Note: I do not own Naruto, and I am sure glad I don’t. Who the hell would want to?

Authors Note: Well, it has been a while since I’ve written anything. I came up with this idea a long, long time ago, but it is only recently I’ve had the chance to put it on paper. Before you begin to read this story I feel it is important for you (the reader) to know a few things. This one chapter was put together over a long period of time; therefore the writing process has been very patchy. I’m afraid I’ve lost perspective somewhere in the story, but that’ll have to stay. Neither has it been spelled nor grammar checked. I do not take this story too seriously, but who knows, it may yet grow to be my favorite project. I would appreciate your opinions on this (yes, which means you can flame my ass to hell if that suits you). This has been long in the coming, and I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1: The Disease of Mr. Strange and contributions of Hopping

1

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Naruto asked the Doctor, staring at the hypodermic needle she was preparing. Only a thin string of his deeply rooted discipline and courage kept him from leaping off that bed and running as far away as he could. His other, normal, courage had left him the moment he had awakened in the hospital and he dearly wished he had some of it now.

Naruto was not quite sure when his fear of needles had infected him, but he assumed it had begun after his now semi-famous string of hospital visits throughout the years. And that had begun shortly after being promoted to a Chunin. He had discovered the wonders of independence once he became a Chunin. Except for missions his time was his own, unlike before, and that left plenty of time to pursue his own interests. Needless to say, ninja techniques topped that list. But perhaps best of all, he no longer had Kakashi, Sakura, or Sasuke breathing down his neck.

Kakashi might be a good ninja, but he was too straight minded. If you were going to learn a technique you were going to learn it his way, period. Naruto was rather pleased Jiraiya was not like that. Although some things were that away (one way and only that one way would work), many were not. Jiraiya had, rather indifferently, told him that what makes a good ninja is someone who learns techniques on their own. A great ninja would perfect them. It had been a relief to get Kakashi off his back when trying to learn new things.

And Sasuke had been so damn…cool. Not cool as in the popular guy, but his manner had been cool. Every time he tried to show Sasuke that he wasn’t some special kid Sasuke would just shrug indifferently. It pissed Naruto off to no end. Sasuke’s manner irritated Naruto beyond belief, and now that he no longer had to endure the self-centered prick his life was finally taking a turn for the better.

Sakura had always been the one to call him stupid, but throughout the years they had been a team she had failed to see that she was the stupid one. She had hardly gotten stronger, faster, or more knowledgeable all their time together. She was a blonde with pink hair. Naruto doubted she cared; all she seemed to want to do was give Sasuke blowjobs in the bathrooms and take him for a rodeo ride every Saturday night. And to think that he had ever liked her. Sakura was a slut through and through, and he was glad to be rid of her.

“Ready?” The Doctor asked him, one hand on her hip, a needle in the other. Naruto thought that that looked more frightening than any army of ninjas.

“No.” He replied, as usual. And as usual, she grinned at him.

The truth was that she had become his personal doctor, of a sort. He was quite known at the hospital, infamous actually. He even suspected they were beginning to get tired of healing him back into shape. Every time they did he would be back, usually sooner than later. And truth be told, he hated coming here as much as they hated having him coming. The treatment was excellent – her treatment – but she always used god damn needles. “Are you sure you can’t stick it in my arm instead?”

The answer was no, just as he knew and expected. It was always no. An unfortunate side effect of being the carrier of the Ninetails was that drugs that put him to sleep lasted a very short time. So instead they just numbed his senses, leaving him awake for whatever operation they were going to perform on him. And, to his great dislike, they injected the serum in his groin. At least they didn’t jab the needle into his dick, but it wasn’t by much. It was procedure now, but after all this time Naruto’s cheeks still burned read when the Doctor shot him up with the drug.

The first time it had happened he had totally freaked out, much to the doctor’s amusement. She was so used to it know that it hardly bothered her, but it had bothered her the first time. That time her cheeks had been burning just as much as Naruto’s. He reckoned it was rather silly, but he couldn’t help it. He still felt weird with her being so close to his package. Now she just calmly pushed aside his testicles and pushed the needle in where his legs met his crotch. It stung, like always, but pain was hardly something unknown to him.

“Marvelous.” She said and patted his flaming red cheek.

The pain that had been burning his side slowly begun to fade away, but he was still wide awake. He tried not to watch, but it was like standing on top of a bridge on a tiny wire. You couldn’t help looking down. And he couldn’t help looking. Nurses came to assist the doctor as she begun the operation. He couldn’t actually see the incision she made, and he couldn’t feel it either, but he did feel it. He just knew she had made the incision when she made it. It was often the same in the field. Jiraiya had called it a shadowy sixth sense, and advised to always trust it. He could, on the other hand, see the blood coating her latex gloves and the blood running down his side. He shuddered and laid his head back, and tied to think about something else.

