• Out in the northern part of the forest, a young man was grinning as he and his team streaked through the trees towards their ally in Earth Country, their goal sleeping peacefully in his arms.

    “Sleeping peacefully” after they'd drugged the little brat, that is. He may have only been about four months old, but he already had a good sense of who could be trusted and who could not. The second he'd awakened and noticed that he was being held by strange men, he'd started screaming with impressive lungs.

    The man, named Kumote, growled lowly as he rubbed an aching, pulpy shoulder. The kid's screaming had alerted the Genin babysitter, and though not very strong, the young man had proven to be a ferocious protector when it came to the little brat.

    "Oi, Kumote-san, don't fall behind!" the leader called, turning to look back at the much younger ninja. Growling, the teen sped up, closing ranks with the other three older Jounin, wishing that they were already out of the forest.

    'If I never see another tree again once we get home, it'll be too soon!' the young man growled. In his arms, the baby shifted restlessly, and he groaned as he tried to tap down his anger and annoyance. During the hour-long trek, he'd learned that the babe was sensitive to any type of killing-intent. Kumote’s efforts were wasted though, as young Naruto seemed to be determined to return to the land of the living. Within the span of a few minutes, the blue eyed child was awake and peering around curiously.

    'Oh gods, please don't start screaming again,' Kumote thought desperately as he stared at the kid. 'I don't think my ears could take another round!' At first, the little brat seemed calm, and Kumote relaxed a little.

    "Kumote-san!! Quit slacking off back there!!" the leader snapped again, annoyed that the teen was slowing them down.

    That was all it took. Despite the young Chuunin's attempts to keep the baby calm, the anger in the leader's voice was more than enough to set him off again. Scrunching up his little face, Naruto began to howl.

    At once, the quartet halted, holding their ears as Kumote struggled to calm the brat. "Nice going Nari-san!" he growled, rocking Naruto awkwardly.

    Nari spat to the side of the path as the medic of the group, a girl named Raiko, reached to pull out another mild dose of tranquilizer. "How was I supposed to know that the little brat was awake?!" he snarled, hand itching to slap the brat back into unconsciousness.

    “Calm down, senpai,” Raiko soothed, wincing at the noise as she approached the baby, “I’ll have him under control in a second.”

    It was their final member, Bofuu, who noticed first. "Boss, intruder!" he snapped, pulling out a short-sword. With a snap, the other three whirled around, weapons out as they started at the newcomer.

    He was dressed like a nobleman, wearing an embroidered red kimono that set off the bloody color of his hair. Unseen by the ninja, the intruder’s long hair covered delicately pointed ears. One hand was pressed against an ear in pain. On his cheeks were three slash marks, as if whiskers had been tattooed into his skin. Gold eyes stared at them as he cocked his head and an arched eyebrow at them. "And what was all that howling for?" he asked lowly, a rumble in his chest.

    It was only then that Kumote realized the brat had stopped screaming the second that the man had shown up. The squad leader noticed as well, and his mind immediately concocted a theory as to why.

    "He must be an ally of Konoha!" he snapped to the rest of his squad as he held up his kodachi in an offensive position. "Kill him, he'll tell them where we're going!" he ordered as he charged the man, bellowing. Taking their cue, the rest of the squad followed, Kumote circling around to hide Naruto in a tree before joining the fray.

    The strange man watched the Kumo-nin with cool eyes, crouching slightly and waiting for them to close in. Then, in a blur of movement, he attacked, slashing with elongated claws and sneering fangs.

    It only took a second for Nari to die.

    Blood sprayed from an opened artery as he stumbled back, dead before he hit the ground.

    The girl Raiko was next. She had managed to perform the signs for a jutsu, aiming at the strange man. Blue lightning arched as it streaked towards her target, destroying trees and foliage in its path. Calmly, the man held up a hand, letting the jutsu crash into it. The energy crackled and flared angrily, but the man didn't even move as it allowed it to run its course. As it dissipated, smoke wisped up from his palm, but there wasn't so much as a scratch on his hand.

    "Impossible!" the woman gasped as he charged her. A kick to the stomach sent her flying into the air. As she fell back down, he slashed in her direction, sending what appeared to be a blade of chakra up after her. With a sickening squelch, it went right through her midsection, making it rain blood momentarily as her body separated into gruesome halves.

    "b*****d!" Bofuu screamed as he swiped at the man. The stranger dodged effortlessly, dancing back as Bofuu attacked, blinded by his rage. Seeing a chance, Kumote dropped from the tree he was perched in, trying to drive his kunai into the man's neck. Hearing him, the man twirled around, letting Bofuu slice into Kumote's stomach. With a gasp, the younger ninja fell to the ground, unconscious from the pain. Ignoring his fallen partner, the final ninja bellowed as he swiped at the man.

    The stranger’d had enough. With a growl, he drove his hand into the ninja's heart, tearing out muscle and veins. With a thud, the dead body fell to the forest floor, signaling the end of the fight.

    *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    Growling lowly to himself, Kyuubi wiped his hands off on the grass, trying to get rid of the foul stench of human blood. Contrary to legends, he would have let them pass without a fight, if they'd only remembered to be polite, but they'd panicked and that was their doom.

