Grimm Tails of Remnant (Rewrite)

Chapter Two: Learning the Ropes

Rushing through the maze of trees, Naruto tried to keep a level head even as the difficulties with moving in this new body slowed him down. A roar could be heard across the forest which was quickly answered by a new roar coming from the left of the teen.

His rippled, crimson eye continued to scan the terrain for threats as he clumsily weaved

between the trees. 'Another signature to the left about a hundred meters away. Two are fifty meters to the north. Take a right and keep moving.' Kurama called out while sensing for more of these hostile signatures. Since the first time that the partners had heard the roars within the forest, they'd been continually on the run.

While Naruto might get a small reprieve where he could try and rest, he'd always be awakened by Kurama when the dark signatures started to converge on his location. The fox knew that even though his partner was tough and seemed to have a bottomless pit of energy, Kurama knew that Naruto was hitting his limits at this point.

The movements of Naruto's body were starting to become sluggish as controlling all the new limbs and muscles of his body were taxing both mentally and physically. The brat needed a safe place to rest or he'd collapse.

Since Naruto had started fleeing since last night, both he and Kurama had noticed that the trees were becoming thicker and taller the further he continued running. This information told the partners that they were getting closer to the center of the woods, where the older sections of this forest were further separated from civilization.

'Keep moving dead ahead. The area seems cleared of any hostiles, unlike other areas right now.' Kurama advised as he continued keeping track of the hostiles behind Naruto. It was odd that the closer they got to this area ahead, the less willing the hostiles were to chase after Naruto.

The fox wasn't as necessary the further forwards that Naruto got due to the trees appearing less to impede vision. Soon enough, Naruto broke out into a clearing where stone ruins of a long forgotten civilization remained. To the right of the ten tailed ninja was a circular ruin that contained multiple pedestals upon which strange statuettes rested.

To the left, a set of stone bridges and pillars spanned over an abyss shrouded in fog. The teen made the quick decision to try and find shelter in the circular ruin as he had no faith in the ancient bridges and pillars being able to hold his or anyone's weight without breaking.

Since Naruto had a definite destination to arrive at, he picked up his pace and tried to outright sprint to the ruin. While doing so, his tails dragged in the ground as the teen stopped focusing on keeping them raised.

Looking over his shoulder, Naruto's crimson eye could pick out black creatures with white bone plating prowling through the trees. The ninja found it odd that he could perfectly pick out these creatures from this distance and at this time of night.

"Are those the things chasing me?" Naruto asked with a heavy breath.

'Yeah. I don't know what those things are, but they seem to have lost interest in hunting you when we got near these ruins. This could mean that there is something that resides within these ruins that they fear.' Kurama responded. Naruto couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as he slowed down and walked the rest of the way to the ruin.

Upon entering the structure, Naruto was able to get a better look at these statuettes resting on the pedestals. Half of them were black while the other half were gold, yet both colors held the same amount and type of pieces as the other. "What are these things? They look like toys that toddlers would play with." Naruto remarked as he approached the nearest pedestal which held a gold piece shaped like a horse's head.

'Naruto, do you notice anything about this statue that doesn't fit this ruin?' Kurama asked as he analyzed this piece. Naruto tried to figure out what Kurama meant as he looked at different areas of the piece. Finally, he gave up and set the piece back onto the pedestal.

"Okay, mind telling me what the big secret is?" Naruto muttered in frustration.

'This ruin is ancient and exposed to the elements, and yet, this piece looks relatively new and untouched. That means one of two things. The first possibility at large is that these pieces are more durable than the ruins themselves, not that it would explain why they are missing dirt and grime from being out here. This means that…'

"These statues were placed here recently, which means that people have come by here to put these things in this ruin." Naruto concluded as he figured out what Kurama was implying. "Does this mean that we should stay here and wait for someone to come by?"

