He who is afraid of a thing gives it power over him.

--Moorish Proverbs

Women are by nature weak-willed. However I have found that when they are strong, they are unpredictable.

--Marius seriously grievously paraphrased, The Vampire Lestat, Ann Rice

"This is how much pure crack cocaine you would need to enjoy the movie."

--MST3K

***

Naruto had learned early on through painful trial and error that the hardest thing about opening someone's head up was shutting them back down again. It was a constant susurrus of petty and selfish waves of people who had no idea that for once their prayers and thoughts were being heard and judged, but not by God, or select deity of their choice, but by a shrieking demon boy with one apocalyptic migraine.

Naruto had spent a productive week screaming at everything whenever anyone came within a mile of him of felt something too loudly.

In this area Nine Tails was a superb help. It was through his gradual awareness of Nine Tails and interaction with that were the first step in the telepathic field. With only the fox to speak to him, to drown out the voices with her voice or stony silences of raving sound-eating hunger, Naruto finally found some relief.

He discovered the next problem was knowing what to focus on, and what not to focus on. He had to decide what was really worth listening to, and when to just tell everyone to shut up and holing up in his room to watch Debbie Does Tokyo again and a huge package of pocky and loose dirty clothes.

Because he hadn't solved that problem, he didn't feel it when Sakura was killed.

***

Sand village, like the others, had been on edge because of the rumors. They were officially neither believing nor disbelieving the story of the Stone village's destruction but chose to be on guard, despite the huge amount of distance between the two villages.

Kazekage-sama was under protection at all times, the borders constantly patrolled at night as well as day. Beyond that, there was little more they could do to protect themselves until the enemy chose to show itself.

***

Temari had looked up and felt her heart stop.

The sand was still beneath her bruised knees and bleeding hands, and the air around her was empty and clear, the stranger's hand still tight on her shoulder, reassuring her and keeping her still. The allusion to security only terrified her more.

The tunneling funneling cyclone of filthy sand reached high up, miles high and higher above her head, going swirling and twisting excruciatingly at speeds where a cup of water itself would drive right through the body and break every bone and tear through every organ and artery it was all going so fast and so high...

Motion at her side caught her eye, and she gasped when she saw the sand moving like water or a multitude of worms writhing towards the cyclone, feeding it to make it--even bigger than it was now.

Bigger than it was...bigger than it already was...

It had come suddenly, without pause or warning or sign. Rods of sand several feet thick had crashed through the outer wall, through the housing, through rock and underground and weaseling through locks and metal grating.

It was a giant sea creature, a giant octopus, with tentacles made of sand stabbing and sweeping, the element of sand had refused to obey any commands, any jutsu; no amount of chakra could make it move or leave or defend. It refused everyone, everything, powered by a force so strong that attacks didn't affect it.

It killed many, perhaps had even killed them all, enclosing the whole village in a globe again made of sand, sealing out the outside world and blotting out the sun, leaving the people in darkness only. It killed more, indiscriminately, recklessly, without pause.

The desert had come alive. The desert had a life of its own. And the desert was mad.

Dunes rose and surged like ocean waves, like currents in a storm, the entire terrestrial landscape coming alive and converging together with fanatic anger and only the small space she and the stranger stood--kneeled--on was a safe island excepted from the tsunami.

The stranger.

"This is you doing it! This is you!"

His eyes were still on the cyclone. He didn't appear to have heard her.

"Answer me! This is you, isn't it! Stop it, you've got to stop it!"

His eyes drifted to her, and she felt her body forcibly relax itself. He shook his head that no, it wasn't him, a strange, nearly amused, look on his face and playing on his eyes. She didn't believe him. She didn't dare touch him.

Then came the scream.

A dull vibration like a guitar string started down low on the bottom of her spine, then climbed atrociously fast up the scales to a triumphant terrified wail that made her veins combust and crawl and cower inside her muscles until she clutched and clawed at her ears and hair and opened her mouth and screamed and screamed and screamed until the film and mucus lining her throat caught fire from the friction of her voice.

It was coming from inside the cyclone. It was coming from inside the cyclone.

She would always remember that.

Naruto made her pass out before she hurt herself further, before he turned his eyes back to the cyclone and his attention to Gaara.

Unstable. That was how the old frog, Gamabunta, had described Gaara, and he would have felt very justified to see him right now.

The sand was cut in canyons, rising like sharks and snakes and curling and thrusting and bunching and attacking without purpose or guide so simply thrashed and thrashed and thrashed until it was out of energy. This was Gaara. This was what was going on inside Gaara's head.

