Naruto stood at the stadium, waiting for his turn in the arena with little care, looking as though he were daydreaming. Suddenly, Sakura banged the spot next to him, having wisely learned not to bring any physical harm or threat of such to the boy himself, causing him to jump out of his stupor and towards her confusedly.
"Your turn, you idiot." She told him spitefully, though his combatant eyed the blonde tentatively, as though he were nervous if the other's presence. His dog wisely coward in the hood, not wanting to be anywhere near the boy after having witnessed his small scale effort, large scale effect, that had happened from the boy merely glancing over towards his offensive other, who was supposedly still in the hospital under observation, as the cause for his painful collapse was yet to be determined.
"Yeah, yeah." Naruto responded, stretching slightly and yawning. He felt his wings desire to spread and felt a mild migraine, accompanied with slightly sharper phantom pains, erupt slowly within him. He gave no show of discomfort as he strode down to the dirt floor. As he walked, he allowed his eyes to lock onto the form of his enemy, who he now knew was aware of his own hatred towards the elderly figure. A moment later, and his eyes moved towards his current opponent, and he reminded himself that a show was still in order, and a show he would give indeed.
The thought of causing the other to black out tickled his fancy, but that option held more cons than pros and, as such, fell from favor. His energy could be felt through his skin, desiring to power his muscles and make him near endlessly more physically powerful, yet this too was unwise. He had to remind himself to limit his capabilities, for being underestimated was far better than being overestimated and his true enemy was watching, three of them, studying his every move like a powerful wild cat would its weakened prey. He felt the odd thing that the others had told him was a tail nub twitch as he felt anticipation tingle within his stomach, excitement propelling it into his being and making him thirst for an interesting fight. He wanted to bend reality to his will, play with the person before him, yet that too, unfortunately, would cause undesirable effects.
Instead, he moved into his normal stance, one of the more basic ones taught at the academy, and he lifted a lone kunai into one hand, clenching the black metal within his grasp. Kiba furrowed his brow in confusion and waited for Naruto to make the first move, and so he did. The battle was low risk and high energy, both sides supposedly giving all that they had in their effort if surpassing the other side. Naruto frowned internally, finding himself to have gotten rather bored with the game, and so he "accidentally" sliced Kiba down his front, causing the boy, as well as his dog, to make near matching exclamations of surprise as a rather small, by Naruto's standards at least, amount of blood squirted from the wound.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Naruto lied easily, feigning an apologetic attitude with matching features, his brow creasing slightly as he began to pull the clothing he had sliced through back together in a vain attempt of closing the wound. He pretended to worry, he pretended to freak, and he laughed internally as a Kiba was taken away in a stretched due to his "extensive" injuries. It had been too easy. He pondered silently, as the group of other genin verbally harassed him over his supposed "mistake", whether or not he final battle against his true enemy would be as easy, and what he would do if it was. Kiba, if not for his arrogance and pride, was a fine fighter indeed, what would he do if Sarutobi was as easy? Would he simply move to another reality and begin again? He knew not, but he did know that it would be interesting. This was the second round, he had lost the first.
'Well' Naruto thought, pondering further over the topic.
'I guess I didn't lose, I just won in a way that wasn't favorable. After all, he's suffering a civil war where as I'm safe and sound. Yeah, I think I won the first round.' He mused, nodding to himself internally and externally, the timing being fairly good as he had just been given the last bit of the lecture and asked if he understood.
Internally, Naruto scowled. Kakashi. When they had been up against a wall, what had Kakashi done for him?! He left him to die, he never asked if he were okay, he didn't care enough to bother, he had never cared in the first place! His anger threatened to froth, just as the saliva of the man he had hospitalized had done a few days earlier, yet it never showed, and his chakra never spiked. Funny, he had been harassed over his poor control over his chakra, yet now he failed to falter.
The wood of Naruto's room was scratched beyond repair, and he might have to replace it eventually, yet this too did not cause the boy to falter. He walked on, moving over towards the pitiful fridge the Naruto of this world had owned, and peered inside. A hunger was growing within him, a familiar hunger, but this time he had thought up a way to more productively fill his stomach, one that would cost less lives.
-Time Skip, Elsewhere
A lone man, gruff and large, swept the floor with an aging broom. It was now entering the twilight, the sun having just touched the horizon and the moon doing similar, and thus his shift had ended. Removing his apron, which held oil stains along its length, he began to head towards the back exit. The door opened on smooth hinges, well maintained and needing no maintenance for a good while. The door began closing behind him, and a figure struck from the shadows. Without revealing his face, or any identifiable detail of themselves, long and sharp fangs plunged into the man's neck blindly, forcing something into the unblinking adult's bloodstream.
