Naruto: Next Gen Ch93: Getting Answers

    The next morning, Tsuki woke up sitting against her bedroom door curled in a ball. After slamming the door on Liaf, she'd run up to her room with tears in her eyes and pain in her heart. She sat there now, in her pajamas, crying against the locked door at the thought of what she did to him. 
    "Liaf...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." she said to herself in between sobs. 
    On the other side of the village, Liaf awoke to a wet pillow. Soaked by the tears of the night prior. Now however there was no longer any time to be sorry for himself. He got up, got dressed and walked out the door. Liaf wandered - more or less - aimlessly through the village, still not one hundred percent familiarized with the new layout since it's ongoing reconstruction began. The boy still managed to find his way to the hospital though, and went in requesting to see Sakura. She came out to see him, and he immediately asked about Tsuki's arm.
    "Well, it was a slight hyperextension last time I checked it, but the bruise wasn't shaped like anything human. Which confused me. Why the questions, Liaf?"  
    "Not human?" he wondered. "It's nothing Granny, just curious. Thanks." he said, then he walked away. He asked a few other people around the hospital about the rumor of the strange beast, but most people avoided him. "What's going on with everybody?" he thought out loud as he left the hospital.
    "I can tell you the answer to that question." Said a voice. Liaf started looking up, and his eyes stumbled upon a yellow, open-front skirt with gray pants, and one arm that he saw as his eyes came up to meet the face of this person was covered in a black glove that went up to the middle of their upper arm. Reddish orange shirt, breasts, they were female. Then orange hair and a familiar face. Sakarai. "I can tell you what really happened to your friend. The secret she didn't want to tell you." 
    "Why would I believe anything you say to me now? After you openly admitted last night that you were opposed to the alliance and admitted to everything that you did?" Liaf said skeptically, so he kept walking. 
    "Well, the others all dodged you, and here I am offering the truth. Doesn't that count for something?" she said. There was an edge to her tone that made it obvious that she thought she was very cunning. It was true that Liaf wanted to know what really happened to Tsuki...
    Reluctantly he turned around and made eye contact. "Fine... Let's hear what you have to say."
    A smirk crept across Sakarai's face, and the way her eyes narrowed made for a look of sick fascination. "It was you." she said, and suddenly Liaf's stomach fell. He had a strong feeling she was lying, but there was that small part of him that immediately believed it since he knew of his transformation and loss of control. "You were the one who hurt her. That beast everyone keeps talking about, it was you. You were going around, whacking people all of the place like they were insects. You grabbed her arm with your tails and swung her. The sudden pulling hyperextended her arm. That's the real reason that she doesn't want to see you anymore. She's afraid of ya, and you know why? It's because you're..." Sakarai suddenly took a large step toward him and put her lips up to Liaf's ear, whispering the last word with extra emphasis. "A monster..." she said.
    "No...NO!!" He snapped and swung at her as hard as he could, but she caught it, and despite being influenced by the Nine Tails' chakra, Liaf's fist's impact didn't even make her flinch. "Heh heh... Is this how you Leaf Shinobi thank people for giving you the information you were looking for?" 
    "NO!! You're lying! I know you are, it...It can't be true!!" Liaf yelled. He was hoping against hope that he was right, but he wasn't even sure if he believed himself. 
    "Hate to break it to ya pal - not really, I'm actually enjoying this - but it's all right on the money. Every word of it." she told him. Liaf rejected the sentence she'd just uttered, and then threw another punch at her, decking her right in the face. She flew back but stopped herself. Liaf took off though, but she caught up and cut him off in seconds. "This," she said as she grabbed his shoulder, "Is why she's so scared of you. You have absolutely no control over your temper. Look at you, already resonating with the Kyuubi," she said this despite the fact that her eyes gave away the fact that she was currently resonating with the Four Tails' chakra herself, "You get mad, or upset, and then you immediately draw on the Fox's power, and end up hurting the people close to you. That's no way to be. You have no control, and that's why people fear you. That's why they didn't tell you the answer to your questions earlier. Because they're scared of you." She said. 
    Liaf pulled away and tried to take off again, but she cut him off. "After not so long, you start losing people. First it's only one person. Then another, and another, until everyone you've ever held close has forsaken you. And then, you end up what Jinchuriki are meant to be in the first place. What a Jinchuriki always is in the end," Sakarai put a hand on his shoulder, and once again she brought her lips up to his ear and whispered to him, "All alone..." she breathed.
    "SHUT UP!! SHUT YOUR GODDAMNED MOUTH!!" Liaf screamed. He fell to his knees holding the sides of his head with tears of frustration pouring from his eyes like a faucet that got left running. 
    "Why should I? You know it's all the truth. We're meant to be loners, no friends. No family. Nobody to care about us..."
    "JUST STOP!! STOP TALKING!! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE!! PLEASE!!" Liaf cried. 
