Sage

Ch.34

"Compensation?" The Kyuubi's grin widened as it somehow manage to move his face even closer to the bars of his cell, one of his clawed paws pressing against the metal.

"Simple, release me from the seal and allow me to tear your body apart quickly and all will be forgiven." Naruto blinked once before staring at the fox blankly for a few seconds. The strange thing was that he understood that the Fox killing him swiftly as opposed to with excruciating prejudice was actually a concession on the Kyuubi's part.

"You're a terrible negotiator for creature supposed to be sly and cunning." The fox growled but Naruto new by now it was half-hearted; it was odd to thing of the mighty Bijuu as joking. "Anyway, I have no idea how I would release you at all; I assume it's not quite as simple as just forcing all of your Chakra out of my body?" He knew that wouldn't work, such a thing would tear apart his Chakra network and probably paralyse him for live, if it didn't just outright kill him.

"Actually, you could release any of us in the same manner as Father did originally." Everybody's attention turned to Matatabi who had just awoken; stretching out like any feline did after waking from a nap, small or large; or in this case very large. Naruto just responded with a very eloquent nod that showed he had no idea what she was talking about. After the great flaming cat had settled, still luckily awake for now, she sighed.

"Father used the Banbutsu Souzou to create us bodies and then allowed our Chakra to seep into them slowly over a time." Naruto blinked, he hadn't thought of that; mostly because he had never considered using the Sage's most powerful technique to create a living, breathing body. He heard a grunt from the Kyuubi's cage and turned to see the fox had adopted a similar position to his 'sister'.

"A Ningen like him could never master that technique to that degree; he cannot even perform it correctly." Naruto quashed his annoyance at being spoken about like he wasn't there in favour of curiosity.

"What do you mean not doing it correctly?" The fox just snorted and closed his eyes dismissively making the blonde sigh; he should know better than to think the Kyuubi would ever willingly help him.

"He means you are only using half of the technique's full potential." The Nibi was met by a loud growl from the Fox that merely went ignored by the flaming feline. "Telling would be cheating but to understand you have to know more about how Chakra works and what it is composed of." With that the great cat Bijuu closed her eyes, yawning loudly as if she hadn't already been asleep for a few days. Naruto on the other hand merely sighed; it all came back to Chakra, the very reason he left the temple in the first place.

He looked at the Sanbi again; it was still unconscious so he would have to come back later for answers but the whole affair with the Sharingan eye had left him rather startled. It brought up a lot of very painful memories he thought he had gotten over, but apparently he couldn't bring himself to truly get over Ayame and Teuchi. He sighed as he looked around again, noticing that Shukaku was oddly quiet and was still wringing his hands in that strange way. He had never seen the giant Tanuki so reserved before; it was like the Kyuubi acting submissive, just unsettling.

"Father?" Naruto walked over to the cage, noting that the Kyuubi's eye had cracked open slightly to observe but he ignored it.

"Yes Shukaku?" The Sand construct ducked down to his normal position with his head close to the bars of the cell so he could look Naruto closer to the eye.

"Shukaku felt Father was angry, and sad. Shukaku sent his sand to help because Shukaku doesn't like when father is sad. Did Shukaku help?" Naruto blinked in shock at this odd new side to the Ichibi, it was like he was worried for Naruto. He had thought the Tanuki was merely insane, overlapping his feelings for the Sage onto him due to his eyes and, if what he kept saying was anything to go by, his appearance. He remembered clearly the point in his fight when Yagura had been about to impale him with all three of his tails before the sand rose up to stop it without any prompting.