'That's the risk, isn't it? You need to keep in mind, brat that you don't look human anymore. You need to keep a Tailed Beast's mentality when encountering humans since they may attack you on sight or run out of fear.' Kurama could tell that this recommendation upset Naruto. It wasn't hard to understand why, the kid was a social animal, and being told to avoid people went against what Naruto had spent his life trying to do.

The teen was silent as he thought about this remark. Kurama had a point on how humans could react when seeing something unknown, but he also couldn't do much about getting back home to his world when he was unable to talk to anyone in this world. He needed the help, and even if this new form was detrimental in communicating with others, he'd just have to find a way around this.

"We've gotta find someone that can help us. We know nothing about this place that someone who's lived here has. Getting back home to stop Sasuke and save your siblings is more important than worrying about our appearance." Naruto decided as he looked around the ruin for a comfortable space to sleep that was also slightly out of sight.

'Your choice, I'm just giving you options.'

When the teen reached the edge of the ruin, the section between the circular floor and the stone wall, he saw pockets of dirt and a few fallen stone blocks. Glancing at his clawed hands, he felt an idea grow in his head. Falling to one knee, Naruto started digging into the dirt with great fervor.

'Brat, what are you doing?' Kurama asked as Naruto used his tails to scoop the dirt onto the stone circular flooring behind him.

"Making a spot to sleep. Don't want to be out in the open in case those things decide to get over their fear of this place and come attack when I go to sleep." Naruto answered as his claws dug through the ground and pulled out a large chunk of dirt that had clotted together into a large mass.

This work continued for a while in silence until Naruto felt satisfied with the small pit he dug out. With a smirk, he laid down in the hole and awkwardly used his tails to cover his exposed body in a slight ark before he used his hands to toss the pile of dirt over himself. Covering his tails in the dirt was more difficult to perform than digging the hole itself. Even when he'd finished, he still felt like this wasn't his best work.

'If you're worried about being spotted, just understand that your tails are some of the strongest parts of your body. You can shield yourself with them if needed.' Kurama consoled him.

"At least these things are useful for something. Wake me up when something important happens, I'm exhausted." After saying this, the ten tailed ninja closed their eye and fell asleep.

During the rest of the night, Kurama stayed awake sensing where the dark creatures were in the general vicinity. While a few might stay nearby looking for prey, they'd always move on. When the dawn finally came, Kurama continued to let his partner rest after the day he'd had yesterday.

Naruto needed to get accustomed to his new body soon, else he might be torn apart by whatever creatures were out there. This went on till it was almost noon at which point Kurama decided that Naruto had slept enough. 'Naruto, it's time to wake up.' The fox attempted to coax the sleeping teen. He received a mummer from the heavy sleeper which sounded like 'Not now, Sakura, I don't wanna go to school.' The fox sighed at his partner, wondering why he could be so stupid at times.

'BRAT! WAKE THE HELL UP!' Kurama roared out in impatience. This attempted worked as Naruto immediately shot up while his tails whipped the dirt covering him away.

"I'm up! I'm up! What happened?" Naruto demanded as his body shot up into a defensive position. Because of how instinctually ingrained this type of reaction was, Naruto found it odd that his hand couldn't feel a kunai that he'd typically keep stored on his person or hidden in his pillow.

A few moments later, Naruto's mind caught up to his body as he remembered that he wasn't in his world anymore or in his body. "Kurama, why is it that when I transformed into this tailed body, my clothing and weapons disappeared?"

'Really? Out of all the questions that you could ask, from what you should do today? How to get your body under control? Where in the hell we even are?' Kurama sighed in annoyance.

"It's just something that's been on my mind is all. Don't have to bust a blood vessel at it." As he said this, Naruto began stretching his arms over his head until he heard an audible pop, much to his relief. "Still, I never knew that I could sleep so well out here, what with the dirt, and the monsters, and the rocks…"

'I have no idea as to why your clothes disappeared. Happy now? If you wish to discuss this, then maybe you should ask why the rapping idiot's clothing would disappear when channeling Gyuki's power or how your clothing would do the same when you went beyond four tails of my power. See how inane that is?'