The unnamed man reacted instantly, swinging wildly to get the other off. Said other leapt back into the shadows, their pupils glowing brightly within the darkness, as their owner waited patiently. Pain erupted from somewhere behind the man's eye's, inside if his skull. It only lasted for a moment, however, before subsiding. The man's body slumped, his muscles releasing in their tension, as the man lost consciousness.
Naruto grinned at this and walked forwards, his eyes flashing to either side to check for any onlookers within the alleyway. Nothing but the shadows and a few small rodents watched, and nothing stood in his way. He restrained himself from sharpening all of his teeth, merely allowing his fangs and secondary fangs, and he plunged his teeth into the side of the man's throat, more in the area where neck met shoulder.
Blood, metallic in taste but rich with the life force he oh so desired, began to slide down his throat as he eagerly gulped each drop, stopping long before the man could reach death. Opening his mouth, he lifted his head off of the man's skin, a trail of saliva that tinged red and mingled with blood trailing, as the boy cocked his head back for a few moments and sighed in relief as his hunger was subdued. He licked his lips, as though to gather the last of something too divine to waste, and placed a lone hand on the wall behind him as he stood up and leaned back onto the cold and hard surface.
"Enjoying yourself?" An amused voice asked. Naruto cocked his head for a moment, but never moved to attack nor tense himself as that was not the voice of an outsider. No, that was the voice of a fellow monster, just like him. Edward smiled at him kindly, looking down with interest at the still very much alive but very much not conscious other.
"Do you know him?" He asked conversationally, nudging the now pale man with a foot.
"Not really, he once threw something at me though." Naruto responded, allowing his body to lower towards the ground as he slid down the rough surface of the brick wall. Edward joined him, and placed his head over the one that he found to be resting over his shoulder, closing his eyes to enjoy the moment.
"Edward?" Naruto suddenly asked in a deadpanned voice. Edward, for his part, seemed unresponsive, his head dipping further over Naruto's as he slipped into sleep.
"Ed!" Naruto whined, nudging the other with his elbow and causing him to jolt awake.
"Whasup now?" He asked drowsily, lifting his head and rubbing his eye to get the sleep from it.
"You fell asleep." Naruto said flatly. Edward gave a small nervous chuckle, blushing slightly.
"Did I? Whoops." He replied, yawning openly
"Guess I'm just tired. I haven't seen my bed in dayyyys." He explained, snickering slightly at Naruto's expression.
"So," he began
"How's life with the humans treating you?" He asked, glancing back over towards the mass that lay before them. Naruto sighed in a clearly annoyed manner. He turned his head upwards to stare at the rooftop that just barely covered the area above his head.
"I'm bored and then I'm sad, bored again, mad, bored, blah de blah blah blah." Naruto explained.
"And I can't get a break with these guys, my apartment sucks, the people are terrible, the ramen stand, the one I showed you a while ago, well, the people there in this dimension hate me and have tried to poison me red times already, not that they'll admit it, and on top of all that; I have to deal with these assholes!" He threw his hands out, as though to gesture to nonexistent others, and referred to his fellow nin.
"That sucks." Edward stated, glancing over hungrily towards the unconscious man with glowing eyes.
"How bout you? How's reconstruction been treating you?" Naruto asked before thinking of something else.
"How's Ditsy and Nighty?" He added
"Ditsy works as a guard and is a messenger, Nighty is working with the science department, the one that works with solutions and drugs, and part time in the torture department, the arena-I mean-not the investigative department." Edward explained.
"As for me? Reconstruction mostly, as well as keeping a few dumbasses from breaking their time and working on our list of summoners and imports, we don't export anything yet." Edward explained, before slamming his head on the rough surface behind him.
"In addition, I've spent the last week helping a group of outer space pirates form a Cu." Edward replied. Naruto raised a brow, thinking himself to have heard wrong.
"You helped inter galactic pirates make copper?" He asked teasingly, a sly grin forming in his face.
"Element pun!" Edward responded in an exclamation, grinning wide. A few moments later, he dug his hand into his bag and pulled something out. It looked like a small pamphlet. The papers were held together by a single ring of metal and slid away as he lifted it up, the young looking being sifting through the paler shade as he looked for something. He frowned as he found no good puns based on their situation and returned the pamphlet to its previous position within his bag.
"You like puns now?" Naruto asked, quirking a brow at the knowledge.
"They have their charm." Edward responded easily, putting his hands in his knees and pushing himself upwards, standing.
"Alright, let's go." Edward told simply.
"Go?" Naruto asked, suddenly realizing that there was a small stream of the fluid he had consumed that had run down his chin. He wiped himself clean of the material to the best of his abilities and tasted nothing but blood, partially dry and devoid of any of its previous nutrients as the life force that mingled within it had dissipated. It tasted surprisingly different now than it had earlier, as though the majority of the flavor was embedded in the spirit of the individual.
"Yeah" Edward glanced overs giving him a pleasant smile before turning back towards the exit of the alleyway.
"I'm hungry."