Crazy Like a Fox
a Naruto fanfic by Slvrstar
Shatter.
Another rock flies through the window, breaking the glass for what seems the thousandth time. It's his birthday, and firecrackers light up the sky outside, but he doesn't care. He sits alone on his bed, listening to the rioting villagers outside and waiting for the pain he knows will come. They hate him, they hate him, they hate him. They break him.
He knows why.
He has known for a long time, a conclusion gathered in flashes and glimpses as he stands at death's door, lead by their hands to the end. The images at first did not make sense--A snarling, many-tailed fox, the small form of the Yondaime before it, a black-inked seal on the stomach of a yellow-haired baby, and the howling fox being sucked inside it-- but many sleepless nights were put to good use making sense of it all. And now he knew.
He can hear them storming up the apartment stairs.
For a moment, he is weak; he tucks his chin, his lower lip quivers, and his eyes fill up with fear. Fear, but not tears. He doesn't cry anymore. But the determination beaten into him floods him again; he will face them like a ninja. Like the Yondaime faced the Kyuubi.
He moves to stand in the center of the room, facing the door, waiting, steady. The shards of broken glass littering the floor around him throw jagged tears of light across his small form, and the flickers of the firecrackers make it look like he is burning in dancing red fire.
The light that used to dance in his eyes fled long ago--years ago, when he realized that they hated him, and his face is lonely and solemn. Cold.
They come.
He lets them take him, as they always have before, and doesn't fight it, futile as it is. He lets their blows, burning like fire, carry him to the edge, and does not protest when his is finally tumbled over the brink into oblivion.
But this time, instead of the expected glimpses of a long-ago battle, there is something different.
There is HIM.
Kyuubi.
For a second, the boy is afraid, but as before, he draws his determination and stands strong. Waiting. He does not know what will come, what to expect, so he waits.
The fox laughs.
"Not many dare to stand before the Kyuubi as you do, kit."
"You can talk?"
"Of course I can talk. What did you take me for, a dumb beast?"
"Well...I dunno. I'd just never heard that you talked."
"Foolish kit."
Naruto didn't know what he was supposed to do. He'd expected the fox to be snarling and throwing itself at the bars of his cage, as much as he'd expected anything. And what little expectations he'd had were only in the most fantastical of daydreams. How was he to know the demon could talk?
Well, since talk he could, there was something he'd been dying to know.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you attack the village? Why did you kill so many people? Why...why me?"
"I...This'll take a while." The fox said with surprising sympathy. The boy nodded, willing to take however much time was necessary to understand why his life was what it was. Kyuubi settled into an ancient demon storytelling pose, not that the boy would know what the formal posture was.
"A very long time ago, before the two-foots walked the earth, there were demons. The demons were led by a king, a kind ruler, peaceful and strong. All the beasts of the ground, air and sea were happy. Peace reigned.
"But all were not content. There was one demon, called Kyelo, who wanted the power of the king of demons for himself. He thought he would be a worthier king than the chief of demons, Okley, was. And perhaps he was right.
"Because as the centuries passed, the two-foots sprouted and grew in number. They were almost as cunning as the demons, and they reproduced much faster. Worse, they were a warlike people, always killing each other. Okely saw them as a threat. He decided that the wisest option was to exterminate them all before they drew the other beasts into their battles and stretched war through all the species. Kyelo disagreed. He thought it was right for all animals to choose for themselves what to fight for, and to let the two-foots live, but keep their power in check.
"Okely and Kyelo were both powerful demons, equally strong. Their disagreement grew and gained momentum in the ranks of demonkind, and soon every demon had sided either with the king or the usurper. Okely had many followers, but Kyelo's cause gained just as much sympathy.
"As the years passed, the argument escalated into war. But while Keylo was a just leader who treated his followers with respect, Okley's fears corrupted his mind and led him against his allies. So when the time came for Okley and Kyelo to battle, Okley stood alone, for in his paronia he had driven his friends away. But with Kyelo stood a mass of thousands.
"There was no contest. Mighty as Okely was, Kyelo's horde overran him. Still, he fought nobly, and even as Okley died, Kyelo mourned the loss of a once-great ruler.
"But Okely was not done yet. Even as his lifeblood poured out, he had one curse left to give. He cried out:
'Kyelo! Traitor to demonkind! Lover of the two-feet, you betray your kin. As punishment, I cast this ill upon you: that every hundred years, you and your family, all your followers and their families, and all who abandoned me, shall go into a great and terrible Rage against the two-feet. You will know not friend nor foe, but only anger against all that walk on two legs. They will fear and hate you. Your only chance to overcome this curse is to get a two-foot to love you despite your killing. It is impossible! No two-legger would do such a thing. And your misguided valor will be turned against you when the two-feet turn on you and hunt you down, driving you away one by one. Because of your folly, Kyelo, the demons will be driven from Earth!
'This curse upon you!'
"And Okley died.
"Ever since, the demons have gone into mindless rages every hundred years. We have fallen one at a time as Okley said; prey to civil wars, at the hands of friends who block the path of those in the grip of the Rage, or have simply retreated back into other realms, where there are no humans. The Rage runs strongest in those of Kyelo's line, and strongest of all in his sons. Kyelo and his son both died at the hands of friends under the Rage.
"I am the son of the son of Kyelo, and the present King of demons. When my Rage came on me, I fell to the city of Konoha like a ravening beast. The Yondaime sealed me into you, where the Rage was stilled."
Naruto sat silently.
Kyuubi nodded his head deeply. "In return for my living in your body, I will offer you what I can. Have you a request?"
Naruto rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "I guess...I wanna be a ninja, but I don't really know how, and there ain't no one to teach me..."
"I can help at least a little with that. Demon chakra and bodies are different from human ones, but I should be able to make do. We shall start tomorrow morning."
"Great!" Naruto's eyes lit up, but his expression dimmed. "Kyu-sensei, I...I don't think I'll be able to do much tomorrow..."
"Do not worry, kit, I've healed your body. You'll be as good as new in the morning. But it will not be easy. The training will be hard, and they will still hate you for my deeds. I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do about that. My only advice is grin and bear it, kit."
Naruto offered a hesitant grin. The smile felt strange on his face. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd last been happy...
"That's it, kit. Smile and no one will ever know what you're really thinking. Act crazy and they'll never think you're up to something. Be foolish and they'll never suspect you might be smart and hiding it. Be unskilled in public and what you learn in private will be a total surprise. Some would say such secrecy is madness, that to so thoroughly disguise oneself all of the time is unnecessary paranoia. But such is the madness of the fox, and is he not the cleverest of all?"
Naruto woke slowly, his body wonderfully free of the pain that usually plagued it on October eleventh. He stretched, and ever so slowly, rose. Determination marked his pose as he walked to the window shattered the night before. Looking out at Konoha, he felt a rush of energy wash over him. He would prove that old teme Okley wrong. Humans were worth letting live. And he'd prove the villagers wrong too. Uzumaki Naruto and Kyuubi were not someone to be mess with. The fox would teach him, and he would be the greatest Hokage ever.
As he turned from the window, a maniacal grin grew across his foxy face.
They would say he was crazy to attempt something so daring, challenging all of Konoha. And they would be right.
He was crazy.
Crazy like a fox.
A/N: Not mine, obviously. Just a plot bunny that scampered through my noggin. No real reason for it. It's a little disjointed because I first wrote it all in one sitting, but then the last half of the story disappeared, and I had to rewrite it from memory a week or so later. If anyone wants to adopt this fic (or any of my other fics) just PM me. :P
~Slvrstar
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