"At least there's something that not even you know." Naruto chuckled at this as Kurama groaned. "Let's get to work since I think I might be getting a hang of these tails."

'Finally.' What ensued after this was another long day of Naruto moving about the ruins at different variable speeds until he felt confident enough that he wouldn't fall on his face if he needed to move quickly. Unfortunately, this finer control over his body's motor skills didn't fully translate to control over his tails.

Naruto's closest guess as to why it was harder to use his tails compared to using the rest of his body was due to him never having tails to control in his previous body. It was a small chore to learn how to use his digitigrade legs, but they were still legs, something he had experience using before.

Another slight issue with his new body was the different lengths of his limbs and height of his body. He was around 5'4' in his last body, but now he was over six feet. That led to a lot of balance issues since such a rapid change in size took a long time for a mind to adjust to. Throwing kunai would need to be relearned since his change in arm length and weight would throw off his aim.

When Naruto decided to take a break, he rested his back against the stone wall of the ruins and worked on the next aspect of training in this new body; chakra control.

Entering into a lotus position, Naruto held out his hand and tried to channel his chakra into his signature jutsu, the rasengan. The first problem that he experienced when trying to use his chakra was how heavy and slow it felt. It was like a thick sludge that he tried to channel through his body.

'Naruto, keep in mind that your chakra is now fully Tailed Beast's. Human chakra is easier to utilize since it isn't as dense or overpowering. You need to regard using your chakra more like dominating it.' Kurama tried to tutor his partner as Naruto struggled.

"Would it be like the time that we had that tug-of-war over your chakra?" The teen asked as he continued concentrating.

'Similar to that. You need to enforce your will upon your chakra, otherwise it will try to resist and remain inert within your body.' Kurama answered. Naruto kept the idea in mind that his chakra would try to fight him if he didn't fight for it. He was quickly reminded of whenever he called upon Kurama's chakra and had to resist losing his mind to its power.

"This chakra is mine. I control it, it does not control me." Naruto muttered to himself in a mantra as he pushed all of his will into forcing his chakra to channel itself into this jutsu. While enforcing his will upon the Tailed Beast chakra within himself, he felt an initial resistance to his demands. "Kurama, why…" Naruto grunted in exertion as he pushed his will against a small surge of resistance in his chakra, "does Tailed Beast chakra fight against me so much?"

'Not just you, brat. All Tailed Beasts deal with this as our chakra is innately alive if not semi-sentient. It tries to resist being separated from the greater whole. This is a bit harder for normal Tailed Beasts like me, as we are completely composed of chakra. You have a physical body which makes it slightly easier as you aren't literally shaving off pieces of yourself in all of your jutsus.'

With a loud growl of effort, Naruto finally pushed down all resistance in his chakra and forced it through his hand and into the rasengan. That was the moment when a crimson glow grew in his hand. What quickly followed was balls of dark chakra and balls of light chakra converging on the center of his palm, much to Naruto's confusion.

"Wait, I'm not trying to make a Tailed Beast Ball." He remarked aloud.

'STOP NARUTO! The ratio isn't-' Kurama wasn't able to finish his warning as the growing ball of chakra in Naruto's hand prematurely detonated and launched Naruto back into the stone ruin's wall, embedding him within it.

After regaining his senses from the surprise explosion, Naruto pulled himself out of the wall with a pained groan, "That was different." He rolled his shoulders and moved his jaw back and forth until he felt like there wasn't anything wrong with his body.

'You moron! You could've killed yourself if you had pushed more chakra into that attack! I thought that you had mastered creating a Tailed Beast Ball! You made that rasengan variant during the war!' The fox chastised his partner, hiding his worry behind his anger.

