Chapter 1: The Fox And The Girl

Please read the update!

Rating: K+

Warning: Possibly gorish (the walking dead plus shinobi… think about it for a sec), violence, weakened OP characters, new character development.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the walking dead nor Naruto sadly.

Update: Heya everyone, I'm back. I know it's been forever but let's just say life happened and I was just so overwhelmed that I didn't keep writing. I'll leave it at that. With this update comes a cleaner chapter 1 with a bunch of mistakes being erased. But I'm back and with my return I want to do things differently. To get back in the groove of things I'm editing almost every chapter I've released over all my stories then I'm going to focus on one at a time so that everyone can have a decent amount of time pass between new chapters of one story. For now this is the story I want to focus on. It'll be at least 15 chapters long before it ends so y'all will have a decent story ahead of you. Next up… is up to you. Choose from the multiple different stories I've put up and leave in a review or comment which story you want focused on next. Alright now enjoy the fresh chapter and look out for the new releases.

Poll for which story I should work on next:

A Different Deku

The Way Of The Hero And Ninja

A Different Time-line

The Neo Spider-man

The Will Of The Force

Notes: Hi there people of the interwebs, WhenTheLightCalls here, welcome to my first of many stories of the future, however, this story is a bit different and alot more special than normal. I adopted this story from a fantastic author known as FlightOrFight, who hadn't been able to finish the story. After reading his story again after 3 years had passed, I really wanted to see the story continue. So I PMed the incredible author behind this and I asked if I could adopt the story and help continue the story. Thankfully he agreed and has allowed me to do so, he gets full credit for this story, go and look him up and read the rest of his cool stories, they don't disappoint. Thanks again! So... yeah to those reading this, to answer the question if I'm changing the story at all or not, yes and no. Yes because I'm gonna edit a few things here and there and add new chapters to continue the plot, but no the plot itself should stay the same for the most part. Btw, this story was born thanks to FlightOrFlight and his story, the predecessor to mine, and it was created thanks to A Fic called 'A single flame in a dying world' written by FelixEcho, the grandfather of my story. An amazing fic that's for sure, look it up and give it a read. Check out FelixEcho's and FlightOrFight's story and go follow them, they are amazing. Now, onto the story!

Kaguya's Dimension

Kurama has been inside a jinchuriki for so long, he can't recall with clarity how it feels to be free. That's why he forces himself to not forget each time he achieved freedom, as few as those times were. The main emotion in each occasion was different, accompanied with others, but the feeling has always been overwhelming and the same every time. Except the last one.

He remembers the first time, when Mito was too old and her body couldn't take more of his chakra. It only lasted a couple of minutes, the transition between his former jinchuuriki and the new one, but he was able to taste the air, watch the light through his own sharper senses and no longer through a human's. The process made it difficult, with the seal preventing so much from getting through even if he was struggling. But it was enough for him to feel something almost forein to him, joy. Then he was inside another body and the anger; the deep, dark hatred returned.

Kurama's tails were impaled and his body wrapped and completely immobilized by the chakra chains of his new jinchuuriki. Even though others may scoff because he's made of pure chakra and thus should not feel the pain—well, it still hurts. Her chakra, Kushina's chakra, was impaling and constricting his own. She didn't let him watch through her eyes, hear through her ears. Everything was muted except a few glimpses he was barely able to catch every now and then.

It wasn't until he felt Naruto forming inside her that he realized how long had it really passed. It made him hopeful, another foreign feeling to him. He knew the seal weakened when one gave birth and unlike with Mito, he knew for a fact that few seal masters remained. Uzushiogakure was destroyed, along with most other Uzumaki seal masters. There wasn't a Mito to guide the novices of the Hidden Leaf Village. So, that gave him his second chance to free himself.

He doesn't remember much of that time. All he remembers was that man's sharingan. He remembers very little after he was freed, after she gave birth. Well that was to be expected, he was being controlled, after all.

