Naruto: The Unwoven Threads of Fate

"OI!" Naruto shouts up at me. "ALVARCUS!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I roar back to him. "THE DAMN MOVIE CREW JUST STOPPED FILMING! I'VE GOTTEN FIVE MINUTES OF SILENCE! FIVE MINUTES!"

"I'M COMING UP!" He shouts to me.

"Why? Why don't you people just leave me alone?" I whine to myself. "I think Shikamaru is my favorite. He's the one who has bothered me the least."

"Oh shut up you know you've missed us." Naruto isn't phased at all by my prickly demeanor.

"You know what else I've missed? Peace and quiet." I haven't had that in what feels like years. Oh wait, it has been years. How sad is that?

"So I've been wondering." Naruto ignores my obvious jab at him and everyone else. "I've been trained by a Sannin. You've been trained by a Sannin. Whose Sannin taught better? Yours or mine?"

"I promise Jiraiya's teaching methods are a lot more friendly than Orochimaru's." I monotonously say to him. "I promise it."

"You sure? Jiraiya threw me off a cliff." Naruto returns my blunt tone.

"Orochimaru shoved me down into a hole filled with hundreds of his failed experiments and told me to survive. He left me down there for two months." I one up him. "I'm going to win the game of who has the more fucked up sensei."

"Yeah well one time Jiraiya threw me into a whore house -"

"Brothel." I cut in.

" - whore house and said good luck!"

"Orochimaru ordered one of his kunoichi to seduce me." I'm winning this. "I'm half expecting him to do it again too, I've gotten a fangirl. She'd be more than willing to take that mission."

"I've got to constantly put up with Jiraiya running off to perve on women! Top that one!"

"I've got to constantly put up with Orochimaru asking me to help him with his experiments. You know, the ones that kill people or horribly deform them forever?"

"Damn that's a good one." Naruto's face scrunches up in concentration. "Jiraiya constantly finds new ways to make my training horrible! One time he tied boulders to my limbs and told me to climb a tree! The boulders were so heavy the tree broke!"

"Naruto. Orochimaru constantly maims me horrendously during training." He went down a poor route. "If he doesn't cut of at least one of my limbs during training it was an easy day. On the hard days he cuts them off tens of times."

"Dude." Naruto winces in sympathy for me. "That's fucked up."

"News flash: Orochimaru is fucked up." You could describe all of Orochimaru with those two words. "But his training has made me really good."

"How good?" Naruto boldly asks with a tint of victory.

"Very." I vaguely reply.

"Better than Jiraiya has made me?" Naruto asks with eagerness. He's planning something, something I'm not going to like.

"I dunno." I admit. "Depends on the situation. I know what I'm good at but I'm pretty sure our strengths don't line up exactly. You could probably beat me in some areas while I beat you in others."

"Want to find out?" He very enthusiastically asks me. He's practically vibrating in giddy excitement. "It's like seeing which Sannin is better by comparing their students!"

"Nope. I don't particularly care." I turn my gaze skyward, the sun is beginning to set. It's really pretty to watch the sun set over an ocean, the water makes it even more beautiful than usual. This is what my vacation is supposed to be about.

"Ah come on! Where's the fun in that?" Naruto urges me to spar him. This is not what my vacation is supposed to be about.

"Say hypothetically I do accept. Where would we spar?"

"Uh… on the deck?" Naruto offers.

"Okay so I'm going to point this out right now." I pin him in an intense look. "If you and I ever fight it's going to get messy. We'd trash everything around us with impunity. If we sparred on the ship there wouldn't be a ship left once we're done. We'll be luck if there's any driftwood left."

"Maybe once we get to the Land of Snow?" He offers another option.

"You're on a mission stupid. You shouldn't be sparring anyone." Seriously was this his whole goal of coming up here? To get me to spar him?

"You're on a mission too!" He accuses me. "Don't blame just me!"

