emon! Get away from her!-

--ut those bonds." His mad red eyes stared at him-

--opped down to one knee.

" Natalia, will you ma-

--se. Bring Sasuke-kun back--

The Kyuubi screamed as Uzumaki's memories bombarded his mind. Birth, life, and death all scarred themselves into his brain. The old hag was yelling at him, but he didn't hear her. He couldn't see her either, as his eyes blurred in and out of focus, almost as if trying to focus on a thousand different things at once. The boundaries of his mind were erased. He was twelve, eighteen, thousands of years old. A cacophony of screams shouts and howls reverberated in his skull, screaming in a pitch only he could hear. A multitude of identities whispered themselves in his ears, scrambling for control.

--trying to keep himself together. He (it? She? Them?) had been rejected again, the fragile control they (she? It?)...no, HE held over himself shattering. She (he?) needed a new be-

No. He would not lose himself. The Kyuubi brought his powerful mind to bore, crushing the resistance stirred up into a frenzy in his mind. HE was in control. HE ruled the cacophony.

The pain died down, as did the screams. His eyes refocused on the old hag sitting above them, looking curiously at him. Then the expression faded and she regained her gloating, smug-ass smile.

"Remember, Uzumaki. Follow your destiny."

The Kyuubi snapped. He had had it with the blasted hag. His arm whipped out by instinct, not caring about the seals, just wanting to wipe the bleeding smile off that fucking old hag's face. Thus it was a great surprise to him when his arm snapped out of his bindings.

Not that it mattered in the long run. The bloody human reacted instantly, bringing her fist down on the back of his hand. He bit his lip to keep from screaming as pain jolted through him. The old woman's smile turned into a leer.

"Now, now, Uzumaki. No need to be so violent." She lifted her hand, revealing an unusual kunai embedded within his hand. He couldn't help but marvel at the ornate carvings lining it.

However, his admiration of the blade didn't keep him from trying his damnedest to get the thing out of his hand so he could gut the crazy woman sitting above him. She smiled at his struggles and placed her hand on the end of the kunai, pushing down. Kyuubi clenched his jaws together, hissing in pain.

"Follow your destiny." She whispered. The demon's eyes widened as he saw wisps of smoke begin to rise from the kunai. That wasn't good. There was a churning sensation as the brat's memories rose to the forefront, identifying it as a reaction indicative of an explosive tag.

'Oh hell.'

"Follow your destiny." The hag hissed at him a final time as the wisps of smoke turned to plumes. There was a blinding flash of light and a crack of thunder, and the demon tried distance himself as best he could from the kunai, slamming his eyes shut and bracing for the inevitable explosion.

The explosion never came.

Kyuubi opened an eye cautiously. He quickly ran a mental check of himself. He still had both of his arms and legs. Breathing rate was normal. He was still pinned to the ground by the seal-coated ropes. 'Just what the hell happened?' The demon wondered.

A memory-and an old one at that, from long before ninjas started leaping from rooftops like demented grasshoppers-surfaced.

Flash-bang. A distraction instrument, meant to blind and deafen opponents. This was probably a ninja equivalent. But why...

The demon glanced over at the old hag was st-correction, where the old hag had been standing. Kyuubi frowned slightly. The woman was nowhere in sight.

'Well, that explains why the damn thing went off. Distraction instrument indeed.'

He narrowed his eyes and focused on pulling his hand free. The kunai was planted well in his hand, making it near-impossible to simply pull out. The demon started rocking his hand back and forth, trying to loosen the blade from the ground. He could feel it work, but he could also feel the kunai slicing into his hand. Biting his lip to keep from screaming, Kyuubi kept working on the blade. After what felt like an eternity, the blade slid free from the ground.

He lifted his arm and brought the back of his hand to his mouth. Kyuubi clamped his teeth on the ring and pulled the kunai out of his palm. He then, without pause, grabbed the kunai out of his hand and started in on the rest of the ropes binding him.

**

"Was your mission successful?"

"Yes, sire. The second part of the trap has been laid."

"Does he suspect anything?"

"Hard to say. He seemed disoriented but I'm not entirely sure."

"No matter. The seals are in place?"

"Yes, sire."

"Excellent. Now I think it's well past time we paid a visit to our friends in the Cloud hunter-nins."