Of course he couldn’t; worst case scenarios kept running through his head. But the doctor had never let him down before, and he doubted she would now. When the operation was over he was feeling rather drowsy from the blood loss; it was as if things blurred in the corner if his eyes. She patted his cheek again and smiled.

“All done. I’ll be back when the drug wears off.”

But now that he had gotten the drug, and the operation was over with, he didn’t want the drug to wear off. It always hurt like hell when it wore off. Always. And as always he would have to take it like a man; women had at least the option of crying. Sometimes the Doctor would sit and talk with him through the worst of it, and he greatly appreciated it when she did. It was worst when she couldn’t. It was during those grueling hours that he found himself wishing he could draw on the power of the Ninetails. Jiraiya had said it could be deadly, and he trusted Jiraiya with his life. The Ninetail’s had the wonderful gift of healing his wounds rapidly…most of the time. It had never happened to him before, but Jiraiya, himself, and Tsunade had talked at great length about the demon. They had come to a conclusion Naruto didn’t like all that much.

What they had reasoned out was that, while yes, the power of the Ninetails gave him incredible strength and endurance; it was only one side of the coin. It could backlash. Until he was fully trained and truly understood how to control the power of the demon, it could easily hurt him. Unfortunately, controlling the power was not a feat easily accomplished, mainly because it was not his power. He drew and channeled it from the Ninetails. Tsunade and Jiraiya had reasoned that if he could draw from the Ninetails a conduit of a sort would have to be opened, and the chakra could flow both ways. Naruto could take, but the Ninetails could take and give more.

At first he had not understood, but after experiencing the Ninetails doing just that he had understood. It had been a simple training session in using the Ninetail’s chakra. It had almost killed him. Jiraiya had tired him out enough to draw chakra from the demon, but the Ninetails had not been in the mood for it (or maybe he had just been in a bad mood), and it had lashed out with anger at Naruto. The Ninetail’s pure strength of mind had been able to force itself through the conduit and latch onto his mind. In other words, the Ninetails had been able to take over Naruto. If Jiraiya had not been there to knock the living shit out of him who knows what he could have done? Or the Ninetails could have done, as the case may have been.

After that he had not been very eager to reopen the conduit. In fact, his training to control the Ninetail’s power had fallen by the wayside. Instead he and Jiraiya had focused on increasing his own strength. Naruto felt a lot more comfortable about; using his own chakra made him feel more in-control than relying on the chakra the demon could give him. Another reason had more to do with his pride; things he did would be his own doing, not him doing it with borrowed power.

It was also after that that he began appreciating life’s non-linearity. Otherwise his training would have been dead boring. In fact, he appreciated how exponential life could be, especially when it came to his own strength. After he and Jiraiya began training his own chakra up – quite gruelingly too – his strength had leaped. Had life been purely linear it would have taken much longer to achieve the strength he now had. He still got injured too much, and that irked him.

His introspection didn’t keep him preoccupied for long. Soon enough pain flared back up in his side, and he almost wished he had the dagger back in there. e sHe

He seriously need to stop getting hurt so much. The Doctor returned and pulled up a chair next to the bed he was laying on. She smiled and checked the stitches, but they were fine. “How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Just fine.” Naruto replied falsely, smiling tightly. It was a weak attempt and he knew it, and he was pretty sure she did too. The truth was that he’d gladly let her mess around down south of his border if she’s give him another dose of the magic pain-go-away drug. But of course, he couldn’t ask her to put him out of his misery; he was stronger than that.

But the Doctor knew him too well, and before she left she popped a pill in his mouth. “Sleep well.” She said and ruffled his unruly blonde hair.

The pill worked wonders, and when he awoke several hours later he had no idea what time it was. The room was windowless, giving him no chance to judge the time of day based on the light. There was a clock up on the wall, but with the lights turned off and no window it was impossible to see it. But on the bright side his side no longer ached and burned as much as it had, but it was still uncomfortable. He closed his eyes and tried to back to sleep, but it came slowly. When he finally did succumb to sleep it was shallow.

When he awoke again the Doctor was standing next to him, shaking his shoulder gently. He looked at her groggily, wanting to go back to sleep. “Time for a check up.” She said, and Naruto groaned.

Naruto hated check ups. He was always in shape, but the Doctor insisted on running these checks every time he came in. As usual his blood pressure was fine, along with his heartbeat, urine, and blood. She told him to take it easy, and he gloomily replied that he would. She gave him a letter to take to Tsunade that stated how he was not allowed to go on missions for at least two weeks, due to his wounds needing time to heal. Then she let him go put his clothes on. He was extremely relieved when she signed him out.

“You take care now.” She said firmly, standing in the large entrance hall with him. When he didn’t reply she prompted again. “Take care, ok?”

“Ok.” He mumbled. “I’ll try not to get hurt.”

