Chapter Ten: Bright Red Preceeds Shadowed Blue

-s-s-s-s-s-

Two weeks after coming to the village...
(Seishi is still on a squad.)

Coming home in the dark, in the middle of the night; Seishi hoped Naruto-kun was in bed already. He'd waited up the night before, and the night before that, and so on, for her to come hope, just to make sure she was safe. She was supposed to be the one worrying and fretting now, not Naruto-kun!

'Did I make it worse, by coming back?' It worried her most, to think of the events leading up to the happy-but-lonely (far) future would be worse by her meddling.

"But Naruto-kun is worth it!" she justified, and the voices in her head needed no more convincing. (Though they whispered, still, sometimes, but she shoved the doubts away and laughed.)

Creeping, slowly, through her own home (they really needed to get a bigger place...), Seishi peeked around the corner into Naruto's sleeping space, expecting a drowsing boy to peer blearily back at her. Instead, Naruto slept, curling up on his side in too-big clothes, clutching his blanket around him and murmuring softly something about ramen.

Seishi grinned. 'Sooo cute!' she thought, and was careful to muffle her squeeing and wiggling with her hands. Restraining herself from diving for the camra, the disguised young woman slipped in the room, making no noise. She didn't want to wake him, now that he was catching up on much needed sleep.

Stepping carefully over scattered books, food wrappers and drawing/writing utensiles, the girl looked at her young father (cousin, brother, now?).

'I'm fond of him,' she thought, watching, and she had just realized how much. 'You aren't anything like Papa, Naruto-kun. Naruto-kun is Naruto-kun!'

And maybe sometime she could make him understand that, too.

"You're staring." Growling, tense tones from right next to her. She didn't flinch.

"I'm keeping watch." She was still mad at him, a little, for his cowardice. (But Seishi also understood; for what had happened to him, the prelude, he had a right to fear the snake. That didn't mean she accepted his continued, irrational fear. But then, he didn't know what she knew. Oh, what she knew.)

"The brat waits for you." The flaming red chakra form of Kyuubi licked his paw casually, his tails flicking back and forth in repressed irritation. He wasn't happy with her, either.

Seishi kept her gaze fixed on Naruto's sleeping face, noting from the corner of her eye the band of mixed chakra, primarily Kyuubi's, that connected them like some kind of embilical cord. "He shouldn't."

Naruto wasn't supposed to worry. He was should be having fun and completely disregarding her unless he grudgingly needed to ask for something, like most little boys his age. Like Narashi, and the other young cousins she never saw anymore.

"You should not be here!" Kyuubi growled, clearly fed up with the small talk. "Of my Clan or not, you should not exist!"

Seishi smiled, putting on a teasing tone. "Now, that's not nice! To say I shouldn't exist."

Kyuubi's hatches rose and he bared his fangs at her, snarling, glowing eyes glaring. "I am not nice! Enough of your imputense! Do you know what you risk by being here?"

"Seems you've been think, locked up in that cell of yours." She was still smiling, but there was a biting edge to her now, sharp and ready to cut in this battle of words. Kyuubi curled his lips, showing more teeth, and let out a threatening growlish yipping noise; a warning.

Seishi interupted before he could speak. "Oh, I know. The stability of the worlds, that the universe will colapse in on itself from the tiny part I tore to get here." She stalking close to him, illusion unwraviling, showing her own set of fangs. Kyuubi didn't back down, chakra hot with bloodlust and rage. "But it won't. You know why? Because I was careful. Because I knew what I was doing. Because this is what I was made for."

A stand off of wills between the two kitsune. Neither would back down, red eyes locked together, daring each other.

Seishi spoke, voice rough with a growl-like quality human vocal cords could not produce, "You are old, Outo-sama. You are wise. But you don't know everything."Her form took on an edge, red chakra forming a terrifying aura in her state of rage, mimicking the tales she lacked. He couldn't see how many, but if she was who she claimed to be, there would be more than two.

She spoke like him; she was starting to look like him, but she was not--

"You are no daughter of mine." Kyuubi growled one last time, opening his mouth and sinking his teeth into her arm. He felt the pull of the seal; his luxtury time was up. The red chakra compressed in on itself, sinking back into Naruto (who mumbled sleepily and rolled over, still dreaming of swimming in the world's biggest bowl of ramen).

The room became chilly without the firy furry of her father's chakra, her owning dieing down as soon as she'd heard his departing worlds. Seishi winced at the pain and the blood, wiping her arm off on her tight black slacks, the wound already healing, though it would scar.

"I can't believe he..." she mumbled, staring vacantly at the brightening sky over the window above Naruto's bed. She felt like collapsing, but couldn't, wouldn't, in front of Naruto. Even a sleeping Naruto, who would no doubt wake up to her tears if she thought about it any more.

"I guess... I'll make breakfast."

Eggs and bacon sounded nice. Did they have any milk that wasn't bad? She didn't want Naruto-kun getting sick.

(She squashed the pain, let it sit in the back of her mind. "You are no daughter of mine," haunted her nightmares, when she bothered to sleep. She took mission after mission after mission after a while, through herself into her work, killed and saved and guarded all manner of people and things. She still didn't think.

Naruto she came home to, curled up on the couch, shivering, flushed with a fever. She was covered in blood and dirt and sweat; she couldn't raise him like this. Wasn't she meant to make him happy?

She applied for a teaching position the next day.)

-s-s-s-s-s-

Someone was shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, sleepy-head." A kind voice, a gentle hand; his semiconscious mind recognized the fleeting feeling and smiled, mistaking reality for another dream.

"I brought you breakfast! C'mon, wake up and eat!" Cheerful. Loving.

Food was put in front of him. Mindlessly, he devoered, hardly noticing the taste.

He heard a giggle. "Where you that hungry? Oh, well, I'll get you some more." The clatter of plates, and whoever it was was gone.

Sleepy.

Why was he so tired?

Sleep.

ZZzzzz...

-s-s-s-s-s-

A/N: If you are wondering: Yes, Kyuubi is planning something.

(though the question wasn't asked:)
Why can Kyuubi leave Naruto's body(even in chakra form)?
He leeches chakra from Seishi. He can only get out when Seishi is around. This is a hint.

A bit of a wait, yeah? Well, 'least it wasn't two years, right?

Kind of a filler chapter, but it did establish Kyuubi's comment in the former chapter and deepen Seishi's character a bit, ne?

Since you've read, comment, if you please!

Originally posted: 2/23/2008