A/N: Meant to update a few days ago but I wasn't up for it. My biggest problem is that I have to write the chapters all at once or I won't feel like doing it at all. I find that writing these chapters will be a lot easier while watching the episodes. But anyway, I wonder if anyone caught on to what I hinted at in the last chapter. It wasn't anything big but it will turn out to be significant, answering a few questions that may be on your mind.
Glenn and Maggie rush back to the cell block, finding it locked. "It's us open the gate!" Their cry catches the attention of the rest of the group and they move quickly into the next room. Hershel takes out the keys and fumbles with them trying to find the right one to unlike the door.
"Where are the others? What happened?" Hershel asks, trying to remain calm as he tests each key.
"A hoard separated us from them, the bulk of which followed them deeper into the prison. We picked off the few that came after us. There shouldn't be any more heading this way but we can't be sure." Glenn explains, nearly out of breath while keeping an eye out for any walker that may prove him wrong.
"Is my dad okay? Where is he?"
"What about Naruto? Is he with them?"
"Naruto was leading the rest of the group and I'm pretty sure Rick was with them but I they weren't behind us on the way back. I don't know where they are." Maggie answers in honesty, her adrenaline nearly depleted by this point.
"Got it, get inside!" Hershel exclaims as he finally manages to open the door and helps his daughter and Glenn back into the secured prison block. Maggie hugs her sister Beth and then her father. Lori holds Carl close to her in an effort to assure him that his father would be okay, but even so she isn't sure herself and feels a bit of guilt in the pit of her stomach. Having no way of knowing exactly the status of anyone in the group, it is easy to assume the worse. Despite her best efforts the fear of uncertainty overwhelms her.
"What do we do? We have to find them; we have to know if they're alive. We can't just sit here can we?" Lori says as her eyes become puffy from unshed tears.
"Don't worry; we'll go back for them." Maggie says, trying to comfort Lori, only to be contradicted by her father.
"You're not going back in there you barely made it out the first time. We don't have enough people to send in a rescue team."
"So what, are we just going to sit here and wait? If it were in me in there you would go after me, and I'd do the same for you. Sitting here worried sick isn't going to solve anything daddy."
"I understand that Maggie, but sending in a rescue team isn't an option. We could get everyone killed. Where would that leave Lori and the kids then?" At the mention of the possibility of Lori and the children being left alone by themselves Maggie halted her insistence on going back into the prison. She looked over to those in question and noticed the desperate look on their faces. Except for Sophia.
"What do we do then?" Beth asks. The adults look at each other, hoping that someone will have an answer, but no one speaks up. They feel defeated as they are unable to come up with a plausible solution. "We don't have a choice then, we just have to wait for them here, as hard as it is, that's the only hand we have." The group sits down at the metal table in defeat. Looking over to the door that leads to source of their uncertainty, they mentally prepare themselves for the long wait. The feeling is nothing new, but it certainly isn't welcomed or appreciated. Too many times have they been a position just like this, where they are helpless to help the one's they care for.
Carol brings Sophia close to her, in attempt to comfort her. "I'm sure they'll be fine, they always make it back. Don't worry." Hearing those words, Sophia comes to a realization.
"I'm not worried." Carol pulls back slightly to get a better look at her daughter. She sees no trace of false bravery or naïve sense of confidence in Sophia's eyes. The rest of the group looks over to her, wondering how Sophia can such a thing at a time like this.
"Why do you say that sweetie?" Carol questions, but Sophia averts her gaze as she pulls away, noticing the stares of the others.
"Well, Naruto is with them, so I'll know they'll be okay. He's really strong you know, he won't let anything happen to them." Sophia explains as a matter of fact. Lori lets out a sigh not feeling comforted by the child's statement.
"We can all see just how strong Naruto is Sophia; he brought you back to us after all. But sometimes one person isn't enough to make a difference, and he wasn't able to bring his sword with him." Sophia looks to Lori and shakes her head.
"It's not about his sword or how strong Naruto is."
