Do you ever have an idea for a new piece, after having just finished your previous one? That's what this feels like, since I took a year and a half to complete Within the Straws I Grasp. I'll be honest: I tried to give myself an outline here, but I still have no real clue where this is going. Making things up as I went along seemed to go pretty well for me before, so I'll give it another shot. Unfortunately for my sleep schedule, I'm possessed by a need to write. Will you love it? Will you hate it? Will you beg for more? Time to find out.

Let's get this trainwreck moving.

"Why?"

It was a question that had haunted others' thoughts for years. From the time he'd made the actions that defined so many lives, least of all his own, it was the one thing he'd never been able to give a straight answer to. It was the one thing he'd never thought to ask himself.

"You have no concept of what it means to be a demon like me, do you?" He countered. "I may look like you do, but it's because I choose to. I speak in a way you understand, if only because doing otherwise would be pointless. I tried to convince myself that I was capable of acting human. Being human. I tried for so long that it almost erased my existence."

"I wish it had. Look at what you've done!"

"No form of governance is superior to any other. All political struggles are fronts to obtain personal power and leverage over others. It's something I've admired about humans, ever since I understood that I wasn't one of you: where demonic hierarchy is set on little more than strength, and the intelligence to wield it effectively, humans base their leadership on any number of superfluous categories. You're confusing, irritating to keep up with, and most of you drop like flies."

"What right does that give you to kill indiscriminately?"

The demon snorted in derision as his interrogator fumed.

"It was my right, because I felt like doing it. Even now, nothing but my amusement at your anger is keeping you alive."

"Why shouldn't I be angry? You've destroyed the world! You've cast us back into the darkest ages of our history!"

"And your suffering," the demon paused for a moment to lick his lips, "is delicious."

"Argh! I've had it with you! Why won't you just die, and leave us be?"

The sword was drawn. The sword came down. The sword was caught in the demon's jaws, before it broke against his teeth.

"Because of moments like that." He answered the question mockingly. "Where would I get my entertainment from, if you couldn't provide it? You, specifically, in a way. The prodigal son of your village, cast aside for crimes you committed to protect your loved ones...who hated you in turn. Years spent perfecting a craft you hated, destroying lives you wanted to build. Even now, the only reason I'm here is because you amuse me."

"Just kill me, and get this over with." The interrogator demanded. "I'm not here to be used like a toy."

"No, you're here because you were drawn to me. To what I represent. It's an unnerving thing, isn't it? I sit here, restrained from acting in anything but self-defense while you have this sealing circle around me, but you feel like the captive. I know the weight of all your sins, and I know the regrets you keep inside of yourself. In a way, it's like you're seeking...redemption."

"I hate you."

"No. You hate yourself." The demon replied.

He'd cut his way across the world, from the islands of Mizu no Kuni to the deserts of Kaze no Kuni. He'd killed his way through countless enemies, from the jagged mountain passes of Rai no Kuni and Iwa no Kuni to the lush forests of Hi no Kuni. He'd had help, but even then, he'd left them. He'd seen that they didn't need his presence to be effective anymore, even as they waited for the day he would come back to them. Instead, he tormented the man who'd been fundamental in his formation, and becoming the way he was.

"If you hated me," the demon continued, "you wouldn't hesitate to strike me down. Even though it may not seem like it, I'm not immortal. I have the scars to prove it. You don't understand me, and that makes you afraid. You hate yourself for your fear. You hate yourself for your weakness, even as you try to convince others that you can be nothing but strong. You strive to be the best, and on falling short..."

He gave a short chuckle, even as his captor's face took on a stern expression and set in a menacing frown.

"No. I hate you."

"Don't lie to yourself...and don't lie to me. I can smell lies. Yours are a little less fragrant than others." The demon laughed to himself again.

"You broke the world, and everyone on it! You ruined everything that I sacrificed for!"

"Humans destroyed this place long before I was given the chance to walk through its wastelands. Your way of life, all your bloodshed and pride, had set the stage. It was like a dish, left too far on the edge of the table, and barely holding on. All I did was give it a little push."

"You bombed an entire country to smoke and rubble!"

"And how many innocents died in your three wars? The vast majority of any nation is used for purposes besides housing. Most of what I destroyed was agriculture. Food my enemies needed to survive the winter. Food they didn't receive. Besides...do you think I'll say that I regret killing them? That I'm ashamed?"

"I want something! Anything! Some part of emotion besides your smug self-assuredness! I don't care if it's anger, or hate, or anything, as long as it keeps that fucking smile off your face!"

The spit launched out from the demon's mouth and landed squarely on the cheek of the human he was tormenting, laughing more heartily than ever as he stared down to pay attention to the Fuinjutsu circle under him. Then, with a sudden burst of concentration that was fueled by his aggressor's momentary silence, he sat on the ground and carved in his own seal-work.