"Sorry, Kurama. I just wasn't prepared for a Tailed Beast Ball to form instead of a rasengan. It's exactly like what happened when I tried to use a rasengan after I got your chakra cloak. Earlier, you said that I don't even have any human chakra anymore. Does that mean that I'll be unable to use a normal rasengan like I used to?" Naruto looked at his hand as he thought about this.

Where the failed rasengan had detonated, his hand was covered in burns and wounds that were already quickly healing back up. The speed at which he healed was much faster than his normal healing factor, possibly due to the influx of Tailed Beast chakra and his new body.

Activating his chakra, the fledgling Tailed Beast tried to create the rasengan once more, except this time he kept in mind to try making a Tailed Beast rasengan. Pushing his will upon his resistant chakra, Naruto kept in mind the Tailed Beast Ball ratio of 8:2, positive chakra to negative chakra.

The crimson glow grew in his hand as black and white balls of chakra coalesced into the center of his palm. As it grew, the rasengan became heavier, though not enough to prevent Naruto from holding his hand up. Finally, when the teen felt that the Tailed Beast rasengan had reached an adequate level of power, he stopped adding chakra and just held the jutsu up.

"I've got it!" Naruto stated proudly as he stood up.

'At least you can still use chakra, even if you're like a child using it and it takes you enough time. Now, why don't you try it out?' Kurama recommended with a chuckle.

"Way ahead of ya!" Naruto said as he started running forwards to a tree about twenty meters away. Even though the teen felt slower due to his body not being fully under his control along with the added weight of the rasengan slowing him down, Naruto eventually crossed the distance to the tree and slammed the jutsu into the base of the tree and watched as a massive explosion filled his vision.

When the light of the explosive jutsu faded to a more visible view, the teen couldn't help but smirk at the way that the tree, the earth below the tree, and a couple of the trees behind the first one were gone. All that remained was the super-heated earthen crater where the trees once grew upon.

"I think that I may have overdone it."

'You think?'

"Okay, I did overdo it. But at least this is a start!" Naruto said in a chipper tone. "I just need to see what other jutsu I'm able to perform."

'Naruto, work on movements with your tails before you jump into your jutsus. The jutsus are temporary, the tails are permanent.' This caused the teen to whine at the command.

"You can be such a joykiller."

'I'm being focused. Your hyperactive mind just can't stay on track of the important tasks at hand. Remember what I told you, the tails are an extension of yourself, they are part of you, not just a temporary addition.' After saying this, Kurama remained quiet to watch the teen train. There was only so much the fox could tell him, the rest Naruto had to do himself. 'Recall the training you did with Gyuki's jinchuuriki at the temple. Try to stack rocks on top of one another to improve dexterity in your tails.'

Upon being given this advice, Naruto walked back to the ruins to train. What started was Naruto collecting random rubble that littered both the inside and outside of the ruins. This task was made easier due to the considerable strength that this new body had. Once finished gathering the necessary materials, Naruto used his tails to try and stack blocks of rubble on top of each other, with mixed results.

It was hard work as his tails would sometimes topple the blocks over due to an uncoordinated tail touching the tiny stone tower. Other times, his tails would crush blocks in their grasp and rain pebbles upon the Tailed Beast.

This practice went on for hours until the sun finally started to dip beneath the horizon. "Y'know, maybe if I hadn't decided to be a ninja, I could've been an artist." Naruto joked as he proudly inspected his hard work.

'Yeah, you could've been an artist, a very shitty artist. I think I can even see your career now; Naruto the Starving Artist.' Taunted Kurama.

"Furry asshole." Muttered the teen.

'I thought that being friends meant that I should tell you the truth.'

"You are only saying that because it gives you the excuse to be an ass." Naruto stood in the center of the ruins as he decided to practice another jutsu. "Let's try a little bit of the transformation jutsu." After saying this, he put his finger into a sign and channeled chakra through his body.

When he finally felt the jutsu activate, nothing happened. "Kurama, explanation please?"