They said their goodbyes and then he left. He walked slowly home; his side still ached and burned a little, but he had lived with worse countless times before. As soon as he got home he crumpled the letter the Doctor had given him and promptly dived into bed and went to sleep. He had no idea how long he slept this time either, but he knew that he was hungry as hell the instance he woke up. His stomach rumbled loudly and he found himself with the urge for a bowl of ramen. As usual he went down to the ramen stand on the corner, and as usual the owner served him up a bowl of ramen, followed by a few more. He still couldn’t discern what time it was, but he guessed it was around seven in the evening.

Seven was a bit too early for Jiraiya to be out hitting the pubs and whorehouses, but it was worth a shot. His only other options were to watch TV, or hang out with Sasuke and Sakura. Neither of those appealed much to him, so he decided to hit the pubs and whorehouses.

Being a ninja did have its advantages. The common public was not exactly terrified of ninjas, but they were certainly uneasy around them. To them the art of being a ninja was something great and mysterious, and the fact that they were sitting in the dark concerning anything related it frightened them. Naruto didn’t really care one way or another the public thought about ninjas, but it was nice having people part for him in the streets, and bullies back off once they save his forehead protector.

The first pub Naruto came across was a run down place called “The Dagger.” It looked as if it had been through hell and then some. The walls were grimy and dirty, and there were several splotches of an even darker substance he guessed was blood. He asked the doorman if any ninjas or an old, white haired, man had come earlier. The doorman said no such persons had come while he had been standing here, which had been since four.

So he moved on, and came across a whorehouse. From his position is seemed the same as any other large building…except for the lights, the music, and the buzz of noise coming from it. He was slightly reluctant to enter the premises. He was not eighteen yet, nor did he wish to be tricked into losing his virginity to some well spent whore. But the odds of finding Jiraiya in there were rather high.

He let out a tremendous sigh before opening the door to the whorehouse and stepping in. The receptionist looked up from whatever she was reading at her desk and smiled, letting the standard litany.

“Hi, welcome to Fluff Heaven, sir. How are you today and how may we serve you?”

Naruto snorted at the name, but kept his face schooled to not show is amusement. “Any ninjas been here tonight?” He asked.

The woman saw his forehead protector and did a double take, wetting her lips nervously. “N-No, sir.”

Naruto sighed. “An old white haired man? Anyone called Jiraiya?” The woman checked her register, but said there had not been any old white haired men or anyone called Jiraiya that had been here tonight.

The last bit tugged at him as he left the whorehouse. Not tonight, he mused. Maybe he’s been here before. In fact, I’m willing to bet he has. He wandered on, looking for pubs or other bordellos. More than once he had regretted not knowing the full layout of the village, and now he very sorely regretted it. He had no idea where the most popular pubs where, nor where the other whorehouses were. He suspected that the older he got the more acquainted with them he’d get.

He was still thinking when something smacked into the side of his head and sent him sprawling into some bushes lining the road. For a moment he just lay there, stunned, thinking, what the hell was that? A moment later a bunch of kids came running out of the intersecting alley.

“Where did the ball go?” One of them asked loudly, looking around. “You idiot! You lost it man!” The others chimed in.

Naruto sat up, and that scared the kids senseless. They scrammed, running back the way the way they had come. He heard one of them screaming hysterically, “Ninja, ninja, ninja!” He grumbled and chucked the ball after them hard. He thought he heard a squeal and a crash.

“Damn kids.”

He got up and brushed of the bark and leaves that stuck to him. He hadn’t walked far before two people stumbled onto the road from an intersecting street. The closer he got the more he thought he knew them, and when he got close enough to see who it was he groaned. Sakura was clinging onto Sasuke, who was struggling to stay upright with the added weight of Sakura. He could tell Sakura was completely hammered, and from the way Sasuke was behaving he had had his fair share of drinks as well. Sakura saw him coming and waved at him, and Naruto groaned again. He couldn’t just walk away from them now; it would be too rude.

“Hey.” He said as he came up to them, shoving his hands in his pockets. This close he could see Sakura’s flaming cheeks and her smeared makeup. He doubted that she cared though. “What’s up?”

“Oh nothing,” Sakura replied, and giggled. “Just having a few drinks, and stuff.” Naruto snorted. What Sakura counted as “few” must have been “alcohol poisoning” for anyone else. “Wanna come along?”

The question caught him by surprise. Did he want to come along? Well he had nothing else to do except to search for Jiraiya, and although that had seemed better than hanging out with these two in the beginning, he wasn’t so sure now. The sky looked as if it might let down a downpour any moment now, and he didn’t fancy running around in the rain just to find Jiraiya just as drunk as these two or banging the living lights out of a whore. “Sure. Lead the way.”

Sakura and Sasuke went through a twisting path of streets that Naruto knew he couldn’t replicate if his life depended on it. All the while he kept a wary eye on Sasuke. They had had their shares of brawls and fights over petty things, and he was in no mood for another. He doubted he could fend Sasuke off well enough with his injury.

