Black Aria

II

“Wake up kit,” a rumbly bass voice crooned in his ear. “Iruka’s playing messenger for Tsunade-baa-san today.”

Naruto stretched and rolled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He hadn’t dreamed last night, which was a good sign, he figured. His dreams had a way of making him paranoid now – especially when they gave him the feeling that he should be remembering something. Rough lips grazed his cheek, accompanied by stubble and hot breath.

He pushed the evil bastard away and groaned. “No, Kyuubi.”

There was horrible laughter beside him and the blonde looked up at the man beside. It had taken Naruto a few days to realized that the orange-haired, dreadlocked, tanned, muscular and tall GOD before him was real, not a hallucination as he’d earlier believed. Ever since that day two years ago – whatever had happened - Kyuubi had been able to manifest himself in a human body. A physical, space-taking body. Anyone who saw him (besides dropping dead from the sheer orgasm overload) wouldn’t have a clue who Kyuubi was.

They just hadn’t decided on an alias.

So Kyuubi could only manifest in Naruto’s apartment.

Which worked out well. For Kyuubi, at least.

“You used a henge, didn’t you?” Naruto asked, stretching before he rolled out of bed. Kyuubi shot him a glare.

“Do you think me an idiot?”

Since silence was the safest answer, Naruto kept his mouth shut and headed for the shower. Kyuubi sputtered, but he didn’t follow this time.

Naruto leaned his forehead against the cool shower tiles and watched water swirl around his feet. There were blank spaces in his memory, as far back as he could remember, as if someone had gone into his brain and erased certain memories, taken them away to pretend as though they’d never happened. The biggest blank was the day two years ago, when Kyuubi and Naruto had perfected a summoning jutsu that blended their chakras together, creating a very convincing illusion – and what allowed Kyuubi to manifest in a human body.

Naruto remembered Haku – but couldn’t remember why he and Haku had been fighting. There had been someone else there, someone important, but…

He couldn’t remember.

“Pruning yet?” Kyuubi’s voice broke through the eighteen-year-old’s thoughts, and the boy turned his head slightly to see the hazy image of the demon fox looking at him through the stall door.

Kyuubi was another mystery to Naruto. Despite exuding pure sex, Kyuubi hadn’t touched him in a sexual way. Of course, the man’s cock practically jumped to attention when Naruto did anything that showed off his ass, and the fact that Kyuubi would rather use his hand than deflower his vessel certainly said something. The only problem was that the young chuunin couldn’t figure out what it meant.

“Did Iruka-nii say what the harpy wanted?” Naruto asked upon emerging from the shower.

“Only that the Hokage demanded your presence.”

Great. So he was either in trouble or having a psych evaluation. Naruto dressed quickly, pausing only to run a hand over the curse seal on his stomach, and waited for Kyuubi to get comfortable in his head once again before heading out to the Hokage’s tower. People grinned and waved at him – civilians, other ninja – and Naruto could only grin and wave back even though he had no idea what he was waving for. When he made it to the tower, Naruto felt like crawling into a bolt hole and just staying there. Shizune, however, had other ideas.

She latched onto him like a lamprey and dragged him to Tsunade’s office. She said nothing, only grinned and shoved him in.

*There are reasons why we fear them.* Kyuubi said. *When they grin like that, it means they know something we don’t.*

Which is generally all the time. Naruto thought sourly. He approached the desk slowly, having already calculated all possible escapes routes and how to avoid being snagged by the waiting ANBU.

“You’re not in trouble, Naruto. Relax.” Tsunade said in a voice that could douse a fire.

“If I’m not in trouble and obviously, you don’t have any missions for me, why am I here?”

“For one thing, I’ve missed your constant chatter in my ear and you hiding in your apartment isn’t doing your healing a whole lot of good.”

“I’m fine.”

“Physically, yes. Mentally.” Tsunade trailed off for a moment. “You have memory loss, don’t you?”

“I told Sakura that,” Naruto replied defensively. Tsunade sighed and sat back in her chair, rubbing her temples.

“How substantial is your memory loss?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just answer the damn question!” Tsunade snapped.

Naruto glared at his leader for a moment before shrugging. “I remember being ordered to stay back and protect the genin and then waking up in the hospital.”

Tsunade seemed almost relieved. “Anything else?”

Naruto paused. “No,” he said finally. “That’s it.”

The Hokage stared at him for a while before nodding. “I’m aware Kakashi’s been training you.”

“How’d you – no, he’s not.”

“Naruto, please. I’m the Hokage. I know everything.”

Naruto’s joking smile made Tsunade feel better. If he was smiling, happy, then any subsequent memory loss was only a good thing.

“Since you’re being trained for ANBU, I thought it would be appropriate for you to be promoted to jounin rank.”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Tsunade did her best to hider her smile. The boy already had the paranoia down pat.

“No test?” Naruto asked slowly. Tsunade shook her head.

“It was a consensus, really. You’re ready for it, after all.”

“I sense a but.”

“Of course, you’ll have training. A crash course, really. I advise you to pack a bag of the essentials and find Iruka.”

Naruto blinked. “Why?”

Tsunade smiled wryly. “Because that’s where you’ll find Kakashi.”

Oh. Wonderful.

Naruto sighed and turned to leave, already imagining the pain of getting the signature ANBU mark when Tsunade stopped him.

“Naruto, you know you can always talk to me. All of your friends, we’re here for you. We want to protect you too.”

Naruto smiled gently at the Hokage and left without replying. He didn’t need to; Tsunade understood. She sighed and looked at the manila folder on her desk, decorated with paint fingerprints and Iruka’s handwriting.

Having genin had helped Kakashi open up to people. Maybe giving Naruto some would help him, too.

She just didn’t know how.

“Shizune,” Tsunade called after a moment. “Could you find Shikamaru for me? I need him to run a few errands for me.”