**

Kyuubi sat on the ground, trying to compose himself. It was far past time he shed this pathetic mortal shell and found a more suitable host. He reached inside of himself, trying to find the 'latch' that kept him chained to the body.

A minute stretched by.

The minute soon extended to three.

The demon's brow furrowed, as beads of sweat began to form across his forehead.

Ten minutes passed.

At thirteen his eyes snapped open with a snarl of rage. He had found the 'latch.' However, the 'latch' would have been better described as a padlocked chain. The connection would not break no matter what he did. He snarled irritably.

What the Hell was going on?

--"Parole-time furball."-

His eyes narrowed. Was this the brat's doing? Did he leave a last gift for the demon to deal with? A parting revenge? He forcibly exhaled and tried to calm himself. After a time he was able to wrench his thoughts away from the damnable brat and onto finding a way to release his soul from this damnable fleshy prison.

He closed his eyes and focused his attention to the place where his soul had been bound in the first time by that toad-summoning blonde bastard. It should have been a simple matter to escape this shell. After all, the Shinigami had merely forced a possession between himself and the brat, and had given the brat the reins. Now that he was gone, the Kyuubi should be able to release the possession and go on his merry way. Unfortunately that was only in theory, as there was clearly something wrong.

He felt his consciousness regress within himself, digging deeper and deeper. Eventually he found the plateau that the seal had dug within his soul, binding him to the boy. Kyuubi became aware that he was standing in stagnant, ankle deep water. 'Sunuvabitch.' He cursed silently. He had spent the entirety of the past twenty-five years sitting in this damn dark, dingy sewer.

The kid was dead and nothing had changed. It was still a dark, dingy sewer.

Damn.

As the Nine Tailed Demon made his way deeper within the labyrinthine space, however, it became clear that things had changed. However, they were not for the better. Cracks spider-webbed across the walls, engraved themselves into the pipes, and splintered the ceiling. The water, once swift and flowing, was now stagnant. Sections of tunnels were sealed off by rubble.

'Damnit, what the hell happened here?' Kyuubi once again cursed his lack of knowledge. He had no idea what had put the brat under, or if it still posed a threat now. All those questions fled him once he entered the vast cave that once caged him.

'What the fuck?'

The demon had expected a multitude of different scenarios as he approached the cavern. Hell, that had been the single most dominant thing on his mind. He had managed to run through a half-dozen possibilities with every other step he took. But the one thing he never expected was to wind up outside the seal looking in...at himself.

He stared up at his own face, face frozen in a snarl of agony. The...clone's muzzle was drawn back in a gaping rictus, eyes blank and unfocused. Then the features blurred and grew translucent. The demon noted somewhere in the back of his mind that it was like trying to stare through a ruby crystal. The rest of his mind, however, was too busy trying to comprehend the fact that he was staring at an image of himself still trapped within the seal.

"Took you long enough to show, fuzzball." A weary voice called out from behind him. The demon whirled and stared. Again. His former jailor smiled wearily from where he was reclining. "Though I doubt that nickname still applies." After a moment the demon managed to restart his mind.

"What the hell's happening?" The demon asked. The brat stared at him for a moment, and then started chuckling.

"Can't tell? I'm dying, fuzzball. Congratulations. You get to see me to the door out." Kyuubi blinked as the brat, once so vibrant, seemed to fade slightly. The blonde's body blurred and blended. Soon the demon was staring at a deep blue imitation of Uzumaki Naruto. If the demon squinted hard enough, he could see the cracked wall behind the body of his former vessel.

"Gallows humor doesn't suit you." He murmured softly. Odd. He should be rejoicing over the final defeat of his jailer. But something gnawed at the edges of his senses, dampening his enjoyment of the long-awaited demise of the blonde. Uzumaki chuckled softly.

"It definitely doesn't. Then again, it does suit the occasion." Kyuubi frowned.

"What happened to you, brat?" The small smile on the ninja's now-monochrome blue face turned bitter.

"Same thing that happens to every ninja. I got careless, and got hit with...something. Damned if I know." He stretched slightly. His spine popped lightly and he let out a soft groan. That was when the demon got a good look at the brat's hands, and nearly started as the dampening feeling amplified. While the rest of the blonde's body was a solid blue-which made the fact that he could make out such details on Naruto's body very surprising-his hands were significantly darker. If he had to guess, Kyuubi would have said that they had been burned.

