The name for the chapter comes from the name for the Nine-Tails Rasengan in most of the Naruto games. Hint hint.

Chapter 2

Vermillion

After about a month of boring-as-hell D-rank missions, Team 7 was finally assigned a C-rank mission. The idiotic client was annoying as hell. Naruto had to stop himself from killing the asshole from sheer irritation.

Hey, kit. Keep your eyes open on this mission. I don't think that your senses are developed enough to detect it yet, but this man is hiding something from you. He's far too scared for this mission to be simply about protection from bandits.

Alright. Thanks for the warning, Kyuu.

After waiting at the gate for Kakashi for a full two hours, they were finally off on their mission. Before long, they came upon a puddle. Wow, a puddle in the middle of an open road when it hasn't rained in days. Real subtle.

Of course, Naruto saw no need to alert his so-called team. If they died from ninja that are pathetic enough to set up a trap this bad, they were too weak to be around him. He almost laughed when Sakura shrieked as Kakashi was wrapped in chains and ripped into pieces. The scream was grating on his nerves, so a quick burst of demonic chakra knocked her out.

Then, the two ninja attacked him, bouncing off of his chakra aura. His chakra tail intercepted the chains, melting them with the incredibly potent demon chakra.

Hey kit, you remember what I said about that foxfire?

What about it? Naruto asked.

In order to gain more control of it, all you have to do is become stronger. However, only by using it to claim lives can you gain the ability to use it in bigger quantities and in stronger forms. Try to use one shot to hit them both. You don't want to waste it.

Naruto smirked as a white flame with a blue tint materialized at the tip of his tail. A weak feint with one of his chakra claws tricked one of the two into going next to his partner. Then, Naruto's tail flung forward. The bolt of fire shot out from the tail, smashing into the first ninja and enveloping them both before exploding. Naruto smiled as his cloak faded to a flicker.

Nice one, kit!

"Come out, Kakashi!" Naruto said, perfectly calm. The silver haired ninja reappeared with a sheepish expression on his face.

"Nice perception, Naruto. Sorry about not helping guys…" He said, before turning to Tazuna. "You have some explaining to do." He said, ignoring the glares of Sasuke and Sakura, because of his leaving them to fend for themselves.

Bored out of his mind, Naruto decided not to bother waiting any longer. He was late anyway. He mentioned having to go into the forest to… relieve himself. Sakura blushed while Kakashi told him not to stray too far. Naruto just shook his head once he was out of sight. He called up a bit of chakra and gathered it. He pressed his hand to the ground. "Demon Summoning!"

A swirl of red chakra suddenly fused into a sphere of black energy and Naruto's vision was obscured. When it faded, there was a little silver fox with a single tail in front of him.

"Naruto!" It cheered as it leapt at him.

Naruto smiled as the little demon fox. "How are you, Kaia?" He asked as the little male fox curled around his neck.

"Big brother was being mean to me!" he whined. "He bit my tail, see?" The little fox showed Naruto his tail, which had an almost unnoticeable mark on it. Even as he looked at it, it was slowly healing.

"I'm sorry." Naruto said, comforting the cute fox. He loved almost every single one of his foxes, unlike most of the citizens of Konoha.

"Are we going to play?" Kaia asked excitedly.

"Not exactly… I'm going away from the annoying village on a mission."

"Oh." The little fox looked a bit unhappy for a moment, then looked up again. "But we'll play later, right? You promised! You promised!" he bounced up and down as he talked.

Naruto laughed. "All right. Do you wanna come with me while we're walking? I'll dispel you if we get into a fight."

"Look! I can fight soon too! I'm getting my fire! See!" The overexcited fox screwed up his face in an incredibly cute expression and a little white-blue misty flame materialized on the tip of his tail.

"You're getting there!" Naruto said with a smile.

"How's um... how's Kyuu?" Kaia asked with a faint shiver.

"She's fine." Naruto said with a smile, scratching the little kit behind his ears. "Remember, she only attacked the people of Konoha because a certain bastard killed her family and pretended to be from there, remember? Not that I haven't been tempted to let her out..."

Kaia nodded slowly, then shivered, relishing the feel of Naruto's claws. "I know."

"HEY! NARUTO! WE'VE GOT TO GET MOVING!" Sakura shouted. Kaia clapped his little paws over his ears.