But, like the first time, before he went on a rampage, he remembers the feeling of air through his fur. The chakra of nature around him. The light of the pale full moon shining off his fur. It was overpowering, even to the point where there was dizziness and some sort of numbness.

Even with the freedom he felt as his paws touched the earth was exhilarating, his deep seated hatred was there, and the Uchiha used it to its full extent. 'Freedom!' his mind screamed, with no true memory of what happened that night.

The third time, was in the middle of war and with his brethren next to him, chains around his neck. Even though it was through a chakra avatar, the sense of freedom he felt at not being inside a human, even if he respected the brat, was still there. More faint, laced with determination and faith, but still there. Even as he was dragged into the Ten Tails husk. He had a plan with Shukaku's former jinchuuriki. Naruto promised them all would be freed, so he didn't worry.

So why, he now wonders if he felt the lightness of freedom in previous times, in different measures and next to other emotions… why he doesn't feel the same now.

He doesn't feel any of it as he's ripped out of the seal, pulled away from Naruto. There's desperation, instead. Desperation, fear, and grief as his chakra is forcefully pulled out of Naruto. 'Stop! It'll kill him!' Kurama thought in horror as he watched his... friend, yes that's right, friend wretch in pain from the painful extraction.

Freedom doesn't matter anymore. Naruto is being pulled away even as Kurama extends his arms forwards. But he's weak. The seal was deteriorating quickly. He can't reach him in time.

Naruto is looking at the sharingan brat as he also flies away through the portal, but finally seems to notice something's missing, Kurama's chakra.

He turns towards him and looks at him with a panicked look as pain twists his features. He also starts to extend his hand towards him but he stops midway and chokes. Everything moves slowly as the blood that came from his mouth trails in the air, suspended. He knows Naruto won't survive the extraction.

He almost died the first time. There's no Gaara to catch him. No Sakura to heal him or comrades to protect him. Not here and certainly not now. Naruto will die and… And Kurama is not going to let that happen.

The seal is open and almost completely shattered but there's still a link between the two partners. It's slowly fading but still there. He pushes as much of his chakra as he can into Naruto's body, hoping the energy left by his old man is enough to help Naruto survive. The power that seems to have maintained them together, now looks ready to snap them away. Kurama can see the energy strung tight and by Naruto's face, he guesses he can feel it, too.

"I'll kill you if you die, you brat! I'll find you!" he shouts as the power releases him, sending him flying deeper into the portal. Even though he was launched at a neck breaking speed, for a second, he sees it. The smile the brat gives out only to those close to him. The smile was a farewell that clearly says 'everything will be alright, believe it!' It's bloody and weak, but still filled with the usual determination and will.

Kurama tries to grin back, even as he's being flung away into god knows where. The portal Kaguya opened to get them once and for all before being sealed away is closing. It only managed to affect the three beings closest to her. They sealed her, and with his siblings and Naruto's friends being there, it's going to be okay. He trusts Naruto with his life. If he promises he'll be fine, then he will.

However, the fear and sadness of being parted was still there. It doesn't leave. He's worried and that annoys him, alot. He manages a wide smirk as they are completely sucked through the portal.

Somewhere, In a Dense Forest

"I'm so glad I'm a being made up of pure chakra," Kurama mumbles, watching the upside down tip of the one tail that managed to come unscathed from the whole ordeal.

After crashing into several trees with his body, he landed with his ass literally on his face. He has tried using his tails as a way to lessen the impact, and it worked, for the first couple of trees. Not so much after the fourth and fifth.

Now he's sore and so fucking tired he could sleep for a couple of months to gather his strenght. But there was no time for that, he needed to find Naruto.

Suddenly, there was a rustle of leaves coming from his left that makes his ears twitch, which makes him focus on what was coming his way. Huh, he could hear growling along with scraping and dragging sounds.

'Humans? A wild animal? No… the smells are not right.' He flips his body until his paws rest against the ground and slowly goes into a low stance, prepared to attack. And just that action hurts his entire body. He wonders how that's possible, he doesn't even have a body.

