Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Desert Shade ❯ Night Fire ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 1: Night Fire

Pain. A sting. A flash of black as I tried to dodge a kunai, but ended with a small cut on my cheeks anyways. Spinning around, I saw that Mizuki bastard crouching on a tree branch behind me. I swore. Where on earth was Naruto? I let my senses flow into the shadows around me while dodging a giant shuriken and picked up Naruto's chakra somewhere off ahead. Now where was Iruka-sensei? He was somewhere behind Mizuki.

When the two of them interlocked in battle, I used the distraction and slipped off to find Naruto. He was now somewhere towards my right…wait a minute, don't tell me he was planning to creep behind sensei and Mizuki? Swearing again, I turned back towards the fight. I should at least help sensei since we were the ones—correction, Naruto was the one—who got him into this mess of ours, and Naruto was heading in the same direction anyways.

And you're making everything more complicated than it should be, muttered Yami in my head.

… You're just hungry aren't you? Stupid question. Of course she was hungry, I could practically feel her bloodlust pouring through my veins. Yami was hungry most of the time, and I enjoyed starving her. Okay, so maybe I don't, but I wasn't about to just let her go around devouring every living creature she sees.

Haixx… she grumbled, disgruntled with my refusal to feed her supper. Ignoring her, I focused on the situation at hand in time to witness Mizuki proclaiming to Naruto that he (referring to Naruto) was the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi. Big surprise there, since Yami had informed me of his existence within Naruto the first time I met him (which was three years ago when I moved into Konoha and joined the academy, albeit later than the others of my age but managed to catch up easily). Besides, Kyuubi would sometimes `pop-in' and have a mental conversation with Yami, whenever Naruto and I hung out together. In my head. This was due to Yami's shadow-psychic-abilities. However, I believe this was the first time that Naruto hears of this, so his shock was unsurprising either. I could also tell that Iruka-sensei was dismayed by this revelation.

Well this has been kept a secret amongst the adults from Naruto all the while. Who knows how he might react when he hears of this. Pandemonium ensued and Mizuki sent a giant shuriken flying towards Naruto. Instinctively, I ran forwards, yelling Naruto's name, but Iruka-sensei was faster. Blood splattered and its bittersweet scent filled the air. I hissed. Naruto was lying on the ground, shocked, but unharmed, while sensei was crouched protectively over Naruto, the large shuriken protruding out of his back, stained red with his blood. Damnit. Damnit. Damnit.

“You #@!!%$^&*!! (A/N: I'll leave it to your imagination as to what vulgarities she said.)” Cursing away, I leapt out of the shadows with four dark clones (similar to shadow clones, but somewhat different), charging at Mizuki with kunais in hand. I wasn't about to let Yami have her way with this bastard. I was going to beat him up with my own hands. How dare he hurt Iruka-sensei like that! I heard Iruka-sensei's protest against something, then saw Naruto running beside me and surprise surprise: there were at eight shadow clones with him. Looks like studying the scroll we stole paid off. That, and of course, his massive amount of chakra.

“TAKE THIS!!!” we yelled, as we attacked Mizuki full on.

“YEAH!!! I PASSED!!!” screamed Naruto when Iruka-sensei finally gave him this forehead protector, and continued whooping for joy even as we entered the classroom to find out who our teammates and new sensei will be. I grinned and in truth, I did not regret last night's incident. It was what enabled Naruto to become a genin after all. And Mizuki has been imprisoned. Unfortunately, not everyone believed that he actually passed. And honestly, who could blame them?

And once you're done musing to yourself, check this out, Yami said. Looking up, I saw (OMFG!) Naruto and Sasuke almost lip to lip. No freakin' way. They were like archrivals and they were both guys. Poor Naruto. When the teacher entered the classroom and got the class to settle down (which was no easy feat, what with Sakura and Ino going up in flames etc), he began to announce the grouping of squads and the sensei assigned to that squad.

“Uzumaki Naruto… Haruno Sakura… “ The guy said. Naruto was elated while Sakura went into a state of depression. Idiot Sasuke fan-girl.

“… And Uchiha Sasuke,” he continued saying. This time, Naruto's face fell while Sakura lit up in an instant. Sasuke merely grunted. Apparently, they were in the same team to balance out their intelligence (basically, it means that Sasuke was a genius and Naruto an idiot.) My train of thought was once again interrupted by the guy's speech.

“Yoruka Chizuki… Moriten Hanaha... and Ryuusei Akirai.” That was my name, and my two best friends'. Sure, they once tried to kill me (literally) the first time we met, but that was another story. Otherwise, we get along fine. We were all “half-breeds”, one parent from Konoha, the other from some other country, and now we were going to be in the same team!

As soon as we were dismissed, Aki-chan leapt up and did a victory dance which included overturning tables and chairs in the process. Her hyperactive personality reminded me somewhat of Naruto, and like Naruto, it was going to be ages before anyone could get her to calm down. I sighed. Maybe she wasn't as bad as Sakura and Ino when they get the Sasuke-fever, but as Shikamaru likes to say, she's way too troublesome to deal with sometimes.

