Still not out of my author's block so here is another chap of this lousy written story.
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Ch. 1: The power of ten.
As the light receded, Naruto was able to see the fox once again. It had changed. Its fur became black instead of the fiery red it was before, except for the border of its eyes where its fur turned silver. The eyes of the fox were no longer the same either; rather than the slit red eyes from before, they were now ringed and purple with several coma-like spots lying around the center. Naruto noticed too, that it had gained an extra tail, which was the only unsurprising change.
"Well then, congratulations are in order, I suppose. I fulfilled half of my bargain by letting you become the Juubi, now it's time you fulfill half of your part"—Said Naruto after a while.
"Insolent human, you stand before the demon king. I will do my part alright, but you shall show respect!"—growled the newly crowned Juubi.
"Yeah, yeah. Just do it already, you overgrown hare"
"Grrr…whatever. I will just summon the ten souls and be done with it"—and with that said, the fox took a deep breath and spat a stream of fire out of the cage. The fire soon turned from orange to white and divided in ten flames, which started to take human shape of different sizes.
The first flame took the form of a man wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt and a leather jacket. He had strong facial features and short brown untamed hair. He looked a bit disoriented, but somehow not surprised at all. He was feeling his neck as if to confirm it was still there, Naruto deduced that he probably died of beheading, and judging by the claymore sword he had it was probably in battle, good.
The second also had the appearance of a civilian. He had an air of confidence to himself, as if he didn't care what was going on and knew that in the end everything would be fine for him. He had slick black hair and a sharp face, Naruto could distinguish the slight shade of a shaved beard. The man was just looking around in fascination.
The third flame became a tall man with long blond hair. He had his eyes closed so Naruto couldn't make anything out of them, however the face of the man seemed troubled and, if Naruto was right, surprised; this man didn't know he was dead. He was wearing a golden armor and a white cape, meaning he was a warrior, if a flashy one, but a warrior still.
The fourth turned out to be a short old man with an odd egg shaped head. He was bald and seemed easy going. He didn't seem surprised or troubled at all by what was going on. He also had an aura of danger surrounding him.
The fifth flame formed into a tall teenager who was heavily disoriented, and somewhat freaked out. He had white hair and a black skin thigh suit.
The sixth was the only woman of the group. Naruto, however, couldn't make out if she had any reaction at all because of the gas mask she was wearing. She was dressed in all black and her suit had several medical appliances, like surgical scissors or scalpels. Though she had a blood stained machete on her hand so she was also dangerous.
The seventh was a slender and tall man who was covered from head to toe with a blue and orange skin thigh suit and a weird white helmet. He had a katana with him and seemed to only be looking around him as if to know the place, but not surprised at all.
The eight was another katana wielding man. He also had a skin thigh suit, red and grey. He had short dark brown hair and a red blindfold covering his eyes. His reaction was quite unexpected though. He wasn't surprised, disoriented or indifferent like the others; he was angry and seemed to just be waiting for someone to make a wrong move so he could lash out at someone freely.
The ninth was a creepy man who seemed homeless. He had a dirty hooded raincoat with a glowing chest armor under it. His eyes seemed to be glowing with a blue hue and his teeth were ruined. He was part of the unsurprised ones, just curious.
The tenth and last one was a tall bulky man with a hoody jacket covering most of his features. He was surprised, but understanding seemed to dawn and he became just curious about his surroundings.
The white haired teen was the first to lose his patience.
"Where the fuck are we! Who are this people? And how did we get here?"—He lashed out at no one and everyone. Surprisingly it was the second man who answered.
"We are inside the mind of this child"—he said pointing at Naruto—"We are all people who somehow lost contact with the living plane. Some of us are dead, some are not and simply are here temporarily"—Naruto and Juubi were surprised by this revelation.—"We were brought here by that demon in that cage. I'm not sure why, but I'm willing to bet that it was because of our singular skills"
"How do you know that?"—asked Naruto, he was both troubled by this man and exited that he would get his uncanny intellect.
"You can call me Sylar. I know this because I have the ability of understanding; intuitive aptitude is what some call it."
"So, not all of us are dead?"—asked the armored blond man.
"No"—was Sylar's answer, he then looked at the man intently and then continued—"in your case, your consciousness is only away from your body. You're having what people call an extracorporeal experience"—the blond warrior nodded and seemed relieved.