But how the hell did the brat pull that one off?

"What did you do to your hands?" Uzumaki looked up at him, blinking...and then his eyes glazed. The blue hue of his body faded, turning a lighter sky blue. Then his skin darkened again and his eyes cleared.

"Shit. I'm further gone than I thought." The brat stared at him for another moment, before starting. "Oh shit, yeah! My hands. Tried breaking the seal. Needless to say, didn't work out too well." He explained. The demon frowned as he realized that the brat's style of speaking was strangely broken. Normally the blonde would be running his mouth almost continuously, even after he had matured. No, his speech patterns weren't broken. He sounded tired.

Worn out.

...wait, did he just say 'break the seal?'

"Care to run that by me again, runt?" Two tired, pale blue eyes stared up at him, and a painfully familiar surge ran through his mind. Up until this point he had been repressing Naruto's memories in his psyche, although he had no qualms letting them stream forth in a life or death situation, such as the 'flash-bang' styled kunai the crazy old bird had stabbed him with.

Now, however, they churned and frothed in the back of his mind, like the wine-dark sea. That frightened him more than he'd like to admit. The memories clung together, like wisps of smoke in the back of his brain. No, it was more like a veil. The memories clung to each other tenaciously, refusing to be split, categorized, compartmentalized, and ignored. This was something completely unlike anything the demon had to deal with before. Then the memories surged and overwhelmed his senses.

--ared up at the giant gates. He was dying, no doubt of that. He could feel his soul fraying, shattering into pieces.

Hurt like a bitch. And judging by the howling coming from the other side of the cage, the demon wasn't faring much better.

Strange. He should at least be relishing the fact that he was going to take the curse of his life with him. But he didn't. He couldn't gloat. He couldn't scream for joy.

He just felt...tired. The pain of having his soul shredded had quieted to a dull roar in the back of his mind. He was surprised, really. He had expected to fight, rage against his death when it came. But he just wanted to lie down and let it end.

His eyes drifted to the gate, and fought down the bile rising in his throat. Damnit, nobody deserved to die like that. You deserved a fighting chance, an opportunity to face your opponent in battle. Not locked up in a cage waiting for destruction.

With that decided, he walked up to the gate and looked at the demon, smirking slightly at the thought of what he was planning to do.

"Parole-time, furball." With that muttered statement, he reached out and seized the seal with both hands. He then pulled with all his might.

The world around Naruto exploded. Flames licked his body as everything he could see turned a blinding white. The noises around him turned muted and muffled. As he crashed into the ground, a dark blur slipped past hi-

Kyuubi stared at the boy-no, the man sitting before him.

"You were willing to release me because it went against your ethics?" It was unheard of, unbelievable. He was willing to release the single most dangerous creature in existence? Uzumaki shrugged.

"Yeah. Little good it did me-or you." He shook his head gently. "Never sat right with me. What the Yondaime did, I mean. Locking up an enemy and leaving him to rot." Naruto snarled. "Coward's decision. Not that he did the wrong thing. No other choice. I get that."

The once-blonde man stared into the Kyuubi's eyes. "But if given the choice, I will give my enemy a fighting chance." Then he smiled wearily. "After all, that's the difference between humans and demons." With that, the smile slipped off his face and he slouched further against the wall. The demon snorted.

"You're right. The difference between humans and demons is that we have honor. You pathetic ape-rats are severely lacking in that regard." Uzumaki raised a blue-toned eyebrow.

"Sound pretty confident, fuzz-ball." Kyuubi sneered.

"Every memory I have of humans is another example of their pettiness. Of course I'm confident." The brat gave him an insufferable smile, and wordlessly lifted his burned hands. The demon fell silent and stared at the blue-hued human.

"Maybe, maybe you're the exception to the rule." He murmured. Uzumaki gave no sign of acknowledgement. He seemed instead to be considering something rather intently. It took the demon a moment to realize that the brat was staring at him.

"That's unusual." Naruto mumbled under his breath. "Ya know, after dealing with pedophilic snake-humans, shark-freaks, and psychotic killers that can torture with a glance, you'd think that I've seen everything. But now I can die saying I've seen everything."

