17 Chapter 16 - Naruto and Morality

My run was animalistic. Arms meeting the ground, gripping loose stone and dirt with sharpened fingernails. Legs followed as I continued my charge, and my target was growing ever closer.

Water splashed into the air, but by the time it fell back down, I was already gone. Echoing ripples shouted into my beating eardrums, matching my heart as it demanded I all but rip the man in front of me apart.

I saw his eyes widen, realization of his actions settling in. He tried to move, but his body was a wreck. His left arm was a shattered mess, and the wounds that Kabutowari's exploding Chakra crack caused was making him cough up more blood than air. He was in no position to make fast movements.

I reached him with a massive leap of my Kyūbi Chakra enhanced form. The vile energy was steaming through my veins, and I felt a euphoric rush as I grabbed the man's face with my small, toddler hands. It was rather pathetic when you actually compared to size of the two.

Well, that would be the case if it weren't for the small claws that were my fingernails. They dug into the supple skin, and a hoarse scream was muffled by my palm.

Then I forced his head back, sending him slamming back into the slab of raised earth behind him. He collided with a sickening thud.

I felt more warmth flow through me.

Before he could recover, my knee met his stomach. Something crunched beneath my force. Blood spilled past his teeth. There was something within me screaming for more blood. It required more violence on the hated enemy.

A clawed hand reached up for him, but this time he was ready. The Shinobi grabbed my offending hand by the wrist, his grip like steel. His eyes were cold, hard and so serious.

A kick traveled into my side and vibrated the healing hole in my torso. I warbled a hoarse growl of pain as my elbow jammed into his raised thigh. The leg spasmed as I hit a nerve or something, and I hurriedly jumped up, using his own grasping hand as a hold, and forced my feet into his stomach.

Whatever injuries that he had were agitated enough that the man dropped my arm in favor of cradling his collapsed ribs. He was wheezing for air, rapid breaths trying to gather more of the needed substance.

Rage and deep orange were swirling around me. I was so angry, and I don't think it mattered what was around me. I wanted to break something.

So, I grabbed a fistful of the man's hair, snarling as he yelped. His eyes were looking at me. The deep blue eyes reflected my crimson, feline slits. I saw concentrated fear in those blue orbs.

Disgust and rage warred within me as my knuckles cracked into his skull. A kick shot towards me as I was distracted in my thoughts, and I had to lean back till my back went parallel with the ground to dodge. I was only able to hold onto the ground by liberally using Chakra to stick my feet to the floor.

The battered man rose fast. His distraction served to tear my eyes and focus away from him long enough for he to jump up with a burst of energy that I didn't know he had left.

Legs swept me off my feet as he twisted on his rise. My back slammed into the ground with an echoing thud, water splashing in my descent. He grabbed a thin wire that hung nearby, and leapt at me while forcing both his good arm and broken arm to hold the wire. His blue eyes were wide with fear and recklessness.

He was desperate, I realized.

My mind blanked a little as I understood just how this fight devolved into a slug match with the intent to tear each other apart. This was no longer an fight with fancy Jutsu, nor was it some impressive display of close-combat skill. It was just a brutal beat down until one of us was dead.

On instinct, I dodged the wire and wrapped my arms around his broken limb. His pained cries rang out, and I tried to throw him.

My motions stopped as a knee buried into my floating ribs, my wounds throbbed in strangling pain. A fist collided with the side of my head with a ringing thud.

Vision blurred rapidly as my ears ached from the hit. Stars dotted my sight, and I was forced to jam my sharpened incisors into my bottom lip to think straight.

I was healing. My wounds hurt less and less as the struggle waged, but this was getting dangerous. The Kyūbi Chakra was enhancing my muscles and defenses much more than I thought it would. However, my thoughts were switching between clarity and mind-numbing bloodlust.

I needed to started thinking smart. Rage tried to take my control, and baleful orange wisps enhanced that rage. It was getting to the point that I had no idea why I was so angry in the first place.