'I'm just as lost as you are right now. From what I've gathered, your body is the same as the Ten Tails'. It could mean that you might have difficulties altering your body, similar to how Obito couldn't use his Sharingan's Kamui.'

"Great, another jutsu that I have trouble with because of my body."

'This doesn't mean that transformations are out of the realm of possibility. Remember, the Ten Tails, and Kaguya included, could shift their forms when they needed to. Tranforming your body back to a human-like form could be in the realm of possibility for you when you get good enough at using said body.'

"Yeah, but it means that I have one more thing to learn. I'm going to go back to sleep and work on this tomorrow." Decision made, Naruto moved back to his dug-out hole and jumped inside before covering himself in dirt to camouflage his position.

Instead of Kurama acting as his living alarm clock, Naruto was broken out of his peaceful rest when he heard loud screaming throughout the area. This caused Naruto to jump out of his resting spot and shake dirt off of his body.

Then, he tracked where the screaming was coming from and looked up at the sky. What he saw made the teen wonder if he was still dreaming or not, as in the sky were the forms of people falling from the sky and into the forest below. "What the hell did I wake up to?"

'You did say that you wanted to meet some people. Here's your chance literally falling into your lap.' Kurama laughed.

"Don't give me that shit." Naruto stated as he began jogging to the position where he saw people falling. Part of the reason for why the teen wanted to investigate these falling people was because it was another step closer to learning more about this world, while another reason was because he was worried that the dark creatures prowling the forest could hurt these people.

And so, Naruto's newest morning on this world began with him running through the woods to get to the bottom of why people were literally falling from the sky. To add onto this, Kurama felt the dark creatures that were prowling the woods had increased in ferocity, but at the same time, they were starting to blip out of existence.

'Naruto, be wary, the dark beings are converging on locations ahead of you. It's possibly the people that just few from the sky and into these woods.' Kurama warned with a growl.

Nodding, the teen continued his pace with a touch more caution upon hearing this new information. It was at a time like this that Naruto wished his Sage mode wasn't acting up since it'd be a lot easier to find these falling people while moving than remaining still to collect natural energy.

Hopefully, he'd get his Sage mode mastery under control in a short amount of time.

As he got closer to what he assumed was the location of one of the falling people, he finally got a good look at the dark creatures that had been prowling about the forest. It looked like a massive werewolf covered in pitch-black fur. Sprouting out of the creature were multiple boney spikes which matched a white boney mask that covered its head.

A pair of crimson orbs glowed from the eyeholes of the creature's mask and seemed to burn into Naruto's soul as it gave a long howl. This howl called out other creatures from the forest that looked similar to the first one.

"You guys really look as ugly as Kurama sensed." Holding his hand out, Naruto attempted to channel his chakra into a Rasengan. "How long do you assume that it'll take those things to reach my location?"

'About thirty meters, combined with the amount of time it takes you to even channel your chakra, you'll not even be close to finishing that jutsu before those wolves tear your throat out.' Kurama stated bluntly.

"Any other ideas if jutsus are out of the question?"

'I'm fairly certain that at the age of ten you were more than capable of beating a man's face into a bloody pulp. You still have fists, don't you?' Naruto sighed before he stopped channeling chakra and entered a defensive stance.

"This is going to be awkward to fight when I'm still not used to these tails. Are you sure that you couldn't take control over my body so that you can fight, I'm pretty certain that this body isn't that different from yours?"

'No. Besides, you need this experience more than I do. Quit bitching and kick ass!' As the fox said this, Naruto had to duck under a swipe from the massive paw of one of the wolves. Dodging to the side, the teen gave the wolf a swift uppercut from under its jaw that knocked the creature off its feet.

Naruto's mind was suddenly barraged by images of another wolf attacking him. The confusion of what the teen had just seen distracted him long enough for another of the wolf creatures to snap its jaws on Naruto's wrist, eliciting a shout of pain from the teen, before the wolf flung the teen into tree with a strong enough force to send cracks into the tree.