    A low crying reached his ears, reminding him of the reason why he'd been awakened. Sniffing, he picked up the scent of milk and innocent, young human flesh. Curious, he dug his claws into the tree the crying was coming from, and climbed up. Nestled in a crook of the branches was a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. Blinking, the kitsune carefully picked up the babe, pulling the blanket away in order to get a better look.

    Sparkling blue eyes peered up into his golden amber ones. The child was calm again as Kyuubi shifted to sit on the branch more comfortably, a hank of red hair falling over his shoulders. As he shifted, the blanket fell from his grasp, fluttering to the blood-soaked ground.

    Human met fox for the first time.

    Suddenly, the baby laughed, flailing his little arms and reaching up to pull on Kyuubi's crimson hair. Growling in response, the demon immediately held the babe away, trying to get him to let go, but the baby squealed and only tugged harder.

    “Gah! That’s mine, you little monster!” Kyuubi winced, carefully tugging his hair back.
    Eventually, due to the lingering drugs in his system or the stress of the day, Naruto tired of pulling the blood-colored strands and yawned as he started to fall asleep again. Grumbling, the legendary Kyuubi no Youko cradled the boy in one arm, massaging his sore scalp. Naruto burbled happily.

    "Troublesome human," the fox rumbled. "No sense of self-preservation." With a sigh, the babe shifted closer to his holder, a tiny smile on his face. Sighing as well, the demon peered at a small embroidered patch on the child's pajamas. It was a red swirl with three characters stitched onto it.

    "Naruto, hm?" he murmured to himself. "Well, I guess you and I will be together for a while," he said, grinning slightly as he jumped out of the tree. "At least until I can get you back to your home," he said, walking languidly deep into the darkened woods.

    *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    Hours later, the ANBU from Konoha finally came through the area. At once, the squad, including ANBU Wolf, scattered to look for survivors. It was quite obvious that the Kumo-nin were dead though.

    Practically numb, Minato floated through the carnage, distantly taking in the damage. The face of a young kunoichi was frozen in an expression of pain and absolute horror. A few feet away was the lower half of the poor girl, her intestines cleanly sliced from her upper torso.
    Several steps away, another man lay crumpled face-first in the dirt, a gapping hole where his heart should have been.

    At the base of a tree, a small scrap of yellow caught Minato's eye, partially jogging him out of the haze that befuddled his mind. Knowing and dreading what he was going to find, he forced himself towards the tree. Picking up the yellow scrap, he traced numb fingers over the familiar swirl of his wife's clan. 'Naruto...'

    A low, bubbling laugh fully snapped him from his mind-numbing depression. Pocketing the bloody scrap, he turned towards the sound, finding a much younger ninja with a pulpy shoulder wound and a gashing slash across his stomach. Not immediately fatal, but very painful and guaranteed to putrefy from the bacteria and acid from his own gut. Minato, however, recognized the shoulder wound as something Iruka said he'd managed to inflict on Naruto's kidnapper.

    At once, Minato pulled a kunai from his hip pouch, pulling the young Chuunin up by his collar, drawing a pained groan from cracked lips. "Tell me what happened to my son and I will kill you swiftly," he promised.

    The boy, barely a man, grinned through the pain, dull brown eyes looking up into Minato's blue. "What more can you do to me? I'm dying already," he said, blood starting to coat his teeth.

    Immediately, Minato twirled his kunai and thrust the tri-pronged tip up and into the younger man's ribs, biting fragile lungs with the sharp kiss of dark metal. As soon as the other man quieted, the Forth grinned.

    "I can drag this out for as long as I need to." He nodded at the frog-ANBU who had joined him the instant the Kumo-nin had screamed, the rest of the squad standing not far behind. "Gama-san here can and will bring you back from the edge again, and again, and again, even as you beg for mercy," he declared with frightening cheer. "So why don't you just make it easier on all of us, and tell—me— where—my—son—is!"

    Coughing, the younger man spat a mouthful of blood in Minato's face. "Hell if I know," he groaned, then screamed as Minato switched the kunai from one side to the other. "Seriously, I don't know!! He was up there!" he yelled, nodding towards the tree they were under. At once, the wolf ANBU jumped up into the tree, only to signal back that nothing was in the foliage.
    The Kumo-nin continued, "We… we ran into this demon, he attacked us! When I woke up, both were gone!"

    "There are no demons in our forest!" Nezumi-taichou snapped. "We would know if there were demons near our home!"

    "There is no doubt, in my mind, that it was a demon that--- attacked us," the man gasped, having trouble breathing as his lungs started to flood with blood. "As far as I know, the brat's been eaten," he sneered before slumping back. He laughed again, spitting up more blood.

    Eyes hard, Minato tossed the man away, letting the ANBU with the bear mask catch him. Wolf-mask silently reached towards his Hokage, but stalled. Nezumi shook her head as she straightened and turned to the frog-masked medic.

    “Heal him as best you can,” she ordered, motioning to the hysterical Kumo-nin. “He needs to survive interrogation. Hokage-sama…”

    The darkness of sorrow was starting to seep in again as Minato took in the carnage around him. Swallowing bile, he leaned against the tree, anguished eyes falling on a single strand of long hair, glinting in the branches like crimson-spun spider silk.