"What do you mean?" Beth asks, effectively voicing the curiosity of the rest of the group.
"It's just… well… sometimes… Naruto can be scarier than a hoard of walkers."
They have been traveling together for roughly three months, Naruto's ribs have finally finished healing but he is extremely malnourished as well as Sophia. At one time he considered leaving behind the executioner's blade since he could barely lift it with his current strength and it currently serves only to slow him down at this point. But for now he keeps it on his back and only uses his kunai. Naruto hasn't been able to hunt properly or find any food in the woods to gather, so he takes his traveling partner out of the woods and into a town, hoping to scavenge any food that's been left behind in the houses.
The town was a partially gated community. Key term being 'partially' because the gates had been mangled and ripped right off their hinges from the mass panic that had ensued. It was a pretty nice town too, high end really with most of the houses being completely identical, but it was reduced to what resembled as war zone, minus any kind of military affects. The brick walls that surrounded most of the community had been destroyed in spots but it still went around most of the town.
The two walked down to the very end of the street which finished as a cul-de-sac and they move into to the house in the middle of said cul-de-sac. Sophia helps Naruto stagger into the home and closes the door behind them. Naruto's vision has been blurry since waking up that morning and when walking into the house, he doesn't notice how the door was left open before they arrived. "Wait here Sophia." Naruto orders and she obeys, sitting down on the couch in the living room.
Naruto groggily checks the first floor of the house and finds that the kitchen door that leads to the backyard is open. He closes it and begins rummaging through the cabinets and pantry of the kitchen, hoping to find any non perishables. A jar of peanut butter and a can of baked beans that was broken is all he finds. Not bothering with the beans he settles for the peanut butter, the protein and fat content being enough for the time being. Suddenly Naruto hears Sophia screaming from the living, "Naruto!" he quickly runs back to Sophia fearing the worst.
Upon entering the living room Naruto finds a walker falling down the flight of stairs into the living room. Before it gets a chance to get back up, Naruto rushes over and steps on its head with his full weight, crushing its skull. Turning back to Sophia, Naruto checks her to see if she was injured in any way. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. Are you okay?" Sophia shakes her head no and points behind Naruto. He turns back in a panic and notices three more walkers trying to make their way downstairs. Not having the energy to deal with them, he puts the peanut butter in his cloak, grabs Sophia's hand, and turns to leave through the front door.
Opening the front door turns out to be a mistake as a small group of walkers is there to cut off their escape. 'Shit.' Naruto thought as he closes the door immediately. He turns around to head to the back door. One of the walkers inside the house reaches out its arms in attempt to grab Naruto, but he kicks it as hard as he can and knocks it down along with the other two behind it. Naruto momentarily loses balance from his kick, but he pushes onward and out of the house and into the back yard. All he finds, however, is the neighboring yard filled with walkers making their way over the short four foot fence and into their yard, 'Fuck.'
Naruto pulls Sophia by the hand and moves as fast as he can to turn the corner of the house before the walkers can fully block their escape. As he comes to the front of the house the previous group of walkers finds them again and begins to chase. Naruto looks down the street where he and Sophia originally came from and sees that a much larger hoard taking up the majority of the street is approaching from no more than a couple of houses away. 'Fuck, where did they all come from?' Naruto curses as he realizes that they're surrounded.
"Naruto what are we going to do?" Sophia cries out in panic, but Naruto doesn't answer her, as he is trying to find one himself. He turns back before the group to his left can catch them and forces their way past the group that's trying to get over the fence. He opens the back door to the house, kicks back the walkers that fall out, and immediately closes the door behind him. Naruto wastes no time in killing the walkers before they can get back up this time. Not wanting to be in the same room as the downed walkers, he takes Sophia upstairs and into the nearest room he can find and locks the door. It's a small bedroom that hasn't been kept clean for a long time but it was void of any sort of gore. Naruto sat Sophia down on the bed in the corner of the room with an adjacent window that looked on into the front yard. "I'm scared Naruto!"
