Mimes, ninjas, and cholesterol: the silent killers.

Original chapter title:

The One in Control

--Unknown Location--

A solitary cloaked figure walked down a dark cave, naught but a lit lantern held in its hand. It was impossible to tell the age or gender of this figure, only that the hooded individual walked with a sense of purpose of its news and humility at who it was about to address.

When the figure reached the end of the cave, it stared at the ornate dagger t lying next to a small golden bowl that held a tiny flickering flame. The figure picked up the dagger, rolled back the sleeve of the left arm, and made a cut on the forearm. As the blood flowed from the wound, the cloaked person placed the edge of the blade to catch the running blood on the dagger. When enough was gathered, the figure flicked the blood from the knife to the fire.

Instantly, the flame from the bowl exploded in a fury of fire and power, and began twisting itself into a humanoid shape. There were no defining features on the fire man; only two red eyes that burned with power.

"Why have you summoned my avatar here? You know the consequences of disturbing me!" The voice came from the fiery figure, despite having no mouth.

The cloaked individual lowered itself to one knee and bowed its head. "Forgive me master, but I bring news of great urgency," the figure said in an alto voice, revealing itself as female.

"Speak now, fool! Or I shall burn you to ash!" the burning man said in anger.

The cloaked woman raised her head and smiled at the one she served. "The one the Seer spoke of has arrived."

All was silent except for the crackling flames as the fire man stood in stunned silence. "You mean…it is him?"

The woman nodded. "Yes, master. The Unborn has arrived in Konoha just as the Seer in Iwa said he would."

"How are you sure?"

"He bares markings just like your brother. Three on each cheek, but lighter and less defined," the woman said motioning to each side of her face.

The red eyes lowered to the ground, as if in deliberation. When the blazing figure didn't speak for a few minutes, the woman voiced a question.

"Should the other four be notified?" she asked hesitantly.

"No," her master replied. "They will find out for themselves eventually. For now, keep watch on the boy and monitor his progress. You are dismissed."

"Yes, milord," she said as she stood and left the cave. When she was gone, the fire disappeared, but not before one last thing was said to the empty silence.

"If the Unborn is truly the harbinger of the end as the Seer said, then I shall end him myself before he grows too powerful."

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--Konoha--

Naruto tossed gently in his sleep as the morning sun crept over the Hidden Leaf village. The bed he was in was in the guest bedroom of the Senju manor and it was very comfortable. After leaving Toshinro's last night and saying goodbye to his drunken teammates, he had carried Shinsui back to the Senju estate, following Tsunade as she stumbled and laughed in drunken jubilation.

After dropping Shinsui off onto his bed where the water master went straight to sleep fully clothed, Tsunade showed Naruto to his temporary room and then she went to hers. The male blonde had taken off his new sandals, shirt, weapon, and jacket then got under the covers and went right off into dreamland.

But that's the thing about sleep. If someone isn't enjoying it, they don't want others to.

-BWOOONNNNG! - went the large brass gong as Kobune struck it right next to Naruto's sleeping head. The younger blonde screamed and launched himself straight up to the ceiling where he stuck to it, not with chakra, but with his fingers and toes piercing into the plaster.

"Impressive," the Namikaze said as he slung the beater over his shoulder and took his earplugs out.

"WHAT THE HELL'S THE MATTER WITH YOU!?!" Naruto yelled as he twisted his head to look down at the older ninja.

"Not so loud!" Kobune complained as rubbed his temples. "You're not the only one that got shitfaced last night."

Naruto dropped to the floor and glared at the Jonin. "Why the hell are you banging a gong at the CRACK OF DAWN!?"

Kobune winced again and cursed his hangover. "Banana hammock asked me to teach you a water jutsu before your official training with Shinsui starts, right?"

"Yeah," Naruto said as the conversation from the night before surfaced to the top of his mind.

"Well, Shinsui is used to waking up early after a night of heavy drinking and likes to wake his students up by dumping water snakes in their bed. So I'm doing you two favors: teaching you something new and saving you from painful bites."

Naruto grimaced as he imagined being awakened by those slimy reptiles in his bed.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"No prob," Kobune said as he glanced at the door leading to the hallway. "Just meet me at training ground twelve around seven o'clock or whenever you regain consciousness," the Namikaze said as he handed Naruto the gong beater and quickly jumped out the window.

"Wha…?" Naruto said in confusion. He heard the sound of angry footsteps in the hallway before his door was violently smashed down and a very pissed off Tsunade stood there, wearing only a long white T-shirt over her undergarments.

"Uzumaki!" she growled as she cracked her knuckles. "What the hell do you think you're doing banging that damn thing and yelling so loud when decent people are trying to sleep!?"