"And me?"—rashly asked the white haired teenager. Sylar looked at him and answered after a short time.
"You lost contact with your reality, you're not dead, but you will have a hard time getting back to your own dimension. You will probably end up somewhere else. You broke the dimensional barriers by running way too fast. You were transported her while you were in between two different dimensions so that was going to happen anyway"
"Why are we here anyway"—asked the first man, speaking for the first time. He had a funny accent, but other than that he spoke the language perfectly.
"I brought you here because I made a deal with the child. In exchange of my freedom I will give him all of your powers. You're the most powerful humans of your respective dimensions that died, or rather lost contact with the living realm, at the moment of the summoning"—answered the Juubi.
"First I want to know about them"—said Naruto—"Sylar-san already introduced himself, but what about the others?"
"Well…I'm Connor MacLeod. I was an immortal, though I gave up my life to make a fellow clansman powerful enough to kill a mutual enemy. I might not look it, but I'm actually 484 year old"—the first man introduced himself, leaving others speechless.
"My name is Asmita, I'm a Gold Saint of the goddess Athena and represent the constellation of Virgo"—the armored blond warrior said.
"Well"—started the old man—"I suppose I died of old age, it's not like it was unexpected anyway. My name is Maha Zoldyck. I was the head of the Zoldyck family of assassins"
"Tch…Pietro Lehnsherr, though most call me Quicksilver. I'm a mutant with super human speed, I can both run and think faster than normal humans"—continued the white haired youth.
"That explains your impatience"—commented Maha.
"Michaela Heinzwaffen"—said the masked woman with a thick accent—"Field medic and torture specialist of the Umbrella Security Service team Wolfpack. Probably killed by that horde of infected I was fighting off"
"My name is Frank Jaeger, codename Grey Fox"—Juubi smirked at that—"I'm an assassin and died fighting a giant war machine called Metal Gear REX, I just hope I did enough to allow my companion to exterminate it"
"Kenshi"—growled the blindfolded man—"I'm a fighter of Earthrealm, I died during an extensive war against the forces that wished to control or destroy Earthrealm. I was only bested in battle by the joint effort of two powerful sorcerers"—he said this as if to justify that he wouldn't have ded in any other scenario.
"Name is Cole MacGrath, but I haven't used that name in a while so please call me Kessler"—said the creepy homeless man—"I have control over electricity in any way or form, and can use it for many purposes, one of which is time travel. I actually orchestrated my own death by going to the past and allowing my past self to kill me and control the outcome of certain events to hopefully change the future."
"I have no name, many call me Blacklight. I'm a virus who took over the body and identity of the Dr. Alexander Mercer. I actually thought I was him until just recently. In my universe Mercer practically unleashed apocalypse and I had to move an active bomb away from the city I live in. Right now my boyd and consciousness is probably scattered around. It won't be long before I reform myself so you better do this quick"
"Cool! All of you seem to have something to offer, great. Very well fox, give me their memories now"—All of the presents seemed alarmed by that.
"Wait! You're going to take our memories?"—asked Pietro alarmed.
"I'm only going to make copies of your minds and give them to the brat. You will retain your memories"—replied the Juubi. The fox then took another deep brat and spat a new stream of fire to the summoned souls. Everyone tried to move away but found their bodies to be against them when they didn't move an inch. The fire covered them all and soon the orange fire turned blue. Juubi stopped the stream but the flames still covered the individuals. After a while the blue flames, one by one flew towards Naruto. When the fire extinguished Naruto stood there completely frozen for a while, before he started screaming and holding his head in pain.
Everyone was transfixed on the kid as he trembled painfully on the floor of his own mind. After a short while, Naruto stood up unsteadily and panting.
"That…that was very messed up. All your realities…kami, all your worlds are crazy as hell. Witnessing them all like that, it was surreal."
"You should have considered that when you asked me for that, brat"—said Juubi with a shit eating grin—"Now, I believe it's time I give you their powers"—the fox said this as he prepared to launch another stream of fire.
