Disclaimer: I don't own nor have I contributed to Naruto in any way! Nope! None! -

Sky-eyed Kitsune: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my reviewers! This is my present to all of you today who have still stuck with this story through the angsty rollercoaster my lack of updates. I want to say how grateful I am that all of you are still with me, and I hope you find this chapter satisfying. This is a humdinger of a chapter full of memories and flashbacks that may leave you with more questions than answers. I hope you all have the merriest of Christmases!

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Chapter Seventeen: Human

"I'm only human

And I bleed when I fall down

I'm only human

And I crash and I break down

Your words in my head

Knives in my heart

You build me up and then I fall apart"

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Kyuubi stared down at his plate with slit, distrusting eyes. He poked his fork at the food, half expecting it to hiss at him and crawl off the table.

"Don't play with your food, un," Deidara said to him from across the table, eating his own plate.

"What…is it?" Kyuubi said cautiously as if his platter could hear him.

"Spicy tofu and steamed vegetables, un," Deidara deadpanned. He frowned as Kyuubi made a sour face. "Just try it, un."

"I value my life," Kyuubi said, pushing away from the table.

"Don't be such a prick. I made this for you, un."

"I didn't ask for charity."

"This is the thanks I get for assuring that you don't end up with a fat ass?"

"Do. Not. Want."

Deidara scoffed. "Fine. Most people are afraid of tofu anyways, un."

Kyuubi twitched in his seat. "I am not afraid of a soybean."

Deidara cocked an eyebrow. "Then prove it, scaredy-ass."

Kyuubi's nostrils flared a little. Without looking he dove his fork into his plate and shoved it in his mouth. "Adieu, my tastebuds…" Kyuubi's eyebrows rose as he started chewing, and suddenly his back stiffened.

Deidara gasped as Kyuubi abruptly lunged over the table and crashed into his personal space.

"OI! This is really good!" he shouted, mouth partially full and eyes as wide as their plates.

"Thanks…"Deidara mumbled in surprise. He blinked as Kyuubi zoned in on his cheek.

"I got tofu on you…" he said. Deidara reached for a napkin and was stunned when a rough hand suddenly held his head in place and a warm, wet tongue licked up the curvature of his cheekbone. "Got it," Kyuubi said, shrinking back into his seat, and Deidara felt his neck suddenly become very hot. Kyuubi narrowed his eyes to the blond.

"Hey, your neck is red."

The color shot up to the rest of his face.

"Oi oi, you sick? Don't need to catch your sick, y'know." Kyuubi garbled out through another mouthful of food. He pushed away the empty plate and stood abruptly.

"H-hey! Where are you going?" Deidara sputtered after him.

"Someplace. I'll be back late, blondie." Deidara set off a string of curses as Kyuubi slammed the hotel room door.

Suigetsu opened the front door to his apartment topless with a toothbrush hanging out the corner of his mouth.

"…hah?" His jaw hung a little.

"Yo," Kyuubi said, letting himself in.

"Da fuq—"

"Go spit that out already," Kyuubi snapped, lighting a cigarette to his lips. "There's saliva dribbling down your neck and it's gross."

Suigetsu fumed quietly before leaving to the bathroom and returning with a clean face, Kyuubi making himself at home.

"This is my place, you know." He gasped a little as a firm grasp on his neck pushed him backward against the wall.

"Last time everything was about 'us'," Kyuubi murmured through his cigarette, dark violet eyes slit lustfully. "That's what you said, anyways. That 'we' matter, that it's 'our' place. Correct me if I'm wrong here babe." He blew a puff of smoke into Suigetsu's face before releasing his neck.

"Kyuubi?" Suigetsu's eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"Who else would it be?" Kyuubi snapped.

"Uh, Naruto?" Suigetsu shut his mouth quickly as his eyes were frozen with a glare.

"Until Naruto can clear his head and decide what's best for him he's under new management."

"Wait, what!?" Another sharp glare shut him up. "Ehm, exactly how long is this trial period?"

Kyubbi finally smiled a little, if not too eerily for Suigetsu's liking.

"Indefinite."

Suigetsu raised an apprehensive eyebrow.

"And Naruto agreed to this?" he asked carefully, and Kyuubi shot him a glare.

"Naruto doesn't even know what is the sky or the ground anymore," he said. His scowl dropped off the side and down the to the floorboards as a stream of smoke left his lips.

"Sometimes people get stuck in places that they shouldn't be. In ruts. But it's their comfort zone, and no matter what you can't get them to leave it, even if it's bad for them. As long as there's a routine, good or bad, a person will continue on it because it's the only thing that they know as 'normal'."

