An Interwoven Web Of Deceit

Well, here you are. I finally got moving and updated. Here is chapter five. Please read and enjoy. Thank you so much for every one of your reviews. They always make me squeal in delight. (Hehe.) Anyway. Go….

An Interwoven web Of Deceit

The Kyuubi

The only things that Ino could sense after hitting Naruto with her jutsu, were the sensation of falling and the sensation of pitch black.

It was like she had fallen down a very deep and very dark hole and could not even slightly see anything in the darkness. She didn’t have the faintest idea on to what had happened to her. This had never happened before. Usually, she just closed her eyes after using the jittsu and when she opened them, she was in the others body.

Ino’s eyes opened to see a dreary green light. She found herself lying on her side in a puddle of water in the middle of a strange corridor. She blinked a couple of times, then raised her head and stared up at a broken grate and some strange pipes, from which the water she was laying in was dripping from.

“Yuck,” she shook her hands and then stood up, shaking drops of water out of her hair. It was only then that she noticed her surroundings.

She was in long corridor, which stretched out into darkness in both directions. For some reason, the area that she was standing in was light enough to see by, so she could see grey walls which spanned the edges of the corridor with strange turnings, each leading into darkness. It was incredibly quiet, apart from a faint tapping which sounded slightly like fingernails drumming randomly on a wood floor and it was coming from somewhere up the corridor in the darkness.

Ino was beginning to feel slightly creeped out. She didn’t have a clue where she was, there was an ominous sound coming from up the corridor and she was all alone.

Suddenly, the strange tapping stopped and Ino heard a distinct whine come from up the corridor. It sounded like an animal of some sort.

“Hello,” she called out, beginning to walk down the corridor towards the noise, one hand supporting herself against the wall as she walked and she took the first turning left.

The whine was heard again. It sounded like a small dog, Ino decided, curious. She continued walking towards a strange glowing doorway in front of her, which looked very much like a doorway of light.

When she reached it, all of the green tinted darkness melted away and her surroundings became drowned in white light. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared around her, it faded and Ino now found herself in a tall chamber and her hand was no longer touching a wall, but bars. Ice cold and huge metal bars, elaborately designed and with a strange paper seal on the centre of them. Muttering in pain from the cold, she jolted her hand away from the bars and stepped back, suddenly realising that there was no wall behind her any more.

Another whine was heard, this time from behind the bars and the strange tapping noise was heard again. Before Ino could call out again, she spotted a small bundle of orange fur walk slowly towards her from the other side of the bars. She immediately realised that it was a fox, not quite fully grown, but not a cub either.

“Hi there,” Ino’s fear vanished quite suddenly. She had been scared of this? “How did you get in there? Who put you in there?”

She crouched down in front of the bars and stared at the fox. The fox stared right back with a sorrowful expression which made Ino, for some reason, feel slightly guilty. The fox whined again and scratched at the bars.

“You want to get out?” Ino glanced up at the paper seal in the middle of the bars and scowled. “Well, I cant reached that scroll like this, but hand on. Let me see if I can find a box or something.”

Looking around the chamber, she saw another entrance to a room a little further down. She headed over to it and discovered a small room with a crate and a large chest. The chest itself was a deep red, with strange markings down the side and another seal scroll over the lock. She also noted that it had a crack in the lid.

“I wonder what’s in that,” she mumbled to herself, reaching out and touching the side of the lid, but before she could touch the seal scroll, a whine from the fox was heard again.

“Alright, I’m coming.” Ino walked over to the crate and started to push it out of the room. It was a wooden crate, but it was pretty light so Ino concluded that it must be empty. She pushed it down the hall until it was directly in front of the cage.

The fox yipped at her, making her smile. Even though she had no idea where she was, she couldn’t leave a poor fox locked up like that. Who knew when the last time was that it had eaten?

“Bear with me. I’ll have you out of here in a few moments.” Ino stood on top of the crate and stretched upwards, her fingertips nearly brushing the paper scroll. “Nearly got it.”

“INO, NO!”

The cry made her wobble slightly, her balance gone. Then she was knocked off her feet by the orange and gold blur of Naruto and landed on the floor under him.

“Naruto, what?”

“Did you touch it?”

“What?”

“DID YOU TOUCH IT? THE PAPER SCROLL?” Naruto had got off of her and was now shaking her shoulders, “WELL?”

“I, no. I couldn’t reach it.”

Naruto sighed and let her go, slumping to the floor next to her.

“Naruto, what’s the problem? It’s just a fox.” Ino was completely confused. Why was Naruto freaked out over a small fox?

“Ino,” Naruto looked up at her tiredly. “Take another look at that, ‘just a fox’ would you.”

“Okay, but…” Ino trailed off when she looked up at the cage again. A bright red glow was coming from inside the cage and red mist was seeping through the bars. Staring harder, she noticed that the small fox had gone, and in its place was two blood red eyes and huge teeth. Ino did the only thing she could do in the circumstances.”

