Chapter 36 - Haunting Dreams (2/2)

”... Like your mom?” Kirishima knew he was stepping on a landmine.

”... Like my mom... My father is the Thunder God, the Legendary Number 2 Hero, famous for his Teleport Quirk. He had once saved over 1,000 people in under a second, from a gasoline explosion and a collapsing building... but when people see me, they remember my mom... She lost control, and all my life, people who knew my mom, looked at me with eyes that told me they were afraid of me... you and Mina were my first friends for a lot of reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I met you... but ever since I've met all of you and learned how to be happier... The bloodlust has gotten stronger...” Naruto laid back and looked at the ceiling. Making friends had made it even easier for him to fall into the bloodlust. Imagining them getting hurt, or seeing them hurt, the thought alone could make him so angry. They were precious to him at this point, and losing them? He didn't want to go back to having no friends.

Kirishima laid down next to Naruto, both of them looking at the ceiling.

”You need therapy, you've got a lot of emotional baggage.” Kirishima gave his professional advice for this. ”Not to mention you're constantly being attacked by real freaks, and can't go into the city without a villain popping up... and in the last 2 weeks, you've nearly died 3 times.”

”4”

”4? When was the fourth time?” Kirishima didn't remember Naruto almost dying. He was pretty sure he would have noticed it in the news if Naruto had fought a villain and nearly died from it.

”Last night I had a nightmare so bad, I actually woke up and had an anxiety attack... felt like I was going to die.” Naruto didn't want to mention that. Naruto didn't like that he had been having nightmares every once and awhile, but they had been happening.

”Dude, we should take you to a hospital or something. That is really serious, do you know what is causing it?”

”Himiko Toga... I dreamed that you guys had never came to save me. I honestly though I was over what happened, but a couple of times a week, she appears in my worst nightmares... and next to her are a group of villains... being lead by that bastard covered in hands... The dreams feel so real too... sometimes... I see the face of a man with no nose... dripping with the blood of heroes... and then there are times I dream of... something worse.” Naruto sat up with Kirishima. The dreams had always felt so real to him, to the point when he had those dreams he would wake up in a cold sweat. ”... I'm having dreams of a little girl... with a horn on her head... and she's being hurt... she's being hurt really bad...” Naruto didn't know what his dreams were trying to tell him, but it was pretty fuċkėd up.

The girl was small, she couldn't be older than six... and her arms were covered in scars. Her clothes were little more than rags, and her red eyes called for him without saying it.

”Dude... dark...”

”Monster Fox... It was formed when the a person with the Nine-Tails Quirk and the Gigantification Quirk had a child, and that child gained a composite Quirk. The Nine-Tails Quirk gave the person with it the power to transform into a Nine-Tails... and manifest all of the abilities of the legendary creature... With my Monster Fox Quirk, I think I've been awakening the hidden powers of the Nine-Tails Quirk... I'm afraid these dreams... that they aren't dreams.” Naruto hated that thought so much. If so, then his visions were visions of the future. They were visions of people suffering, and there was a little girl who needed his help. His contact with his Tama had been when he started to get these dreams, and now, they wouldn't stop even now that he had locked it away again.

Kirishima didn't know what to say, so he just placed his arm around Naruto's shoulder.

Naruto looked at him, and he stopped with that.

”Sorry.”

”It's fine... If these dreams are true though, then there is a little girl out there, scared and abused... and I have the power to save her. My dream last night... was when I saw the little girl... Eri... is” Naruto spoke in a practical whisper. He had just heard her name briefly in the dream, and he didn't know what her last name was. ”She's just a kid... no kid should be treated like a menace by ȧduŀts because of a power they didn't choose-”

”-like you?” Kirishima asked with a look at Naruto.

Naruto looked at him, shocked.

”What?”

”You're seeing yourself in this girl, right? I mean, the government told the Top 10 to kill you if it came down to it. You didn't have any friends growing up, and you grew up with the knowledge that your parents killed each other... and everyone is always putting a ton of pressure on you. This girl in your dreams, you're relating to her situation, because you can understand her... not to mention you've been tortured and abused by that blood-freak... and you've nearly died several times.” Kirishima wasn't smart by any stretch of the word, but even he could see that Naruto was seeing himself in this girl. Their situations were mirrors of each other, where Naruto had his uncle, it was only latter in his life that he got the support of others.

Everything this little girl was going through, Naruto had experienced at some point in his life, so it was easy to see himself in this girl's shoes, and it just made everything they were doing to her in the dream that much more horrible to him.

”... That makes me feel worse...” Naruto pointed out.

His friend suċkėd in his breath... whoops.

”Have you talked about any of this to your uncle?”

”Of course not... he's got so much on his plate. I don't want him to have to deal with my problems, ya know...” Naruto turned bright red when he realized what he had just said.

”Ya know?”

”Don't repeat it!” Naruto tackled Kirishima and covered his mouth to prevent him from saying those words again. He had a verbal tic, and he didn't like it when people knew about it. He had spent so long trying to get rid of it, but it would seem that in his moment of weakness, his verbal tic had decided to make a reappearance. The two of them wrestled on the bed for a moment, before Naruto got him in a rough headlock. ”Don't you dare tell anyone, got it?” Naruto threatened in a low growl.

”Got it... ya know.”

Kirishima went flying out the window.