Naruto
Night Fright
This is my first finished fanfiction. I haven't posted it as it is a rough copy. I want to know what people think. Oh this is just the first installment as well. If people like it I'll try to get the rest posted.
This is a Naruto one-shot, as mentioned above, it's a bonding ficlet, not yaoi or shonen-ai. Once I post the second half you'll see the section that would make this story easily a yaoi. If I get enough requests I'll write a yaoi version. Well Enjoy. ^_^ .
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Night Fright
A whimper was heard from the bundle that was supposedly a human curled up under the blankets. From underneath the covers peeked a tuft of golden sun kissed hair, a whine was heard and the figure underneath curls more into itself.
He couldn’t escape!
There was no way out!
They had surrounded him, calling him
“Monster”
“Demon”
“Hell Spawn” and many more names that cut him much deeper than any kunai could.
“No!” he cried out “I’m not a demon! Why do you… hate me?” he cried in despair.
“You’re the demon”
“It’s your fault”
“You killed Them!” were the replies of the shadow people.
“I didn’t kill anyone! I’m not a demon.” the boy whispered.
“Yes you are” cried out the shadows
“Look at your hands, eyes, and teeth. They show what you truly are!” cried menacingly the crowd.
He looked down at his hands and notice for the first time that his finger nails were longer and sharper. Eyes widened in horror one of the hands shakily snaked up to his mouth to find that his canine had also lengthened. He touched the tips with his tongue only to slice it with his newly grown fangs. As the metallic tang of his own blood filled his mouth he panicked and ran from the people with their hurtful words.
While tears ran down his cheeks, Naruto told himself ~I’m Not a demon, I AM NOT! … I’m Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha village’s #1 loudest ninja and someday Hokage.~
“You?… Hokage?” yelled out the crowd that Naruto could not seem to lose. “Who would accept a Hokage that looks like you?”
Suddenly he was surrounded by the hurtful voices and in front of him a mirror. It was through this mirror that Naruto viewed his own reflection.
“..no…” came the straggled sound from Naruto in disbelief. For in the mirror was a wild image of himself with hair seeming wilder, canines longer, nails sharper, and worst of all his eyes had gone from their innocent sky blue to a menacing scarlet slits.
“NOoooo!” Naruto screamed as he doubled over in pain. He could feel his back ripple as if something was trying to force its way out. Laughter erupted from behind the shadowed figures and formed into two large slitted disembodied eyes.
“Why do you deny yourself?” asked the glowing red eyes looking gleefully even without the mouth.
“B…b-bu-but I don’t….w-wa-want to be different?” stuttered out Naruto as another wave of pain racked his body.
“You want to be accepted by everyone in Konoha right?” said the smiling eyes.
“Yes” replied Naruto as he brought in more ragged breaths and fought to stand on his own feet.
“Too bad” said the smirking voice, “They may not accept you, but they surely will notice you now.”
Again hit with pain Naruto fell to his hands and knees and let out a piercing scream as he watched in horror as the new appendage forced its way through the skin of his lower back.
This is how Naruto awoke screaming until his voice went horse, as he sat up in his bed raggedly taking in breaths of air. Someone started pounding on the door to his apartment. The sounds and the shouts coming from the door way frightened him, and Naruto remembered the shadow figures that perused him in his dream. Fueled by the feelings left over from the nightmare and scared that the pounding on the door was the shadow people coming to taunt him again, the scared boy opened his window and disappeared into the night.
***
The Neighbour knocking at the door of Naruto’s apartment gave up deciding to tell the demon boy later that if he could not keep it down, he would be evicted.
Not far from his apartment Naruto continued to race, being driven by the phantoms of his dream. Once he stumbled and ripped his shirt on a fence that lay along his path, getting himself caught on a loose grain of wood. Naruto panicked and tried to wriggle out of his shirt, but this only succeeded in tarring his night shirt more on the wood. Scared that hands were holding him by the shirt, Naruto took his nails and raked them across his chest trying to free himself from his fears. His long fingernails tore through the material and shredded the shirt to pieces while tearing the skin underneath. Finally free of the shirt Naruto had wounds all over his stomach, chest and arm, not noticing any of these he made his escape from the grabbing hands and ran down the lane. As he left, lights went up in the house nearby feeling the burn of hateful stares Naruto fled the scene and headed for the other side of town. The Private district.
***
In another bed in the district that Naruto was unknowingly headed for was another boy having a hard time trying to get back to sleep. Sasuke had just woken up from one of his most horrific and constant nightmares. It consisted of a young Uchiha Sasuke returning home to be greeted with the bloody corpses of his family and running towards his house only to discover the dead bodies of his slain parents on the floor and his older brother looming over them. He taunted Sasuke’s younger self for not protecting them and being weak.