From what he has learned of Kaguya's ability, he's most likely in another dimension. The plants look familiar and the smell of the atmosphere is almost the same, with however it being thicker and harder to breath.

He's glad they didn't end in one of those previous dimensions with the drastic temperatures. He's sure he'd survive easily, but Naruto needs food and water. This dimension is similar enough for it to provide what a human needs to survive. Or at least that's what he hopes.

The thing making the noise finally comes through the bushes and… well he was kinda right about it being human, accept… it's a rotten human torso crawling towards him. Okay, perhaps this dimension is not as similar as his own.

He sniffs the air again to get its scent and... oh, that half human look-alike is completely dead. The smell of death reeked profusely, and this made his nose wrinkle up in disgust. Its brain seems to be working though, if that can be considered 'working' of course.

Kurama takes a step forward to kill this threat before stopping mid-action. Either this dimension has bigger trees and creatures than him, or his size has been reduced. Dramatically.

Damn. Perhaps he has given Naruto a bit too much. Well, a sacrifice of power to make sure that idiot lived was still worth it. Kurama watches as the being seems lost for a moment, moaning and groaning, looking aimlessly around. Interesting.

Kicking a rock towards some bushes, Kurama watches as the attention of the being snaps to that direction. So it reacts to sound then. And it seemed, whatever the thing is, almost completely ignored him. Was it because it doesn't hunt animals? Maybe because he was a being of pure energy and its only interest is in actual flesh? Or… was it because he was so weak that he was barely alive to that… thing.

He doesn't know if the smell affects them as the thing doesn't smell anything like a hound. Hell for all he knows this thing is blind, which would make sneaking away from this guy even easier. But he has been inside the hidden village leaf for so long, stealth is something easy to achieve even without the target being blind.

The noise he made thanks to his fall may have led that thing here, with maybe even more on the way, which will cause him problems with being this weak. He definitely needs to leave, now.

He's at the lowest reserves of his chakra and doesn't know how strong they are. They don't seem to be too tough but he's not going to risk it. His body feels ready to fall apart; to become one with nature. He really needs to rest.

Because the truth is that he aches all over, weird considering he's pure energy with a conscience and a personality. He has never been truly defeated to the point he has needed to be reformed, but he guesses this must be what chakra exhausted shinobi felt. His chakra is unstable, as if the briefest moment without concentration is enough to make him disappear into his natural surroundings and force him into hibernation.

But that will probably take years, years he could not afford. He's quite fond of that blond brat, even if he loathes to admit it. One other reason is that he's a magnet for trouble. Kurama needs to find him before he screws up in a number of ways. Like if he pisses off the wrong guy, gets himself killed, or befriends some enemy's he shouldn't. He barely has weeks before Naruto puts his mark on this world.

Reaching out, Kurama concentrates all of his loose chakra in the air and compresses it closer to himself to avoid it from leaking out anymore than necessary, the effect being that Kurama shrinks even more. His body's no longer the height of a medium horse, but that of a large sized dog. This is the only thing he can do to conserve energy until he recovers without sleeping.

He takes a deep and unnecessary breath before launching himself at the crawling monster, biting into its neck and separating its head from the shoulders with a big gush of blood.

Kurama, feeling almost like he was gonna collapse from doing that alone, drops the severed head and walks off in the opposite direction to use the last of his energy to search for a place where he can rest long enough to not end up unconscious on the grass, especially not with monsters like the one he saw crawling walking around. Maybe a cavern or an abandoned house would do. He just needed time to be on his side.

Further In The Woods

About ten minutes later, he found nothing that could serve as a hideout to rest and he's so tired that he doesn't want to walk anymore.

He's seen more of those walking dead beings but has been able to avoid them to save energy. Kurama was way too tired to fight. However, he's now afraid he'll slip up and succumb to sleep.

He feels a weight settle onto his body, carrying him down and he can't fight it anymore. He needs to sleep at least for an entire day, possibly two, to gain a fair amount of energy back. Either that or he goes straight into hibernation, which was not an option.

