Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and Fairy Tail. I don't own anything other than crippling student debt.
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(Inside Naruto's mindscape)
In a dimly lit chamber, we find our hero sprawled out on the ground. He can be seen twitching in pain as he groggily cracked open one of his blurry, sleep-filled eyes and tried to push himself up into a more comfortable position.
"Ugh, What hit me?" He groaned as he managed to push himself up into a sitting position and massaged his temples, trying to ward off the nasty headache he was sporting at the moment. After managing to calm down the headache, he rubbed his eyes and peered to check where he was.
And as he saw the all too familiar settings of his mindscape, he let out a groan and slowly stood up. He stretched his arms and legs as he walked towards the direction where he knew his partner would be.
After a short walk, he saw the hulking form of his partner snoring peacefully.
"Kurama, wake up!" Naruto called out to his partner. His sound echoing in the huge chamber.
"Grrr.., "Kurama grunted and cracked open its eyes, and let out a tired yawn as he heard his partner calling him. it turned its head towards its partner and blankly stared at him with its huge slitted, red eyes.
"You finally managed to wake up, huh, princess?"
"You were the one that was sleeping, furball!" Naruto retorted pointing one of his fingers at Kurama.
"I was simply waiting for you to wake up, idiot."Kurama calmly said and tiredly yawned, again.
Naruto's eyebrows angrily twitched at his partner's reply, he was about to yell at Kurama for the 'idiot' remark. But momentarily paused, as his eyes finally adjusted to the dimly lit chamber and he got a proper look at his partner's condition.
Kurama's whole body looked like someone who hadn't eaten for years; granted it doesn't need to it anything, but that's beside the point. it looked worryingly thin and skeletal. its one's majestic-looking blood red 'fur' was now slightly dull and pale. And the most worrying part was his partner's size; Kurama's whole body had somehow shrunk. Before its whole body could easily dwarf the Hokage monument, but now it was no bigger than a small two-storey building.
"oi...Kurama?" Naruto called now looking at his partner's face in concern and a little bit of confusion.
"What happened to you?"
"So, you finally noticed...huh. Took you long enough." Kurama snidely remarked as he slowly stood up and brought its face closer to Naruto and gave a menacing glare.
"It's all thanks to you, brat."
"Wha...what do you mean?" Naruto stuttered as a sense of foreboding filled his body.
"Don't you remember?"
Naruto shooked his head negatively as he tried to recall what had happened.
"I just remember flying inside the storm clouds and making a ransenshuriken to blow the clouds away. But after that, I don't remember anything."Naruto confessed as he tried to recall the events that had happened.
"Well, then let me jog your memory a bit." Kurama let out an annoyed sigh and continued. "After you tried to pull that stupid stunt of entering the eye of a raging storm, you got knocked out and then got somehow transported inside a dark void, and since I'm connected to you, due to the seal I was also summoned back inside the seal into you and had to use almost all of my chakra to keep you alive; otherwise, you would have died inside that void."
Kurama paused and took a deep breath as it prepared itself to give its partner a piece of its mind.
"Whatever that void was, it was stretching your body like rubber while suffocating you, and sucking your chakra at an alarming rate. So, I had to use my chakra as a protective barrier over your body, and almost lost all of my chakra in the process as the void started to absorb my chakra as well. And after a few minutes, the void spat us out here in this strange world."
"I...I'm sorry, Kurama."
After hearing the information, Naruto guiltily apologized as he now realized that it was due to his stupid action, his partner was now in this sorry state. But, he blinked, and a confused look appear on his expression.
"What do you mean...a strange world, Kurama?"
"It might be hard to believe, brat but that void or that 'storm' has somehow transported us into a completely new dimension, and from what I could sense this dimension or world is very far away from our home."
"What...? you are joking, right?" Naruto worriedly asked, however, Kurama knew that it was not even the worst part of their current predicament.
"I'm afraid, this is not a joke, brat. I wish it was." Kurama stated grimly.
"And that's not even the worst part of our situation. When we were stuck in that void, it might have felt like a few minutes, but it was actually three years."
"WHAT? THREE YEARS?"
Kurama nodded grimly as it looked over its shell-shocked partner.
"Kurama, this ought to be a joke! How can three..."
"I know, it may be hard to believe but this is the truth brat." Kurama interrupted his partner and explained. "You might have not sensed the difference in time since you haven't aged inside the void, and even I, wouldn't have been able to notice the difference, but since I have lived for almost a thousand years, I'm quite perceptive of time and I'm a being of chakra so any changes like that, can't go unnoticed by me."