Suigetsu stared at him with lucid eyes as Kyuubi inhaled his cigarette again and leaned against the back wall.

"Naruto is stuck in a rut—a dangerous one. I thought that traveling with Akatsuki, being around other people and away from Konoha, would help him climb out."

He looked at his withering cigarette bitterly.

"…and so did Itachi," he said under his breath before looking back up at Suigetsu. "That worked until we came back here and everything resurfaced. I thought that Naruto had become strong enough as Arashi to shield himself against the past, but then…" Kyuubi snarled and crushed the cigarette in his palm, and Suigetsu cringed at the smell of burnt skin.

"That Uchiha… that fucking Uchiha set it off, all of it! He undid all my—" He stumbled a little in his speech. "...Naruto's. Naruto's hard work. He's fallen back into that hole where constantly flirting with death has become comfortable again. He wasn't listening to me anymore; I had to take things into my own hands."

"And?" Suigetsu probed, crossing his arms. "What are you doing with him?"

Kyuubi opened his palm and let the crumpled cigarette fall, cleaning his burned hand on his jeans before answering.

"Protecting him."

Na….to…

Naru…to…

"Naruto."

Naruto blinked blearily from where he sat in the thin layer of grimy water. He tilted his head up at the figure looming over him. He winced, his eyes assaulted by bright sunlight.

"Hey, don't squint so much, you'll ruin your eyes."

Naruto groaned a little as he was heaved to his feet, a light chuckle resonating in his ear.

"You can't tell me that you are still acting like a kid?"

Naruto blinked several times before he took a few terrified steps back.

"Ha…Haku?"

The brunette smiled good-naturedly and patted Naruto on the head, long black hair sweeping over his shoulders. "Don't look so surprised."

Naruto looked around. It was bright and beautiful, snow falling in gentle yet steady sheets. He turned and saw the old fishing dock that led to the lake, water reflecting snowflakes off the surface like shimmering crystals.

"This…isn't real," Naruto said sadly as realization hit him, and he looked down at his hands. They were flickering from solid to nearly transparent, the snowflakes never melting on his skin and instead passing right through them like a mirage.

"If you think too much it will all go away," Haku said, and Naruto closed his eyes. He was dreaming. He was still trapped behind those dripping, iron bars that Kyuubi had forced him into, doing God knows what with his body.

"I have to get out," Naruto finally sighed with much effort, and he saw Haku's form waver like a flame against the wind .

"You're leaving me?"

At the words Naruto was instantly taken aback. He swallowed.

"You…aren't real. Just one of Kyuubi's mind games. A dream." Naruto gasped a little as Haku suddenly hugged him fiercely.

"Then how can I touch you like this? Hold you?"

"D-dream," Naruto stammered, hardening his resolve and fighting desperately not to hug the brunette back with all his might. The cold didn't reach him, yet the warmth of the body against him seeped right into him as if he was drinking it through his skin.

"Do you really want to wake up?" the voice near his ear whispered.

Naruto bit his lip as Haku stepped away from him, and he felt a piece inside of him twinge in pain at the loss of warmth.

"You keep telling yourself this is a dream. So what?" Haku began to walk away and Naruto followed slowly behind. He noticed the footprints that his friend left behind while his own shoes left untouched snow in their wake. They walked out onto the dock by the lake, and as Haku made to step down to the water Naruto grabbed him by his collar.

"Watch it!" he said, and Haku smiled back at him, shirking off his hand.

"If this isn't real then why care?" Naruto's eyebrows rose as Haku stepped down, and the moment his foot struck the water it turned to solid ice beneath him.

"Is reality so much better that you want to really leave?" he asked, taking a few steps back on the lake, each sending shots of ice under his feet to support him. "Aren't they called dreams because they're what you want?"

Naruto looked down at his reflection on the solid ice. "No," he said. "They're called dreams because they're things you can't have..." Naruto sighed and hung his head a little. "...yet desperately want."

"And you desperately want me to be alive." Haku stretched out his arms as if to present himself. "Here I am."

Naruto sighed again and shook his head. "You're not—"

"Real? So what? You could choose to live in a dream right now, a dream that could last forever and become a new reality for you. Anything you want; I can do it."

Haku's eyes looked past Naruto as he held up his hand and waved, and Naruto turned.

"Zabuza?" he breathed, the man grinning at him with that old, stupid smile. Naruto's eyes widened as more figures seemed to assemble from the falling snow, all the familiar faces of Kurochi smiling at him.