He stops to catch his breath as he looks up and around to try to find something, anything that could help. As he looks around he sees out of the corner of his eye an old and grand tree with thick branches and foliage. That could work, he should have enough chakra to get up there.

Gathering the little he had, he jumped up into the giant tree and landed on one of its branches. As soon as he did this, he collapsed on the branch closing his eyes slowly, he just needed some rest. 'Naruto, you better still be... alive... you...brat.' Kurama's eyes completely shut as he drifted into unconsciousness.

Hours Later, The Giant Oak Tree

A sudden and loud bang is what wakes him up. He awoke groggily at first, until he finally registered the banging sounds ringing out in the forest. Now mind is alert and in search of danger thanks to the loud ringing noises.

At first he looked down to see if his position had been compromised and to his relief, it's not. There was no one or any of those things near the tree, but he can still hear some groans and growling nearby.

Naruto had once told him how lucky he was that Kurama can feel presences, that way he can always warn him whenever an enemy is near. Though no matter how many times he has explained that what he feels are emotions and not the actual presence of humans, as how a tracker can, Naruto never gets it. He grins, that annoying and carefree grin and says 'but we all have emotions'.

Well, for one, those beings emanating the odor of death don't have emotions. He's able to smell them faintly, meaning they're probably far from his position but he doesn't know their exact position.

He sighs, it's easier to detect emotions than using his nose to- Kurama suddenly turns his head to where the sounds are coming from, and they're getting closer to his tree. There's a yell among those grunts, a high pitched and terrified yell. And now that he is concentrating, he can sense some emotions. There's fright, despair and hopelessness there.

It is not his intention to come down from his tree to investigate, his body is still in complete pain and one look at the sky makes him know it hasn't been that long since he has fallen asleep; give it or take a few hours.

But as sounds get closer he jumps onto another branch, going out further just in time to see a young girl with dark blond hair and light blue eyes trying to get away from those things. She's moving slowly, her breaths are heavy and there's a stuffed doll on the crook of her arm while the other holds some metal object which she tries to hold with her right hand. She wore a light blue t-shirt with a rainbow on it and blue jeans with white sneakers.

She aims at one of those things near her and the loud 'bang' is there again, echoing loudly in the forest. Her shoulders sag with the force of the weapon and it escapes her hands along with the doll. She whimpers and looks at the side to see more of those beings behind her.

Kurama sees her blue eyes and they are the wrong shade, her hair the wrong shade as well, but he senses a familiar determination and bravery. They're laced with fear and hopelessness instead of stubbornness and faith—in himself, in his comrades, in Kurama—, but it's similar enough for him to jump off his tree and run towards the little girl.

He no longer sees the young girl who had tears staining her cheeks as she fell in fear, now trying to crawl away from the monsters surrounding her; he sees a young Naruto crying. Instead of monsters, naruto's surrounded by the villagers of the leaf, all looking upon him with hateful, fear filled eyes. And he feels guilty.

Kurama attacks. He doesn't have the energy for chakra attacks, and definitely doesn't have the energy for a Tailed Beast Bomb, but he can still fight without them.

He uses his sharp claws and teeth to rip through the monsters. He went through so many of them that he was covered with coagulated blood and pieces of skin. He mostly ripped their heads off, because for the most part, he doesn't know how to kill these things.

Well until he knocked the next one down and stabbed down into its head with his right paws claws. It stopped moving completely as Kurama sighed in relief, it seemed that destroying the brain was the way to kill them. Beats ripping the heads off of those things.

He hobbles off the walker as he then turns towards the wide eyes directed at him. They're blue and that's enough for him to use what little energy he has to move forward and fall in front of the trembling human, close to her thin legs.

"Let me sleep for a while now, brat," he murmurs before falling asleep. He was putting his trust towards this human girl. And he hopes it wasn't misplaced.