“KKYYAAAAAAA!”

She dove at Naruto, wrapping her arms around his waist and hid her face in his jacket

“What? What is that thing?” She felt horribly shaken, but Naruto’s warmth comforted her slightly. Also, his familiar scent surrounded her.

“That thing,” Naruto’s voice suddenly went cold, “Is the Kyuubi.”

“The Kyuubi?” Ino pulled away from Naruto slightly and stared up at him. “What do you mean?”

Naruto sighed. “Do you remember the story about when the Kyuubi attacked the village and how the Yondaime stopped it by giving up his life?”

“Of course I do,” Ino replied. “It’s a famous story and we celebrate the day of its defeat every year don’t we.”

“It wasn’t defeated, it was sealed.”

“Sealed?” Ino was curious. “Really? In who, and why?” Ino noticed that Naruto was withdrawing from her, edging away from her seated form.

“It was too powerful to defeat. Too many had died, so the Yondaime sacrificed his life to seal it away into an infant who had been born that very day. “

“Who?” Ino whispered, although from the way Naruto was acting, she already knew the answer to her question. Naruto looked up at her, sadness in his eyes.

“Me.”

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Naruto closed his eyes after that statement. His biggest secret. The only thing he didn’t want anyone to know about, he had just told his newest friend. He was scared of her reaction. Would she run from him? Get angry with him? Look at him in pure revulsion? He didn’t know and at that point in time, he didn’t want to know.

“Hey, brat.” A deep, growling voice came from the cage behind him. “How long do you intent to ignore my presence?”

“As long as you’re there,” was Naruto’s Insolent reply. “You have yet to say anything I want to hear.”

“Well, how about, as soon as I’m free, your pretty little friend there will be the third person I eat!”

“Third?”

“After your most ‘precious person. After Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Shut up,” Naruto hissed, raising to his feet and then turning to face the huge fox, trying his best to stare it in the eyes. “If you even consider touching them….”

“You’ll do what, exactly?” The fox taunted. “You are weak boy, you always have been. No one will help you either. To that village, you are just a monster.”

“Shut up.”

“Everyone hates you!”

“I said, shut up.”

“I’m surprised no one has tried to kill you yet!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Naruto turned sharply, to see a furious looking Ino standing, facing the cage. Her hands were clenched tightly and her shoulders were shaking.

“Ino…”

“I will not stand here,” Ino continued in a shaky, but angry voice, “and listen to this crap anymore. Naruto will have help, you bastard fox because I will always be there to help him. I don’t hate him, I care about him and I’ll help make sure that you never get free.”

“Oh really?” Naruto heard a smug tone in the fox’s voice, “even though it was you who nearly let me out?”

“You tricked me.”

“I’m a demon fox!” Was the nonchalant reply. “It’s what I do.”

Naruto was sure he heard Ino grind her teeth in frustration. “Well, now that I know, don’t expect it to happen again.”

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The room began to fade into whiteness and the last thing Naruto herd was a ‘what the’ from Ino, before the barred cage disappeared and he found himself laying on the ground by the stumps of the training ground, his head resting on something soft.

“Hey Dobe, you awake?” He heard Sasuke’s voice above him.

“Sasuke?”

“Yes, of course Sasuke. Can you move?”

Naruto realised that that the soft thing he had been laying in was Sasuke’s lap. He yelped and sat up, holding his heat as his vision span.

“Owww. What the hell happened?”

“Yamanaka used her Shintenshi no jutsu,” Sasuke answered, putting slight pressure on his back to stop him from falling backwards. Naruto ‘s head was hurting him again. “It must have backfired because the both of you collapsed.”

“Where is Ino?”

Sasuke didn’t answer, just pointed. Ino was sitting, slumped against the practice poles and as Naruto watched, her eyelids fluttered and then opened to reveal hazy dark blue eyes.

“Naruto?” she whispered, as soon as she spotted him.

“Ino was his reply, staring back at her. Now was the moment of truth. What would Ino do?

That question was answered when Ino crawled forwards and fell into Naruto’s arms with a sigh.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you okay?”

Ino nodded in answer and buried her face into his jacket. “Was it all true?” was her next question.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry Naruto,” Ino held him tighter, “and as to what I said, I meant every word.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Naruto smiled. A true and warm smile and hugged Ino tightly to him, Sasuke’s presence forgotten for the moment. “Thank you Ino,” he whispered against her hair. “Thank you so much.”

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I do hope that this chapter didn’t result in being totally sappy, but it came out this way. Feel free to criticize it, but please, no flames. Please tell me what you think though and I’m sorry it’s not longer.

By the way, I’ve done it, so no one knows about the Kyuubi. I’m debating on whether or not to putting Gaara in this. It’s complicated as it is and it’s going to bet worse. (I love twisty, obsessed stories!)

Rie

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