"You—you're all…"

"Alive," Haku finished his sentence, suddenly standing beside him. His warm honey eyes shined as he smiled at Naruto's baffled expression. "Yes. Here, they're alive." He brought his hands up to the blond's face. "So I guess you don't need these." He brushed his thumbs over tan cheeks, and Naruto reached up to feel the skin there inconceivably smooth and unblemished.

Unscarred.

Naruto suddenly found it hard to swallow and his eyes glistened with the precursors of tears as he looked into the faces of every person he knew to be six feet under.

"This isn't fair," he managed, voice cracking and losing its tenacity as a burning sensation welled up behind his eyes. All his friends laughed good-naturedly at him.

"You're still such a kid," Haku said. He suddenly leaned forward and embraced the blond again, and again Naruto felt that warmth, that undeniable body heat that could only come from a living, breathing human being. His arms came up slowly, hands quivering as they hovered around his friend. Would he be solid or would his arms pass right through? If his hands flew right through Haku…

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut.

No. This could be real, it could be, if he thought hard enough, convinced his mind enough. If he told himself it was real, truly believed it to be real…

"Hey, Naruto," Haku said, his voice suddenly dropping to a whisper. "Can I keep you forever?"

Warm tears fell in rivulets down his unscarred cheeks as the words he had always dreamed of hearing again came to him, in Haku's voice, the way Naruto had always pictured him, always wanted to picture him; warm, alive, happy.

Here.

As Naruto's arms came down they pressed against a firm, tangible body and his hands found purchase in silky black hair.

His breath and body trembled as he let his head fall to rest on his dearest friend's shoulder.

"Yes."

Kyuubi looked back up at Suigetsu with a smirk.

"Hey-you wanna know how it feels to live forever?" he said, and Suigetsu chuckled a little as he tapped out a new cigarette from his packet.

"Live forever, huh?" He took out his lighter and Kyuubi breathed in deeply. He loved the smell of a freshly lit drag.

"It's more of a state of mind, isn't it?" Suigetsu said, exhaling grey smoke through his nose.

"Maybe for you." In a few paces Kyuubi had the man up against the wall, chest to chest. "Do you know how it feels for the night to just go on and never end? To just keep going, and the sun never fucking comes up until you want it to?"

Suigetsu looked Kyuubi in the eye carefully.

"And how does one achieve this?"

Kyuubi pushed off the wall and away from Suigetsu.

"Come to Kurochi's abandoned gun shop tonight. And bring Sakura."

Suigetsu groaned. "What? I thought it was gonna be jus—"

"I said," Kyuubi cut off the man sharply, throwing a warning glare at him over his shoulder. "Bring her."

There was breath before the darkness lifted; a deep, desperate gasp for the first time.

And then there was light. A sharp whiteness that made him wince and close his eyes again, mouth open and pulling in air. His chest heaved in time with the beeping of the monitors next to him, his skin prickling and shivering with goosebumps.

"It's wonderful to be needed, isn't it?"

He opened his eyes again to the first voice, the first one he had ever heard. At the blinding whiteness he turned his head and his eyes landed on a man sitting in a chair beside the bed where he lay.

He moved his gaze over the long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, the thin yet muscled physique under modest clothing—and then there were those eyes. Eyes of a deep royal purple, the color of protruding veins, of a strange yet beautiful chemical.

The man smiled a little. "Welcome," he said to the wired boy on the bed.

The boy's eyes searched the man for something and, not finding it, expanded their search to the room, then down to the iv and thin needle-like tubes under his skin.

"Wh…" He suddenly gasped in mid-speech, taking in a deep, shaking breath.

"Take your time," the man said kindly to him. "It isn't easy being needed."

The boy swallowed as he panted, and the machines by his bed beeped to a faster rhythm.

"Ne…need?" he managed, and the blond man smiled.

"Look at you, talking already. I knew you'd be strong."

The boy furrowed his eyebrows as the man reached forward and ran a tan hand through his hair.

"Strong, like me." His deep purple eyes shimmered under the bright white lights of the room.

"Wha...where..." the boy gasped out, and the blond man retracted his hand.

"I should explain before you exhaust yourself because well...you've just woken up." He leaned back in his seat with an abruptly serious face.

"You're in a hospital. The body sustained a near fatal injury-but that's why you're even here- so it's not a bad thing."

The boy looked down to his hands, veins sharp under his skin.

"My…my body," he said, narrowing his eyes to the blond, who merely smiled a shook his head.

"It's not yours." The man stood and wheeled the heart monitor closer to the bed. He pointed to the reflection. "It's his."

The boy blinked, touching his face, feeling his soft blond hair, wide sapphire eyes staring back at him, mystified.

"That's…me," he said. His hand suddenly whipped out with a snarl and he punched the glass reflection. Not a dent was made, yet the climbing line on the screen began jumping higher with his heart rate.