Finding a moment of clarity between slugging my target, and getting kicked, kneed or punched in return, I split.

Momentarily, I was two pieces. The Kyūbi's berserker state was broken as it no longer had the means to hold onto me. Reasoning filled my clouded mind, and pain rained through the injuries that covered me. The staggering pain helped keep me grounded to reality.

With my split hovering above us with its near omniscient sight, I could see much more now. No longer responding by pure instinct, I easily evaded Katsura's retaliatory strikes. They were much slower than before, bloodied and bruised flesh hindered him from smoothly completing each. While I was slow as well, I knew how to deal with being slower than I perceived things.

I had no idea how biology works here, but I don't think I qualified as a four year old anymore, at least. My movements were nothing like a normal child of any age below twelve. However, I think I appreciated this when I could easily brush past his sharp kicks and devastating haymakers.

Ducking underneath another wayward kick, I snuck around him like a ghost, and pushed a foot into the pit of his knee. Katsura fell, collapsing to his hands knees in splashing thuds. I briefly noted that he tried to get up, but his weakened limbs seemed to fail him.

Then I was gone. Rematerialized above him with hurried, promised violence. My knee smashed into the back of his head with a Chakra induced explosion via horrible control.

There was a dull crack as the two collided.

His body crashed into the ground, arms and legs spreading out as he flattened into the floor. I ungracefully flopped down beside him in a tired splash. He didn't make a move to get up.

My breathing was harsh, labored breaths gulping water and air in equal amounts. That fight exhausted me more than I had expected. Katsura just wouldn't go down, and the brief moment that my reasoning was clouded by bloodlust didn't help.

With a sore body, a slowly eased myself up from my position. My limbs were shaking from exertion, and I stumbled twice on getting up. The hole in my stomach was healing up just fine; going from a gory bore through my torso to a rather three-finger sized hole that only bled a little.

When I was finally on my feet, I shambled over to the prone form of Katsura. I found a small piece of wire, and slouched over him while wrapping the wire around his neck.

I couldn't get any further from there. No matter how much strength I tried to well up, I didn't continue.

Katsura was a horrible man. His actions cost the lives of innocents, and I'm sure that if I didn't end him now that he would continue to do so if possible. It would be a good thing to kill someone as terrible as he.

However, looking at his broken and limp form, I found myself back to my moral dilemma. This wouldn't be like killing someone in the heat of the moment like last time, or ruthlessly ending the life of someone out of some misplaced heroism. Killing Katsura now would thoroughly destroy any remaining morality I had.

Sure, I could easily do it and say that I killed him for the sole purpose of fearing he might come after us again. The thought actually was the thing that brought me to holding a wire to his throat.

However, if I did that, then when would I draw the line? When would I feel that someone should be saved or killed? If I am to live in this crazy world, then would I eventually end up like Katsura himself? Would I kill everyone I met just because I found it more convenient?

If I was deciding to kill him based on his actions, then how would I judge it? I remember him saying something about Itsuki doing something similar while they were fighting. Would that mean that I had to kill Katsura just because he hadn't tried to repent like Itsuki? This world's sense of moral quandaries was more different than my previous one, too. How would I know that this was just an average day for every Shinobi?

My head ached as I looked up, eyes finding Hinata and Itsuki a little ways away. Hinata was tying up that man in her patented 'gauze mummy' while fretting over the injuries he had. Itsuki was smiling his same calming smile, I could practically hear him saying something like how he was 'fine'.

"I'm not going to kill you." I decided aloud. "You're beaten. You have no chance of fighting back, but I won't kill you."

When I had spoke, I had more expected to be speaking to an unconscious man. My words were more a promise to myself so that I didn't lose who I was under all the insanity that this world was. So that I wouldn't become like Katsura.