"What the hell're you talking about brat?" The ninja merely chuckled and motioned to the murky water swirling around his ankles. The demon picked up on the cue and glanced at his feet. His two feet.

His two very human feet.

'What the HELL?!'

He looked back up at the insufferably smug brat, who was still grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "What the hell did you do?" He snarled. The brat held up his hands, the very picture of innocence.

"Didn't do jack. Probably side-effect from breaking the seal." The brat shrugged. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"What do you mean, brat?"

"Take a closer look. No distinguishing features." The brat slid out of focus for a moment, the coloration lightening. For a moment Kyuubi felt like he was staring at the sky. Then the human darkened to the near-indigo color he was before. Uzumaki shook his head briefly before staring at the demon once more.

"Features keep changing. Eyes, nose, mouth, arms. Everything." He cocked his head silently. "What are you, furball?" The ninja whispered. Kyuubi glared at him, before looking at his hands.

They were a dark, dusky brown. Then they were a pale, milky white. The demon blinked, not sure of what to make of that. He squinted, looking closer at the palm. As he examined the appendage more closely, he noticed that the skin wasn't shifting from one shape to another, as it first seemed. Instead the changes were flowing across his body like ripples across a pond. The texture of his skin swirled and shifted like smoke rising from an open flame. The length of his fingers slid from long and tapered to short and stubby, then to long and thick.

What the hell was going on?

As he stared blankly at his limbs, the demon slowly became aware of murmurings in the back of his mind. They had always been there for the entirety of his existence, chattering and hissing. He'd always suppressed them, ignored them. After all, he knew everything they were saying.

But now he realized something. The voices, the memories surged with every ripple, every change that his 'body' went through. Did that mean tha-

--e had to get out. Mother was dying around him. And when she died, so would he. He forced a tendril out, seeking a route to escape. Nothing.

Not a single damn-

--he twitched slightly as she leaned against the wall, her chest heaving. The blood-stained knife was held loosely in her hand. 'That damn bastard. All he had to do was give me the damn money instead of fucking fighting and I wouldn't have had to stab the sunuva-

--at dumb-ass. What the hell's wrong with him? The crazy moron was goin' to get them all killed.

He ground his teeth as the dumb-ass started ranting. Again. 'That does it.' He reached behind him, pulling the nine-millimeter smoothly from his belt, and took aim at the loud-mouth retard. Half a second later, he pulled the trigger and splashed the dumb-ass' brains across the wall behind him.

"Any other stupid questio-

--ndril found a gap, a space that wasn't there before. He surged, trying to squeeze though. Joy surged through him as more and more of the wall began giving way. Then the legion surged in his mind. He (it? She?) swore and tried to control their (his?) rebellious mi-

--and came across her face with a meaty smack. She staggered back, dazed. Blood flowed from her cut lip. She glared back at him, with raw rage burning in her eyes. She lu-

--amnit!' He swore as he felt his consciousness threaten to split in half. NO! HE was conqueror, HE was champion, HE was king and emperor of his own mind. There would be NO OTHER.

The feeling receded into the back of his mind, and he turned his mind back to burro-

--?)...no, HE held over himself shattering. She (he?) needed a new beginning, a new...

There.

As it (they...NO-HE) finally came to rest within the new sh-

Kyuubi gasped silently as his consciousness returned to the current time. He shot a glance at his once-container and nearly sighed in relief. The brat was staring at his feet, his brow furrowed. The demon would rather avoid giving the Uzumaki brat more reason to start inquiring about the Kyuubi's past.

It was bad enough he had to remember his life. He'd rather not have to recount it to Uzumaki if at all possible.

"Hey, fuzzball. Listen." The demon brought his attention to the monochrome blue ninja. The Uzumaki brat was staring at him intently. "Hate to do this. Hell, hate to rely on you period. But there's no choice.

"You owe me. Really owe me." The former kitsune demon opened his mouth to protest, only to fall silent as Uzumaki again wordlessly lifted his hands. "You owe me, and I know how you can pay off that debt." The memories surged and churned once more in the demon's mind, and he knew what the ninja wanted.

"Ivan." He whispered. The brat nodded.

"Make sure he isn't harmed. Make sure he's raised well. Make sure he's happy. Do that and consider your debt repaid." The demon raised a brow.

"That's an awfully tall order, brat."