"You really are a one-track mind, aren't you?" He laughed. "All this impeccable writing to prevent me from attacking you, and a sealing formation that theoretically keeps me in place...but nothing written in the margins of the seal to prevent me from modifying it. Did you forget which art allowed me to become what I am?"

Carved into the stone ground, in fine lettering that looked neat enough to come from a printing press, the demon wrote that he had the power to leave the circle. Immediately, there was a change in the air; after a pink glow rose up from the edges of the circle and died down, the demon stepped forward. Outside the circle, there were no laws he was forced to follow. Though his captor made a move to escape, he raised one arm, and grabbed the human's face.

"Relax, I won't kill you. You entertain me too much. But for a few great moments of joy, I'll sacrifice that amusement...by taking away your Ninjutsu."

The dark energy of the demon's power radiated, flowing as directed by his will. Sharp pain connected their bodies, the human's tenketsu pierced and warped until nothing remained that could be activated. He hadn't taken the fool's chakra, vital as it was to living, but it would be impossible to access. No techniques, no seals, just raw power.

"One day, maybe, there will be someone strong enough to cleanse this world of my influence...but it's not you, and that day isn't today. I wonder, how long will you last now that you've become powerless? How long until the world knows you're weak, and kills you? Will you run away? Will you accept death? I look forward to watching you. But on the other hand...I don't think we'll meet again."

The demon turned, walking out from the underground shelter unopposed. When he felt the sunlight warm his face again, falling through the tree-filled forest of his home country, his smile softened. He walked slowly, looking around at the scene stretching out before him. Birds sang and flitted about in the air, squirrels and an occasional rabbit bolting whenever he moved too close to them. This was the kind of thing he'd always envied: the natural world, without human ostentation to bend or break it. Deep scars marred the ground, a sign that he'd walked this path before. A sign that he'd battled here before. Had this been on his march to Kiri? Or to Kumo? It couldn't have been to many other places, save for the civilian settlements and minor villages tucked away in the space between those destinations.

They'd known what had hit them, but they hadn't been prepared for the overwhelming nature of his assault. Lifetimes of power, unlocked on a whim, that had signaled a change in his methodology; after he'd razed one enemy nation to the ground, there was no point in hiding himself anymore. After all, it wasn't that he'd become a demon...he'd been born on a battlefield, his progenitor's dying act to slaughter his predecessor. Demons could die, but their essence wouldn't disappear.

On the night Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, had been killed, Namikaze Naruto was stillborn. The demonic life had fled its mortal shackles, invading the body of the newborn who'd been steeped in its power during pregnancy. There had simply been too much power for the child to survive in the womb; that flooding of youki, on the other hand, allowed the Kyuubi to infest the infant's body without issue. The Yondaime Hokage hadn't known his dead son's fate, as he'd died a hero, but he had watched the boy open his eyes. His blood-red, bloodshot eyes, that craved death above all else.

How had it all come to this? As Naruto walked through the woods, intent on finding his way back to the allies he'd abandoned, he allowed his thoughts to wander.

It had been a long day. Working by himself, he'd managed to scope out his first target beyond the slums, a little ramen stand that looked like it was doing well enough for him to slip by unnoticed. In a world where jobs were a group undertaking, with successful heists operated in teams of three or four, Naruto had managed to survive for years as a lone wolf. He was just a little faster, just a little stealthier, just a little more observant, than the other street urchins who stalked the streets he was growing up on. He didn't come away with hauls as large as the other crews, but he was by himself, and he didn't need that much. Or, at least, he had been by himself.

He wasn't entirely sure what had happened. One moment, everything had been fine, as he prepared to slip through the building's unsecured defenses to make off with whatever food he could eat raw. Without warning, the building had seen smoke rising from its roof as flames torched the windowpanes. Unwilling to let his food for the next two or three days go up in the fire, Naruto had made the executive decision to run headlong into the stand's backroom. There, he'd come face to face with a gruesome scene: a crying girl backed up into a corner, fire curling around the room as it shambled towards her, and an older man on the ground with several racks of shelving collapsed on top of him.

Naruto was far from heroic, or even sympathetic, but something nagged at him. Barreling through the blaze that threatened to consume the building, along with the unconscious man inside it, he grabbed the girl. With one hand around her waist, he held her close and pulled her towards the exit. It had been difficult, given that she'd chosen not to move.

She still wasn't moving. Naruto had propped her up in the corner of "his" alleyway, but even her eyes seemed distant, like she was viewing her life from an outside perspective. He'd outdone himself, multiple boxes of packaged food holding together in the back of a dumpster that nobody else ever used. He stared her down as she refused to blink, never looking away as her brain did its best to reconcile her to the situation she found herself in. She wasn't crying, wasn't speaking, and it was only the shallow rise-and-fall of her ribs that told him she was still alive.

"Hope you appreciate this, one day." Naruto said, the high pitch of his eight-year-old voice softened by his low volume.

