Title: Under Lock and Key
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: T
Length: 554 words
Content notes: Swearing, Talk of death and murder. Some Shippuden references.
Prompts: Challenge #252: Key. It also fills the "key" prompt of my 100 fandoms table challenge and the "Corpses/Skeletons/Remains" square of my genprompt_bingo card.
Summary: Kurama is a construct of anger and chakra, and hates being locked up.

Under Lock and Key

Damn that man!
 

Damn all the stupid humans!
 

Who do they think they are? How can they presume to be in the right? They are all the same! The same!
 

Self-righteous, obnoxious, weak little pests.
 

Kurama despises every single one of them and wishes they’d burn.

(Why can’t they let him be free? Why can’t they just disappear? They are nothing but a strain on resources; nothing but a sprinkle of life-forms that thrive on destruction and war and enslavement.)
 

The worst are the so-called shinobi. Kurama can’t help but snarl every time he thinks of them, of the way they’ve taken his father’s gift and twisted it into something unrecognizable. They use it to fight among themselves, to kill, to manipulate—
 

Red eyes r e d with swirling tomoe d a r k k i l l

Y O U W I L L O B E Y M E

—and Kurama hates them for it. Where’s the growth? Where’s the balance?
 

Kurama’s a being of condensed chakra, yin and yang in harmony just like every other one of his siblings, but the balance of the world is skewed and he can feel it like lightning in his legs, in his tails. Even now, once again made prisoner of a puny human, he can feel it, and he knows it’s becoming worse.
 

(How? Why? It’s their fault!)
 

It wasn’t as bad when he was inside his first host—that damn Uzumaki woman of the dark red hair and steady composure. It became somehow worse when his warden passed him off to the little Uzumaki girl of the fiery temper and wicked chains.
 

And now, the boy.
 

A baby, the son of his late warden—whom he killed. He doesn’t regret it. Not when it almost meant his freedom. Not when it means the damn chains are no more. The cage is not a huge improvement, but at least he can move. At least he knows there’s a key.
 

(There’s a key in the seal, a key that could free him. He just needs to be patient and one day, when the boy’s grown, he’ll make sure to make him use that key and Kurama will be free.)

Once he’s free he’ll hunt down the fucking Uchiha that trapped him with his red red eyes and he’ll tear them limb from limb until there’s nothing left.
 

And then he’ll raze down the village that enslaved him for years.
 

Nothing will remain but corpses and ashes, and the thick scent of fear of the last people to die.
 

Once he’s free, he’ll never let someone enslave him again.
 

But first, he must be patient.
 

First, he has to get the key.
 

Kurama’s a being of anger and chakra, and he’s lived for centuries. He hates to be chained; he hates to be caged, but he knows how to stalk a prey. He knows the value of waiting, even though he usually prefers not to.
 

The boy is still too young to influence, and the damn seal took out a lot out of him when it separated his chakra. Kurama walks around his cage one more time and then lays down, head over his paws.
 

There’s time. He will sleep and gather his strength, and when he finally wakes, he’ll get himself free.
 

Whatever it takes.