I didn't expect a raspy laugh to respond. Katsura's scratchy tones burbled between bubbles of frothy blood and foamy water, "You're a… fool. You think that this is over… I'll find you… you, that traitor and disgusting bloodline pig. I'll kill you all."

His words were so predictable and cliche that I had no idea how to react other than laugh. I think it was partly the stress of the situation getting to me, but I had no idea that someone could actually say that with a straight face. For some reason, all the hatred and rage I had directed at him seemed fragile. Katsura just seemed like a man who knew nothing but the orders that came from his village, and now he had resorted to inane threats.

I turned my attention to Hinata and Itsuki, ignoring the man underneath me. The sun was setting, gentle orange and red rays cascading off the water filled the ruined town. Ripples of calm thrummed peacefully inside the watery destruction. I found the scene incredibly beautiful.

"I don't kill you out of mercy for you." I said, not taking my eyes off of the scene. "I don't kill you out of mercy for myself. I refuse to kill someone who cannot fight back. Whether I will regret it in the future, I will have to deal with it then."

"Idiot…" Katsura bubbled, his breathing was getting harsher and harsher. Idly, I made sure that he wasn't making any hand signs just to be extra sure he wasn't pulling something.

I smiled when he remained unmoving. "Yes, I am an idiot, but I choose to do this. I am not the one who has justified his actions by following some stupid sort of creed."

Finally, I stood, aching muscles protesting in unison. My attention found its way down to Katsura laying in the puddle below. His eyes were turned up to look at me, and, for once, I found myself confused by how he wasn't as hostile as before.

"Who are you, kid?" Katsura said between hardy rasps. His words drew me to wonder where his accusations of killing me went. "What are you to not fear me? To not fear the village behind me?"

I frowned, finding logic in his words that I hadn't yet considered. However, I already had the words on the tip of my tongue. "While I do not know what to think about your village just yet, I do know that I fight not because I am not fearful, but because I am afraid. Afraid to lose everything that I have bled for."

"That's…" Katsura seemed tongue tied by my words. "... I see." He seemed to be thinking hard on something as I began to walk away, but he spoke up so that I could hear him. "You know, I really did look up to Itsuki-Sensei. He always did look after everyone in the academy, and I… I knew him the best. That's how I found him. That's how I knew where to look for his traces."

I really wondered what this guy was expositioning about. I was tired and in desperate need of sleep, but it seemed that even my spared enemies had something to say.

"He is… exactly as I remembered." Katsura smiled a smile that wasn't out of malice or anything of the sort, and, for a second, he seemed almost happy before falling back to the land of unconsciousness. His eyelids fluttered closed as he slowly tilted into the water. I could barely register the fact that maybe he had a different reaction to fear than I did.

My face was set into a tight frown. I had no idea what to think of how human the monster that Katsura was. Shaking my head, I decided that there was nothing left to think about. There were other things to worry about.

My steps, while shaky, continued through the peaceful silence of the broken town, water rippling beneath each foot. The sunset was gracing the newly formed puddles, and I found myself walking through a field of calm oranges and reds. Hinata and Itsuki waited for me at my destination.

Katsura's declarations and my new mentality were pounding the back of my thoughts, but as I looked onto Itsuki's wounded body, I found myself cleared of them. His wounds were much worse than I feared. The hole in his shoulder wasn't bleeding anymore, but he was disturbingly pale. His right arm was hanging by tiny threads of flesh, and Hinata was fretting over his wounds.

She briefly turned to me as I approached, and teared up eyes puffed up to me. "Naruto-kun… Sensei… He won't wake up."

My heart dropped as I stared at the limp form of Itsuki. I only found the need to breathe when I found his chest rising up and down very softly. "Don't worry, Hinata-chan." I said as slow as possible while I crouched down to Itsuki. "I'll fix this…"

Whether I said to cheer her up, or to reassure myself, I didn't know. However, neither did I care.

All I had a mind to do was to find a healer.