"I know, just give me a second to think." Naruto responds but is undermined by the pound at the door by the growling walkers. More pounding is heard from the front door getting a high pitched scream out of Sophia. He takes of his cloak and wraps it around Sophia in attempt to comfort her as best he can. "Here, this will protect you." It's only now that Naruto realizes that this massive hoard had probably been following them since they entered the town, and they didn't notice them because they were slow to emerge from the houses and yards. 'What now? How do I get out of this one? I don't have an answer this time. I'm too tired, my chakra hasn't been recovering they way it's supposed to.' Naruto shuts his eyes as he thinks, as an effort to block out the imminent danger.
He relaxes his breathing, getting his heart rate under control. Meditation is the only thing Naruto can do to come up with an answer, but it is to no avail. He realizes that his strength alone will not be enough to save him or Sophia. 'Oh wait, that's right.' Naruto thought to himself, 'I'm not alone… I'm never alone.' Naruto brings himself into his mindscape, arriving in front of a massive pair of gates. Behind it, an even more impressive crimson fox sleeps.
"Oi, Kurama, it's been a while huh?" Naruto is answered only by the slow and steady breathing of the sleeping giant. Naruto enters the gate and walks up the nine-tailed beast, whose head rests on top of its paws, eyes shut. He reaches out his hand and places it on the side of its head. "I know you're exhausted too, but I need to borrow some of your power now. Don't worry, I only need a little bit, you won't even notice." Not wanting to disturb the sleeping beast, Naruto begins to draw a miniscule amount of chakra, but feels a rumbling underneath his hands.
"Be careful, Naruto. I have nothing… against you… anymore. But my chakra… is always …filled with hatred. Do not… let it… overcome you." Naruto feels a pang of guilt for waking up his friend, but realizes that Kurama went back to sleep just as easily as he had woken up. His message is what disturbs Naruto though. In his weakened state, any amount of chakra he draws from Kurama would flood his own chakra network. If that's the case, he can only guess at how much control he'll have over it.
Kurama's chakra begins to enter Naruto and immediately he feels the affects; his body becomes hard as his muscles gain mass, his canine teeth grow half an inch in length, his pupils dilate into slits, his nails grow longer and sharper and his entire demeanor become feral. His fatigue is washed away as he is filled with a bountiful reservoir of animalistic energy that radiated off of him and a red cloud of miasma. It has been so long since Naruto has felt this kind of energy, and it felt amazing. However, since his own network was nearly dried of any of his own chakra, he could feel it begin to affect his consciousness as well. His thoughts were filled with only one thing; kill.
All these changes are seen by Sophia and she slowly backs away from as she is slowly filled with fear. "Are you okay Naruto?" she whimpers out and is answered by a deep, throaty growl as Naruto snaps his eyes open. He gets up slowly as he rolls his shoulders and opens his mouth wide to crack his jaw. He looks over to Sophia who flinches back once she sees his red irises. He moves over to her slowly and places a hand on her head, getting a yelp out of Sophia. He knows he has to expend his new found energy quickly, before he takes it out on her by mistake.
"I'll be back." Naruto says, and wastes no time jumping through the window, broken glass crashing on the walkers below, getting their full attention.
He kills a walker upon landing on it in the center of the hoard. He wastes no time in lunging right claw directly into the skull of the nearest walker. The walkers that surround him all reach out their arms in an effort to grab and rip a piece of Naruto. But each time a walker reaches out, Naruto moves inward and thrusts two fingers like daggers in an uppercut motion, driving them into the skull of each aggressor. His movement is lightning fast as Naruto clears out a circular area of defense that he dominates and owns that cannot be penetrated; anything that tries is instantly crushed. An area that is arms length is suddenly void of walkers.
Sophia hears the slashing and growling and the sound of bodies hitting the ground. A feeling of curiosity and concern overcomes her and she moves over to look out the window, being careful not to step on the broken glass. What she sees both amazes her and frightens her; an animalistic Naruto tearing walkers to pieces at a speed that her eyes can't follow. Naruto isn't just going for killing blows to the head but anything that enters into his range gets rip to pieces in seemingly calculated movements.