"Okay, one: no I'm not. I owe Shikamaru so I'm returning a favor. Two: this was all your idea. You don't get to share blame with me because I can't be blamed for your ideas. If you're really that bored summon a Toad to play with or something."

"What?" Naruto reels back in shock. "I would never abuse the Toads like that!"

"I summon a Spider for conversation all the time. It's not abuse, it's forming a good relationship with your Summons. I bet they'd love to hang out with you. You just have to find the right one. Preferably one that isn't as big as the ship."

"Really? You summon the same spider all the time?"

"Yep." I easily confirm. "We're friends. Sometimes we just hang out and give each other shit while other times he's someone for me to shout my problems at. Hell he's the main reason I know about other Spiders too. I ask him 'hey, I need someone that can do this' and he points me at someone who can."

I don't say this enough, but Shirokumo you're freaking awesome.

"That's a great idea!" Naruto shouts out. Kid has way too much energy. "I should totally summon a Toad to talk to!" Then he wilts. "But they'd hate the cold. I don't want them to suffer."

But you are totally fine with making me suffer? Asshole.

"It's not just the Spider that I talk to." I confide in him. Frankly he's the only one who might begin to understand what it is like to have another voice in your head. "The Jiongu and I talk a lot too."

"You do? I thought you didn't like talking with it." He asks tentatively. He knows it's a sensitive subject for me.

"Nah, we're cool now." I assure him. "Honestly I just had to adjust to a new voice in my head and learn what it's like. Sure it encourages me to be more bloodthirsty but sometimes it won't shut up about meaningless things."

~Aw, Host you do care!~

Yeah yeah shut up for now. I'm trying to get him to talk to Kurama.

~How is it that you can be so nice one moment then mean the next?~

"It's not the same as mine." Naruto rests a hand on his seal. "Mine is pure anger and hate and wants to escape. Yours chooses to work with you."

"True mine did immediately choose to work with me, that did make it easier to get along with." I swivel my head to look at him. "But who said yours is pure anger and hate? Who said yours won't work with you given enough time?"

"Alvarcus you haven't felt it." Naruto drops the act of a bubbly always friendly person. "It's destruction incarnate. Whenever we meet all that he feels like is fury and malice."

"How can you be sure that isn't a byproduct of his own experiences? Naruto he's sentient. He can think for himself. He has wants, he has feelings, he has emotions. Most importantly he's not an it, he has a name."

"Yeah, the Kyuubi." Naruto supplies what he thinks is his name.

"No, that's a title. It's what he is, not who he is. It's the equivalent of calling you Human. Do you really think a being that transcends our short lifespans doesn't have a name?"

"He has a name?" Naruto softly asks himself. "Do you know what it is?"

I open my mouth then freeze.

The manifestation of pure fury of the likes of which I've never experienced explodes out of Naruto. Naruto changes, his whole body doesn't physically change but the way he carries himself does. It's feral like a beast. His hair casts a dark shadow over his eyes and his whisker marks thicken. His nails elongated into claws and his once bright blue eyes have become a pair of searing hot coals. The sheer presence that he's manifesting is staggering, the basic prospect of breathing becomes an impossible challenge.

I've never felt power on this scale.

"You will not tell him my name!" That is not Naruto's voice. It's too deep, too harsh. Too menacing. Too pained.

Just as quickly as the oppressive aura around Naruto formed it vanishes and Naruto falls to a knee panting.

I quickly spring out of my hammock and rush to his side.

"Naruto!" I grasp him by the shoulders. "Naruto look at me! Show me your eyes!"

He stays still, only massive breaths shake his form. There's no response, there's no other movement.

I reach into my coat and pull out a tag. It's a very specific tag, it's not even one that I made myself. It's one for study that Orochimaru crafted and gifted to me, it's a bijuu chakra suppression tag.

"I fucked up." I apologize to him. "I'm sorry. I should have seen this happening."

I hold the tag tighter in preparation to place it on him.

Then his hand swats at the one I have on his shoulder. "Not your fault."