Naruto looked at his wrist and noticed teeth marks that were quickly healing up. "You're lucky I heal or I'd be pissed right now." Naruto taunted as he got back up to his feet and dodged another slash of the wolf before punching the wolf in the side of its head. He felt another flash through his mind that showed the third wolf rush to cover where the second wolf had been previously before chomping its jaws onto Naruto's throat.

Instead of questioning why he was getting these flashes, Naruto reacted by leaning back until the back of his head and neck touched the tree. He was lucky for doing so as the third wolf's jaws chomped down on where his neck had once been.

"Fool me once, shame on me!" Naruto quickly kicked the wolf in the back of its knee, then he gave a headbutt to the wolf that created an audible crack which sent the wolf reeling back. "Fool me twice, then your ass is mine!"

When the third wolf finally landed on its back, Naruto stomped his foot down as hard as he could onto the wolf's neck, instantly decapitating it and cratering the ground underneath it. What surprised the teen wasn't the strength that he slammed his foot down upon the wolf's neck, but the fact that there was a lack of blood, or any feeling of wetness at all from the creature.

Even stranger was when the wolf's corpse started dispersing like smoke in the wind. "That is not normal." Naruto didn't have much time to think about the oddity of a corpse turning to smoke since he was tackled in the side by the first wolf that had finally recovered from the uppercut it received earlier.

As the wolf tried to bite down on the teen's shoulder, Naruto slammed both of his palms into the wolf's chest to momentarily stun it before he pulled his fist back and punched it forwards with all his might followed by an animalistic roar.

The force at which he punched caused his fist to go right through the wolf's chest where its heart should've been. The beast froze when this happened, as if trying to comprehend its own mortality, then it shuddered before dissolving away into smoke.

Pushing himself back to his feet, Naruto was assaulted by another vision of a wolf taking a few swings at him before snapping its jaws for the kill. Following this burst of information, Naruto started to easily dodge the final wolf's attacks until he found an opening and punched his fist into the open mouth of the wolf until his fist exited the back of the wolf's skull. With that, the battle was finally over and Naruto allowed himself a short breather.

'You didn't use your tails once in that fight. That's ten extra limbs to fight with whereas you were only using the normal four. Your fighting was also choppy since those creatures managed to land a few hits on you. What happened?' Kurama asked after he finished chastising the teen.

"Not used to the tails, haven't found a way to incorporate them into my fighting style. And the reason for why I'm fighting choppier is because of the extra weight that having ten tails puts on me. Not to mention that I started seeing weird visions throughout the fight of those creatures attacking me. It was weird at first, but I got used to it after a while."

'Visions?'

"I kept seeing these moments where the creatures would attack me before it happened." Naruto found it strange to hear a continual chuckle come from the fox and couldn't help but ask why he was laughing.

'Brat, I'm amazed that you didn't even notice. Your eye is the Rinne Sharingan. You have the abilities of both the Rinnegan and the Uchiha's pinkeye. It's no wonder that you were seeing flashes of being attacked when the Sharingan is meant to predict an opponent's movements. You really are a dumbass at time, you know that?'

"Shove it up your furry ass. Having a super eye is much lower on my scale of things to worry about compared to having ten tails jutting from my ass at all moments of the day!" The teen shook his head as he restarted his pace towards the first fallen person, he didn't feel like standing there and listening to Kurama mock him when he could do something helpful.

Just a moment later, the unexpected happened as a girl burst out from the bushes in front of him. The girl in question was wearing a red hooded cloak with a black long-sleeved dress that wouldn't seem that out of place in a fairy tale. What was out of place was the pair of combat boots she was wearing along with the weapon that she was quickly unfolding until it turned into a massive crimson scythe aimed at his head.

"Uhh…Do you know where the nearest village or town is? I'm a little lost."

That's a wrap. A little late, but I'll try to get chapter 3 out a bit quicker next time.

Stay Frosty My Friends.