Naruto didn't want to think that way, but he couldn't stop. His thoughts tumbling into a spiraling mess of nonsense. His vision got blurry from the lack of oxygen. The edges of it started to darken. He would lose consciousness any moment now and the thought spurred his panic on even more.

And suddenly…

Nothing.


Everything came to a halt. The earth continued to turn. The panic, the frenzy, the lack of oxygen – gone.

What happened?

SNSNSNSNS

"So you finally have this moment of weakness," a voice drawled. "Took you long enough to tether to the edges of insanity."

Naruto spun around immediately, his foxes were already on their legs too, searching for the source of the unknown voice, to see if it was a threat. How long had it been since Naruto had heard a voice? He almost didn't recognize the meaning of the words. He growled low under his breath. Where did the voice come from? All around him was only the vast emptiness, glaring silence, barren world.

"Hmm, animal noises… maybe you are actually closer to insanity than I thought. Do you even understand a human language anymore? Should I talk to you in growls and hisses like the animal you've become?" The voice was mocking him. He didn't like the voice. He didn't see anything. Maybe it was just his imagination?

He could be hallucinating.

"So you are more convinced that your imagination likes to insult you than to believe that I'm real? Wow, that's pretty pathetic."

It could read his thoughts! What was this madness? Was he really hallucinating? Was that what dying feels like? His foxes didn't hear the voice apparently, they had already quieted down.

Suddenly a shade appeared at his side, Naruto immediately recoiled. There was a fox… well not exactly, it was translucent and as big as a horse and it had far too many tails to be one.

"Relax, at the moment I can only appear like this. You are still too much in control and I have no permission to move around. You are not insane enough yet."

"Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe I should kill one of those three. That would certainly break you and then I would have free range." the fox apparition said.

Now Naruto was getting furious. No one threatened his foxes, even if it was the first thing that talked to him in years. He could live in isolation if it meant his foxes were safe. He growled and threw himself in front of his friends, on all fours feral, wild, protective.

The thing chuckled, it was sitting now and looked far too regal with a vulpine grace, a few of its too many tails around it, the rest fanning behind it like a peacock's feathers. Its fur was deep crimson red with black streaks on it. If it hadn't been a threat, Naruto would have been fascinated by it. But as it was, the chuckle only agitated him more.

He hissed at it and pulled his foxes closer to his body; they were small after all. He could shield them from everything that shade wanted to try. He wouldn't let them get hurt even if it was the last thing he did.

"You are an idiot, aren't you? Just my luck to get stuck with a vessel that is dumb. Look at your foxes. They are calm. Why? Because I pose no threat. They recognize me. I only like to pull your strings. It's funny after all." Its tails were swishing and swirling around it, the orange and red dancing around like flames. Naruto could almost hear the cackling of this non-existent fire. It was mesmerizing. The fact that the tails too were slightly transparent only added to the ethereal glow. "Do you know how much you look like a fox kit at the moment?"

At his words Naruto allowed himself to relax slightly, though still in a protective stance over the foxes. The thing didn't feel like a threat. It felt oddly familiar…

"That's because I live in your body. Of course I feel familiar."

So now Naruto had completely lost his mind, what else was new? What did that even mean: 'Live in your body'?

The fox-thing growled.

"Just listen for once in your life. I am the reason you are still here. I keep you alive."

And the only thing Naruto could think of now was 'Then stop it! Make my life stop! I don't want to live alone in an empty world.'

But he still couldn't speak, his vocal cords had long forgotten how to form words, even though he wanted to scream them to the world. 'Don't leave me alone. I can't go on anymore. I am so tired. Make it stop.'

The words were on the tip of his tongue but he couldn't find them.

"No, that's something I can't do. You see if you die, I die. And I, for one, am still very fond of life."

So it was there to torture him? Finally giving him the reason why he was spared from death while everyone else wasn't and yet he could do nothing against it. He was doomed to be the last living being just because of this shade?

'What is this thing?'

"Have you finally gotten the idea that you can talk to me through your mind or are you just pitying yourself?"

By now Naruto was enraged. How dare this shade mock him? How dare it read his thoughts? How dare it still keep him alive?

By now he had figured that his foxes were safe and jumped the thing...

Only to pass through it completely.

"Weren't you listening? At the moment, you are still sane enough to keep me in check and I can only appear like this. Which already is an improvement from sitting in that cage of your body, but I still don't have a corporeal form. How did you call it? Ah yes, 'shade'."

Naruto was tired of this thing talking in riddles, never mind that it was the first time in years he had heard talking at all. But his capacity of comprehension was quickly reached.

This thing had said it lived in his body and that he kept it 'in check' and that he had to go insane to let it out? It was all confusing and he wanted it to stop.

So he sat down where he landed after jumping through the illusion, turned his back to the creature and closed his eyes. Maybe if he tried to will it away hard enough, it would disappear.

Only moments later he was attacked by three tiny furballs. He laughed and gathered them in his arms, completely forgetting the shade; it wasn't important anyway.

"So you're going to just ignore me?"

