Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto or One Piece
"Aaaaahhhhhh!", Luffy could only scream as he was sent hurtling down into pitch darkness. He didn't know why he was suddenly falling, there certainly weren't any gigantic holes in his ship last he checked. But, maybe there was… Weirder things have happened since entering the Grand Line.
Luffy really hoped that the falling would end soon. He couldn't see anything and the only thing he could hear was the wind whistling past his ears.
Suddenly, a light appeared below and a Luffy grinned. "I think that's the exit!"
Before he knew it, Luffy shot out of the dark hole that was hovering over a gigantic city plaza. Luffy bounced a few times before finally skidding to a stop. He looked up the hole he dropped out of and watched pensively as it closed. "Guess I'm not going back that way", he said scratching his head. He turned around, hearing a rumbling noise, and noticed another hole in the ground.
The rumbling noise increased and the hole started to glow with an ominous red light. Luffy stood back and watched as a deep, red aura oozed out of the abyss.
Luffy's eyes looked up in awe as the red aura grew to colossal size. Easily towering over the all the surrounding buildings. Slowly the aura started to take shape of a fox.
The piercing red eyes glared down at the minuscule figure below and peeled back his lips, bared teeth glistening in a malicious grin.
Kurama let out a wicked chuckle and was about to move to eat young man until he noticed the expression on the human's face.
Luffy's face held an expression of childish delight-eyes shining with a wide smile- like he'd gotten a really good birthday present.
"You're huge!" He exclaimed, darting side to side, admiring the fox's sheer size. The fox's features twisted into confusion wondering at the boy's lack of fear. He moved forward with intent to making a dark promise that he was sure to instill fear.
"Hey, hey" Luffy started while bouncing excitedly on his toes, "do you poop?!"
And that's when Kurama felt it for the first time in his long existence, his brain stuttering to a complete stop.
"Huh?" Kurama stared down absolutely baffled. Most of the humans he encountered were usually overwhelmed by fear, some tried to harness his enormous power and everyone else preferred to just keep him locked up. They never bothered asking him questions. But of all the questions he could have been asked, why that one?
Luffy however thought that maybe the giant creature just couldn't hear him very well and decided to repeat himself. He looked down at himself. He was pretty tiny… He looked up determined, " . Pooooop?" He dragged out the last word much to the fox's ire.
"You don't need to repeat it", Kurama was absolutely irritated at the way the little brat said it the second time. It was demeaning, "I heard it the first time." He snarled.
"But you weren't answering me…" Luffy whined, it was a pretty easy question after all. It shouldn't be hard to answer. He was curious.
"And why… Would I ever want to answer a question like that?"
"Because it's polite" Luffy said in a matter-of-fact kind of way, "it's rude if you ignore me."
"You don't have any right to call anyone else impolite", Kurama gritted out. What was wrong with this human?
Luffy beamed completely ignoring the fox's remark, "sooo, do you?"
"No!" Kurama roared blowing off Luffy's hat a considerable distance behind him. As Luffy made a run to grab it the fox stayed where he was feeling rage start to build up, causing his body to tremble.
"I almost forgot!" Luffy came running back up and stood where he was before, pointing at his face he said,"My name's Luffy. What's yours?"
"I'm not telling you!" Kurama growled.
Luffy blinked, "you don't have any manners do you?"
Kurama slammed a colossal fist on top of Luffy. He felt a bit of pleasure knowing that he finally won't have to deal with the bothersome human anymore.
Unfortunately for Kurama, when he lifted his fist, Luffy-after being completely flat- returned to his original shape. Looking none too worse for wear.
Coughing a bit Luffy muttered an 'ow' and quickly looked for his hat and got angry when he noticed the state of his hat. "You jerk! You crushed my hat!"
Kurama twitched irritably, "You are supposed to be dead."
Luffy looked confused," Really? Why's that?"
"I slammed my fist on the top of your head", Kurama spoke as if he were talking to a small child, for all he knew he probably was, "That should've crushed you…" Kurama lowered his head to Luffy's level and tilted his head thoughtfully, "Why are you alive?"
"Oh!" Luffy exclaimed got what the fox was saying, "that's because I'm a rubber man!" Luffy pulled one his cheeks stretching it out past his shoulder before letting it snap back."Hitting me won't work because I'm made of rubber!" He proudly explained.
Kurama stared on in disdain,"Fantastic" he drawled sarcastically.
"Oh cool! You have a fingers like I do!" Luffy looked at the fox's paws which had long fingers ending with sharp nails. He made grabby motions with one of his hands while pointing at it with the other and asked,"How come they look like mine?"
Kurama stared on in disbelief,"I don't know..." He spat,"Aren't you focusing on all the wrong things?!" Kurama could feel it. He had no control over the conversation and he didn't know why. He didn't like it not one bit. The boy's look of confusion only made him angrier. A thought crossed his mind that made twisted his face into an evil grin.
Luffy recognized the signs. He could see the giant fox wanted to attack and-while most people would try to flee in fear- Luffy grinned anticipating the challenge a fight with monstrous fox in front of him would bring.
"You wanna fight?", he said,"Bring it on!" Luffy then dropped into a fighting stance waiting for the fox to make the first move.
"Gladly… although", Kurama purred at the thought of finally getting rid of the little nuisance,"it won't be much of a fight once I swallow you whole!"