"Naruto!" he whispered. "Be careful! There's a banshee somewhere over there! And she knows your name!"

"I know. She's one of my teammates."

"A banshee teammate? Please keep her away from me." Kaia begged. "I don't think I could take her screech at close range."

Naruto just laughed as they walked back to the team.

Sakura reacted predictably to the silver fox kit, begging to hold him. Naruto told her that Kaia thought that she was way too loud, causing her to scream at him more. Naruto was tempted to see if he could pull off one of those demonic illusions that Kyuu was teaching him about. Maybe he'd make her mouth vanish…

Naruto was dreaming about what he could do to the pink-haired banshee when he heard Kakashi scream to get down. Naruto dispelled Kaia, dropping to the ground. His chakra cloak manifested and Naruto leapt back, foxfire forming on the tip of his twin tails.

Wait a second… Two tails? Naruto wondered, entering his mindscape to speak with Kyuubi.

Looks like you've just absorbed enough of my energy to grow a second tail. I might've pushed it along a bit, since this person is at least Jonin level, with another person of similar strength somewhere nearby. You'll be fine for the battle, but remember what happened after I first gave you your tail? Kyuu reminded him.

Even in his mind, Naruto shuddered. It wasn't a good memory.

Exactly. It won't be quite as bad, but it definitely won't be fun. Now, go spill some blood, ok? Naruto just chuckled before returning to his body.

He watched the fight for a moment. Kakashi did fairly well against the sword wielding ninja, until he was trapped in a sphere of water. Naruto wanted to shake his head at that. The master of 1,000 jutsu can't even see a water prison jutsu coming? In a fight with a water ninja, the idiot jumped onto a lake?

"Sasuke." Naruto barked. "Defend Sakura and the bridge builder. Zabuza has an accomplice in the trees."

"Why should I? You're the dead last! I am the best. You should be the one on backup." Sasuke replied arrogantly. Naruto's reply was a glare filled with enough killing intent to make Zabuza piss himself. Sasuke nodded and went back to guard the two.

Naruto's eyes narrowed as power flooded him. He stretched out his arm and a chakra claw made short work of the clones. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly long enough to reach the real swordsman. Twin flames materialized at the tips of his tails. The two fireballs exploded towards Zabuza, who made a couple of one-handed handsigns, creating a wall of water.

Unfortunately for him, foxfire isn't stopped so easily and he narrowly avoided fatal injury. The upper half of his left arm was heavily burnt and he had another small burn on his right side. He managed to make a few handsigns with his damaged hand to create a water clone to replace him in maintaining the water prison. He pulled his sword from his back and attacked Naruto with an incredibly powerful one-handed swing.

Naruto vanished and reappeared about fifteen feet behind Zabuza, accompanied by a crimson flash. Zabuza tried to throw his sword at Naruto, but one claw deflected it while the other grabbed Zabuza's wounded left arm. The flesh both decayed and burnt as Naruto closed his grip before ripping off the offending appendage.

He loomed over Zabuza, lowering his hand to rip off the man's head when a volley of ice needles blasted into him. His chakra cloak managed to melt most of the ice, but, because it was chakra enhanced, tiny bits of it remained to scratch Naruto, who hissed in a very foxlike manner as small wounds were torn open along his body. They healed nearly instantly.

Naruto remembered that the bastard had left one more clone and, before it could vanish, attacked it. A series of crimson flashes surrounded the Zabuza clone before it broke apart into a mass of water, which was hacked apart by a furious Naruto. Kakashi was freed, even as Naruto began to fade. Both wielding a new tail and fighting an A-rank missing ninja had taken its toll on him.

When Naruto woke up, his eyes were blurry. He rubbed them, but nothing changed. However, he did feel a faint vibration coming from them. He squinted and was able to pick out that he was in a bedroom. Seeing no nearby threats, he stumbled over to a mirror and was able to see the swirling blue energy that made up his eyes. There were vermillion swirls in them as well as the sky blue.

Kyuu, what the hell is this?

I really don't want to remind you of this but… well, when you were younger, your eyes were…

Stabbed out. I remember. That was the first time we made contact.