    "But it's true. Why should I stop when you have every right to know all this?" Sakarai grabbed the boy by the hair and picked him up to eye level, "It's not fun to know the truth of this world is it? You, who talks about uniting the Jinchuriki, all you're going to do is amplify each of their loneliness!" Then she threw him on the ground. Liaf hit the dirt on his side with a thud, so Sakarai stepped on his head, "You're disgustingly idealistic. Only one thing is true about being a Jinchuriki. You'll lose all your friends, all your family even. Every person whose ever known you will hate your guts and wish you were just gone or dead. You'll only be seen as a monster!" 
    Liaf couldn't take much more of this torture. His cloak was starting to appear, and now he had to fight that off too. "Please...no more...I'm begging you... just stop." 
    "BAH! You're just difficult because you've already been accepted once. You're a worthless little child. You'll see how it is soon enough." She picked her foot up and then kicked him in the back of the head before walking away. Leaving him alone in the middle of the road as the cloak faded. 
    Tsuki, whose house was only a stones-throw away, had seen most of what happened out there. She felt a strong chakra when Sakarai resonated with the Four Tails and had been watching ever since. She watched her ex-boyfriend pick himself up after a few minutes and start to slowly walk away. 
    Liaf passed by a fence as he heard a voice, "Liaf, she's trouble you know." they said. It was Sora, who'd heard it all, and seen only the end of what had happened. "Who cares?" Liaf asked him. Sora stepped out and stop him from moving passed him, "Oh, sorry, I just thought maybe you'd be interested in the truth, not the bull she was spouting out to you. The crap you took in and believed so easily."
    "W-what are you talking about, Sora?" Liaf asked.
    "I was actually there, with Tsuki, during the fighting. I was even the one who took her out of the battlefield when her arm got messed up. And, unlike me, most people these days haven't actually seen the Four Tails' or Nine Tails' bodies." Liaf suddenly looked up at Sora and listened, "And, they don't realize that someone can't be in two places at the same time without a Shadow Clone. And when was the last time you used a Shadow Clone Jutsu while you were in Version 2?" he asked. 
    "Sora, what are you saying?" Liaf asked. In most cases, Liaf would be able to follow something this simple, but his mind was in pieces right now.
    "I'm saying that it wasn't you who hurt your friend. It was her, the Yonbi. She's similar to me, Liaf. She can manipulate the chakra of her beast to her will. At least...to some extent. And regardless, she's framing you for her attacks. It's easy in this situation because in the midst of battle, with the stress and the adrenaline going around, nobody pays attention to the finer details, like what her head looked like, the body shape. Things like that, all they see is a Jinchuriki going crazy."
    Liaf put it together slowly, but indefinitely. He realized that this meant he still had a chance with Tsuki if he explained. "Sora, thanks, I gotta go," Liaf started to run toward her houses direction, but he called out to the blonde, "Liaf! You go do what you have to, but one way or another, something needs to be done about her crimes. She's essentially committed treason. Whether we take it up with the Kage's, or handle it ourselves, something needs to be done to stop her before she ruins the entire alliance just by incriminating you for her attacks."
    Liaf nodded. He understood perfectly. Color returned to Liaf's face as he traveled toward Tsuki's house, but it was due more to his rage than his lessening sense of panic. "I'll kill that bitch..." he thought. The blonde started with a fast walk, but he gradually sped up until he was completely sprinting. Liaf made it to Tsuki's house in a few minutes, and he climbed up to her window and looked in, seeing her in her room, sitting on the bed. Liaf knocked on the window, and when she made eye contact with him, his face told her he was desperate. Tsuki started shouting at him to leave, that she didn't want to see him anymore and she meant it. Liaf was planning to wait till she stopped shouting, but there seemed to be no end in sight, so he opened the window from the outside, "Tsuki... Please, just listen to me for half a second!" he pleaded, and she stopped shouting for a moment. Liaf saw this as his one and only chance. He stepped into her room, to which she reacted fearfully, getting up off her bed and backing away a little bit. "Look, I know what you think, you think it was me who hurt you in a rampaging state, but that wasn't me! I swear to god, Tsuki! Please believe me. It was the Four Tails' Jinchuriki."
    "Liaf Uzumaki...If what you did in the first place, hurting all those people...hurting me...as if that weren't bad enough on it's own, you have the nerve to blame it on another person? How dare you? I cannot believe you wou-"
    Liaf rushed toward her and slowed down at the last second. He gently touched her face, and with a tear in his eye, kissed her for a moment. Tsuki was shocked, it was unexpected sure, but thats not what surprised her. It was seeing the tears that fell down his face. She pulled away and backed up a couple feet.
    "Tsuki...you can stop loving me, even hate me if you need to. But please, at least believe what I'm telling you. It wasn't me who hurt you. It was Sakarai...Sakarai Rijin, Okomai's sister." He looked in her eyes for any sign of a change or shift in emotion. But there was nothing. So Liaf just turned and walked back to the window. Tsuki lifted her hand, her mouth opened, but no words came out. He had one leg outside the window already before he turned around again, "I guess this is it then, so uh..." he whispered something only just audible enough to make out, "Bye..." he said louder, then he slipped out and left, closing the window behind him as he took off.