They-being Sakura and Sasuke-lead him to a place called “Hops and Barrels.” It was a small, grimy, rundown place, but that certainly didn’t seem to affect the atmosphere radiating from within. In fact, it was booming. Raucous laughter roared from within the small pub as if it was large enough to accommodate hundreds.

Inside he found a surprise waiting for him. “Doctor?” He exclaimed, recognizing her despite the lack of a white coat and a clipboard in hand. In fact, the stunning brunette sitting at one of the tables looked nothing like the Doctor, but it was her. But she looked so different; maybe it was long, flowing hair spilling down on her shoulders, or maybe it was the tight, black top she was wearing, or..or…

“Excuse me for a moment.” He said to Sasuke and Sakura as the Doctor beckoned him over to her table. He slid into the seat across from her, and for the first time noticed the man sitting next to her; the pub’s dim interior had rendered him near invisible from where Naruto had been standing.

“This is a colleague of mine.” She explained. His name was Martin, and he was one of the senior doctors working at the hospital. He had offered to buy the Doctor a drink to help her calm her mind; he said she was new to this and it was nice to get a break every now and then. This Naruto agreed with wholeheartedly. Nothing beat a break after some good hard work.

“Didn’t expect to find you here. A rowdy place like this just isn’t ‘you’ doc.” He pointed out when the introduction was over with.

“Well, you’ve never really been around me outside the hospital, have you?” She smiled slightly. “All you know is the needles and the white coat.”

Naruto laughed. They talked for a while, and Naruto was fascinated. The Doctor had no problems talking (like almost every other woman he knew) but her lips were like two conveyor belts: they didn’t stop moving - even when she wasn’t talking. Martin left sometime in the middle of the Doctor’s talk-a-thon, but Naruto hardly noticed. Despite disliking how girls always babbled on about useless gossip and whatnot he hung onto every word that left the Doctor’s lips. What she was telling him was fascinating. He supposed it would make a best selling autobiography if she chose to write it down someday.

“You were a ninja?” He asked in surprise when she let it slip that she had once been a student at the academy.

She stopped in mid-word and looked at him, surprised. “What? Oh, well yes. I quit after failing to make Genin.”

“But…but that’s like the easiest thing in the world!”

“I guess being a ninja wasn’t for me. Besides, I think you should be glad I decided to become a doctor instead.” She grinned at him, and he grinned back. It was certainly true; she had saved his life plenty of times.

“You know, someone probably hates your guts for saving my life so many times.” He pointed out with a hint of mockery.

The Doctor looked at him, frowning. “Why would anyone hate me for that?”

A light went off in Naruto’s head. She doesn’t know, he thought, feeling both relieved and taken aback. “Erm…well you know, not everyone likes ninjas. Some think the ninja arts shouldn’t even be taught and that we should let it die out.”

She smiled sadly at looked at him. “People don’t like what they don’t understand.”

Naruto waited for more, but when nothing came he realized she thought this explained everything. It explained some things, sure, but not enough. Not near enough. He refrained from telling her so, though. “Are you working tomorrow?” He asked her.

“Yeah,” She replied glumly, sighing heavily. “I don’t want to though. It’s very stressful. But at least it’s Friday tomorrow.”

“Well if you want any sleep tonight you probably ought to head home. It’s almost two.” He said, nodding his head towards the clock on the wall. He was a bit surprised himself at the time; it had flown while he was talking with her.

The Doctor was surprised herself, and with startling speed she left. She said a rushed goodbye and headed out just of a sprint. Naruto was left staring at the door blinking and wondering what had just happened. People just didn’t leave like that. It was only two a.m after all. He turned to go over to Sakura and Sasuke, but as soon as he saw them he nearly gagged. They were all over each other, and both of them seemed to be trying to set a new record of how far they could shove their tongues down each others throat.

Disgusted he left and walked down the street. Why do they always have to be so…so…so damn slutty! He thought angrily. He always became angry at those two whenever they pulled their gross public exhibitionist stunts. He sauntered home, dark angry thoughts filling his mind the whole way. His dreams however, were very pleasant.

2

A loud bang jolted Naruto out of his sleep. Another sent him sprawling out of bed. It took his morning mind and his morning state of consciousness some time to figure out that someone was at the door. He went to the door and opened it wearing just silk boxers (the morning state of consciousness) and founded Jiraiya leaning against the door frame sporting a very annoyed expression.

“What?” Naruto asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“We’ve got training to do, or did you forget?” Jiraiya said, smiling sarcastically as he placed emphasis on forget.

“But the doc told me to take it easy.” Naruto replied, reaching to feel the stitches in his side. They itched like hell.

“No pain no gain. Now hurry up and get dressed, and grab a little to eat. We haven’t got all day.”

Naruto’s idea of “hurrying up” was to take a shower spanning nearer to half an hour, read some magazines while gulping down cereal and milk, and then spent ten minutes in the bathroom brushing his teeth and touching up his hair.

Jiraiya gave a pained expression at seeing Naruto’s carefully done hair. “When will you realize that the ladies don’t care about that?”