After a few minutes of calming his mind, and convincing himself that he was relaxed enough to go back to sleep, Sasuke lay down and situated himself in his bed. Just as his head was about to hit the pillow Sasuke heard, the sound of one of the alarms of the Uchiha estate going off. Wondering what it could possibly be, Sasuke got out of bed and quietly and got dressed. As he pulled a shirt over his head Sasuke looked over to his bed side table to discover that the clock read a little pass three in the morning.
~Who would be up at this hour? Most of the village is asleep, except for the guards and even if it was one of them they would be able to make it to the door without setting off any of the traps~ pondered Sasuke. This meant that whomever had found their way onto the Uchiha estate did not know their way around and had set off one of the security alarms.
Fishing out some weapons and hiding them on his person Sasuke head out the door of his room and made his way down the hall in the empty house. The large estate had been empty except for Sasuke for years now, but Sasuke just couldn’t leave his home even if it held some painful memories. Walking through the kitchen the string attached onto the small old brass bell was being tugged frantically. Sasuke remembered where this specific trap was set; this one was a trap for rabbits that his mother had set up in her garden to make sure she caught the little hares that kept eating the vegetables growing there. Bring up that memory was painful, but this meant that most likely whatever was caught was an animal of some sorts. Making a detour to the pantry Sasuke fished out the first aid kit, whatever had gotten itself caught in the trap was most likely hurt and would need some bandaging. There was a possibility that it was someone’s pet that had gotten caught in the trap. Sasuke would have to find its owner in the morning. For now all he wanted to do was get the thing out of the trap and get back to bed.
Heading outside Sasuke turned towards the old garden. He hadn’t been there for many years so that weeds and vines had overtaken it throughout the years and no longer looked like the rose and vegetable garden that his mother had planted.
Approaching the site Sasuke noticed that his first assumption was correct, there was a human caught in the trap close to the garden. Said person was slightly smaller than an adult, but definitely bigger than a child. The youth whoever it was, was struggling frantically against the trap that held its foot. The person who was caught in the trap wasn’t bright enough to just stop moving and loosen the loop around their foot.
~….Baka…~ thought Sasuke as he approached the figure more carefully as not to scare him or her.
The person was covered in dirt and was topless allowing Sasuke to deduce that the person was most definitely a male. Sasuke noticed the reason as to why the bell in the house was ringing so frantically, the boy was yanking the wire so hard that is had cut into his foot. Blood was running down his right ankle, the wire being so tight that with each tug of the boy’s foot the bell would ring on the other end quite loudly even if the trap was old. Sasuke gaze went from the boy’s ankle and to the fingers with inch long nails. The boy was using them to try and slice through the wire without much success. The only thing that this accomplished was giving the boy bloody nails. The blood was collecting on the end of the boy’s fingers and dropping into a pool of under the boy’s hands.
~He must have another injury, his ankle wound should not produce that much blood~ thought Sasuke as he looked at the boy’s upper torso and arms. Through the dirt and mud that was caked on the youths body Sasuke saw multiple lacerations. None of the wounds looked like they were made with a weapon, but looked like some wild animal had attacked the youth’s arms and stomach. Some of the gashes were still bleeding, if Sasuke could not calm down the youth he could just wait till he passed out from blood lost.
Just as Sasuke decided his plan of action and began to walk towards the teen, the boy felt his presence and began to trash with his bond. The youth felt threatened by him, and whimpered as the wire bit into his ankle making the cut deeper, but seem continued to try and get the wire off his ankle.
“Stop” commanded Sasuke as he came closer to the boy.
The boy lashed out with his nails, trying to get away from the foreign voice, as if the sound of Sasuke’s voice had struck him and with renewed vigor he struggled to get away from Sasuke.
Fearing that the boy would hurt himself more, Sasuke lunged and grabbed the male’s wrists forcing them palm down to the ground. This action produced a sharp cry from the youth which startled Sasuke, but he did not let go.
“Calm down I’m here to help you” said Sasuke quietly.
The teen’s response to Sasuke’s voice was to try and wiggle out of his grip which only succeeded in angering Sasuke. Sasuke let out a growl of displeasure to warn the boy to stay still, he strengthened his grip on the hand and carefully adjusted his stance over the boys injured leg. Crouching over the boy’s caught leg, Sasuke made sure that the youth would not be able to take a cheap shot at him and started to move closer to the youths face. This position put Sasuke on eye level with the boy’s lowered head, the upper face which was hidden behind his wild bangs of his dirty hair.
The body under Sasuke’s hands stopped struggling and the boy started to shake uncontrollably. Sasuke was scared that the youth was going into shock from the blood lost and with his right hand he let go of the youth’s left and brought his right to push away the bangs so that he could see if the boy’s eyes were dilated or not.
Sasuke moved the muddy hair out of the boy’s face and got a brief view of familiar blue eyes with hints of scarlet and whisker marks on his cheeks when a foot connected with Sasuke’s chest and he flew back a meter from the youth.
~Naruto? ~ thought Sasuke
The boy was again struggling frantically with the bond and mumbling a mantra under his breath that was too quiet for Sasuke to hear.