Naruto sighed. The apparition wasn't going to leave him alone. After all it said that it 'lived in his body'. This all didn't make sense.
Who or what was this fox?

"Fine, I'll tell you. If you actually listen to me." it said. So it actually could hear his thoughts. Naruto supposed it was a good deal and turned back around to look at the shade, his foxes still gathered in his lap and arms.

"I am the Nine Tailed Demon Fox," the shade, no - demon - began. "And you are my vessel, making you a Jinchuuriki, a half demon, not an actual human, by the way. I was sealed inside you after your birth. Your mother was my vessel before you."

Naruto's eyes widened at that. His memories of his former life were almost forgotten, but he knew that he had been an orphan, he never knew his mother. And now this thing appearing out of nowhere knew her?

"Anyways," the demon completely disregarded Naruto's thoughts that it obviously had heard. "at the moment I live in your body and have only limited range. I could only come out to talk to you because your sanity is waning. The control your mind has over me is wavering, but still strong. And I hate to admit it, but I can't escape. This is why I need your help ."

It spat out the word as if it was poisonous for it.

"The Creeping Death is spreading. By now it is almost unstoppable. It is affecting everything, humans, animals, even demons as of lately; nothing that breathes is safe. And it is evolving. It will find its way around any immunity if given time. And I, as the strongest demon out there, have to save my brethren. For the humans it is already too late.

But, unfortunately, I am trapped in here. So I ask for help. You already discovered a way to defeat the virus in dead bodies. Now I, no... we , need to find where it came from and eventually we need to find a cure."

"Besides, it is personal for you too," the fox said, looking pointedly at Naruto's furballs.

Naruto finally began to understand why this prideful being had suddenly appeared. It was getting desperate - like him - it couldn't take the death, the destruction all around anymore, wanted it gone as much as he did. They were the same. And suddenly, Naruto felt like he wasn't all alone anymore.

He nodded once and the demon understood him immediately. The foxy grin it gave him, showed all of its sharp teeth and it reminded Naruto that it was a predator after all, a fox through and through, demon or not.

SNSNSNSNS

In the blink of his eye, Naruto was standing ankle deep in black water in a cave of sorts. In front of him, a huge cage and a seal on the cage's door.

"Where am I?"

Naruto recoiled at the sound of a voice, his voice. When was the last time he had heard himself speak? And why could he suddenly form words again when a few minutes earlier, his vocal cords had not played along?

Then he noticed the absence of his foxes and panicked. Where were they? Where was he? What had happened?

"Relax, they are exactly where you left them, safely in your arms. We on the other hand are in your body. The part where I reside in."

The voice was loud and deep and echoed all around the walls.

And then Naruto saw the Nine Tailed Demon Fox in all his glory. He wasn't sure if one could call it a 'fox' anymore. It was huge, filling the whole cage, one eye of this demon was as big as Naruto's whole body. Its fur was as red as blood and had orange streaks, its nine tails swirling around dangerously. With every move, every breath, the body looked like it was on fire, flames dancing on the fur. The demon's eyes were even darker than it's fur, a blood red that knew no bounds. And the power practically radiated from it.

The whole ethereal being was beautiful. And Naruto could only stare.

This magnificent creature was living inside his body? How could anyone trap this being? Why would anyone trap it and cage it? Didn't they see that it should be free?

"Yeah, I would love to be free," the demon sighed. "But I am not and not even you can set me free so easily. Besides, I am trapped in different bodies for a few generations now. By now I am used to it. The shade you saw earlier was the most I could be outside in eons.

"But that's not why you're here. You agreed to help me. Do I have your word? That you won't abandon this halfway through? That we will save my brethren, together?"

"You can count on me," Naruto spoke without hesitation, even though the talking still seemed utterly strange. But he continued anyway. "What is your name?"

And suddenly everything stilled. The demon had even stopped breathing. The flames in his fur no longer dancing. What did Naruto do? Was it so strange to ask for his name?

But the demon quickly caught himself again. It was like it just decided to let it go and ignore it.

"You can call me Kyuubi."

Kyuubi. Nine tails. 'No, that was wrong', Naruto thought. One couldn't give a title as name. That would be as if he'd said to call him 'Blondie' because he had blonde hair.

The demon apparently didn't trust Naruto with his real name. But he couldn't call it 'Nine tails'. And giving the demon a new name was as inherently wrong as naming his foxes was. So Naruto decided on giving it a nickname. One didn't get to choose their nicknames, others did for you. So that should be okay.

"No," he said. "I won't call you Kyuubi. That is just wrong. I will call you Kyuu."

For a moment nothing happened. Then the Kyuubi broke out in booming laughter that reverberated through the whole cave.

"You think you have the right to give me a nickname, eh? Well, brat, then I will return the favor. You are now 'Kit'. It fits given that you are more of an animal by now."

Naruto glowered at the fox, but it lacked the malice. Of course, this was the first time in a long while that he had some sort of conversation, some sort of friend. And he would wear the name 'Kit' proudly, if it meant that he would be less lonely.

It was the first glimmer of hope, the blonde had in a long time.

And he would be clinging to it as if his life depended on it, because - in a way - it did.