Naruto snorted. “As if I’ll ever take advice on women from you. I’d rather shot myself instead. What’s the plan for today anyway?”

The plan made Naruto wince. Jiraiya’s training sessions were always grueling, but what the old pervert had planned today seemed nothing short of capital punishment. He guessed it would all pay off in the end-and he sincerely wanted it to-but five years ago he would never have believed becoming a powerful ninja required this much toil. Five years ago he’d been screaming and protesting like some three year-old.

Jiraiya had a strict view on what he thought was important for a ninja to be powerful and strong. There was the physical aspect, and then there was the mental aspect. The mental aspect was by far the harder on to train up, and from the beginning Jiraiya had pointed out that Naruto was severely lacking in it. And it was, of course, deadly important that one could use these two aspects together in unity.

Jiraiya was also a great believer in hardship…except when it came to himself. Every time Naruto tried to protest this obvious bit of hypocrisy Jiraiya would smirk and say, “Who’s you’re ticket to becoming a great ninja? That’s right: me. Now run another few laps.” And of course, more protests lead to more laps. It was either do as Jiraiya said or get no training at all. It was a dictatorship, and Jiraiya was the dick.

The warmup to their training sessions was always the same (for Naruto anyway). A light jog around the Village walls was suitable in Jiraiya’s mind. The first time Naruto had done it the guards manning the wall had looked down at him running like he was some sort of idiot. The first time he had also been panting heavily when he came all the way around. He was more used to traversing the radius and diameter of the village, not the circumference. It was quite a bit longer. Now, however, he barely broke a sweat. It truly was a warm-up at this point.

“So, what magic will I learn today?” He asked jokingly having made his lap around the Village. “Perhaps how to torture the person I dislike the most in some crazy voodoo fashion?”

Unfortunately, Jiraiya decided on working on Naruto’s speed. Although simple to train up in theory, it was much harder in reality. In essence, all one had to do to become faster was to go through different exercises as fast as you possibly could over, over, and over again. Eventually your body would adapt to that level of extremity you were pushing your body to, and then the whole process would start over again. In reality it was grueling work. Pushing yourself to the max again and again tired you out in a flash, but still you had to keep going. And after that you had to keep going some more.

But the worst of it was that Jiraiya just sat there leaning against a tree watching. Just watching. Even though Naruto knew that was pretty close to a compliment. If you were doing it wrong the Jiraiya was there in a flash to tell you that you were doing it wrong, unless it was one of those “learn it yourself” lessons. Naruto hated those. It irked him to no end that while he was pulling off moves-simple as well as complex-while the old pervert just sat there on his fat ass. Even worse was that that lazy old pervert could kick his ass to the moon and back if he chose to.

Jiraiya finally called it quits a few hours after noon. He said nothing about Naruto’s performance, but instead suggested he get something to eat and perhaps take a walk to relax his muscles. “Have I made any progress?” Naruto asked after a minute spent leaning on his thighs gasping for air.

“You’re better than you were a year ago.” Jiraiya replied neutrally, and Naruto grinned. That was the same thing he had said last year as well. “Any luck on the problem I gave you last week?”

Naruto grimaced sourly. He knew he hadn’t, but he didn’t want to tell Jiraiya that. “Yeah. A little.” He smiled the best smile he could, but as soon as he bent his head down it disappeared. The problem was aggravating. It was typical Jiraiya: easy in theory, hard in reality. Jiraiya had asked him to find a way to perform techniques without performing the hand seals. As far as Naruto was concerned there was only one technique he knew that didn’t require some sort of hand seal, and that was the Rasengan. He had tried a couple of times at home to figure out how, but as soon as he had begun he had run into a wall. He just couldn’t perform a technique (other than the Rasengan) without doing hand seals. But he had seen plenty of other ninjas do it. He had asked Kakashi about, but Kakashi had just reassuringly told him it would come with time and experience. It was like running head-first into a wall, and there was no crack to slip through to the other side.

He took Jiraiya’s advice and walked home, stopping to eat at his favorite ramen stand. He was exhausted when he came home, and he could feel it. He had managed to block out the burning and itching in his side during the training, but now there was nothing to distract him from it. The stitches itched, but he was used to that. The healing cut also burned, but he was used to that as well. He was not, however, used to the nauseous feeling that welled up in him the moment he sat down on the couch.

He made a mad dash for the bathroom and only just managed to lift the seat cover before his breakfast and belated lunch shot itself back up his throat. He had no room for thought while his stomach emptied it self, it was only afterwards that he could grimace about his burning throat and the smell. Oh man, that sucked, he thought.