The girl looked like she was his age; maybe older, maybe not. Soft brown hair fell down from her scalp, with bangs that fell down to the middle of her face and the rest of her hair swept into a ponytail. Somehow, she'd managed to avoid getting burns as they'd rushed out from the fire, her peach-tanned skin still perfect. And as Naruto looked in her eyes, innocent brown eyes that didn't know until today that life could be so cruel...he looked at her, and felt remorse. She looked at him, and she felt awe.

She looked at him, and took in the bloodshot red of her savior. The air around him felt unnaturally warm, against the cold stone of the allley's walls and floor. She felt more at peace, when she focused on his eyes.

"What's your name?" Naruto asked.

"Ayame." She answered. "Ichiraku Ayame."

"Well, Ayame," he rolled her name around in his head, deciding it was a nice name, "starting right now, I'm your Banchou. You do what I tell you, you make sure that I'm safe on my jobs, and I'll protect you. I'll make sure you have enough to eat."

Naruto's ears picked up the sound of movement, and he shuffled next to Ayame as he crouched to hide behind the cover of the dumpster. His eyes strained in the direction of the footfall, as though he could magically see through the metal box and concrete walls.

"Stay here." He whispered, his blond hair tickling across the bridge of Ayame's nose.

Step-step, step-tap-step, so close together that they were almost indistinguishable, but Naruto had learned to differentiate between the number of people moving together in a group. Two people, one of them with a cane. As they passed by the alleyway, and continued moving, Naruto felt an unswerving feeling rise up inside of him. Was it curiosity? Destiny? An attempt to find an easy mark?

He didn't know.

Do you really think we should be talking about this in the open?" A man's voice emanated from outside of the alley, in the main road.

"That's why we're here, instead of a place where the walls have eyes and ears. Even if we're overheard by some vagrant brat, what good will it do them? Nobody who's worth anything comes through these streets. Not anymore, anyway."

As quietly as he could, Naruto crept after them. He hated to leave Ayame unattended, but hopefully, she wouldn't be moving for a little while. If she couldn't follow his instructions, then he wouldn't let her work with him. He hated to think that he'd need to cut her loose, after she'd just lost her livelihood and her father, but the first rule of living in the slums was, "C.Y.A.": Cover Your Ass.

"Even so...these aren't things that will leave you in the good graces of the people you've fought beside for the last forty years. Especially your teammates. Genocide? Human experimentation? I'm not certain that-"

"Sensei, please." A man with white skin, so ashen that it seemed painted-on rather than natural, said those words to interrupt the other's speech.

The man he was walking with was somewhat shorter, old age having begun to take its toll as the years continued to pile upon his body. His cane let out a soft tapping sound as it struck the sun-warmed stone of the road beneath his feet.

"The Uchiha are restless. Itachi's high rise in power is bolstering them, but I doubt he would betray the village. That having been said, it would be too cruel to ask him to carry out the assassination of his entire clan." The taller of the pair continued.

"Given the Hyuuga incident, earlier this year, you can't possibly think that it would be appropriate to do something like that! Especially not after the Kyuubi attacked, and Minato killed it, allowing us to live in peace at the cost of his own life!" The elderly man was outraged.

"Every day we wait is another day for their confidence to be bolstered." The white-skinned man replied.

Naruto heard it all, watched it all. Whether they could feel his eyes on them, or they were blissfully unaware, was of little consequence; after all, the white-skinned man had been right. What could Naruto do?

Nothing.

That was what a child like him could do around these adults who were talking about deaths and incidents and whatever a Kyuubi was. These were shinobi. Ninja. In the world they lived in, people like that were at the very top of the chain...and people like Naruto were at the very bottom. Even if he managed to unite every single street rat in Konoha's slums, he'd still have less power, in the world outside of that kingdom, than a single adult. Adults, however, had to acquiesce to the wishes of any ninja. Every ninja had to obey the laws set forth by the Hokage.

"You aren't going to be dissuaded by me, are you? It's almost like I'm talking to Jiraiya." The old man said.

"If I'm hated for saving this village by any means necessary, for the rest of my life, then I'l accept their hate. The children will be spared."

"And your...experiments? You said?"

"No worse than what Danzo has done with the Ne program."

Naruto had no idea what these two were talking about, but he knew a lie when he heard one. In fact, that might have been the worst lie he'd ever heard in his life. And yet, the old man seemed to believe it. That, or he didn't care. Naruto didn't know which of those options was worse, even if they were master and student.

"Say...do you feel like it's gotten colder, all of a sudden?" The old man asked, shivering slightly. "Perhaps we should head back to more...civilized...society."

The white-skinned man nodded, and both men raised their right arms in front of them before disappearing. Naruto hadn't been able to see what they did, but that was cool. He'd be starting late, but a display like that sealed it: he wanted to become a ninja. What else was waiting for him, in this world of violence and theft? Ninja were the ones with power, and while he'd known that in the back of his mind, he hadn't understood their superhuman talents.

Of course, he didn't know that fast short-range movement with the shunshin was barely scratching the surface of the metaphorical iceberg, but sometimes surprises could be fantastic. That was going to be one of them.