"But, if what you are saying is true, then why doesn't I feel or look like I have aged even a little bit in those three years?" Naruto questioned a bit uncertain and still not believing Kurama's claim.
"About that, I don't exactly know or have the exact answer to why you haven't aged in those three years," Kurama confessed as it too was a bit uncertain about that though it had some theories about that.
"There are certain possibilities about your dilemma, though I'm not exactly certain. It might be because of the overflowing chakra that I was pumping through your chakra networks, and to your whole body which could have protected you from aging, or the most probable and believable in my opinion is that the 'void' might have put your body into a stasis, which might have stopped your aging for those years."
"Though on a positive note," Kurama took another heavy breath mid-sentence and look at Naruto, who looked thoroughly confused, perplexed, and shell-shocked. The beast couldn't blame him though, even it, was a bit confused about their situation when it was suddenly summoned back into the seal, and saw a complete dark void trying to suck both of them dry of their chakra. "Since this dimension is so far away from our own, there might be some time difference between the two; so, there is a high possibility that only a month, year, or heck even an hour might have passed in our world due to time dilation. so you don't worry much about that."
"By that logic, isn't there a possibility that five years, ten years, or heck! even twenty years might have passed in our world?" Naruto questioned.
"Ah... You are right. I didn't think about that." Kurama sweated and sheepishly agreed with its partner's statement earning a groan from the said partner.
"But, don't think much into it. Like I said, It is just a possibility, not one hundred percent factual that it is going to happen. so, don't..uh.. sweat about it okay?"
Hearing the explanation and his partner's rather bad attempt at consoling him, Naruto let out another frustrated groan from his mouth. If he was being honest, he was thoroughly confused with his current predicament. He was never really a scholar type or anything, so to hear about things like a void, stasis, and even traveling through dimensions was all a bit confusing and foreign to him. Granted, during his fight with Kaguya, he had traveled to different dimensions, but this was on a whole other level.
So just to calm down the massive, headache that he could feel was coming, he decided to simply accept everything that he had heard so far as another part of his massive pile of misfortune that had been handed to him since his birth.
'Wait...a minute.' He thought as a literal light bulb lit up in his head and a massive grin appear on his face. 'Even if I'm in a different dimension, wouldn't the toad elders be able to reverse summon me back to our home? And if I'm not wrong, Sasuke's eye has the ability to open portals to different dimensions, so wouldn't he be able to easily open a portal to wherever me and Kurama have landed and get us out of here?'
"No, it's not going to work, brat," Kurama hotly declared as it saw the grin on his partner's face.
"Wha... what do you mean it's not going to work?" Naruto sputtered his grin and the hope that was brewing inside him now fading away. "And how do you know what I was thinking of?"
"Let me guess..." Kurama mused its eyebrow quirking a bit, even though it didn't actually have one. "You were thinking that the toad summons of yours, would be able to summon you back, right?"
Seeing its partner giving a resigned nod it continued, "And you were also hoping that Uchiha would be able to open a portal into this dimension and get us back to our world, weren't you?"
"How do know that!? and why do you think that it wouldn't work?"
"Hmm...for your first question, you are just far too easy to read, brat." Kurama quipped
prompting Naruto to facepalm.
"And for your second question, the simple answer is that they lack the amount of chakra to access this dimension. Like I said before, this dimension is very far away from our own; so, to open a portal to this dimension or even to summon you back, would require an enormous amount of chakra; which the toads nor your friend have."
"So how are we going to get back to our world then? Are we going to be stuck here forever??" Naruto asked in desperation as his last hope of going back to his home was crushed. He didn't want to get stuck in this unknown world! he still had a lot of things to accomplish back home, like becoming the Hokage!
"Well, we do have a way to get back to our world," Kurama said gaining the complete attention of its partner, "We can get back through the use of your Hiraishin kunai."
"My hiraishin kunai...?" Naruto muttered confusedly getting a nod from his partner "But how?"
"I don't know whether you remember it or not, but before you suddenly disappeared from our world, thankfully, one of your kunai was left back there. So, you use that kunai to teleport from one place to another, using the kunai as a medium. In theory, there is a possibility that you could teleport both of us back to that kunai that was left in our world."
"But...But I don't even know how to use it properly. Did you forget that I can only teleport about 200 meters using Hiraishin? So to teleport us back to a whole different dimension is out of the question!" Naruto stated looking at his friend like it had grown a second head for giving such an outrageous solution to their problem.