Yes, but when I regenerated them, I pushed about two tails worth of chakra into them. I wanted to give you an edge, since there are all of those bloodline traits out there and you don't have one…

Thanks, Kyuu! But how did you manage to give me that much chakra and well… what do they do?

What, you think that I have a fixed amount of chakra? I have an unlimited amount of chakra! What you are actually doing is absorbing the ability to USE the chakra that I have. And, as to what the eyes do… they should give you the ability to duplicate the effects of other bloodlines, among other things.

That's awesome!

Especially since they don't have to be turned off! Odds are that when you use your cloak, the blue will turn red and there will be a dark slit in the middle, like normal. Oh, and your eyesight should be normal within the next few minutes. And by normal, I mean a hell of a lot better.

Cool! Thanks, Kyuu!

Now go back to sleep. Your eyes need time to get ready. Plus, I want a nap.

Lazy fox.

The next few days were spent training, while they lived at Tazuna's house. Naruto passed his eyes off as a new bloodline trait, which was technically true. After proving his mastery of tree-walking, Kakashi had no more to teach him, so sent him off to practice his jutsus.

Useless sensei. Why the hell would he be given a team? He hasn't even tried to teach anything except the fucking tree-walking exercise. At least I can practice Dad's jutsu.

By the time he was done training, there were dozens of craters in the forest, dug by Naruto's new technique, which he'd finally mastered, to an extent that he doubted that his father had planned. He'd even begun work on a new one. His mastery of the techniques seemed to be aided by something.

Hey, Kyuu.

What is it, kit?

How did I master this technique so fast, especially when I had so much trouble with it before?

Um… well, when I fixed your eyes to give you new abilities, I also gave you the ability to master that kind of jutsu faster, kind of like the Sharingan affinity with fire. I figured that, since your dad was so fond of making annoying things of spinning chakra, you would too.

Naruto was stunned. When did Kyuubi get that thoughtful? Thank you, Kyuu. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome, Naruto.

Was that the first time she's ever used my name? Naruto wondered to himself, keeping the thought private.

Eventually, it was time to go back to guarding the bridge builder. Kakashi believed that Zabuza would show up in the next few days, so they would all be going to guard Tazuna. Naruto had been left behind with a note, since he'd been exhausted after he'd managed to perfect the second technique. He'd just woken up when he heard an unfamiliar voice.

"Now hold still, brat. This won't hurt… me! Ha ha!" A man said with a laugh. Naruto hesitated. The brat was annoying, but there was no need for him to die. Sighing, Naruto flashed outside, jamming his fingers into the attacker's skull, before sending a chakra claw at the one holding Tazuna's daughter. Seconds later, after both attackers were dead, one headless and the other with a mangled skull, Naruto headed for the bridge. Since enemies had attacked the bridge builder's family, the odds were that the attack was today.

Naruro arrived at the bridge to see a cloud of mist at one point and a dome made up of sheets of ice at another spot. Judging from the blast of flame in the dome, Sasuke was in the dome. Naruto considered attacking Zabuza, but decided against it. His new eyes had detected two bloodlines within the dome, meaning that either Sasuke had awakened his sharingan against a bloodline-equipped attacker, or someone else was there too. Either way, it was a good way to test his new powers.

He sped towards the dome, not using his teleportation, because of the flash it gave off, instead using a fox illusion to become invisible. Seconds later, he arrived at the dome. He could see that there was a masked person teleporting from mirror to mirror, throwing needles at Sasuke as he or she jumped from mirror to mirror. Naruto looked at Sasuke and saw the sharingan in his eyes. He concentrated for a moment, then looked at his reflection in the mirror, seeing a second-stage sharingan made of swirling energy in his eyes. A moment of concentration later, and he had assimilated the other person's ice bloodline. Naruto detected which mirror the person was hiding in and blocked off the other ones. Naruto appeared as he gathered chakra into his palm, a spinning sphere of vermillion chakra in his hand.

"Naruto?" Sasuke wondered, feeling the massive chakra spike.

"RASENGAN!" Naruto shouted, feeling slightly foolish.

That's what your dad said when he used it. Kyuu said with a shrug.

