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Naruto has a demon in his belly. He thought he’d taken the realization pretty well. But some, ah, weird things have been going on since he fought Mizuki bastard.
Naruto gorged himself on his twenty-fourth packet of ramen.
I want to eat, Kurama’s voice boomed and acid filled his bones. It had made Naruto almost shit himself, the first few times but it had gotten old pretty fast.
“I’m eating” he hissed at his stomach. “And I’m pretty sure prison guards don’t take requests.”
Prison guard. You view yourself as an honorable jailor, reluctantly doing his duty. Poor Naruto Uzumaki his own meat-sack; sire, sealed a demon inside his meat-sack; son. Show some respect you are blessed, I am kami. I could evaporate everything you know and love in the blink of an eye, in my true form. You are idiotic even for a human. You would have died a dozen times over if you were not a leaky vessel.
Naruto hugs his stomach. The hollow feeling hasn’t gone away yet.
Tears clump in his lashes.
“My father loved me,” Naruto whispered.
It’s true. In a fit of rage, Kurama had shown him his parent's death in a loop over, and over, and over. Naruto had been surprised when he woke up the next morning, realizing only one night had passed. It seemed so much longer.
Kurama howls in frustration and Naruto grabs his head pulling at his hair. It feels like there should be blood leaking from his ears, eyes, and nose but he is in tippy-top shape as always.
You are jinchuriki. You need chakra. There is no chakra to be found in ramen. Flesh-bags, as pathetic as you are, store a decent amount of chakra–enough for a snack. Growing jinchuriki need meat. That is how it is and how it will always be. I am hungry Uzumaki, do not think you won’t grow hungry soon, too.
Naruto stumbles out the door.
“Don’t be an asshole. If anybody finds out they move you to a less leaky vessel.” And I die. Naruto can’t become Hokage if he’s dead.
Naruto walks towards the nearest convenience store ignoring dirty looks. Would they be so nasty if they knew he was talking to the nine-tails inside his head?
Naruto dumps a shelf of ramen into his cart, emptying out, Gama-chan to pay for all of it. Gama-chan is worryingly thin. Not even change in her. Naruto hugs his stomach. He feels bad for starving her.
Naruto makes a couple of shadow clones to help him carry back all the Ramen to his apartment.
Naruto spots a beautiful woman, getting out of a palanquin, dressed in a fancy kimono like a princess would wear. On her neck is a red-fox pelt used as a scarf.
Naruto feels queasy.
Kurama hisses breaking their silent agreement not to talk in public.
They wear the fur of my kin. My symbol. Kurama's voice changes from a flaming inferno to cold wind. I made the first foxes–nine–in my image. My children. All of them are my grandchildren. They should be playing in the forest living happy lives, enjoying offerings left out for them in my name. Is Kurama sad? He sounds sad.
Kurama is silent for the rest of the walk.
Kurama talks a lot, not exactly to him but he definitely expects Naruto to listen, even though he hates him. Is it because he’s lonely? Naruto knows what it’s like to be lonely and stuck with someone (or giant chakra beast) that hates you. Maybe that’s why he starts talking.
“I’m sorry about your kids-grandkids. I didn’t like it either.” Naruto brushes his hand against his whiskers and runs his tongue across his canines. “I’m kind of a fox too. Even wear orange.” Naruto laughs weakly. “Orange is the best color ever.” He pumps his fist in the air.
Naruto can feel Kurama take an interest.
Yes…No other Jinchirruki had traces of my image.
“N-None of them had whiskers?”
No. Baby Naruto Uzumaki, too weak to withstand biju chakra, dying from the exposure. Until Namikaze, he hisses the name with extra vitriol making Naruto nauseous. Seals the baby with the biju. My essence knit you back together, filled in your gaps, and left traces. No other jinchuriki was me. Not like you are.
Goosebumps prickle down Naruto’s spine. ‘My image.’ Naruto starts to shiver.