"No, stop"—said Naruto—"I will not want all their powers. Some of them already have given me what they could with their memories"—he pointed to his head—"like Connor or Michaela. Even if you give me their genetics I won't be immortal like Connor because his immortality came from an external source, and Michaela is just a normal human with lots of experience in the battlefield. Asmita's power could be of use, but I believe that Maha's power will be more useful since this Nen technique he uses is more flexible than the Cosmos that Asmita uses, whatever I can do with Asmita's power I will be able to do in the long run with Maha's. And Frank is also a normal human, he was modified, but his genes are still normal, I can get my body to be like his with the Balcklight virus' properties. So I think we can let Connor, Michaela, Asmita and Frank go on already. In exchange for not getting four of the ten we agreed on I will ask you to lock my chakra away."—the fox growled at being given yet another stipulation, but it wasn't anything he couldn't do and it was pretty easy too so he said nothing about that—"that way it will be harder for my enemies to put me under genjutsu or sense me as easily."
"Alright, brat. But that better be the last change you make to our agreement, and you better set me free afterwards!"—not giving him a chance to answer, the fox spat a third stream of fire that once again changed color, this time to purple and, like with the memories, one by one the six flames shot towards Naruto in quick succession.
While the purple flames consumed and changed Naruto, the fox set to lock the blonde's chakra away as per his request. After that it was just a matter of waiting for the flames to finish their job. Juubi then decided that the souls of the present needed not be there anymore and set them on their merry way back to their dimensions; they had fulfilled their purpose already so it was of no use holding them there any longer. Besides, some of them needed to go back to living; it came as quite a surprise when that Sylar guy revealed that not all of them were actually dead. It seemed that the Juubi still needed to understand its own powers better.
The fire covering Naruto subsided and revealed the blond kneeling in exhaustion. He was for the most part still the same, except his muscles were more noticeable and he was bulkier for it. When he wobbly stood up the Juubi notices that Naruto looked taller too, if just a bit.
"Damn, that was taxing. Why am I tired?"—asked Naruto, his voice was a little bit deeper, but still recognizable.
"Your body used a lot of energy to perform the changes at such a fast rate; the fact that you had me lock away your chakra didn't help either. After you free me you will be even more tired and you will probably need to eat a whole herd of cattle just to restore energy"—commented the fox amused by this, any pain Naruto suffered was quite enjoyable to witness for the demon—"However, none of that matters. I fulfilled my end of the bargain. Now, release me."
Naruto shot the fox a look as if to say 'are you serious?' but sighed and advanced towards the cage anyway. As he prepared to take away the seal a hand stopped him from taking the tag away. The Juubi growled menacingly and Naruto looked behind him with narrowed eyes, only to find the Yondaime Hokage there.
"I don't know what would push you to release the seal, Naruto, but I'm not going to allow you to…"—he was cut short by several tendrils of biomass, coming from Naruto's body, trapping him and pulling him towards Naruto. The Hokage tried to get free, but the tendrils had him immobile and in no time he had been consumed by the blond.
Naruto remained quiet for a while, sorting through the new knowledge he gained from consuming the Yondaime, his father. The combination of the Blacklight virus with Pietro's accelerated thinking meant that he could sort through the mind of those he consumed faster and more thoroughly. He had gained all of the man's knowledge in an instant, instead of the partial knowledge that Alex gained from his consumptions.
Naruto was angry at the Hokage, both the current one and the one he just consumed. His father had been the one to put him in such a situation, was he and idiot? Did he really believe that the village would treat him like a hero? Judging by his new knowledge, the man indeed was that blind. And Hiruzen, that man had hidden his heritage from him. Naruto would need to have some words with the ancient man when he next met him.
The blond shook out of his stupor and finally got back to his previous task. He took the seal tag and like one does with a band aid, tore it away from the cage quickly. The gates exploded outwardly and the fox was released.
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In the cave where Naruto resided at the moment, the barrier the clones were keeping up was tore down by the huge release of chakra, caused by the Juubi's newfound freedom. All the clones were destroyed in the aftermath and Naruto's body exploded. The Juubi looked around, marveling in it freedom.
"Finally I'm free" –it said wistfully—"thank you for fulfilling your bargain, brat"—the fox the turned to look at Naruto and was somewhat saddened that he only found a black smear on the cave's floor—"Not even all of that power was able to save you then. It's not surprising, I never thought you would survive, but I hoped. You might have been annoying, but it was fun meeting you, I will respect my end of the bargain and not attack Konoha, at least for a few decades. Rest in peace, Naruto"—and with that, the fox left the cave, never looking back. Thus he didn't notice when the black mass smeared on the ground started gathering together and reforming the body of Naruto.
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Well, that's that. I will see if I can write something for Werefox now, or if I still have author's block.