"Naruto?" I hopefully ask. Yet it is too soon to put the tag away. "Your eyes. Let me see them."

"The hell are you on about?" He huffs out between breaths and looks at me weirdly.

Blue. They're blue.

"Naruto!" I throw my arms around him in a hug. "It's you. I'm so glad it's you. I thought I caused him to escape."

"He's not getting out that easily." Naruto brags with false bravado. His entire body is trembling. He's way more terrified than I am. "I've never felt him like that."

"I'm sorry. It's my fault. I'm so sorry. That should have never happened." I fucked up. I majorly fucked up. I caused Kurama to manifest for an instant. I didn't even know that was possible.

"It's not your fault, you didn't know he'd do that." Naruto assures me.

"How'd he get past the seal?" I ask. "Even if it was just for an instant he's found a weakness. He's going to exploit it from now on."

"I don't think he's going to do that." Naruto shares as we break the hug. "Jiraiya told me that the seal is meant to suppress him, and he's a mass of anger and hate. That's what the seal focuses on suppressing. But what he just felt wasn't anger or hate, it was fear. I really doubt that something as prideful as the Kyuubi will resort to being afraid to escape."

"Either way have Jiraiya look at the seal as soon as you can." I demand.

"No shit I'm doing that!"

"NARUTO!" Kakashi appears in the crow's nest with his own sealing tag. "HANG ON DON'T GIVE IN TO - oh."

"Uh… hey?" Naruto weakly waves at Kakashi. "False alarm. I'm good."

"You sure?" Kakashi asks in confusion. "I felt that. Hell Shikamaru felt that and he has no knack for sensing at all."

"Yep. Totally fine." Naruto says as we both stand up. "Sorry about that."

"Okay… then?" Kakashi slowly pockets the seal. "I'll just… go now? How am I supposed to explain this to everyone?"

"Shit." Naruto's eyes widen in a new type of fear. "How are we going to do that?"

"If you don't want them to know yet you can always blame it on me." I offer.

"Alvarcus I won't-"

"Hear me out first Naruto." I cut him off from outright dismissing my idea. "I'm relatively unknown and I've been trained by Orochimaru. So naturally I've got one hell of a killing intent. After all why wouldn't Orochimaru train me to have one of the most oppressive and scary killing intents ever? Plus with all the stuff I've done it's not even that ridiculous of an idea, my killing intent is actually scary already. Just not that scary."

"That won't work." Kakashi cuts in. "It wasn't killing intent that we felt, it was hate."

"Then Naruto called the Spiders lame and I proved him wrong by summoning one that felt like that." I offer another solution. "No one knows the true extent of my Summons, hell even I don't. It's not that far of a stretch."

"It's plausible." Kakashi says after thinking it over for a few seconds. "Doubly if I back it up. After all I did rush out here and saw it before it left."

"Okay." Naruto agrees to my impromptu plan. "We'll go with that. Alvarcus summoned a big scary spider."

"When you say it like that is sounds super lame."

"-and it was HUGE!" Naruto exaggeratedly waves his arms in a grand gesture.

"It wasn't." I correct him with a sigh. "Barely the size of a pony."

"That is huge for a spider." Shikamaru points out.

"Honestly it's pretty harmless." I continue as if Shikamaru didn't speak at all. "That one isn't a fighter at all, it's more of a shock and awe thing. It's very demoralizing to fight against something that feels like that. Naruto insulted my Summons so I whipped out that one to scare him straight on how awesome they really are. I might have gone just a touch overboard."

"So let me get this straight." Anko looks at the both of us with an unreadable expression. "Naruto goes to challenge Alvarcus to a spar by insulting his Summons, then Alvarcus pretty much says 'fuck you I'll show you how cool the Spiders are' and summons whatever-it's-called to scare Naruto into respecting them? Did I get all of it?"

"You forgot the part where they both thought what they did was a good idea." Ino dryly adds on. "You both are better than that."

"Apparently not?" I weakly send Ino an innocent smile.