"Who is even talking about being able to go back to our world now, brat? There is no chance that we will be able to go back with my condition right now." Kurama retorted.
"What? If not now then when?"
"Maybe after 6 or 7 years."
".."
"..."
Naruto blankly looked at his partner while trying to make sure that he hadn't heard it wrong.
"You serious, Kurama? Please tell me you are joking." Naruto pleaded and hoping that it was just one of those cruel jokes that his partner sometimes likes to play on him.
"I'm afraid, I'm not joking, brat," Kurama said and explained, "As you have already noticed by now, I'm not in very good shape. I have lost almost eight tails worth of chakra trying to protect both of us in that void. Even if you master that jutsu, your chakra won't be enough to transport us back to the kunai in our world. Since both of the dimensions are so far apart, not even your massive chakra reserves would be able to fuel the process. You are also going to need almost all of my chakra to be able to do that. So, for me to recover the chakra that I had lost in that void It's going to take almost 6 to 7 years, even if I sleep and do nothing."
After hearing Kurama's reasoning, Naruto finally realized how dire their situation was. He felt like his whole world has been snatched away from him, literally. However, he also knew that there was any other choice, what choice did he even have?
"Sigh...So, will you be sleeping for almost 7 years?" He asked getting a slow nod from his partner.
"And what do you want me to do, when you are recovering your chakra?"
"I want you to get information about this world that we are in, and also try to keep the information about your origin a secret. Don't tell anyone, unless you truly trust them, that you are from a different dimension; as some people might take advantage of your naiveness and trustful nature. "Hey!" Also, try to master that Hiraishin jutsu of yours, and try to completely avoid using my chakra as much as possible, unless you feel like you are going to die. As you using my chakra would delay my recovery." Kurama instructed and grinned as it saw that Naruto was listening to its instructions seriously, nodding his head to every word it was saying.
"And most importantly, try to stay away from trouble as much as possible. While avoid doing stupid things like entering a raging storm!"
"Ah... You don't have to put it like that, Kurama. I said I'm truly sorry. I'm not going to do anything which would make our situation even dire, so don't worry and just take your nap."
Naruto said lightly smirking at his partner's exasperation.
"Naruto," Kurama spoke in a serious tone its previous annoyance completely gone from its face, "I know I'm asking you a lot, and putting a lot of responsibility on your shoulders by living you all by yourself in this unknown, world for 6 to 7 years. But, want you to survive and don't lose hope, and always remember that you are not alone."
Naruto stood with a surprised expression on his face as he heard Kurama's words and his eyes started to slowly get blurry as tears started to appear in his eyes.
"Don't worry about me, partner. You just take your rest and try to recover fast. I promise that I will survive and endure this world for both of us until you wake up and we get back to our home. And you know Naruto Uzumaki never breaks his promises."
"I know, brat." Kurama chuckled and grinned hearing its partner's conviction. It brought its right hand forward towards Naruto for a fist bump and both of them let out a similar grin when their fist bumped, knowing that it might be their last for some years.
"I believe in you, Naruto. Be brave and strong, okay?"
"Okay, partner." Naruto nodded tears slowly streaming down his face and declared.
"Now, go and take your nap. As I'm going to show this world the awesomeness of the most unpredictable ninja and future Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki!"
"Yeah, sure brat. And before you go, tighten the seal a bit."
"Ah...why?" Naruto asked confused by that request.
"You give into your emotions very quickly, and I don't want my chakra leaking because of your emotions, since I will be sleeping I won't be able to stop it from taking over you."
"Oh...okay, sure." Naruto conceded and agreed with his partner's reasons as it was the truth. He then lifted his black uniform shirt a bit and put his palm on his stomach where Kurama's seal was and twisted his palm, indicating that he had tightened the seal.
"Good, now get your stupid ass out of my face. I need to rest a bit." Kurama declared with a noticeable grin on its face.
"Yeah..yeah.. You old fox. I also don't want to see your stupid face anymore." Naruto retorted with a similar grin on his face as he slowly willed himself out of the mindscape.
*End*
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A/N: The next chapter will detail Naruto's real arrival in Earthland. I was actually planning to add a little bit of those in this chapter. But I wanted to get over his inevitable conversation with Kurama, which happens in almost every "Naruto getting transported to Earthland" fic, as soon as possible.
So, I'm sorry if you guys were expecting much more in this chapter. I will try to write and upload the next chapter as soon as possible.
Thank you.