Feeling that his prey is taking too long to enter into his slaughter, Naruto moves onto an offensive stance. He moves forward away from the house, throwing a right hook into the skull of a walker, obliterating its head to pieces, he follows up with a spinning elbow that cracks the skull of his next victim. He then grabs the head of the next walker throws a flying right knee into its face. While still in the air, Naruto quickly pivots his center of gravity to bring his left leg up and then drive it down as hard as he can through its head. A walker comes up behind him and tries to grab him in a grapple motion, but Naruto spins on his right heel to get behind this walker and thrusts his fingers into the base of its spine on the back of its neck. In a quick jerking motion he rips out the walker's spinal cord and the walker falls to the ground unable to move.
Naruto moves on through the herd of walkers in a flash, killing one after another before any of them can get a lock on him. Nearly seventy walkers killed in just under a minute, Naruto stands panting hunched over with his arms dangling beneath him. Taking just a second to catch his breath, Naruto hears the back door being broken into and a scream from Sophia. Naruto had only taken a miniscule amount of chakra from Kurama to boost his physical abilities, and is nearly out of chakra already. With a huff Naruto jumps off his feet and rushes back into the house.
He notices that roughly half a dozen walkers have already made it up stairs and are pounding at Sophia's door while nearly two dozen more crowd the living room and kitchen. Naruto kills the first walker that tries to grab him with a right claw to the face and quickly jumps up onto the second floor, landing on the banister. Running out of energy he needs to finish up here quickly. Right, left, right, left, right, left. Each walker drops dead and the rest of the walkers are climbing the staircase. Naruto throws one of the dead walkers down the stair case which knocks down the ones behind it. Given how awkward they are it buys Naruto plenty of time.
Naruto kicks down the door to Sophia's room which results in her screaming out of fear. Her eyes widen in terror and shock from the sight of Naruto covered in rotten flesh and blood from head to toe. Sophia's immediate reaction is to curl up into a ball in the corner of the room. "We don't have time, there are more down stairs and I'm out of energy. We need to leave, now!" Naruto moves over to scoop her in her arms but his appearance makes her hesitant. Naruto expected this but knows she has no reason to worry; Kurama's chakra is fading along with its influences, both good and bad. He is confident he won't lose control around her, but that'll be the least of their worries if they don't get out of here and as far away as possible now.
Scooping Sophia up in his arms despite her hesitation, Naruto leaps out of the window and safely lands on the street. Not looking back he pumps the remaining energy into his legs and runs as fast as his legs can take them. They clear the town within seconds and make into the woods, where Naruto finally runs out of chakra as he comes to a slow halt. Sophia can't even begin to comprehend what just happened and doesn't ask any questions.
They continue to walk for about an hour and don't come across a single walker. They walked in complete silence, Sophia too afraid to ask any questions and Naruto too tired to answer. Knowing that they won't find a secure place to regain their strength, Naruto picks Sophia up in his arms and jumps up into a tree with branches to support both their weights. He tells Sophia that he's going to take a nap for a little while and to wake him up in about an hour. "We'll look for a safer place then, and I'll explain everything then. In the meantime, you can have the peanut-butter in my cloak." Naruto leans back against the bark of the tree and shuts his eyes, quickly falling asleep. It's only the middle of the day but his exhaustion gets to him. Sophia has no need to sleep and couldn't if she wanted to. She's effectively stranded in the tree until Naruto wakes up. She has no idea what to think of him anymore. Naruto is still covered in filth from his battle. That's the only thing she can take away from all this. That Naruto became something stronger than a hoard of walkers. All for the sake of protecting her.
"Holy Shit." Upon hearing the profanity, the group turns around drawing their weapons without missing a beat. To their shock, they find the source of the interruption to be an inmate, a survivor of the prison, along with four other inmates, hiding behind a counter with a protective wire mesh.