He felt weak and drained. He didn’t dare to take another bite of food for fear of it coming right back up again, even though he knew his body needed nutrients to recover from it’s exertion. Instead he went to his room and flopped down on the bed, not even bothering to take of his clothes. I’ll just lay here for a few minutes, and then I’ll go change and watch TV or something…yeah…

A loud BANG made his eyes fly open, and for a moment he was stunned to see that it was completely dark. What the heck, he thought, but then another wave of nausea washed over him and he made a mad sprint for the bathroom. He barely made it this time too, and he stayed longer. He thought he had felt weak before, but now he thought his legs were going to give way underneath him when he stepped out of the bathroom. He made a mental note to get some air freshener; the bathroom was starting to smell horrible.

The clock in his room made him stop dead in the doorway. It glowed 4:00 A.M in big, square letters. He found it unfathomable to believe that he had slept over twelve hours, and he still felt exhausted. The bed looked extremely tempting, and he tried to say no, but he couldn’t help it. He soon found himself back underneath the covers closing his eyes in hopes of a better tomorrow.

When he awoke it did indeed seem that the “better tomorrow” had come. He didn’t feel nauseous at all, but he still felt week. And he was ravenous. He felt like he could eat a house and then a banana split for dessert. He stripped his kitchen clean of edibles, making a strange meal of toast, breakfast cereal and milk, cut apples, and a lone donut he had found in the bottom drawer.

The shower was his next destination, but before he could step into it he saw himself in the mirror – and froze. His side bulged out right where the stitches ran in their zigzag pattern over his healing wound. Strangely it didn’t hurt – it didn’t even burn – but it just bulged out awkwardly, as if he had an extra muscle placed upon his Latissimus dorsi muscle. He knew that wasn’t a good thing and that he should probably see the Doctor about it right away, but he figured taking fifteen minutes in the shower wasn’t going to kill him.

Fifteen minutes turned out to be more like thirty, but it had felt so good to stand there in the shower letting the steaming water warm him up. He threw on some clothes in a hurry and headed out the door, forgetting to lock the door like always. He had two options to get to the hospital: he could take the long way by following the streets, or he could jump along the rooftops and spare himself a good ten minutes.

Ten minutes was at least one bowl of ramen.

He gathered chakra and leaped…and a wave of nausea crashed down on him. He faltered mid-air and went crashing down onto the roof of the building next to his own, vomit trailing him as his stomach heaved up the contents of his jumbo-breakfast. For a minute he just lay there, feeling all the pains running through him. Ironically, it was his side that hurt the most even though he had gone head first into the roof.

Sitting up required great concentration of willpower; the afterimage of the nausea still stuck to him when he did, but it wasn’t bad enough to make him throw up again. He sat there for a while, breathing deep to make the feeling of sickness go away. He reasoned out that walking might not be such a bad idea after all.

Unfortunately he had to walk on unsteady legs. He felt drained again, and he stuck to the side of buildings. Some people looked at him strangely, but he couldn’t care less. By the time he made it to the hospital he reckoned he had lost twenty minutes instead of gained ten. There goes that bowl of ramen, he thought.

The lady behind the reception desk frowned when she saw him stumble into the hospital. “Naruto, have you managed to hurt yourself again?” She asked in a disapproving voice, sounding every bit the gritty old grandmother.

He only smiled and said that he needed to see his doctor. Everyone at the hospital knew who “his doctor.” was. Sure enough the Doctor came after a few minutes, looking furious when she saw him.

“Why are you back here?” She hissed at him as she took his arm and helped him down the corridor into one of the examination rooms lining it.

“My side,” He begun, and looked at her. “Something happened to it.”

The Doctor made him take of his shirt and let out a small gasp once she saw the bump his healing wound had grown to. Before Naruto had any idea what had happened she had stuck a needle in him, right into that bulging mass of flaming flesh. He cried out something so vulgar the Doctor gave him a look that said “You’re going to get a lesson for that later”.

He saw her put a vial away, and realized it was full of his blood when he saw the crimson color of it. “What’s wrong?” He asked her. The Doctor hesitated, actually biting one of her nails while looking at him.

“You’ve got an infection.” She said simply, and burst out of the room. Naruto pondered going after her –even leaving- but figured it wouldn’t be such a good idea. As far as he knew the only other person more adept at patching people up than the doctors was Tsunade, and he doubted that old hag would appreciate him barging in on her in the middle of the day.

He didn’t have to sit there long. The Doctor returned with several other doctors looking old as the hills. Even worse, they ignored him completely. They closely examined his infection, made him stand, sit, bend over, but never once did they ask him any questions. They only told the Doctor to get him into a bed.

“What’s the deal?” He asked her, scowling. “I think my hearing failed as well, because I couldn’t hear a word they were saying to me.”

She ignored him and instead found him a hospital bed to lie in. She insisted he put on the hospital robes that patients had to wear, but he refused flatly. He hated wearing those paper towels. They made him feel so…so naked and vulnerable. And so he lay there, turning over the recent events in his head and wondering just how the hell he had gotten into the position he was in.