The male blonde looked from the gong beater in his hands, then to the open window, then to Tsunade and gulped heavily. Naruto recognized that look in her eye. It was the same pissed off look Sakura always had whenever she was about to beat the living…uh oh.

"Wa-wait a minute Tsunade! I can expla--" A most curious sensation spread through Naruto's body. It felt as though a pleasant warmth was moving from his stomach to his head, turning his cheeks a dull crimson. He felt compelled to direct his gaze down past Tsunade's stomach where he could see the faint outline of her briefs.

He then said something very stupid.

"Blue?"

The blonde kunoichi followed his gaze and her face turned red with fury.

"PERVERT!" she screamed as she delivered a chakra powered punch to Naruto's face. As the demon container headed to the floor, the last thing he was aware of was a deep, malicious laughter coming from somewhere.

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Naruto awoke in a daze. Looking around, the blonde recognized his surroundings as the chamber Kyuubi had claimed as his. But it was different now, even more so than last time. It was looking less like a sewer and more like an underground boiler room, with a multitude of metal pipes dominating the ceiling. The scorching heat seemed to have tripled since Naruto's last visit and the pipes gave off bursts of super heated steam at random intervals.

"Nice of you to join us, meat sack," said a voice from behind. Turning around quickly, Naruto saw the giant bars that held the nine-tailed fox's body and chakra, while it's human looking spirit sat before the cage on an elaborate throne of red and gold.

Kyuubi smiled as he gestured around with his hands. "Like what I've done with the place? It's not finished, but it's feeling more like home all the time. I was thinkin' 'bout putting in some shag carpeting, but I don't know if---"

"I can only imagine that you brought me here for reasons other than to talk about your decorum," Naruto interrupted as he crossed his arms over his bare chest.

Smiling so that his fang was prominently shown, the demon answered his jailer. "You're becoming more and more perceptive as time goes by, brat. That's good for a ninja right?"

Naruto only stared at the demon in contempt. Kyuubi sighed heavily. "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot last time we met," he held out his right hand and put on a fake smile. "Hi, my name is Kyuubi. I enjoy destruction, genocide, and dango. What's your name?"

The teenage blonde kept staring. The demon sighed again and lowered his hand. As Kyuubi opened his mouth to say something, Naruto finally spoke up.

"It was you wasn't it? You made me look at Tsunade's panties and make her think me a pervert," the latter part said more as a statement than question.

Kyuubi grinned maliciously again. "Little ol' me? Surely not. I only gave you a little bit of my chakra. It's not my fault your hormones were affected by it," he said in a derisive voice that practically shouted 'Yes I did'. "You're a 13 year old boy so it's perfectly natural to appreciate the fairer sex. For example," the demon said with a snap of his clawed fingers.

The air next to Naruto shimmered and Sakura suddenly appeared. But it wasn't the same pink haired girl he knew back in his dimension. This one was older, curvier, had a much more impressive bust, and was wearing a very fine little black dress.

Unable to help himself, Naruto stared in amazement as she seductively put her arms around his neck and held her head close to her ear. "Naruto-kun," Sakura said in a low voice. "Why don't you get rid of the lower half so we can have some fun?" She then gave a quick lick to the teen's earlobe. Naruto shivered and uttered a low moan.

"S-Sakura-chan, this isn't l-like you," Naruto stuttered as the older Haruno began nibbling on his sensitive ear.

Sakura giggled. "It's all thanks to Kyuubi-sama that we can be together again. He's not such a bad guy once you get to--" she was cut off as Naruto suddenly grabbed her by the wrists.

"How dare you?" he growled as he came to his senses. "How dare you mock Sakura-chan like that!?" he screamed as he spun the fake Sakura around and threw her and the grinning Kyuubi. The demon merely blinked and the doppelganger disappeared into nothingness. He then shook his index finger and clicked his tongue in disappointment.

"You need to learn some manners, kid. Ladies don't like it when you throw them around."

"Quit bullshitting with me and quit fucking with my head!" Naruto yelled angrily. "You are imprisoned in my body and you will do what I say!"

This was most undeniably the wrong thing to say. The attitude of the demon instantly changed from mischief to anger and the heat in the room grew hotter to reflect its creator's wrath. Kyuubi lifted his hand in a choking motion to Naruto and the Jinchūriki suddenly found himself being lifted up by an invisible force, his airway tight and constricted.

Hands flailing at his throat to try and relieve the pressure, Naruto looked at Kyuubi to see the demon's throat as crushed as his was. But that didn't stop the demon's words from reaching Naruto's ears.

"You will learn to respect me even if I have to melt every bone in your body, you little shit!" the demonic voice said from all around Naruto in anger. "Now that I am free from the cage you WILL show me respect!"