Kurama lunged at Luffy and before he could make good on his promise something stopped him short. Something started to yank Kurama backwards away from Luffy. "What is this!?", Kurama snarled in rage.
Luffy looked on in amazement. He leaned forward using one of his hands like a visor trying to get a better look at whatever stopped his would-be opponent from attacking."I think those are… Those are chains!" He cried.
Kurama looked down and indeed found chains wrapped around his entire body, pulling backwards towards-what looked like- a bright white light.
"Who's doing this?!" He roared indignantly. His darted around in an attempt to find the one responsible for chaining him like this.
"Sorry", a female voice sang, "that would be me." Luffy and Kurama looked at another light hovering above them although this one was blue.
Luffy stared at the light for a moment, "uhhh… Who are you?" He asked while scratching his head.
"Oh me?" The light flashed gleefully, "you can call me Temp!"
The two on the ground stared at Temp in silence for a few seconds. Kurama finally ground out, "And?"
"And what?" Temp chirped.
Kurama looked put out, "That doesn't tell me what you are… At all."
"Oh that…" Temp seemed to dance around their heads while answering," you can consider me the overseer of time and space… Or something to that effect anyway." She finished a bit awkwardly as if she were unsure."I'm the one that brought you two here."
"Why?", the two asked unison. Kurama eye twitched at knowing that, even if only for a moment, that he and that idiot were on the same wavelength.
"Mostly for fun", and after a moment added,"the rest for research."
"You stuck me with an idiot for fun?!", Kurama snarled.
"And research!~"
"I don't care!" Kurama was so done with today, the stupid brat and now the lady of light whose fucking with him for fun. "Why did you stop me?" He growled in fury.
"Why not?" Temp replied with a giggle. "Letting you eat someone's easy, it's more entertaining to see you held back like dog on a leash." Kurama was absolutely sure, if she could make facial expressions, she wearing the most patronizing one she could manage. His hackles raised at the image in his head.
Luffy was bored with the conversation being held above his head and started wandering around the large city they'd been standing in. He clutched his stomach when it growled, "I'm hungry" He groaned, "I wonder if there's any meat around here?"
He tried to wander farther off to find any food but he discovered that there was an invisible wall that was keeping him from going outside the plaza. He groaned in disappointment and turned back to the two that were still… Talking? It was more like the fox was snarling and trying to bite at the dancing ball of light and Temp was taunting and laughing at his failed attempts.
"Hey Temp? Do you have any meat?" He called up," I'm hungry!"
Kurama and Temp looked down in surprise (can't really tell with Temp though) having forgotten he was even there. Kurama was annoyed, "Do you ever pay attention to situations you're in?'
Luffy whined, "I'm hungry though…"
Temp giggled," I'm afraid not," she felt a bit of mirth when his face dropped in disappointment, "but don't worry, we're pretty much done here. After this you go home and eat whatever you want." At this, Luffy became ecstatic and started to jump around in excitement.
"Then let's go!" His mind imagining all the things he was going to eat when he got home, "I can't wait!"
Kurama on the other hand couldn't wait for this humiliation to end. The chains holding him back like the aforementioned dog and that damn kid's attitude was the worst. He was supposed to be feared by humans. They're supposed to look to him like the destructive force of nature he is, and this fucking human was acting careless and asking him demeaning and stupid questions as if weren't anything at all! Screw it, he'd take sitting in his current vessel for another century. At least Kurama's current vessel hadn't learned how to talk to him yet, to which he was now grateful for.
"I like seeing how unrelated individuals from different worlds react when placed in the same space together." She flashed happily," it's fun to see how individuals respond to each other. I do have a rule though: participants aren't allowed to kill each other."
Kurama growled when she said that. The things he could do if these chains weren't here!
Temp continued to explain, "And if you're both done with the experience, you can both leave through the gates I'll have opened up behind the both of you."
Luffy looked back at his and asked, "where will mine take me?"
Temp seemed surprised, "just wherever you were before I brought you here."
She moved to Kurama's eye level, "as for your's, it will place right back into your vessels body. It'll be like you never left."
Kurama snorted, because at this point he'd prefer it.
Luffy stared at his gate thoughtfully and then he turned to look at the fox he'd just met. "Hey fox?," when the fox eyes turned in his direction," since Temp said we can't kill each other, do you want to be friends instead?"
Kurama eyes widen in astonishment he immediately thought this kid had to be out his mind. What made this kid think that they could be friends even after Kurama had just tried to eat him. Was even there even a working brain in that rubbery skull of a moment of stunned silence Kurama glared at the minuscule boy below.
"I don't think so." Kurama scoffed haughtily, "Release me. I'm leaving." He relaxed when the chains finally all relinquished their hold on his body.
Kurama was finally done dealing with the rubber rain, he turned around and started walking towards the gate that would take him back the cell that held him within his vessel. And there he hoped he would never have to deal with either of these two again.
Luffy on the other hand was really disappointed that the giant fox didn't want to be his friend. He thought they could have a lot of really cool adventures together. He'd bet his crew would be really surprised if he bought the fox back him. But he'd supposed he couldn't really force the giant fox if it didn't really want to. His stomach growled again reminding that what he really wanted was food and he ran to his gate thinking of all the meat he was going to eat when he got back on his ship.
And as they passed through their gates, they could hear Temp's twinkling laughter follow them all the way back to their own worlds.