The sand began to drift and slither under Naruto's feet, around him, and Temari was still shaking and sweating badly. He got down on one knee; pulled Kankuro's already limp and bruised body closer, and pulled Temari's shaking body closer too. Then he pressed two fingers into the sand, which stilled.

Gaara needed someone to hate, someone to be hated by. He'd already taken it for granted that hate was as close to love as he'd ever get; it was his motivation for existing, for getting stronger.

And now, just now, just barely now already fading into the past, already fading into intangible, fickle memory--was his crowning achievement. It was his goal, his big Point, what he strived for and dreamed of.

He was free.

He was free of them, all of them, down to the last selfish sniveling brat and smelly decrepit bastard he was finally free of their looks and voices and god-awful stench! And. And his father. And his father was dead. He had killed him. On his knees--he had killed his father on his knees, nearly begging him, his son, his lost forgotten double-damned son, with his eyes to stop. To stop the blood and stop the death. To stop himself.

His--his father's blood. His blood. His blood was all over his hands. It was all over his face.

He wanted to laugh. He could feel it surging inside him, surging up, battering on the walls looking for a way out while outside his eyelids the living beating sand was a mirror for how he felt and thrashed and thrashed and thrashed...

He didn't laugh. He wouldn't--laugh.

It was something the Tanuki would have done. It was something the Tanuki wanted to do. But he was still Gaara. He was still him. And he'd fight to the last...

He threw his head back and screamed.

Screamed for the joy he felt.

Screamed in victory, for his strength, his perfection.

Screamed for his freedom.

Screamed for himself.

Screamed for Gaara.

Screamed for the loneliness eating him in a gentle mist, dark and hellish.

Screamed for all the things he never said.

Screamed for all the words he longed to hear.

Screamed for the gentle touch he would die for.

Screamed for himself.

Screamed for Gaara.

His scream went high. And then it ended.

He was dully aware of an explosion, combustion, an absence of sound and motion as everything just went far away, anywhere but where he was, and the feeling of gravity pulling him back down from somewhere up high. He was aware of swaying on his feet, of his mind feeling shaken, a burned feel on his throat like fire, and he felt very drained, and very still.

Eyes were on him.

He turned to face Naruto, who was standing up from being crouched over people, and was looking back at him.

He felt tired, and vulnerable, and could sense an impending doom on the back of his neck. And yet this--guy, with a boyish face and raggedy blond hair was just looking at him, and he didn't seem afraid. Not afraid of him, not afraid around him. He just--looked so young.

And why...? How did he survive? He hadn't missed. So what...?

The man started stiffly, and began to slowly walk towards him, daring to take his eyes off him briefly to watch his step, arms held out a little for balance. There were three stripes on his face, like scratches, and Gaara knew he knew him. He couldn't remember his name, he could barely remember his own, but he knew him and didn't feel immediate danger.

The man was closer to him, only a few feet away, and he slowed and stopped, his eyes on his.

He was never certain how long they stood there, Gaara breathing hard and excess energy still swirling and darting wearily around him in tatters, Naruto looking at him. He didn't feel he was being judged. He wouldn't be able to bear that now, wouldn't have tolerated it at all for anything and nothing. He didn't see any emotion in his eyes, besides a cautious interest.

//Good. Should be afraid. I am...the demon. I can kill anything...//

He was never certain when or how he fell, stumbled, except his strength must've finally worn out and he had toppled forward to die of exhaustion but Naruto had caught him before he fell.

He had killed his father. He had killed his village. He had killed his past. He had no one to hate now. He needed someone to hate, someone to hate and be hated by more than he needed air to breathe or light to see. He had killed that. He had ended that. The abyss to hell and darkness opened it's jaws before him and--

Naruto had caught him before he fell.

***

Naruto leaned back from his spot on the bed, and was impatiently waiting for Sakura to stop scribbling.

After eternity had passed and Naruto's brain had gone into slushy-mode, she finally clicked her pen shut and folded and placed the letter into the envelope. She stood up and stretched, Naruto's brain clicked back to life, and took her hair out of the tie, shaking it around her shoulders to lie flat on her back.

Yay! Let the show begin!

Putting her other stuff away, she reached under her back to do something complicated to her dress, which she shrugged off, standing before Naruto's eyes in only her bra, panties, and bare skin. Naruto smiled widely, his eyes danced and wandered everywhere, and rested his chin in his folded hands. Life was good. Life was very good.

Sakura took off her bra.

His eyes devoured curves that looked firm and white--untouched and fresh, pert pale nipples dotting the center artistically. Sweet, very sweet...