He slammed the sphere into the mirror in front of him, where the attacker was hiding. The sphere tore up the person, sending him smashing through the opposite mirror as well, his back torn to shreds. Then, Naruto began to concentrate chakra into his claw, even as he sent it underground towards the fallen foe. A moment later, the attacker was literally torn apart as a rasengan filled with shards of the bridge was forced into the boy. His limbs were ripped apart as the sphere of spiraling chakra destroyed him. The bits of the bridge trapped in the sphere became spears that ripped through the enemy's flesh, utterly destroying the corpse.

"Naruto?! Where the hell did you get that kind of technique? I demand that you teach it to me."

Naruto laughed as he vanished, going to get rid of Zabuza as well. All Sasuke could hear was Naruto's mocking laughter.

Kakashi and Zabuza were in the middle of a pitched battle, each trying to land the killing blow to go and aid their apprentices, when Naruto arrived. He watched the fight for a minute, since his eyes could pierce the mist enough to see a bit of the fight. He was now sure that, despite Zabuza's advantages, Kakashi was a much better fighter. Naruto decided it was time to end the fight. He held out his hand, like he was going to create a rasengan, but he manipulated the entire process instead. When Zabuza tried another killing strike, Naruto slammed the modified sphere into him. "Rasengan Prison!"

"Hit him now, Kakashi!" Naruto shouted as he fell back when the sphere expanded, trapping the ninja inside of it, despite his attempts to cut the sphere. Naruto was drained from reinforcing the sphere to prevent Zabuza's escape, as well as using the other two rasengans. In addition, he hadn't even been at half power, since he'd been so worn out from the day before.

Obviously taking advantage of the opportunity, Kakashi had gathered lightning chakra into his palm and slammed it into Zabuza's heart, his hand piercing through the man's back. Naruto's Rasengan Prison shrank into nothingness.

A moment later, a laugh was heard. "So much for the demon of the mist! Kill them!" A short fat man said, surrounded by an army of bandits. Kakashi moved towards them, but was too tired to fight them all. Sasuke was one step above unconscious and Sakura was a useless banshee. Naruto took a deep breath.

Your turn, Kyuu. He said as he relinquished control of his body. For a split second, his chakra cloak was gone. Then, his skin turned red as another chakra cloak manifested. This one had nine tails. Naruto's appearance became more feral as he allowed Kyuubi to control his body.

Kakashi's eyes widened at the sight, but then Naruto vanished. Suddenly, there was a sea of blood and a small group of the bandits had been ripped apart. How is he moving that fast?! I can't even catch a glimpse of him WITH the sharingan!

Kyuubi was enjoying herself, tearing these worthless bandits to shreds. They'd dared to threaten her Naruto. She used her fangs to rip out the throat of one, even as her claws tore out the innards of two more. She used Naruto's crimson flash to easily move through the enemies, dismembering them. Their screams of pain and fear were music to her ears as she destroyed the small army. She saved the short fat one who'd given the order for last. She wrapped him in her chakra tails and laughed as his body was corroded away by her destructive chakra.

Minutes later, there was nothing left of the bandits and Gato, except for a small lake of blood and dismembered corpses. Their mission was over.

Well, that's the chapter.

One of the points I tried to illustrate in this chapter is that, while he doesn't care for humans one way or another, he does have a good side. Because of his previous incidents, as well as the way people treat him, he doesn't care about humans at all, especially those from Konoha. For example, he saved Inari, but wouldn't have bothered with a citizen of Konoha. This could change depending on how certain individuals treat him...

Naruto's eyes are supposed to look like Rasengans. They allow the user to use nearby bloodlines. He retains their use until he either runs out of chakra (at which point his eyes return to their Rasengan form), or goes unconscious or to sleep. The second stage gives the ability to deactivate the bloodline of people around him, as well as use it. The final stage actually gives him the ability to permanently drain the bloodline into himself. It also gives him a greater affinity with form manipulation of chakra, but only for the purposes of rotation and power (in other words, mainly for Rasengan-type jutsu). I know they seem absurdly powerful, but they do have drawbacks. Mainly the fact that his chakra drains rapidly while he is using another bloodline. There is another drawback, but that one won't matter till later...

Anyone with ideas for summon names, or for anything else, please send them to me. I suck with names.

Vote for this story on my profile if you want it to continue. I find it amusing that I have 24 fav's and 22 alerts for this story, but only 9 votes.