"Won't do it?" The demon shook his head.

"No, just saying that, if I do that, you will owe me. And I have no problem storming the gates of Heaven and dragging your scrawny ass out to cash in that debt." The Uzumaki laughed at that, the most energetic thing Kyuubi had seen him do since entering this cave.

"Looking forward to it." Naruto managed to sputter out after settling down. "Deal."

The Kyuubi stared at him for a long minute before nodding in agreement. "Deal."

A relieved smile spread across the ninja's face. He let out a sigh of happiness and slouched even further against the wall.

"Well then, furball. Can't say it's been fun." The Uzumaki called from his position. Then he grimaced in remembrance. "Hell, it sucked most of the time. But...it has been interesting." With that, he saluted the demon the best he could. "See ya on the other side."

As soon as the words slipped from between his lips, the brat's body rapidly lost it's cohesion and dissolved into a bluish ooze, before diluting itself rapidly within the stagnant water. Before the demon knew it, the entirety of the water drifting around his ankles had changed into a solid blue color.

'What the hell?' The demon wondered to itself. What was going on?

Then, as abruptly as if a switch had been thrown, the bluish muck began swirling towards him. Tendrils lunged out of the ooze, wrapped around his wrists, his hips, his neck, his knees, everywhere. Veins bulged where the tendrils touched his skin, as if sending roots in through his skin.

A burning sensation ran through his entire body. It felt like it was seeping into the marrow of his very bones. In the back of his mind he could feel the brat's memories surging and crashing like breakers against cliffs. 'Wha...?'

A hoarse whisper responded in his mind. "Consider this a...going-away present, furball." The burning feeling had increased to a near- unbearable level. The demon felt like he was about to pass out at any moment.

'Damn...you...brat.' Something, a part of his mind disconnected from the pain, told him that he would be saying that quite a bit. Then the pain grew too much, and the world turned white.

**

The Kyuubi sat up with a jolt.

'What the hell was that?' He glanced around him, finding himself back in the clearing he had been in before he started meditating.

'What the hell did the brat do?' He wondered as he remembered the searing heat, absently flexing his bicep. He froze suddenly.

After the demon had found himself in control of the brat's body, whenever he moved, there was a twinge of discomfort. It was nothing detrimental, but the pain did prevent Kyuubi from using Uzumaki's body to its full potential.

But now...

A slight wind picked up, and the demon's arm blurred for a second before stopping. He brought Uzumaki's-his hand, at least until he figured out how to exit the damnable body-to his face. Held securely between two of his fingers was a tiny leaf. A grim smile spread across the demon's lips, before disappearing completely.

Just what had the brat done?

Kyuubi cast his mind back to the moments just before the tendrils had lunged out and seized him. Saying a quiet prayer of thanks that there weren't any tentacle-demons lurking in the brat's subconscious, he tried to identify just what had occurred.

The water was filled with that bluish...ooze. It surrounded him. It lunged out at him, swamping him.

Why the hell was it so familiar? And why did he feel like the color of the slime shouldn't have been blue, but rather red...

--ed surrounded him. A dark chuckle emanated from the other side of the gate. It sounded more ancient than the roots of the mountains, and darker than the blackest night. It was deep and brassy, echoing against the stone walls, reverberating in his ears. It took every ounce of his self control to keep his knees from knocking together.

"If you die, I die too, eh? You've got guts, brat. Here's a gift for coming this far."

The red swirled tighter and tighter around him, encasing him, enfolding him, devouring him. He could feel the raw power sifting through his skin, engulfing his body in flame, burning straight down to the marrow. There was an explosion of red and Naruto found himself falling he-

Kyuubi came to his senses again, somewhat winded but pleased.

'So the brat gave me some of his chakra. Interesting.' He thought to himself, flexing his fingers. It made sense, really. Chakra was the body's energy and was closely intertwined with its use. That was part of the reason that chakra exhaustion caused such extreme physical exhaustion.

The demon flexed the fingers of his right hand repeatedly, trying to get a feel for the body. Then he spotted the healing scar on the palm of his hand, left from the kunai the old hag had embedded in it. Which reminded him, where was the blasted thing? He glanced about, looking for the excessively ornate blade.