5 Hours Later, Abandoned House

The thing about waking up when one's gotten used to being inside another being is that… well, it's strange, period. Not in the sense of it being uncomfortable, though it kind of is. He has been sealed for almost a century. Never waking up to feel the real world around him. Most would think it'd be incredible. It's not. It's disconcerting.

Perhaps it feels like that because Naruto's chakra and his own had been so close that they've almost merged in the war. And even if it only lasted a couple of days, he's now used to the feeling of Naruto's calm chakra mixed to his own. The seal wasn't open for long but it has been long enough for him to get used to it. Heavy and powerful, sometimes too excited and full of many emotions, but always calm and protective. Reassuring in the way a warm coat would help when it's cold. Kurama would never admit it out loud though.

In short, even if waking up without that feeling in a place he doesn't recognize with the scent of blood and dust thick in the air shouldn't be enough to leave him aghast, it still leaves a sense of discomfort. He hasn't got the chance to really think of the abrupt change he experienced when leaving his jinchuriki. Not giving him time to adjust. So… that gives him a good reason to momentarily freak out right?

It's not befitting of the most powerful of the tailed beasts, but there's no one to see him as he slowly stands up only to fall back down. He looks down to see his paws are covered with some cloth, tied to his legs by thin rope. They seemed to work like shoes.

He reaches down to pull the cloth off his paws but that's when he realized that something was tied around his snout that makes him unable to open his mouth. And he can't reach up and pull it off with his paws because of the stupid shoes. Just peachy. It was embarrassing really.

"You're up," a voice murmurs, surprise echoing in the soft voice. Kurama looks up. The girl he remembers helping, thanks to her similarities with a younger Naruto, is standing behind a door frame and looking cautiously at him. And now that he looks at her this close, he can notice that the similarities he found between her and his host are almost nonexistent. He sighs. Yeah, he's losing it.

Looking down at the cloth tied with simple rope laces around his ankles and the fact he can't sense no one near (Well, no one alive), he assumes the girl is the one who tied them on him. It may be because of how his previous hosts treated him, but it doesn't affect him as it once would. They're easy to ignore.

He knows he should demand to be set free of these contraptions, but he has seen Naruto interact with enough kids to know that doing that will most likely scare her and then what will he do? He doesn't have the power to reduce them to ashes. At least not yet, if the soreness and lethargy he feels are something to go by. And he didn't have the strength to rip them off his person. He hates this.

"What's your name?" he starts, trying to not put too much gruff in his voice to make it less menacing. It doesn't help that it's hard to speak with tight cloth being wrapped around his snout.

Considering that she hides behind the wall, it doesn't work. Heavy breathing echoes in the house and Kurama decides to use the time to assess his surroundings while waiting for the girl to calm down from her shock.

The room where he's in is a lot taller than what he has seen before in buildings of the Elemental Nation. He assumes that the beings in this world are taller than in his then. That would probably piss Naruto off as he has always leaned to the shorter side. Heh, the imagined sight itself brings out a small chuckle to Kurama.

There's a thick layer of dust on everything and it looks as if whoever lived here escaped hastily, only grabbing the essentials. That by itself says much about the situation this world lives in. Considering the 'things' that he has seen he can guess the cause easily enough.

"You can talk?" Kurama directs his gaze to the girl peeking from the door frame. "I just did, didn't I?" Kurama retorts. She bites her lip nervously. "I thought it was my imagination to be honest."

That means that there aren't any talking animals in this world. That would mean he'd have to be silent from now on. It's not wise to attract attention to himself, plus, he really didn't need humans freezing up from shock every time he spoke. "My name's Sophia." Half of her body is now visible and Kurama senses her fear withdrawing, giving away to curiosity. Kids have always been more curious than anything else. "I'm—"

Kurama blinks. He has never introduced himself to anyone but Naruto before. And after they teamed up, the one introducing him as his partner and a member of Konoha was Naruto. Kurama doesn't like how his name was easily given to others by Naruto. But he would always respond saying 'If they are trusting you with their lives, trust them with your name' and that was it.