"Who the hell are you?" Demands the inmate of Hispanic descent with long black hair.
"Who the hell are you?" Daryl answers back with his cross bow pointed directly at the inmates head. "Come on out of there nice and slow." The inmates do just that, with the Hispanic inmate out in front. All of them are dressed in the jumpsuit typical of the prison attire and are covered in dirt and grime. Daryl, along with the rest of his group notice that this particular inmate is the only one with a gun that was tucked in jumpsuit, while the others carry sticks and bats. Naruto holds his kunai by the blade, tucking it into his sleeve with his wrist, ready to throw it in the blink of an eye if needed.
"Ya'll don't look like no rescue team."
"If you're waiting on one don't bother, there isn't any." Rick replies, but then notices something as he looks over by where the inmates were hiding. "Looks like we found the pantry." This declaration puts the inmates on edge, if they weren't already.
"We'll come back for it later; right now our priority is finding Glenn and Maggie. T-Dog, open the doors." T-Dog nods his head in confirmation, but before he gets a chance to comply, the inmate takes out his gun and points it his head.
"Don't open those doors!"
"Don't worry about it, we got this." Naruto says, drawing the inmate's attention back to him, along with the barrel of his revolver. The second Naruto is in the cross hairs of the gun, he flicks his kunai with a movement that is too quick to be perceived by anyone else, and it lands directly in the barrel of the revolver. The inmate feels the weight in his hands shift and he looks down to see the cause of it.
"What the fuck?!" The inmate curses, dropping his weapon in surprise. Naruto finds a satisfied smirk coming to his face as the rest of the group try to figure out what just happened.
"Yeah I wouldn't try using that, you'd only hurt yourself." Naruto says dismissively, as the others finally see what he was talking about. Rick and Daryl can't believe what Naruto managed to do. Feats of strength were one thing but this level of skill was something completely unheard of, and by no means achievable by a simple rush of adrenaline.
"How the hell did he do that?" Says the shortest of the inmates. Naruto doesn't bother explaining to them at the moment, the mission is still active.
"T-Dog, open one of the doors and take out the first walker, then fall back. Ready up guys." Before the inmates can interrupt again, T-Dog removes his weapon from the handles and opens the door on his left. The second the first walker comes into view he drives his perpendicular to his body directly into the skull of the walker. Not wasting anytime he immediately removes his pike and rushes back to the group.
The walkers file into the room one after another. Naruto throws two shuriken and two kunai, hitting four walkers dead between the eyes. Daryl shoots a single arrow at another walker and then takes out his hunting knife, not bothering to take the time to reload. Rick and T-Dog then follow up taking out the next walkers and fall back, Naruto and Daryl taking out the next two hand to hand. This pattern confuses the walkers as they are unable to focus on a single target which has them running into each other, making them easy to pick off.
What felt like forever for those in the room was no longer than two minutes in real time, from the moment the group broke into the room, to the moment they took down the last walker in the hoard. Over two dozen walkers down and reduced to nothing more than cannon fodder. Once they are cleared Naruto wastes no time in leading his group out of the room. "Let's move, we need to make sure the others are safe." He doesn't spare a glance at the prisoners and doesn't wait for confirmation from the group, Naruto simply runs out the room and the others are forced to follow. The inmates look at each other and silently agree to follow them slowly.
Navigating the hallways is far easier this time around as most of the walkers have already been cleared. Most intersections seem to have gates that can be locked and Naruto chastises himself as he realizes that he could have used them to his advantage earlier. He makes a mental note to definitively determine whether this portion of the prison is completely clear and uncompromised. In the mean time he leads his group following the signs for the way back that Glenn and Maggie had made before they got separated. While Naruto leads them back to the cell block, Rick and Daryl keep an eye out for the inmates that are following them at a respectful distance. Rick is unsure of how he will deal with them, but he realizes that it may not be up to him alone to decide.
This one kinda got away from me, it's unfinished from what I originally wanted to be at but since it's been a while i'll leave it from here.