Naruto: Winds and Changes

Opening his eyes Naruto had to blink several times as he saw the by now, familiar red eyes of Kyuubi staring at him. He opened his mouth but it took a moment for him to actually speak, "Morning Kyuubi…" he trailed off as he realized he had just greeted the woman whom mere days ago he had hated with a passion, and in some ways still felt resentment for what she had done to him.

Kyuubi saw the flickering emotion and lingering resentment in his eyes and felt the odd urge to flinch away from them. For a moment she was unsure what to do as this necessity of being nice was completely foreign waters to her and regardless of the fact that it would benefit her to be nice, it went against her nature. However she was able to pull herself back together and tried her best at making light of the situation, "Actually I think it's night right now. Though since you've been out of it for a while I can't be too sure."

"So how badly was I injured then?" asked Naruto, closing his eyes for a moment as he relaxed into the bed that Kyuubi had in the mindscape.

"Bad enough that you were unconscious when you first entered the mindscape," Kyuubi replied. "You have extensive damage to your body, aside from internal bleeding, you have several fractured ribs, several pieces of those fractured ribs stuck in your muscle and severe head trauma." Kyuubi gave him a cheeky grin and attempted another joke, "All together not very good."

"Yeah well, considering I was fighting another Jinchurikki, a psychotic one at that, I'll take a victory of attrition over death any day." Naruto looked up at her and favored her with a rare smile, "I have you to thank for that victory Kyuubi."

Kyuubi looked away from him as he thanked her, a light hint of pink on her cheeks; she had never had these kinds of interactions before and so it was leaving her rather flustered. Not that she would let Naruto in on that, "Actually that battle was almost all you. I just helped at the end… as well as re-grew your entire arm."

Naruto grimaced as phantom pain hit his arm, "I don't ever want to experience that again."

"Then you'll need to get stronger, because there are tons of people stronger then Gaara out there." She gave Naruto a pointed look,"To be honest you can consider yourself extremely lucky to have even beaten him at all. Had he used his Bijuu's chakra I doubt you would have won."

"I know," Naruto sighed, he could not deny that his win was a combination of luck and sheer stubborn determination. He looked at Kyuubi, "you still up for helping me?"

"I'd better be," Kyuubi replied with something akin to a half smirk/ half smile. "My continued survival depends on you, so if I don't make you as strong as possible than that leaves me in a dangerous situation."She looked away from Naruto with a small frown, "despite the fact that I am stuck in here I have no desire to die."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "well thanks I guess, even though your doing this for selfish reasons, it will at least still make me strong." He watched her eyes shift and noticed a small flicker of emotion, for a second she had looked oddly vulnerable. It was gone a moment later but he had managed to catch it and remembered that he had been going to at least try and make an attempt at being cordial.

"I do appreciate your help," Kyuubi looked back at him and he gave her a tired smile, "With your help I'll be kicking ass and taking names in no time…"

Kyuubi watched Naruto as his eyes closed, his breathing evened out and he eventually went back to sleep. She stared at him for several minutes before tentatively scooting closer to where the blond lay. It was several more minutes after that before she reached out with a hand and began to gently run it through the blonds hair.

It's surprisingly soft, Kyuubi thought with an odd sense of wonder. When she had said she never touched a human before, while it may have been an exageration, she had been partly truthful. Prior to the first several years of her life when she had first created the body she was in now, she had never allowed a human to touch her. However, his hair felt oddly different from that of other humans she had touched to sate her curiosity of the creatures when she had first awoken, it feels a lot like my fur…

She stopped for a moment and withdrew her hand, fearing she had woken him when Naruto sucked in a breath. However after several seconds he released it and his breathing evened out. Sighing in relief she went back to her ministration of gently combing her hand through his hair.

The Yondaime Kazekage stood at the designated meeting place where he listened to a report given by one of Orochimaru's henchmen. As much as it disgusted him to side with that snake, he knew that he could not beat Konoha on his own. And so he allied himself with Orochimaru, and suffered through the reports he received as well as the Snake Sannin himself constantly berating and insulting him with that silver tongue of his. However as he listened the last part of the report he became startled.

"You mean to tell me Gaara lost! To a Genin!"

The one who was speaking to him, a young teen with white hair, brown eyes and two red dots on his forehead nodded. "It seems this boy, one Uzumaki Naruto, managed to surprise your son and use a powerful Katon jutsu of some kind of turn his sand armor into glass. It trapped him inside and allowed the boy to win in the preliminaries."

The Kazekage scowled as he thought of what this would, "If Gaara lost then I doubt there is any hope for us to defeat Konoha, especially if he was defeated by a mere Genin."

The plan would also be ruined now the Kazekage realized. The whole plan had hindered on Gaara being in the finals and turning into his Shukaku form to give a surprise attack in the middle of the exams, smashing Konoha's main force before his and Orochimaru's men even got there, with Gaara no longer in the finals…

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