The blond man smirked. "You have a quick temper, unlike him."

The boy snarled as he glared at the man…who looked startlingly similar to himself.

"You didn't let me finish," the man tsked, leaning back easily in his chair. "There is no simple way to put this, so close your eyes."

The boy continued to glare yet he flinched a little where he sat as the blond man returned the look ten-fold, and he felt something cold slither up his skin.

"Close. Now." The boy gave in to the blond's demands immediately. "Now feel."

"Wha—"

"Just feel."

The boy scoffed and lifted his arms, but they were smacked down ruthlessly.

"Not with your hands, idiot. With your mind."

The boy bristled in anger at the reprimand but did as he was told. He let his mind wander a little, as if he were walking, and he felt his body slump back down to the bed as darkness engulfed him.

The blackness around him didn't last long as he kept walking, the space around him (wherever he was, exactly) becoming a little brighter, just enough to see.

He reeled back as he suddenly felt wetness on his feet, and he looked down to see the entire concrete floor beneath him drowning under a shallow layer of murky water.

The boy looked up as he heard droplets from high above hit the water, but he saw nothing but blackness overhead.

He kept walking, undaunted by the sloshing water under his bare feet and the coldness that went right through his hospital gown.

He suddenly stopped as he saw a light. He shifted on his feet. He wasn't entirely sure if he liked seeing a beacon of light in such a dim, wet space; it felt out of place.

As the beam traveled down it landed on a figure that suddenly made him break into a sprint. The closer he got the more familiar the figure looked until he was standing right beside it.

"…me," he murmured in the darkness as he stared down at his own body hovering above the grimy water, seemingly paralyzed in the floating space.

"No," a voice boomed from above, making him flinch. "That's him. You are not him. You are using his body, and you are now in his mind."

"That's me!" the boy suddenly snapped into the blackness. "I saw what I look like!"

"You saw what he looks like because you're using his body."

The boy snarled in frustration at the blond man's voice. It was him, he knew it was him!

"Mirror," he mumbled. He gasped and stumbled backward as a rock suddenly erupted from the ground, its surface glistening and reflective like—

"You're already manipulating the space in his mind. I'm so proud I think I might cry."

The boy wasn't paying attention, too busy staring nearly mouth agape at the stranger reflected back at him in the rock's glassy surface.

Long red hair fell against his shoulders, igniting pale unblemished skin. Wide violet eyes stared in disbelief back at him. Those eyes-the color of veins under skin or a beautiful yet strange chemical—they looked familiar.

"Are we related?" he asked the darkness, and received a chuckle in response.

"Yea. You're just like me—a parasite living in a body that doesn't belong to me."

"Start making sense!" the boy finally screamed, his arm flying out and sending his fist into the makeshift mirror, shattering its visage.

"This is not your body. It belongs to that boy there. His name is Naruto. You are his alter ego, created to protect him."

"You're saying he made me?"

Another laugh. "Well yes, but technically that never would have happened without me, so I really made you."

The boy looked back at the unconscious boy named Naruto and frowned. "You said you're like me…"

"I am. I'm also an alter ego. To be more specific, the alter ego of Naruto's father. But unlike you I'm in control of his body and his mind. Now he is the ego, and I own the body."

The boy glared at Naruto hovering peacefully a few inches above the ground.

"Are you saying you're like my—"

"Father."

"And when this kid wakes up I'll be—"

"Trapped."

The redhead clenched his fists as he tried to burn a hole through Naruto with his gaze alone. "That's not fair! He made me just to use me when he wants? I don't even get to exist!?"

"You can."

"Help me then! If you're my father then tell me how to get out!"

"This is not an overnight process. Simply causing the events that led up to your creation were years in the making. I had to stay in my own filthy cage for a decade."

"Why would you do those things then if you knew I'd only be a pawn? Why would you want Naruto to create me?"

There was a pause where only the echoing drips of murky water reverberated in the dark space.

"I can't stay here," the boy continued, his rage bubbling over and morphing into raw hatred for the person that housed him. He wanted him gone. "...no," he suddenly said, revoking his own statement. "As long as I stay I can use him, like he's using me. I'll get out of here when I'm ready." He glared up into the darkness. "I don't need you."

"…that's my Kyuubi."

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This was a hard chapter to follow, yes? So many questions and not enough answers. Hm so what is Kyuubi going to do with Suigetsu and Sakura that will 'last forever'? Can a night really go on so long? Has Naruto resigned himself to the fantasy Kyuubi created for him? The next chapter may shock you.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!

Sky-eyed Kitsune