He let him do so but he's never had to give it out his name. And he won't. Not to a kid who he doesn't know. Maybe if he trusted her… it was slim, but maybe.

"Call me Nine," he finally answers. "So, you were the one who put these… shoes on me?" After receiving a nod he asks, "Why?" Sophia looked away kinda before answering. "You, um, bit the walkers. I thought maybe you were infected. You only need to be bitten or scratched by them to get infected. I don't know if it works like that with animals as well but I didn't want to chance it."

The kid's smart, he'll give her that. "Ok then. But there's something else I need to know; they're infected? What are they?" Kurama questioned further, with Sophia looking onto him with a shocked expression. "You don't know?" She asked, surprised that he didn't know. Everyone knew, well maybe some animals didn't know what it was, is that why he doesn't know?

"I'm not from here." Kurama answered blankly, staring up at her. "Uh?" She tilted her head in a cute way that Kurama sighed at before explaining. "Lets just say i got sucked outta my world through a portal into your world. And it was only a little while before I saved you. So now can you explain to me what they are?" Sophia just stared at him for a minute contemplating what he just told her, then she slowly started to explain to him

"Uhm, well, it starts when one of them bites you and then you'll get really sick until you eventually… die. Then you come back as one of them." She hesitates but it only takes her a second for her to walk forward until he can see her entirely. "I was with my mom and dad when they appeared a couple of months ago. We were with a group of others, and we stayed in a camp for a little while but the walkers attacked us and one of them... killed my dad. We left to find some place better but I got separated from everyone and now I'm…"

She bites her lower lip and blinks quickly but she doesn't continue. He hasn't interacted with many humans and the only one he can call friend is the kind of person that bounces from back from sadness to happy determination with Kurama just asking him

'Are you going to give up then?' in a mocking tone. Somehow he doesn't think it'll work with her. It's not as if he cares either way , so why bother?

"Walkers? Is that what you call them?" Kurama questioned as she nodded her head slightly. Well, it was an accurate name to say the least.

"Now that we've concluded that I'm not infected, mind if you give me a hand here? This thing is really annoying." He points at his snout with a paw and that makes her giggle kinda. She walks towards him nervously and gets on her knees, it only takes her a few moments to free him from his bindings.

"I didn't know foxes could be this big." Sophia exclaims softly as he scoffs. "I was bigger. You probably are about the same height as the pupil of my eye." Sophia looks over his body slightly with a slight wide eyed look before looking back at him. "Really? Then what happened to your body? Why are you so much smaller?" Kurama smirked slightly as he looked down. "An idiotic friend is what happened."

She looks at him with a questioning gaze. Though she didn't question the subject further, she still had more questions bottled up inside. "Are you really from another world?" The young girl asked with a newfound curiosity in her eyes. "Are you an alien then? From outer space?"

An alien? Kurama chuckled silently at the question. Ironically the Ten Tails was a combination of the chakra fruit and Kaguya Otsutsuki, who was an alien, and he was created from a split part of the Ten Tails soul. Hell his own father, the man who created the Tailed Beasts, was half alien and human. So technically she wasn't wrong to assume so. "No. I believe I may be from another dimension, from a world similar to yours but different in many ways as well."

It's obvious she wants to ask for more, but she goes quiet as she sits on the floor in front of him. It's unlike Naruto when he was younger. He'd have pestered him annoyingly until they had a heart to heart moment.

He sighed tiredly and stood in an attempt to search for something to clean the blood from his fur because there was no way in hell he was going to use his tongue to clean himself.

As he walks across the room, he notices that in the corner of the room there's some supplies that the girl more than likely scavenged. There was her doll that she carried with her in the woods, along with the weird metal weapon she used on the monsters. There was also a bottle of water that was half way full and two cans, with one of them open. The open one, it smells of food.

She catches his line of sight and walks over to pick it up and timidly offers the can of food towards him. "Want some? It's baked beans. They taste really good." She asks nervously.