Naruto blinked once, frowned, and leaned forward to take a closer look at her. Muscles were toned on her thighs and calves, stomach and butt toned and rock solid, and her biceps also showed signs of strength. Naruto leaned back, while Sakura bent over to dig for her nightgown, giving him an excellent view of her butt.

A look passed over Naruto's face, before he stood up and turned away curtly.

It was really all to be expected, but for some reason it still surprised him. It shouldn't have. It did.

Sakura...had grown up. Sakura was a woman--a real ninja--now, with breasts you could barely hold in one hand and muscles that could really punch. Sakura wasn't a little girl anymore, still grieving that her boobs were too small and that Sasuke-kun wouldn't look at her the right way or talk to her.

Sasuke had grown up too, but Sasuke had always been grown up, even back when he was only twelve. That was hardly a shocker. Sasuke had acted like he was thirty when he was twelve, and he acted even older, even colder, now.

It had taken a good full use of Naruto's concentration and power just to stimulate Sasuke's hormones enough to have sex, more than it should have. And then he had to pass the whole thing off as a wet dream, just a wet dream. That wasn't close to what he had originally in mind, that was barely enough to leave an impression in Sasuke's mind, nowhere near enough to break him. All it did was through him off a little, but it'd never break him.

Sasuke was a cool customer.

No--Sasuke was a cool bastard, period.

...but Sakura...

Naruto wasn't surprised Sakura had given up on her crush; Sasuke had a real talent for pushing people away, pushing any type of warmth away. It was a part of what he was, it was a fundamental Sasuke-trait. After a while, everyone gave up on trying to warm up people like that.

Still...Sakura was a surprise. He knew she would grow up; hell, everyone did, it wasn't a real surprise or anything. But somewhere in his mind, she was still locked up as the little twelve-year-old girl in the red Chinese style dress, popular and insecure and very beautiful. Somehow, perhaps...he'd been expecting her to show up--not the same age, but the same body, the same mind. And she hadn't. She couldn't.

Naruto flopped on his bed and pulled the pillow over his eyes.

Time had passed. Things had changed. They couldn't turn back now.

...

He had changed. He couldn't turn back now.

Naruto stayed up for the better part of the night splayed on his bed with the pillow over his head, still picturing adult Sakura nearly naked in her bedroom and wondering where the hell the little girl, his childhood love, had gone.

He'd been perversely thrilled to see her so mature when she'd walked through his door, head high and seductively tired and worn in a very Goth way, beautiful even soaked the mud and rain, and now that she was naked...Well, she was an adult naked woman. Which was what he wanted. What he had been hoping for and jerked off in the shower over, picturing her body and her sweet smooth curves and now that he had her, completely within reach...

He couldn't stand to look at her naked.

Gaara didn't come again that night.

***

It surprised Naruto that Nine Tails the damned fox demon from hell of legend and lore and nightmares was female. He'd always assumed it was male like he was, as everyone else had assumed. It was just hard to picture a female as a cold brutal killer. It didn't quite work.

Surprisingly, Naruto had left Konohagakure because of a mid-summer afternoon of eating ice cream on a bench with Sakura a little distance away, reading a book. Sasuke was nowhere in sight, probably out training somewhere.

Naruto was watching a family, perhaps two families, playing soccer on the park field from his spot on the bench, eating ice cream. And Naruto was thinking, hard. And contrary to popular belief, thinking hard is not a beneficial pastime. Eating ice cream, training to be Hokage, chasing after Sakura, trying to beat up Sasuke and thinking up new ways to call Kakashi-sensei perverted was a beneficial pastime. Thinking hard is not.

Because it led a person down unknown paths. And that does something to a person.

His dreams had been another problem, his dreams that had been puzzling him for the last few months. Naruto was past the age where most boys start having the really strong wet dreams, the ones that endure even the really cold shower and brisk run around the village and when even looking at a girl was sometimes enough to cause a massive nosebleed and fainting spell.

However Naruto had always been a bit slow in the developmental progress, had always been a bit shorter and weaker than others, and it was only through really intense training and devotion to progress and his hidden reserves of chakra that he was able to equal and rival the other boys of his age.

His wet dreams were different from what he had heard. Other boys talked or whispered rudely of supermodels or really cute girls with short flappy skirts and no tops suddenly appearing in their room on their bed or lounging coyly on a desk. After that, the details became more intimate and harder to learn, but all dreams definitely contained girls or women. Naruto's dreams usually didn't contain women.

Naruto's wet dreams usually contained trees.