He found it a few moments later, lying by a tree. He hefted it calmly, weighing it in his hand. It was a ridiculously decorated piece of metal. It was thicker and heavier than a normal kunai, and rather awkward in his hand.

The center of gravity was painfully off, so much so that Kyuubi was having a difficult time holding the bloody thing. Gold had clearly been used heavily in its creation as well, due to the strange hue of the metal. The detail paid to the decoration of the blade was pathetically intense.

'This is not meant for combat.' He decided. It was too ornate and detailed to actually be used in battle. But what the hell was it for, then? A ceremony? Some form of ritual? He turned his mind from that tangent and focused on the kunai itself.

It really was ridiculously ornamental. There were raised swirls and ridges intricately crossing and twisting on the flat of the blade. The ring of the weapon was of an unusual, but familiar design. It was carved like a snake twisting in a ring, swallowing its own tail. Somehow the demon knew he'd seen it before, but he didn't know where.

'This is getting nowhere...' The revenant muttered to himself. He pocketed the kunai for later review, running through Naruto's memories to see what the hell was going on. He knew he was a long way from Konoha, after all. Precisely where and why still escaped him, though.

The memories surged in his mind again. Instead of fighting the sensation as he had done before, the demon let them flow through his brain. Answers quickly surfaced.

The brat had left Konoha seven-odd years ago in order to install a secondary spy network in order to ensure the accuracy of the old geezer's own network, prompted by several near encounters with the red-cloaked cultists culminating with an all-out brawl between Itachi, Jiraiya and himself.

The system had actually worked rather well, averting several major problems that had arose. And the brat himself had eliminated a fair few threats to the damnable village, using the explanation that his entire purpose was to exterminate any and all threats to Konoha from outside its walls.

And now one of his most reliable contacts had reached him, telling him that there was something very important that he had to hear about. The Kyuubi scoffed.

As if he'd do a damn thing to help that fucking village or anything involving it. The brat had made him promise to watch over Ivan, and that was it.

Actually, now that he was free, perhaps it was time to take his revenge on the bastards that dared seal him in the brat. A smile slowly formed on his lips. Yes, that would be most enjoyable.

The more he turned it over in his mind, the more appealing the thought was. However his plans were promptly derailed as he felt the distinctive surge of the brat's memories, then-

-ruto, the future Hokage of Ko-

--er one most surprising ninja, the future H-

--ll become Hokage!-

--y dream is to bec-

--er beat me! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of K-

--okage must be willing to sacrifice himself for his village, no ma-

-- Pale, haunting blue eyes stared back at him.

Pain lanced through his very soul as he was ripped from his body. Screami-

The demon possessed man dropped to the ground from the sheer force of the memories. Pain pulsed behind his eyes. His breaths came in wheezes. After a few moments the bombardment of memories slowed to a trickle, before stopping completely.

Kyuubi couldn't help but feel his respect for the brat grow, even though he fought it with every ounce of willpower he had. The blasted human was able to affect him that much even from the grave?

'There goes razing the village.' The demon thought irritably. With a deep sigh, he started running through his other options. He could just blow off the village. Break off all contact with them and go rogue.

No, that would just bring down the hunter-nins down on his head. And a royally pissed and confused Tsunade, which was something he really wanted to avoid. Suppressing the twinge in his gut that accompanied the thought of betraying the busty medic-nin, he acknowledged that he could probably handle the majority of the hunter-nins that would be after him. No, the problem was that the nins would soon learn of Ivan, and that's when the problems would start.

What other options were there? Well, there was always defecting to another village...but they wouldn't give him the latitude he had with Tsunade, meaning that he'd have to bring Ivan with him. That was something the demon wanted to avoid. Any village worth it's salt would be all over the little punk. And why wouldn't they? A Wild Talent falls into their grasp, they'd do anything and everything to keep it there.

But that was something the brat would not want. The Kyuubi, in all honesty, agreed with that. Ivan would live as little better than a lab-rat. And it wasn't like he could go to Sand either, as there was an alliance between them and Leaf which they had no intention of breaking by harboring demonic fugitives from Leaf.

It seemed that he had only one choice. Act like the brat. Help the fucking village that had sealed him away and abused his vessel.

"Damn you brat." He whispered to himself. The demon stood up and sprinted off in the direction that the brat's memories prompted. 'This had better be good.'