So far he had emptied his stomach of content three times. He had no idea why, except for a small clue on the last one. The sickness had struck right after using some of his chakra, and that was certainly odd. Maybe using charka made him sick because of the infection…

There was a bathroom connected to the room he had been put in, and he decided testing out his theory. He got up slowly-his side still hurt a little-and made his way over to the toilet, kneeling down in front of it and lifting up the seats. Here goes nothing, he thought just before drawing up some chakra and beginning to mold it. He didn’t get very far with the molding before the now semi-familiar wave of nausea hit and made his stomach heave. But this time around vomit didn’t take a trip up his throat; blood did.

It sprayed out on the back of the seats and on the wall behind the toilet. Oh definitely not a good idea, he managed to think before his stomach heaved again, sending a fresh spray of blood from his lips. His stomach heaved one more time, but he managed to keep the spray to a minimum. Slowly and almost clumsily he cleaned up the mess he had made on the wall.

It boiled down to two things he reasoned when he got back into bed. Either the infection was causing him to puke up whatever was in his stomach when he made use of his chakra, or else…or else…The truth was that that was the only idea he had, and it scared him shitless. If he started puking every time he got into a fight he’d be struck down faster than anyone could say “time out”. He decided on trying out his experiment one more time, but not today.

Fortunately, the Doctor had enough presence of mind to bring him something to keep him from being bored to death. She brought books, and she brought a lot. Jokingly he asked her she had any sex books, and she actually blushed. He couldn’t help laughing at that. But she flat out refused to tell him anything about what the deal was, and that irked him. It was his damn body, and he should have the right to know anything concerning it. Then again, it wasn’t the first time he had been kept in the dark concerning his body. He told her so, but she only scoffed. Doctor’s privilege she called it. He thought that was a bunch of bullshit.

Nonetheless, the books were a time killer, even though he had never harbored a great love for books. He thought that could very well change. In a year he’d be old enough to buy Jiraiya’s books. Indeed, the time for becoming a book lover was almost ripe. Maybe he could borrow some of the earlier releases from Kakashi. Hopefully Kakashi’s everlasting lazy eye expression would change for a moment if he asked to borrow those books.

It was late before he got some sleep, and he thought that if he kept up his current pace of reading he’d be done with his first book by noon tomorrow. He slept well enough, and he slept long. The sun was up and shining when his eyes opened themselves groggily. For the second time in the span of two days he felt as if he could heat a house and a jumbo-size dessert. But he had no doubt he would puke that up as well when he tried out his theory later today, but food was better than blood.

He pondered getting up to go find some breakfast, but decided the scolding the Doctor would give him if she found out that he had been out of bed wouldn’t be worth a lifetime supply of ramen. He had never seen the Doctor truly mad, but he had seen her slightly angry, and it had almost scared the wits out of him. Now that he thought about it, it was him that the Doctor had been angry at, for some reason or another he couldn’t remember.

Surprisingly it was the Doctor who brought him some breakfast, not some nurse like usual. The tray she carried was filled with food and a still steaming mug of coffee. The grim expression on the Doctor’s face made him feel as if was receiving his last meal. “What’s wrong?” He asked her she set the tray down across his legs.

“Just eat.” She replied, but Naruto had other ideas. If he ate now he knew it would come right back up again later, and he didn’t think he could go much longer without some nutrition.

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll eat.” He put on a reassuring smile, but she didn’t take note of it. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts, staring off into some mystical place. “Doctor?” She snapped back to the present and looked at him, mumbling an apology.

“What’s wrong?” He tried again.

For a long moment she just looked at him, and then she let out a long sigh. “We tested the blood I drew from you, and…and…we found a virus. Or a bacteria. We don’t know what it is. Whatever it is its completely new to us.”

Naruto’s semi-good mood slipped immediately. “You mean you can’t fix me up?” He asked nervously, hoping -praying- that the answer wouldn’t be no.

“No, not yet.” The Doctor replied sadly, and Naruto’s world came crashing down.

He wanted to scream “NO” at the top of his lungs, but his throat seemed frozen solid. He found it hard to breathe, and shock seemed to have taken a firm hold on his mind. “No, you have to fix me up. You have to!” He almost shouted at her, his voice bordering on hysteria. This was the worst case scenario, but it just couldn’t be happening, not to him. It just couldn’t be happening to him. It just wasn’t fair.

“We’ve told the Hokage about it, and she’s going to come and take a look at you. Ok?” The Doctor asked him nervously. In fact she seemed overfilled with worry from the way her voice had changed to an even lighter tone.

That calmed him a little, but not much. He could still feel his mind skittering on the edges of hysteria, and a deep part of him seemed to be shouting in denial. The possibility of not being able to continue to be a ninja frightened him, and was sometimes the cause of nightmares. It was all he had; without his ninja abilities he was nothing. Maybe he could go set up his own ramen stand, but he thought he’d eat more himself than he’d sell.