He dreamed of trees tall and slim and pale beige, felt the moist green moss beneath him, and tasted the tang of tin in the air. Colors were sharper in his dream, smells were clearer. Objects in his dream seemed more real than the objects in the real world. He dreamed of running through the trees, much faster than what he could run then, running so fast it was nearly like flying and he didn't feel any jolting or rough bouncing motion at all. It was like he was flying, flying and dashing through the trees.

He always ran to a lake, a lake that was calm and flat, and reflected the light of the sun and the shadows of the trees like an organic mirror. He'd skim over to the lake's edge, look into it, and the weird thing was that he could inside the lake to the bottom of it as well as see the trees reflected it on it at the same time. It was strange, but he could never say why.

He looked at himself in the lake, but the problem was that he could never find his reflection. He could never find himself. Thinking the lake had somehow lost his reflection, or was hiding him from himself, Naruto would walk into the lake without getting wet, because he was looking for himself and the lake obviously had it.

Then he smelled blood.

He was swamped with blood, coming from every conceivable direction, touching every part of his body and stinging his eyes and getting into his mouth and up his nose and even flooding into his ears. The strange thing in his strange dream was that the blood didn't frighten him, or even make him sick or uncomfortable. He smiled at it. He reveled in it, felt warm and hard and powerful, and then wondered why he was doing it.

And then he found the man.

The man was old, older than he was, perhaps in his twenties or thirties, and a good deal taller than Naruto was, and he was standing in front of Naruto and looking down at him.

He knew that face, that hair and those eyes. He didn't know why such an intense and endless emotion of dark bleeding hatred was attached to it, on seeing this man why there was such hatred around him, but he did recognize that face, because he looked at it every morning in the mirror.

Then he would always wake up, gasping, breathless, as electrifying waves of static white pleasure ran up and down his nervous system, the sheets blindingly hot and soaked with sweat, and desperately needing the bathroom, more specifically the shower.

Now Naruto was sitting on a bench in the sun, warm, comfortable, and with every reason to be at peace with an ice cream cone melting in his hand. He was quietly doing an intense inventory of his life. He was thinking entirely too hard.

He could think of a million and one optimistic cliches to cheer himself up with, but in the solitude of his own mind, for once not on display and not abandoned, just quietly forgotten, all his cheerful bravado and lies fell very flat.

He couldn't lie to himself with an ice cream cone in his hand, not in the park in the sunshine. It didn't work. He couldn't even feel childishly sorry for himself, because life wasn't bad. He was in a warm bench eating ice cream and Sakura was nearby, and Sasuke was off somewhere doing ninja things not bothering him.

Life wasn't bad, life wasn't good, it was just--life. And for the first time ever, Naruto had to look it in the face. Melted sugar-soaked dairy product dribbled down his hand.

He got up and threw his ice cream cone in the trash, and walked off to work out.

Nine Tails stirred.

***

Naruto went home with the sensations from the park--the warmth of the sun, faded laughter, taste of ice cream--filed in his mind and captured in his pocket.

He dreamed again that night, not of the trees or lake or of running on the grass, but he was aware of speed, of motion. He was blinded and stunned by brilliant flame, intense heat roaring up from the naked pads of his feet. He could smell blood, drowning in it so much that he was choking on it through his nose, coating his throat was the blood of...somebody else.

Pain. Violence. Anger. Death.

Anger.

No.

Fire.

...

NO!!

He felt them all, saw them, tasted them all so strong he nearly forgot who and what he was, he was swamped with them, and physically struck with them. He was trying to throw up, but his body didn't want to cooperate, couldn't spare the energy to vomit because it was using it all in remembering who he was, trying frantically to remember what he was. He was human. He was human! He was burning up. There was so much blood.

He saw her.

She was beautiful.

Crimson eyes burned him.

It was very still.

Pacing, staring, waiting and watching wanting to act but sealed up, imprisoned in a place without bars or structure, in something he couldn't see or touch but knew instinctively was there. He recognized her, but she had already known it was him beyond a sliver of a doubt. She would recognize him anywhere.

He knew about her; since he was twelve he had known about her, but she had known about him longer, knew infinitely more about him than he could ever hope to know about her, never feel or see her completely save these few whispers and catches of what she was. Of what she had been.

He was intimidated. He was stunned. He was completely humbled. He was on his knees before her, terrified through and through, while she stood with nonchalant arrogant poise, centered and confident, just silently watching him.