**

In one of the small, non-ninja villages on the outskirts of Lightning Country, a man going by the name Mizuki sat calmly in a restaurant waiting for his friend. Mizuki was a burly man, easily on the scale of the Akimichi clan, only without the muscles even they develop with ninjas. One wouldn't expect the man to be a skilled spy, as he would expect the large man's prodigious girth to tremor with every repressed emotion. But he was one of Naruto's most reliant informants.

It seemed that most people tended to ignore the fat man inhaling his food.

Looking at the man now, the Kyuubi realized that it might be because paying him attention might scar them for life. As Mizuki shoveled more food down his esophagus, he glanced up at the disguised revenant who slid into the booth with him. Kyuubi, running on the brat's memories, subtly held up a small medallion. A pulse of the brat's chakra ran through it and a blue spiral swirled into existence on the face of the medallion.

Mizuki glanced at it discreetly, before lifting up his own and sending a rudimentary pulse through his own. The revenant watched as a jagged symbol traced itself across the medallion. Kyuubi couldn't help but marvel at the system.

Half the problem with spy networks was if the network was compromised, there was next to no way of telling whether the information was accurate or not. Especially when ninjas and their thrice-damned henge were involved.

But with the medallion, part of that worry was erased. A small sliver of chakra applied to the medallion-enough that anyone could muster, even civilians-would reveal a customized image tailored to the specific spy. The kicker was that only that person's chakra could reveal that symbol. For anyone else, it wouldn't work.

Granted there was a long list of ways to get around that particular impediment. However, the medallion tended to lend an air of confidence to Uzumaki's spies, a sort of physical assurance that they were safe. He was snapped out of his musings by Mizuki's growling voice.

"Yer late."

"Sorry. Ran into an old friend on the way here." The demon informed the spy calmly, Naruto's memories supplying him with the proper code-term for 'I was attacked.' The fat man stiffened.

"Bring 'im for drinks?" 'Were you followed?'

"Nah, she had to run off somewhere." 'Negative; though the attacker is still alive.'

They both fell silent for a moment. Mizuki was busy working himself into a paranoia-induced nervous breakdown, envisioning faceless ninja haunting his every step, and the Kyuubi was calmly waiting for the obese man to tell him what the hell was so important to have to call him all the way here. As the seconds dragged into minutes, the demon began casting his mind around, searching for something entertaining. It was then that he noticed it.

The air was thick with chakra.

Tensing slightly, he cast his eyes around the seedy establishment, cursing himself for not checking for chakra emissions the instant that he walked inside the building. Naruto's instincts had actually told him to do so, but he had dismissed it as the paranoid ramblings of a half-crazed ninja. After all, what kind of sane ninja wore orange all the bloody time?

But now those paranoid ramblings seemed to make quite a bit of sense.

He took a deep breath and tried to locate the source of the chakra. However, that proved more difficult than he had hoped. The chakra was incredibly diluted, coating the room. He tried to categorize it, but it eluded him. It was clearly a lower level jutsu, as while the air was filled with chakra, it was rather thin. But what kind of bloody jutsu expelled enough chakra to fill a room to the brim?

There was no lower level jutsu that would release that much chakra in one go, and as negligent as the demon had been when entering the bar, he would have noticed if someone was running around using jutsu left and right. So what the hell could it be?

That was when he noticed the singing. He glanced at the stage, and resisted the urge to puke.

There was a bishounen standing in the center of the stage, long whitish hair running down his back, a blindfold over his eyes, and over half the women gazing adoringly at him.

Why the hell women were so obsessed with men that should make them wonder if they were playing for the right team, he'd never know. After all, they couldn't all be monstrous perverts. Right?

His musings on whether or not all women were really perverts were quickly derailed as the Kyuubi noticed that the miasma of chakra shivered and spiked in time with the effeminate-looking boy's singing. The demon felt like slapping himself for his idiocy.

'Genjutsu. But what the hell's it for?' He cast his eyes around the room. 'It's too low-key to be anything I'd have to worry about. And it's too distilled to be targeting anyone in particular. So what the hell is he trying to do?' The demon's eyes fell upon the counter. That was one hell of a lot of tips. Especially in a joint of this caliber. Or rather, lack of caliber.