“Naruto?” whispered Sasuke hesitantly, almost unbelieving that the figure in front of him was the hyperactive dobe that annoyed him every day.
Even though Sasuke spoke the word quietly, the youth in front of him stopped dead and slowly raised his head and looked Sasuke in the eyes. This confirmed Sasuke fears, in front of him was his happy loudmouth teammate, Naruto. What scared Sasuke more was the fear and sadness that we reflecting in the face of his rival. Now recognition showed on Naruto’s face as he looked into Sasuke’s eyes. The relaxed look was short lived as Naruto’s facial features flickered and was replaced again with disbelief and sadness as Naruto looked away from Sasuke.
“Naruto what’s wrong?” growled out Sasuke, Naruto had almost given the Uchiha a heart attack, and being winded and up at this ungodly hour was not improving his bad humour. Sasuke looked at his friend to see that Naruto was no longer paying attention to him.
“No….” came the quiet crack voice from Naruto “…I don’t want to see him…” he continued still in his own world. Sasuke listened so as to get a clue as to what Naruto was so afraid of.
“Why are you bringing him into this?…Why are you torturing me?… What have I EVER DONE TO YOU?” Naruto ended screaming.
~ “You keep me locked up and I plan on making your life a living hell” ~ chuckled the fox in Naruto’s head
Sasuke walked up to Naruto and probed the boy with his foot. When he received no response he crouched down and looked into Naruto’s face, removing the hair from his teammate’s face. Sasuke watched in wonder as the colour of Naruto’s eyes flickered between his normal sky blue and the bloody read slits that Sasuke remembered from their first battle with Orochimaru.
The battle of colours was won momentarily by Naruto’s normal sky blue which held fear and pain in them. Naruto’s gaze traveled up the figure in front of him, starting from the feet and finishing on the face that so close to his own.
“No….” he whispered “… not you….why did it have to be you?” as Naruto finished he looked down at his own hands and started shaking.
“What do you mean?” Sasuke said angrily. Naruto stayed quiet looking at his bloody-dirty hands the tremors of his body becoming more violent.
“Naruto answer me!” Sasuke yelled as he grabbed Naruto’s shoulders and shook him, which produced a pained yelp from Naruto who then screamed back at the boy holding him “Because you’ll hate me like THEY do”
“What?” Sasuke replied angrily. Something had broken in his rival, Sasuke had never seen Naruto cry or look as lost as he did now, like he’d been beaten and could no longer hold himself up. “Who are They, Naruto?” Sasuke asked quietly trying to calm down the boy and get an answer out of him
“Everybody”
“Who’s Everybody Naruto?” Sasuke pressed on.
“The whole village” stated Naruto, as he brought his legs up to his chest forgetting his foot was still caught. Hissing as the tug on the caught foot cause pain to run through his body, carefully he brought up his uninjured leg and held it closely to his chest and placed his head on his knee.
“Why?” asked Sasuke as he sat on Naruto’s left side and brought up his hand to Naruto’s back rubbing slow circles as though he could through the action calm a scared child which Naruto was very much at the moment.
“If I told you, you’d look at me the same way everyone else does.” Naruto whispered
“I promise dobe I won’t, now spill it!” commanded Sasuke.
“Stop calling me dobe you….” Naruto stopped in mid-sentence as he felt a sharp pain come from his navel which made him jerk out of Sasuke’s grasp and fall back on the ground and curl into himself.
“Naruto what’s…” Sasuke did not finish as a piercing scream erupted from the blond and cried out “Leave me alone Kyuubi!”
A red aura spilt from the blond and swirled around him.
~ “Now why would I want to do that Kit…When I have the opportunity to torture you?” ~ said the Demon Fox from within Naruto.
Sasuke watched as the red chakra formed a head and eyes and briefly he could recognize the thing as a fox before the aura returned to Naruto forcing its way into his mouth.
As the last of the chakra disappeared, Naruto let out another piercing scream, but this one much subdued because of how raw Naruto’s throat was from the previous ordeals. Pain again racked Naruto’s body, but time it was no longer mental, he now felt the pain physically. Pain laced through his entire being and Naruto curled into himself gasping as his body started to shake from the agony of whatever was happening to him.
“I’ve had about enough of this.” stated Sasuke, Naruto did not look well and his wounds needed looking after. Sasuke didn’t know what was wrong with the dobe, but he could figure that out later, better to take Naruto where he’d be safe and warm.
Sasuke rushed over to the blond’s ankle and cut the wire knowing now that Naruto would not try and run away. Picking up the shivering boy, he ran towards his house. Seeing a figure move in the trees Sasuke called out to the hidden guard “He’s alright..” he lied “just had a nightmare and got caught in an old trap, I’ll take care of him”
The guard nodded that he understood and disappeared back to his post not really caring much if there was anything wrong with the local demon. The guard wouldn’t have to put himself out to take care of the good for nothing fox for tonight.