Naruto oneshot
Title: Twisted Lullaby
Summary: Naruto owes Kyuubi more than he knows.
A/N: Kyuubi is sexless in this story - this is why I use 'it' to refer to Kyuubi.
xxxXxxx
If it weren't for Kyuubi, Naruto would be dead long before he even began to live.
Naruto thinks he knows about all the times Kyuubi has saved his life. Every time he looks down at himself he can see the scars of would-be fatal wounds that healed at a speed to fast to kill. He can put memories to all of them - weapon and age and perpetrator. Sometimes, at his most morbid (usually in the early hours of the morning, after tossing and turning sleeplessly for hours) he touches the scars and remembers. For its part, Kyuubi doesn't let him forget. It rants and raves about Naruto and his stupidity, about how reckless he is and every time Naruto tries to distract it by jokingly saying how nice it is of Kyuubi to care.
Kyuubi's default response is to inform Naruto that a dead host is a useless host and the exchange ends there.
There's one incident, though, where Naruto was too young to remember and that left no scar.
Naruto was a baby, nearly a year old if Kyuubi's perception of time was correct (it will never understand the humans' obsession with time), and in the care of a rotating group of carers, and it uses the term loosely.
One carer was bathing Naruto, only just holding his head above the water level. Kyuubi had been on the edge already, unsettled both by the water and the way the woman looked down at them. There was the contempt and disgust it had come to expect but there also something else, something that it was still puzzling over when the carer's hands left its host's body and Naruto slipped beneath the water.
There had a been a suspended moment where Kyuubi hadn't known what has happening or what to do; then its host's body gently came to rest on the bottom of the bath and Kyuubi began to panic. It could feel everything the host body could - the water engulfing it and slow burn of not being able to breathe. It could practically feel things slowly shut down; one by one the senses left it. No longer could it hear the reassuring thump-thump of the strong heart, nor could he feel the rush of blood. And finally, most cruelly, the infant mind - so busy, buzzing with life and information and so close to becoming truly interesting - slipped away.
Panic slipped into something even stronger. With impotent rage it screamed its fury to the echoing hallways. And as the echoes faded a new sound replaced them.
The sound of paper shredding, as the seal ripped in half and fluttered slowly to the ground.
The gates to Kyuubi's cage swung open.
It wasted no time, springing through with its lips curled into a triumphant snarl.
Above the water the carer was watching with dull interest as the small body stopped moving. That was for you, Mother, she thought, triumph and grief intertwined so tightly that she couldn't breathe for a moment. Then it passed and she took a deep breath, only for it to stick in her throat.
The demonchild's eyes were open.
They were red.
The carer stumbled to her feet and staggered away but she was transfixed as the infant began to claw - literally claw, the soft, tiny fingernails had lengthened and sharpened into hard claws - its way up the slope of the tub. As the demonchild's head broke the surface it growled at her through canine teeth so pronounced, they looked more like fangs. In any other situation it would have been humourous, the tiny, wet body crouched on the edge of a tub with fangs and
claws.
With the flashing red eyes and red chakra it became terrifying.
The carer turned tail and fled. Hours later, when the claws and fangs and red chakra had melted away and the red eyes had bled back to blue, after the seal had repaired itself and some force had hauled Kyuubi back into its cage where it had frantically pumped its chakra through Naruto's body and healed the damage oxygen deprivation had caused, another carer came and clothed Naruto and took him back to his windowless, spartan room.
Kyuubi has never mentioned the incident to Naruto and intends never to do so. It doesn't like the reminder of how easy it is to kill its host, provided the right method is found, nor how glorious its brief moments of freedom had been and how it felt to find itself back behind bars.
Mostly, although it would never admit it, it doesn't like the reminder of how it felt to lose the feel of its host's mind. It also doesn't like to admit that it doesn't think it could handle losing that mind now, not when it is so much more interesting.
xxxXxxx
Next chapter: Speech
Summary: Naruto owes Kyuubi more than he knows.
A/N: Kyuubi is sexless in this story - this is why I use 'it' to refer to Kyuubi.
xxxXxxx
If it weren't for Kyuubi, Naruto would be dead long before he even began to live.
Naruto thinks he knows about all the times Kyuubi has saved his life. Every time he looks down at himself he can see the scars of would-be fatal wounds that healed at a speed to fast to kill. He can put memories to all of them - weapon and age and perpetrator. Sometimes, at his most morbid (usually in the early hours of the morning, after tossing and turning sleeplessly for hours) he touches the scars and remembers. For its part, Kyuubi doesn't let him forget. It rants and raves about Naruto and his stupidity, about how reckless he is and every time Naruto tries to distract it by jokingly saying how nice it is of Kyuubi to care.
Kyuubi's default response is to inform Naruto that a dead host is a useless host and the exchange ends there.
There's one incident, though, where Naruto was too young to remember and that left no scar.
Naruto was a baby, nearly a year old if Kyuubi's perception of time was correct (it will never understand the humans' obsession with time), and in the care of a rotating group of carers, and it uses the term loosely.
One carer was bathing Naruto, only just holding his head above the water level. Kyuubi had been on the edge already, unsettled both by the water and the way the woman looked down at them. There was the contempt and disgust it had come to expect but there also something else, something that it was still puzzling over when the carer's hands left its host's body and Naruto slipped beneath the water.
There had a been a suspended moment where Kyuubi hadn't known what has happening or what to do; then its host's body gently came to rest on the bottom of the bath and Kyuubi began to panic. It could feel everything the host body could - the water engulfing it and slow burn of not being able to breathe. It could practically feel things slowly shut down; one by one the senses left it. No longer could it hear the reassuring thump-thump of the strong heart, nor could he feel the rush of blood. And finally, most cruelly, the infant mind - so busy, buzzing with life and information and so close to becoming truly interesting - slipped away.
Panic slipped into something even stronger. With impotent rage it screamed its fury to the echoing hallways. And as the echoes faded a new sound replaced them.
The sound of paper shredding, as the seal ripped in half and fluttered slowly to the ground.
The gates to Kyuubi's cage swung open.
It wasted no time, springing through with its lips curled into a triumphant snarl.
Above the water the carer was watching with dull interest as the small body stopped moving. That was for you, Mother, she thought, triumph and grief intertwined so tightly that she couldn't breathe for a moment. Then it passed and she took a deep breath, only for it to stick in her throat.
The demonchild's eyes were open.
They were red.
The carer stumbled to her feet and staggered away but she was transfixed as the infant began to claw - literally claw, the soft, tiny fingernails had lengthened and sharpened into hard claws - its way up the slope of the tub. As the demonchild's head broke the surface it growled at her through canine teeth so pronounced, they looked more like fangs. In any other situation it would have been humourous, the tiny, wet body crouched on the edge of a tub with fangs and
claws.
With the flashing red eyes and red chakra it became terrifying.
The carer turned tail and fled. Hours later, when the claws and fangs and red chakra had melted away and the red eyes had bled back to blue, after the seal had repaired itself and some force had hauled Kyuubi back into its cage where it had frantically pumped its chakra through Naruto's body and healed the damage oxygen deprivation had caused, another carer came and clothed Naruto and took him back to his windowless, spartan room.
Kyuubi has never mentioned the incident to Naruto and intends never to do so. It doesn't like the reminder of how easy it is to kill its host, provided the right method is found, nor how glorious its brief moments of freedom had been and how it felt to find itself back behind bars.
Mostly, although it would never admit it, it doesn't like the reminder of how it felt to lose the feel of its host's mind. It also doesn't like to admit that it doesn't think it could handle losing that mind now, not when it is so much more interesting.
xxxXxxx
Next chapter: Speech