Kyuubi then began psychically tossing Naruto around the chamber like an angry gorilla would a hamster. The teen was slammed painfully over and over again into the walls, floor, and pipes on the ceiling. It seemed to go on for hours, and it may have seeing as Kyuubi had control over reality in this chamber.

Naruto was thrown to the ground for a final time, his body battered and bruised beyond recognition and the pain unimaginable. Looking only through his right eye, as his left was swollen shut from hitting a pipe too hard, he saw Kyuubi looked even worse than he felt. It seemed as though the demon didn't care about his injuries as long as he got the point across.

The blonde was then flipped over on his back. The floor around his wrists and ankles morphed into fox heads and bit down hard on his flesh to prevent him from moving. Naruto would have screamed in pain but the pressure on his throat had only subsided enough for him to barely gasp for breath.

His one good eye widened in terror when he saw the kyuubi standing over him, the skin, muscle and bone of his right arm melting and morphing into a wicked blade. The blade of the sword-arm began to boil as Kyuubi over heated it with fire.

"I may have been complacent and kind when you came to me asking for chakra to summon that wretched amphibian," Kyuubi's voice said from everywhere and nowhere as molten flesh and bone dripped from the sword around Naruto's face and burned holes in the rocky ground, "but I WILL NOT put up with your attitude any longer!" The demon smiled evilly as he brought the sword to a piercing position. "The horse can only take so much before it bucks the king off and stomps him to death," Kyuubi said as he shot his arm forward to stab Naruto though the eye.

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Naruto spluttered as he was repeatedly smacked across the face. Getting to his feet, Naruto noticed that his torso was covered in a cold sweat and Hashirama was staring at him with concern.

"What?" Naruto asked, unconsciously rubbing his eye.

"I saw my granddaughter stomping out of the guest bedroom in a huff and when I looked to see what had irritated her, I saw you on the floor. Your expression rapidly changed from anger, to embarrassment, anger again, and then pain as you began grabbing at your neck." Hashirama lowered his voice. "Were you talking to the kyuubi?" he asked in a serious tone.

Naruto scowled as he answered. "Yeah. That bastard made me…do something I'd rather not repeat and then brought me inside the seal. He basically told me that he's messing with my body. When I commanded him to stop, he got really pissed off and began throwing me around everywhere. Then he bound me to the floor, said something about a horse and a king, and was about to stab me in the eye when you woke me up."

Hashirama gazed off to the side in contemplation. "This is becoming worrisome. If he can influence your body without your knowledge, who knows what else he can do."

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Omake: Ninja News Network

"And we're on in 3...2...1," Iruka the stage manager said as the lights dimmed and the intro music began.

The spotlight shined on Konoha's two biggest names in news, Kakashi Hatake and Asuma Sarutobi, both in fine three piece suits.

"Hello and welcome to tonight's edition of NNN- the Ninja News Network. Your only network for ninja news," Kakashi said with his trade mark sexy one eyed smile. Somewhere out there, many fan girls faint in ecstasy.

The camera focuses on Asuma's shaggy face (much to fan girl outrage), cigarette thankfully forgotten. "Today in the Mist village, a young man in a swirly orange mask was arrested for claiming to be the Mizukage while running around shouting 'Tobi's a good boy. Tobi's a good boy. Oh Deidara-sempai why did you leave me?'"

"Lot of weirdoes out there," Kakashi said with a smile through his mask. "And on the topic of weirdoes, here with sports is Maito Gai. How'd the Fire Country University Foxes do today Gai?"

"Absolutely glorious, my eternal rival!" the over exuberant man in his poke-your-eyes-out green suit proclaimed loudly with a thumbs up and blindingly white smile, either ignoring Kakashi's comment or not hearing it at all . "The Foxes showed their glorious youth by beating long time rivals Suna State Raccoons 176 to 5. Unfortunately the Raccoons all committed Hara Kiri after such an embarrassing loss."

Asuma clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Such a shame. They had great talent."

"True," Kakashi agreed, "but at least the hot cheerleaders remain."

"Indeed," Asuma said. "And now we go to former Akatsuki leader Payne with the Accu-weather report. What's the weekend look like, Pain?"

"IT GON' RAIN!" Deva Realm Pein shouted as his Samsera eyes flashed that cool metallic color.

"Well it looks like we're going to have to cancel our fishing trip Kakashi," Asuma said to his co-anchor.

"Such a shame," Kakashi said with a downcast look but then immediately recovered. "But at least now I can finish my book," he said with a horny grin.

"I AM GOD!"

"Yes you are buddy, yes you are. Goodnight everyone!" Kakashi said as he, Asuma, and Gai all waved goodbye to their viewers while Peyne drew doodles on his weather map.

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Short chapter?

Yes.

Do I have a good excuse?

No.

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I'd appreciate it :)