"Just don't do it again." Kakashi says despite having his nose buried in his newest book. I'm fairly certain this is the second time he's reading it.

"I promise nothing!" I cheekily say as I sprint out of the room.

Finally, now I can relax.

With Anko and Ino, their Cabin

"So… I've decided what to teach you next!" Anko merrily clasps her hands together in happiness.

"Really? What is it? That shooting snakes out of your sleeves trick? Because that one looks really cool! Oh! How about how you flick kunai and senbon hard enough to embed into wood? That could be very useful!"

"You'd want to learn how to use snakes?" Anko asks in surprise. "Pretty much everyone in Konoha hates snakes."

"Yes I would totally be okay with that!" Ino assures her sensei. "I would have so much fun doing it, imagine how easy it would be to trick people too. They'd never expect it, I mean what kind of girl likes snakes enough to make them into a weapon? The stereotype is that we're all afraid of them. They'd probably expect me to use unicorns or pandas or something cute and fuzzy. Not, you know, the equivalent of the boogeyman of Summons for Konoha."

"Huh." Anko is so shocked that she sits down on one of the beds. "I'll have to check a couple of things first. You'd have to sign the Summoning Contract but I don't know if they'll let me pick someone to sign it. Orochimaru is the Contract holder but I'm not too sure they like him that much. They could let you but I simply don't know enough about it to confirm it."

"Aw. Damn. I can't learn that then?" Ino dejectedly asks.

"It's not off the table yet, it's just unlikely. Plus you'll face a lot of ridicule from the citizens and shinobi of Konoha. You might be okay with snakes but I can assure you most of them aren't."

"So? I've got to get stronger, having a Summon will do that. Even if I only ever learn the one move."

"I'll look into it for you." Anko is still shocked that Ino wants to use snakes. "That's not what I had in mind though."

"Well what is it?" Ino eagerly presses onwards. "At first I thought your coat trick wasn't that useful but I was very wrong so I'll learn whatever you want to teach me."

"Good!" Anko pulls herself out of her shocked stupor and grins evilly at her student. "This technique will serve two purposes. One: it's going to make you very hard to capture for any extended periods of time. Hell even being tied up won't stop you from escaping anymore!"

"Fantastic!" Ino has a spark of determination in her eyes. "What is it?"

"The Soft Physique Technique." Anko happily tells Ino. "It's going to let you contort in crazy ways without hurting yourself. If you get really good at it then you'll even be able to stretch out your limbs a bit. I've never gotten that good with it - at best I'm slightly more bendy than a normal person - but my sensei is so proficient with it he can stretch his neck several times his body length."

"Uh… how's that supposed to help me be a better kunoichi?" Ino asks in confusion.

"You're going to become super flexible, dodging attacks will become much easier. When I'm done with you, you'll be able to touch your toes while keeping your legs straight by bending over backwards." Anko smirks in victory at Ino's gleaming eyes. She's gotten the attention of the younger girl with that.

"Yes! That! I'll learn that!" Ino giddily claps in anticipation. "So what's the second reason?"

"You're going to be super flexible." Anko lets a lecherous grin form on her face. "It's going to make boinking a hell of a lot more fun."

"W-what?" Ino stutters out in embarrassment.

"You heard me." Anko predatorily stares down at the suddenly nervous Ino. "You'll thank me once you get finally laid."

"B-but jutsu shouldn't be misused like that!" Ino blurts out.

"Ino, Honey." Anko tenderly pats Ino on the head. "Do you really think shinobi and kunoichi don't use jutsu to spice up their bedroom fun? The henge alone makes roleplaying a hell of a lot more intense. Sex is great, but shinobi sex is fucking crazy." Anko pauses for a moment. "Although sometimes you're literally fucking crazy, a lot of shinobi aren't completely sane."

"Really?"

"Hell yeah." Anko shamelessly confirms. "I know you've got your sights set on Alvarcus -"

"No I don't!" Ino blurts out. Anko doesn't buy it for a minute.