And though he wouldn't recognize for some time, he was desperately irrevocably in love with her. With her power and bloodlust. Her disregard for everything. Her confidence in herself. With her place in the world. Her integration with her surroundings. Her freedom. Her captivity. She was so damn beautiful...words didn't even begin to describe.

She could kill him in an instant. She could kill anyone in an instant, even Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya-sennin and Hokage-sama. She could kill anybody. She was that powerful. She was that cruel.

It was too hot...It was too damn hot!

Naruto had been dragged out of bed roughly, and thrown out the window. Someone below had caught him, hiccupping and choking, and dragged him some distance away to lay him on the street and leave him there, next to others.

His apartment building was on fire. It was orange and red, blisteringly hot. The smoke billowed into the night sky. It seemed strongest at the bottom floor, and something exploded inside. Bucket chains had already been formed, a huge crowd was milling around. It was steadily being controlled.

It was caused when by a loose gas leak underground that had suddenly exploded and caught flame.

Naruto's body was still warm. His body was still so warm.

Cringing, he put a hand at his temples.

***

"I had a dream."

Gaara chose to be open at the oddest times.

"I dreamed that I was in a room made of wood with a--strange window, that had counter on the sill, and you were keeping a pet water lizard there, in an aquarium. You forgot to feed it, so I started giving it bologna, and it ate it. Then a cat came in, and it got jealous and was going to eat the lizard, so I gave it some bologna too. And then I killed the lizard and the cat, and I ate them both."

Naruto blinked, and was very carefully keeping a flat look on his face, which was a dead give-away in itself. After days of absolute abstinence, of quarantine, Gaara had returned again for a nap. This one had only lasted six hours, which was a little unusual. Gaara could sleep for days.

Naruto didn't say so out loud, but he had the feeling Gaara was extremely adverse to Sasuke and Sakura being there. Gaara didn't seem to notice too much, he was busy staring up.

Finally he glanced at Naruto's face, and said in his normal cold voice, "You can take your hands off now. Your sex toy is probably waiting for you."

***

Naruto had remained in the Konoha village for a little longer after the fire.

Against his better judgment, he hadn't told anyone about the fox, about Nine Tails, or his dreams. He sometimes got some killer migraines, but they never lasted too long to bring up suspicion, even from Naruto. He had wanted to tell Iruka...But it felt like a betrayal, somehow somewhere. Iruka's parents had been killed by the fox demon; he resented it with a passion. He couldn't tell him, and he wouldn't tell anyone else.

Kakashi had noticed a slight distraction in his behavior, and accurately put it down to growing problems. He missed the significance of it.

There was one last night of dreaming before Naruto rapidly put in his departure papers to village administration the morning after. He didn't wait for approval, but left the village at noon without a word.

He wandered without real purpose or destination, because where he going wasn't really all that important. What was important was that he put as much distance between where he was and where he was coming from as possible, and as quickly as his feet and mouth could carry him.

It was possible that hunter-nins would chase him, and they would kill him if they caught him. In truth Naruto was more afraid about Iruka-sensei or Kakashi-sensei than he was of the hunter-nins. They would only try to kill him. His teachers would want to talk to him.

He learned to stay away from cities where people talked too loud and smelled too strongly, badly, and looked at him the wrong way. He avoided the forests like a plague, wouldn't step foot in them on pain of death. He wound up in a little fishing town in the north, close to the ocean and far away from people and trees a few weeks later.

He barely slept anymore, didn't dare fall asleep unless he was completely drugged and drunk out of his mind. He drank like there was no tomorrow, desperately hoping there wouldn't be, and tried drugs he had never heard of in ways he hadn't thought possible. He didn't do much of anything now except scrabble for money for alcohol, or stole it.

She came to him again.

She was still beautiful, still detached from the filth of his world and mind, from all the petty problems he dirtied himself with. He wasn't madly in love with her anymore. He was terrified of her.

It was in her strength, her age, her stance...she belonged here. She belonged in this world, it belonged to her, he could feel it in his blood, and he was standing in her way, standing in her place. She could kill him in an instant. It might kill her too, but it might set her free. She was willing to dare it, Naruto knew.

He didn't have a leg to stand on.

She smelled of blood. It wasn't on her; her fur was a pale lush blond, silky and alive, but she still smelled of blood. It was in the way she looked at him, the way she shifted, the way the ground reeked of blood where her feet touched the ground. The worst part was that he liked it.

This time she spoke to him.

Dressed in rags and in somebody else's clothing, unwashed and smelly in an alley of a town he didn't know and didn't know anyone in, clutching the neck of the bottle like a lifeline; Naruto closed his eyes and cried hard.

***

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