Violet colored eyes gazed miserably upon the golden features of his king. It had been years now, and the other rooks already felt their grasp of reality slipping slowing from them. It would work it's way slowly up the ranks, like some morbid plague, devouring them all in lunacy and malice.
Kaito flicked his black tail peevishly as he thought on the idiocy of shinobi. The fools knew, they KNEW that both his king and the leopard king needed to be within range of each other! Yet the fools split the scrolls apart! It was just asking for something to go wrong! He'd be sure to eat some of the fools when they all went mad and their king tore open a gate into the shinobi plane.
Hearing a soft sigh, Kaito looked over at his king once more. Letting his ears droop as he looked at the pitiful sight he had become. The scroll wasn't being honored and dutifully cared for... the summon king directly effected because of that.
"Oi! Gaki! Whatz yoo doing mopen' bout here for!?" was the drunken slur of the toad king Gamabunta. Kaito's lips curled back in distaste as his nose was offended by the stench of alcohol. With a glace once more to his king, Kaito scampered away from the drunk toad.
"Che! Stupid punk. Dun' know whatz you keep 'im around fer!" Gamabunta continued as he staggered over to sit beside the tattered gold fox man. Golden fur molted and plucked in the disrepair of an abandoned summon king. The man lay as though some forsaken angel fallen from the heavens and left to crash unimpaired into the rocky ground beneath. Gamabunta took another swig of his drink and tried not to think about how much longer the summon foxes would remain.
"...d-drinking again Ga-ma-bunta? Y-your heart will s-still not b-be swayed by cheap d-drink." came the hoarse voice of said fallen fox king.
"I can try though! Yoo shud have sum! Might make ya feel bett'r Nar'to!" the toad happily cheered.
"I-I'd rather keep m-my precious m-memories un...un-tainted b-by...d-drink" Naruto managed to choke out after a time. Gamabunta bowed his head a little, letting silence recapture the small grove in which Naruto lay lost.
The toad could admit that when he had first known the fox and his other half, he had wondered just how it could last without one killing the other. Over time, he began to notice the small signs that passed in silence.
The way the silent feline would lurk in tree limbs near where a certain fox might settle to rest or bathe. How a many tailed fox would whine and prod until he could sleep beside the feline in question. Said feline somehow becoming curled content pressed against the fox's side and head burrowed into a kitsune stomach, fox tails curled protective and lovingly about the sleeping cat.
The two were sealed -both literally and figuratively- to one another. Sasuke who was all blood stains and terror reaping feline, found his comfort and peace wrapped within the circle of fox tails. Naruto found in the ravaged leopard, something which he could save, protect and care for without limit. The two summons waged war as the powerful bosses they were, but when the war call wasn't singing through the air, they lost themselves as the lover of the other.
Gamabunta took a slow slurp of sake. He sort of understood what Naruto was feeling. Though he wouldn't breathe that to anyone but the weakened fox to his right; he missed his snake. The sharp tang of where he was scarred from his former lovers attack in the shinobi world often pulsed in remembered sting. Betrayal was a hard order to swallow.
Naruto made some soft pained sound as he shifted slightly, blue eyes sky bound. Gama feeling an old smile creep upon his face. Naruto was probably the only one who told him that maybe Manda missed him too. Sometimes, Gamabunta found that he hoped Naruto had touched his 'instinctual' gift when he had said that. He wanted it to be true...because he knew if the snake asked it, he probably would give his trust back to him.
Taking another large gulp of sake, Gamabunta looked upwards as well, musing quietly, he could only ever give his trust back to Manda; because, as Naruto knew without asking, his love and heart never left.
Drace: well... that's it for this for now... i'll make the next chapters bigger!...or at least try really really REALLY hard to! thanks for readin!