Work Text
Naruto is five when he almost dies in a fire. His appartment was old and mostly made of wood, and one day a spark caught and the whole thing went up in flames. He lives on the last floor and the flames engulf everything before he even realises what is going on.Still, the heat doesn't bother him and the flames on his skin feels like a caress. What hurts him is the smoke, he cannot breath.Then a voice tells him to stay low on the ground. This way, he stays safe long enough for the fire to be put out. His rescuers call his survival a miracle, but Naruto knows the truth. Fire didn't want to hurt him. Naruto is five, and so he accepts this new reality with all the aplomb of a child. Fire speaks to him and he can talk back. From the flickering flame of a lantern to the strong burner of a restaurant and all the way to the roaring inferno of a jutsu, he hears Fire everywhere.He tells Jiji of course. The third hokage talks about the Will of fire in response and Naruto thinks he understands, but he isn't sure the old man does. Naruto gets a new appartement, and he has a gaz stovetop this time. He spends hours watching the flickering flames and then hours more talking with his friend. Sometimes he turns the gaz on in the evening and he stays entranced by the shimmering colors until morning.Often, he takes a bit of Fire with him in his pocket, to watch when he is bored. Naruto is six when he starts the academy, and he doesn't like it. The others don't know about Fire and they mock him when he tries to explain. When he gets angry and sets Fire on them, the teachers scold him thoroughly.In the end he stops trying to talk the the others. He isn't lonely anyway, Fire is with him. Naruto is eight when the blank masks come to take him. He rages and Fire helps him, but the masks use water and earth to smother them and he ends up knocked out. Still, he takes confort in the knowledge that Fire consumed twelve of the attackers.When he regains consciousness, he has some cuffs around his arms and he can't call Fire anymore, but he can still feel them. An old man with bandages on his head and arm forces his mouth open and put something on his tongue, and he cannot speak freely anymore. Naruto becomes a blank mask too. Still, Fire is by his side. Naruto is ten and the last two years have been a trial. He was hurt, they forced him to hurt other and they thaught him how not to feel. They told him that Fire was a tool to be honed and used, never to be loved.Nonetheless, Fire whispers encouragements in his ear and shares his strength when everything becomes too hard to bear. Naruto gris his teeth and he loves Fire, and Fire loves him back. Naruto is ten when Lord Danzo makes a mistake. During a routine training session, one of the other masks is manipulating wood and another wields a sword. The sword hits some rocks and makes sparks. The sparks lit some splinters on fire.The fire is bolstered by some passing gust.Suddenly the whole room is aflame. Without a second thought, Naruto dives into the inferno. For the first time since he was brought underground, Naruto breathes fully.Fire is eager to answer his plea. The cuffs are reduced to cinder, the ink on his tongue boils away. There are some shouts and someone tries to douse the flames, but it is too little, too late.The rotten roots of the tree burn away under the cleansing heat of Fire. Naruto is ten when he becomes one with Fire. He is every flickering candle, every spark, every ember.And Naruto is happy.