Tsuande did come eventually, but Naruto still shouted at her for taking so long. Despite claiming his life was at stake (which it was from his point of view) she paid little attention to him and instead listened to the Doctor explain the whole matter. Nonetheless he was grateful she had come. His faith in Tsunades healing abilities was great.

“So,” Said Tsunade as she finally turned her attention to him. “How do you explain this one?”

Naruto stared dumbfounded at her. “Don’t blame this on me.” He finally got out. “I just got operated on.”

“The doctor said it was some kind of virus, but not any virus they know about. That is weird.” Tsunade went on. “Do you have any idea about…well anything really?”

For a moment he hesitated, wondering if he should tell her. But if there was one person to tell what he thought was wrong, then Tsunade was that person. “Well…” He began slowly. “I think that whatever the virus it is acts whenever I use chakra. I think the nausea attacks I’ve been having recently comes whenever I try to mold chakra.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “That’s preposterous.” Tsunade blurted out. “A virus affecting your chakra channels? That could be disastrous for every single ninja. We can’t let this spread.”

She stopped and looked right at Naruto, and he swallowed nervously. “You’re not allowed to go anywhere until you’re rid of that virus.” She said dead seriously.

“You can’t lock me up!” He protested, furious that Tsunade would even dare suggest such a thing.

“Oh yes I can.” Tsunade shot right back.

And when Naruto realized that Tsunade was going to lock him up in here he made a run for it. He didn’t get far, however. Before he had put a foot outside the hospital bed a strong shove pushed him back into it. He tried to get back up again, but he was shoved down once again, but before he could make another attempt Tsunade had gotten her hands on his ahead. She murmured something, and his eyelids became heavy. The last thing he saw before dipping of the edge was pink hair.

Not before later in his life, when he could look back at all of this a chuckle genuinely, did he remember the sequence of events that happened then. What he could remember was a slide show of the strangest pictures, if you could call it that, playing through his mind. The places displayed were unfamiliar, the people pictured unknown, and time another one. From what he could remember the various images presented to him in the sleep Tsunade had put him in had no correlation with each other, except for one feature. There was always a rustling voice in the background, murmuring, “…by which I mean it’s the pink one.”

When he awoke from the slumber Tsunade put him in all Naruto remembered was that phrase. He was extremely disoriented, having no sense of time or place at all. Trying to get his bearings was like trying to keep your balance on a ball rolling downhill; nearly impossible. Strangely enough, the first thing that came to him was the odd, slightly – but not quite – round shapes in the corners (and in his mind corners and round shapes didn’t add up). It took him a moment to realize they were cobwebs. He was glad he wasn’t afraid of spiders.

The room was dark and eerie, the cobwebs making it more so, and he wondered how long he had been here. How long did it take spiders to spin cobwebs anyway? He tried to swing his legs off the bed to get up and found that they were tied down. So to were his arms, he realized. Somewhere in his midriff he started to feel panic growing. There was no way he was getting out of those bonds without the use of chakra (he wasn’t sure he could do it with chakra either), and that meant staying here until someone released him. It was not exactly a hot prospect.

A red light went off right above him, and he greeted it eagerly. It cast a dull, red glow on the room, but nonetheless it made it easier to see. What he saw, however, shocked him. Every kind of medical instrument imaginable was arranged around him, and even worse, each was hooked up to him. His first urge was to scream, something he did. His second was to pull out all the needles and tubes going into him out, but he couldn’t. His mind screamed at him to move, to get away, to get the invading instruments out of his body (and wholeheartedly agreed), but was stuck there on the bed. Revulsion roared up in him, and he felt his stomach heave just before the warm puke spewed from his mouth, staining the white sheets covering from the waist down.

People were rushing into the room, he realized, and for a split moment he was hoping they were there to releases him from the bonds and the machines. It lasted only a moment, however. The people were pinning him down, and someone grasped his head in their hands, and the world starting growing darker, and darker…

3

Naruto’s eyes opened yet again, glazed and dull. For the longest time he could not remove his eyes from the white plaster ceiling above. Where am I? He thought wonderingly. He seemed to remember something, but it skirted on the edge of his memory, darting out of sight whenever he tried to get a better look. He tried to lift his head, but something kept it pressed down. He tried to lift his arms and legs, but something kept them pinned down as well. He wondered why he had awoken. He was sleepy, and would like nothing else than to go back to slee-

BOOM!

The roar was deafening. Even in his bonds he jumped slightly, startled by the loudness of it. The urge to look around itched and grew stronger, and the bonds holding him down were starting to get on his nerves. He tried to pull at them, but he felt so tired and weak. Maybe he was still a little groggy.

Another resounding BOOM reached his ears, followed by a crumbling noise. Dust, plaster, and bits of wood flew over him and covered the room in a layer of dirt. He barely had time to close his eyes before it settled over him. When he opened them again he saw two blood-red eyes staring down at him.

“Holy shit.” The person standing above him said, those red eyes widening in shock.

“Hello.” Said Naruto, glad to see something else than the white plaster ceiling.