"- but Naruto is going to be so much fun too! Although he's a tad more of a specific kind of fun while Alvarcus has limitless stamina. That's just all around fun!"

"What do you mean Naruto is going to be fun?" Ino asks in confusion. "I bet he hasn't even kissed anyone yet! He's way too… too… he's Naruto!"

"Have you kissed anyone yet?" Anko quirks an eyebrow at her innocent genin.

"Yes I have!" Ino haughtily turns her nose up at Anko. "Several times!"

"And just who was the lucky boy?" Anko asks.

"None of your business!" Ino refuses to answer. "Now tell me how Naruto of all people is supposed to be fun! I don't believe it! He probably thinks girls still have cooties!"

"Well it depends if you're into this sort of thing, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Hell it's not even my cup of tea, I just know there are people out there who would have a great time with him and all of his clones."

"What do you - oh. OH."

"Unclean." Naruto stops what he's doing to glare at his hands. "I feel unclean."

"Uh… Naruto?" Shikamaru worriedly asks. "You okay?"

"UNCLEAN!"

"Oh is right." Anko smirks at Ino's discomfort. It's not a big as it usually is, she's slowly becoming used to these kinds of talks. That means it's time for Anko to step up her game. "Alvarcus may have unlimited stamina but Naruto has unlimited di-"

"STOP!" Ino darts forwards and clamps a hand over Anko's mouth. "Please. Just stop. Do you ever not think about something to do with sex?"

Anko prys Ino's hand off her mouth. "Not when my student is too damn shy. Honey we're kunoichi, our bodies can be better weapons than kunai. I'm just giving you a head start on using it. When all the other girls your age realize this they'll model themselves after you because you'll be the only girl around their age that knows what she's doing."

"Really? You think so?"

"I know so. It happens every generation, including mine."

"Who did you model yourself after?" Ino asks.

"No one." Anko smiles down fondly at Ino. "They modeled themselves after me."

"Oh." Ino softly says as she regards Anko in a new light.

"Oh is right." Anko uses the same phrase as before. "Now enough chit chat! Let's get started on that new technique, it's not going to learn itself!"

"Ah." I let out a contented sigh. Again. For the who-knows-how-many time today. "This is what vacation should be."

The sun has only just set which is a shame. I was looking forward to watching it fully set for the night but Naruto popped up and then that fiasco happened.

Enough said about that.

At least the Konoha shinobi know I won't be going anywhere tonight. We're in the middle of an ocean so there's nowhere for me to go. That also means they have no reason to come check on me.

Since it's night that means the the movie crew is also not active, the lighting is terrible and I doubt they want to shoot a night scene on ship for the next movie. If for some ungodly reason they do I'll just have the Jiongu turn off my hearing.

It's fantastic, I can finally get some true relaxation in.

"Hey Jiongu?" I ask my loyal companion.

~Yes Host?~

"Do you have a name?" I should have asked this way sooner but it never occurred to me to do so. I'd be a massive hypocrite if I didn't at least ask the Jiongu after the Naruto fiasco.

~I… I've never been given one. I've only ever been called the Jiongu.~

"Do you want one?" I ask. "I'll call you whatever you want me to, even if you decide that just Jiongu is good enough."

~I don't actually know. The idea of a name is so… strange to me. I have existed for many decades but none of these things mattered, I wasn't even aware of something like a name. I've only ever existed, similar to a tree. We were both alive but did not have the capacity to think. Just recently have I been made truly aware of these more complex concepts and ideas. Only my time with you has opened my eyes to these… feelings. I don't know what to call myself.~

"Think about it for as long as you want to." I stare up at the stars that are just beginning to show up as the sunlight becomes more scarce. "There's no rush."

~I will let you know if... when I come to a decision.~

"Of course, take as much time as you need." I smile to myself. "It's not like I can get rid of you even if I wanted to. We're stuck together until the end."

I'm perfectly content with that.

~Yes. Until the end.~

A pleasant shiver courses throughout my body. The Jiongu is happy.