I’ve been blinded by rage. I had not thought–. A child of sorts, part mine, first in millennia. Kurama’s voice is smooth waves lapping at the shoreline. Naruto can breathe for the first time in a week. Naruto can be Kurama’s child if it makes every day less hellish.
Kurama heats up again in annoyance. Barely my child. Any fox is, more so than you.
Kurama forces himself into something more neutral, a flat cliff. We should feast on that meat-sack who has killed kin. Surely you have no qualms with that. You can skin it. Shape its hide into that hat you are so fixated on. I will show them. How will they feel when you are adorned with their desecrated corpses. Kurama twists in a tornado as he laughs cruelly. A flesh-sack for my flesh-sack.
Naruto turns over and dry heaves stomach bile onto the floor.
The hunger gets worse overnight and by the time it’s time for the academy it hurts.
Naruto ignored the gnawing in his stomach as he waits with his teammates for his sensei.
Kurama is not happy about who his teammates are.
An Uchiha on your team. I will not allow it. You will not be on a team with those cursed eyes. Kurama’s being seemed to be vibrating. He was scared.
Naruto had dreams with flashes of a spiky-haired man with bloody spinning eyes. He’s beginning to think Kurama didn’t have all that much control over what spilled over. He just had nightmares that Naruto had to suffer through too.
Kurama was even more upset when he saw his sensei.
Another Sharingan. You can not be on this team child. Kurama paused thoughtful. One is a cripple and the other is a child. You do not want to kill, right. You can eat their eyes, so much chakra stored there. Don’t you want the pain to stop?
Naruto’s stomach growled earning a look from all three of his teammates.
“I'm Naruto Uzumaki.” Also have a biju in my head, practically part of the team.
“I like instant ramen in a cup, and I really like the ramen Iruka Sensei got me at the Ichiraku Noodle Shop–” Naruto imagines noodles with eyeballs instead of eggs.
He hates–hates being hungry. “–but I hate the three minutes you have to wait after you pour the water in the ramen cup.”
“My hobby is eating different kinds of ramen and comparing them–” He’s eaten several types in the last day and it was all tasteless.
“–and my future dream is to be the greatest Hokage! Then the whole village will stop disrespecting me and start treating me like I'm somebody. Somebody important!” He will be Hokage Naruto thinks feverishly. He will. Believe it.
Naruto walks around the village knowing there’s no ramen to go back home to.
At least he won’t throw up during whatever survival exercise Kakashi-sensei has planned.
Naruto sees a glimmer out of the corner of his eye. It’s a coin.
He picks it up. Not enough to buy anything but still money. When Naruto was younger and he found a coin on the street, he used to leave it as an offering at a shrine, and pray to whatever kami was listening, for parents. He could pray on becoming Hokage. Future Hokage’s can’t die from hunger or eat people.
There’s a specific shrine he likes.
Why do you need to leave offerings for other kami, Kurama grumbles. I am kami. Pray to me.
Naruto barges loudly into a clearing with a whoop. “Aww, Kurama you want to grant my wishes.”
He sees an old man dressed in white priest's robes kneeling before the shrine. The man is glaring at him.
He stalks over angrily eyes red-rimmed and smelling of alcohol. “You demon child. How dare you come here. This was my daughter's favorite shrine before she died in the Kyuubi attack.”
The man pushes him and Naruto pushes back. He’s hungry and tired and done. The old man falls backward hitting his head against a tree with a sickening crack. He slumps to the ground unconscious.
There is the scent of blood in the air, and Naruto’s stomach twists in, tighter on itself. His mouth waters and he falls to his knees, in front of the priest. The coin falls to the grass.
Flesh-bags don’t deserve chakra. They take the essence of purity and entrap it within themselves, tainting it. We were made to liberate chakra, purify it of humans. This is the closest this priest will ever come to Kami.
Let go child.
Naruto leans over teeth hovering above soft exposed neck.
Eat.
Naruto sinks his teeth in, copper filling his mouth. He rips a chunk out.
This is what they were made for. It is a kindness.
Naruto swallows.