The food did smell pretty good to him, but he doesn't eat anyways so he didn't need it. Although it was unlike any kind of food he's ever smelled before, at least it wasn't ramen. He's smelled enough ramen for his entire lifetime thanks to his idiotic jinchuuriki. Kurama appreciates the gesture though, It's obvious that there isn't much food to begin with and she's offering him what little she has. Even though she could've just hid it and kept it to herself.

"You're the one who needs to eat, brat. You're too thin." Kurama answered as he looked upon the girl with an appreciative look. "…Thanks." She looks down at her food and starts eating with her right hand. Kurama sticks his snout into the girl's small backpack next to her other supplies and pulls out a big cloth. Good enough to clean himself with for now. As he wipes the cloth on him she asks, "What are you exactly? Since I know you're not a normal fox and you're not an alien."

He doesn't think 'The Strongest Tailed Beast' will answer her question. 'Demonic entity' probably has the same meaning that it has in the elemental nations, so that's outta the question. 'I guess there's only one thing I could call myself.' Kurama thought before looking at her. "I'm a 'fox spirit' brat. And let's leave it at that." It rubs him the wrong way but after mentioning how he's the strongest of all the spirits throughout his life, it dwells.

"So how much has this… thing affected humanity? Is there some sort of order trying to keep the peace? Is there someone, anyone at all dealing with the problem or is everything just as fucked as it looks?" The girl frowns at this, clenching her can tighter.

While she does explain what she knows as much as she can, it still confused him slightly. She tells him about the police and military, how they use to protect everyday citizens from threats. So similar to the hidden leaf and yet so different that it boggles his mind. She went on to tell him about the virus, everything the scientist her former group met explained to them and what she understood from it. So… apparently this world is fucked. No police or military to protect those weaker than them, no leaders to guide the lost people of this world, nor were there any scientists to help find a way to stop the virus.

Hopefully he can find Naruto quickly and they can search for a way to get back home. Knowing him, he'll try to help this world and fix it if he finds how fucked everything is. Although after freeing his friends back home of course.

But that Uchiha brat was with them, too. Naruto will want to find him, too. And Naruto is too much of a trouble magnet to avoid people for long. He's going to find out the truth and that means they're going to stay for some time.

Great. Looking mournfully at the state of his fur and the cloth that was already dirty, he glances at the kitchen. He probably already knew the answer to his next question but it didn't hurt to ask. "Is the water working here?"

She shakes her head. "Sadly no, that would be great right now if it did." Well, this world truly was not doing great. "But there is a small lake not far away from where you found me. I could've gotten water from it, however there are lots of walkers near it, though." He gives a tentative lick to the back of his paw before scrunching his nose in distaste. "I need to go there. I take pride in my fur, I can't leave it in this state." Sophia nods silently in understanding before lowering her head to look at the floor. "Oh… ok."

He's still weak but it seems he has slept at least a day. It's not enough to recover a huge portion of his chakra but it was enough to avoid those walkers. Not like they can transform him, anyways. He doesn't actually have an actual flesh and blood body to react to whatever infection they have spreading around.

He can just go to that lake, get around those walkers, clean himself, then walk on top of the surface of the water to where those beings aren't walking and he can search for a place to rest for some time, safe enough strength so that he can find him. Or at the very least Naruto finding him. The brat may be weak, like him, but he has most of his chakra in him so he'll be able to recover faster. Even if he has just suffered through a Tailed Beast extraction.

He's going to have enough chakra and regain control over it in a couple of weeks to attempt sage mode and search for him. Now he only hopes that the idiotic blonde will be able to remember he can use it.

"I won't see you anymore, Nine?" Kurama is already ready to just turn around and walk away but Sophie's question stops him dead in his tracks. He looks in her direction and sees her legs draw to her chest, arms hugging them protectively. Her chin is on top of her knees, the emptied can of food sitting next to her. Kurama doesn't need to be able to sense emotions to know she's afraid and lonely.