“So who's our new teacher?” asked Hana-chan, evidently ignoring our destructive friend in the background.

“You weren't listening either? Damn,” I muttered in reply. I'd tuned out the rest of what the jounin had said after he announced our squad team members, and totally missed what he said about our teacher.

Did you hear anything said about our to-be sensei? Last resort: ask my demon guest.

Hmph. That I did, grumbled Yami irritably. She didn't like it whenever I fail to keep track of stuff myself.

And?? Sometimes, getting her to give me information is like squeezing toothpaste.

Nothing. You guys don't have a teacher. They ran out of jounins. Some are already in charge of other squads, while the rest are on missions.

Are you serious?! That's impossible! How can there be a genin squad without an instructor?

Too bad. You guys'll be working with other squads and their teacher, a different one each week.

So who's in charge of us tomorrow?

Hatake Kakashi. You'll be working with that Uchiha brat, Pinkie and Kyuubi-kun. So, Mr Emo-chicken-butt-head, Sakura-chan, and Naruto, eh? All in all, not too bad… I think… Wait a minute, are you and the Kyuubi an item or what?

How the bloody hell did you get that idea?! Yami practically roared inside my head.

I don't know. Maybe its because you chat with him so much? And you just called Naruto `Kyuubi-kun'? A whole string of vulgarities flooded my mind following that. It was no wonder my language was sometimes more colourful than most. Hell, I could write an entire dictionary of them, just that some were in other languages (e.g. cat-speech. Is there such a thing? Hmm.)

“Sooo… what did the little monster say?” enquired Aki-chan who had finally stopped her victory dance when it occurred to her as well that we had no clue who our teacher might be.

“We're gonna be thrown around like an unwanted shitload of dung beetles and Kami take pity on the squad that ends up having to train with us,” I replied, ignoring Yami (which was no mean feat. She was now yelling at the back of my head something about being the `an ancient demon deserving of respect', calling Aki-chan a `puny human' and cursing her for calling her `little'.)

“Unwanted shitload of dung beetles??”

“That's right.” Hey, spending the last 13 years of your own existence with the demon of illusions and nightmares does wonders to your definitions and descriptions of many things. Not counting weird imagination.

I found Naruto having ramen at his usual ramen stall. Yami promptly pounced on top of Naruto's head as soon we reached within one metre of him, causing him to choke on his soup. She laughed at the sight of Naruto spluttering soup as she perched atop his head the way Akamaru does with Kiba, her bell tinkling with her every movement. Whenever she appeared in her coporeal form, she was like an inky grey shadow with a black diamond printed on her forehead (somewhat like the pattern of a diamond-backed rattlesnake) and a blood red collar. Attached to the collar was a large golden bell by a long silver chain. Even though she resembled an alley cat most of the time, and could easily pass as my animal companion (or pet), she still creeped out some people.

“What the heck?! You scared me you know?” cried Naruto when Yami leapt onto the table from his head. She stared back at him with her unblinking mismatched eyes. One blood red (the colour of her collar), the other the colour of blue flames, her iris-less pupils glowed amidst the shadows of her hollow eyes (basically, where the whites should be, was just black. A/N: I got the idea from Bleach's white Ichigo.) No wonder she looked more sinister than your ordinary stray cat. Most of my friends (i.e. Hanaha, Akirai, Naruto, Shikamaru and Kiba) and some adults (the ramen stall owner, Iruka-sensei, the Hokage) are quite used to it though, but only the adults know about Yami's real identity as the jyuubi, with the exception of Hana-chan and Aki-chan.

Wimp. At this rate, Pinkie will never set her eyes on you. Though personally, you're much better than that Uchiha brat, said Yami (when she's coporeal, her voice can be heard by all, not just me.)

“And he's in my team!” complained Naruto at the mention of Sasuke. I felt sorry for him. Problem is, I was going to have to work with Chicken-ass too.

“Look on the bright side, bud. At least Sakura's in your team. Hell, you should be glad you have a team at all!” Personally, I found Sakura even more irritating than Sasuke, but Naruto, on the other hand, saw something in that girl. And trust me, with Yami around; I saw more things than most, especially when it comes to the characters of people. Yami thrived on the fears and negative energies of others. You can imagine how much positive energy I wasted just to keep my mind from being fully influenced by her sadistic ideas (note the emphasis on the word `fully'.)

“Hehe,” chuckled Naruto sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head. “Guess you're right. Hey, let's celebrate with some ramen!”

Well, there goes my money down the drain, or in this case, Yami's bottom-less stomach. When she can't have a fair share of humans (blood, meat, soul and all), she'd lick six bowls clean of ramen like a vacuum. At least I'll get some money back from completing missions in days to come. No doubt Naruto was looking forward to it too.