'You've got to be kidding me. Is he using a genjutsu to get more tips out of the patrons? That's...just pathetic. Probably a missing-nin. No real shinobi would sully himself with that kind of work.' Kyuubi blinked, mentally reviewing what he had just thought.

Had those thoughts come from the brat or himself? The frightening thing was that he didn't know.

The demon had put conscious effort into keeping the majority of the brat's memories locked away in the back of his head. He had absorbed some already; however, all were related to the brat's craft: his skills as a ninja. He had avoided everything else in the hopes of keeping himself from picking up the brat's mannerisms and beliefs.

It was bad enough to be sealed inside Uzumaki, but acting like the human when he didn't have to was one thing he really did not want to start doing. Kyuubi had actually thought it would work, too. That is, until just now.

If he had somehow gotten several of the brat's habits through the few memories he did absorb, someone was going to die. And it would be brutal.

He became aware that someone was eyeing him. He turned and spotted Mizuki staring intently at him, which brought his mind back to the reason he had come here in the first place.

"Alright, Mizuki-jii. What's eatin' ya?" The spy broke off his inspection and rolled his eyes.

"Told ya not to call me that." The older man growled. Kyuubi, again running on the brat's memories, gave a wide smile and chuckled, but gave no other response. "All right, here's the deal.

"Word on the street says-" Kyuubi barely resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Evidently the phrase was as popular now as it had been when first thought up. Several centuries ago. "Word on the street says that missing-nins have been having one helluva year. Somebody keeps buyin' 'em in bulk. If I didn't know any better, I'd say somebody's trying to start a war."

Kyuubi frowned thoughtfully as he digested this.

"How do you know someone isn't, though?" Mizuki gave him a half-hearted glare before plunging into a hearty explanation of exactly why he knew that there would be no invasion force marching into a town anytime soon. Unfortunately for the demon, Mizuki's first love had been and would always be economics. Therefore the rotund man had no problem tossing out heaps and heaps of jargon that made the demon want to cry with frustration.

Fortunately for the demon, Naruto had suffered through several displays quite similar to the one he was enduring now, and had learned a few of the key words through constant reinforcement. So the revenant could just fall back on the brat's memories to translate. However, very unfortunately for the demon, his inner translater was rather slow, so much so that it made absolutely no difference in the long run.

"Okay," Kyuubi started, trying to sum up everything he had learned from the spy. "You know that there isn't going to be a war because there's no sign that anyone had purchased anything else needed for a war? Am I right?" Mizuki nodded grimly. Kyuubi rubbed his face with his hand. "This doesn't make any frickin' sense."

"...It gets worse" The demon gave no physical or verbal reaction, but Mizuki could see that his slight befuddled smile had been replaced with a slight tight-lipped frown. "Nobody's seen any of these missing-nin after they disappear. It's like they dropped right off the face of the Earth. It's ridiculous."

The Kyuubi shook his head. He just wanted to protect Ivan from harm, that's all. None of this mystery shit, no occult events, and definitely not running head-long into danger because he'd been told about it. He was no hero. He knew that.

Hell, he was proud of it.

Unfortunately for his resolve to 'just protect Ivan,' it sounded like this missing-nin situation could wind up being a danger to his 'bodyguard detail.' So he'd have to deal with this, and fast, before it blew out of hand.

"There were also reports that a white-haired boy with red-eyes was sighted nearby some of the areas where most of the missing-nins were 'hired' from." Mizuki added cautiously, before shrinking backwards somewhat, as if expecting the blonde to explode with barely restrained rage.

Truth be told, Uzumaki might have several years ago. But that was several years ago, and many things had changed. Kyuubi merely nodded, and plunged back into his various plots. Only to grind his teeth as the pretty-boy hit a high note that he wasn't supposed to. Then he stiffened. 'Of course...'

"Missing-nins, huh?" He glanced up at the stage, mentally running through the bingo book, trying to place where he saw that specifically pale and wasted face. Problem was there were too damn many pale pretty boys. 'I believe that it's past time for a bishie genocide.' The demon thought to himself.

The memory returned to him after a few moments. 'Yes, that's right. Kaumui Riku. Cloud missing-nin. Low chuunin rank before defecting. Proficient in genjutsu, weak in everything else.' The demon rattled off in his head.

A dark smile creased his lips.

Almost too easy.

Almost.

**