Again, he no longer sees her. He sees the boy sitting on a swing under a grand oak tree. Him watching how parents would hug their children and kiss them on the cheeks as they take them home, congratulating them on passing the graduation exam. All the while they would ignore him, whispering harsh words and calling him names while glaring at him. Her eyes and hair are a darker shade, her skin is pale and not tan, but…

"You can come with me if you want, brat. We can look for your group while I wait for my friend. If we find him first and he gets to know you, he'll want to search for your group anyways. So it's better to start now and leave."

Looking up, eyes widen with hope as she stares at the bigger than normal fox . "Really?" Kurama just turns towards the door that leads out of the broken home. "Yeah. I'm weak now though and I wouldn't be much use in a fight, so we better search for a place where we can stay and I can rest." She stands up quickly and smiles brightly as she walks towards where her stuff was in the corner and starts packing it all up.

Kurama sighed, he blames his weakness with blue eyed, blond haired brats on Naruto. 'Damn him and his persistence on being friends.' Though, this last thought put a slight smirk on his snout.

Farther Away, In a Dark Building

Far away from the place Kurama was, a man checks the pulse of a teenager laid on a bed.

"It's amazing how stable he is. He fell from really high up but there are only a couple of wounds on him caused from it." This man being the doctor of the said place was astonished by the complete defiance of human nature.

"Do you think it was from a helicopter or an airplane he fell from?" Asks another man, charisma and an air of power giving him the air of the one in charge.

"Hard to guess. I ain't saw anythin' on the sky," says a gruff man with a false hand, a real deep hillbilly accent. "Ye know what that purple thin' was?" The doctor looks at him with apprehension but answers anyways.

"No. But I didn't see it, so I can't guess its origin either, you said it disappeared as soon as the guys went to where he fell?" The hillbillys face scrunched up before replying. "Yeah. Kinda looked like bones. Weird shit."

The man of charisma, the leader of the place they were at, Just shook his head. "Just try to get as much info out of his body as you can get. I want to know what that purple energy was. Perhaps the military is working on some new bio weapon with this kid being the host. If we can get it, it'll be beneficial to us in the long run."

"What? But I don't have the equipment to do any thorough research. It'll be impossible without it. Our safest bet would be to ask him when he wakes up…" He trails off, glancing at the young, pale teenager laid on the bed.

His black hair matted slightly with blood. He couldn't be more than eighteen.

"If the lil doc can't get what we want while the kid is asleep, do we kill him, Governor?" The Governor sighs and shakes his head sadly. The doctor sees this action and offers weakly: "He's just a kid." The hillbilly looks at the doctor with a sarcastic expression. "A kid that fell from who knows where and still kicks it. That's crazy."

"I have to agree with Merle here. We can't have him here in Woodbury. He'll destroy the peace we've fought hard to maintain." He nods towards Merle to confirm the dark deed needs to be done and he smiles with his own, far too pleased smile as he takes a knife from the back of his pants. He gets right to the top of the table were the kids head laid and positions himself to take the kill.

However as he's lifting his hand up to build momentum so the weapon can get all the way down to the brain, the boy's eyes open, one red eye with a black star like design in it and another purple eye with rings going around the pupil and nine tomes, three on each of the closet three rings from his pupil. Everything that occurs from that point in time happens in a flash of movement.

Author Notes

Update: Hey everyone, here are some updated notes. So yes, I was gone a long time. Just read up above if you haven't yet. But yeah, since I'm back I decided to update this chapter of the story and continue it as a whole, meaning I'm just gonna focus on this story for now. Over the next two days I'm going to update the already released chapters with grammar and paragraph fixes, then I'll release new chapters. Rest of the notes are the same so I'll see y'all soon!

Stories you can choose from!

A Different Deku

The Way Of The Hero And Ninja

A Different Time-line

The Neo Spider-man

The Will Of The Force

Although in case you're curious when this takes place, then this takes about a month from when Sophia separated from the group. And immediately after Naruto and Sasuke seal Kaguya up with planetary devastation.

Until next chapter, Until the light calls again… Peace out.