Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Naruto or Digimon franchises. Comments/Criticism is fine as long as it isn't just hate or flaming. If you do not like, no one is forcing you to read and you can just leave.
Thank you for reading and please enjoy
The Hybrid Tamer
-Chapter 15-
-Last Time-
Unknown to anyone but him was that there were three different sets of cameras inside the Hypnos building. There is the primary set that were plain for everyone to see, the discreet set which were only known to the higher ups such as himself and Riley, and a secret set that he had installed himself that had their own power source and were only linked to his computer.
Watching the surveillance video play once more, the sunglasses wearing man sighed in irritation. 'You owe me for this Riley.' He thought while clicking the 'delete all' button with the mouse.
-And Now-
"Hey everyone, we're back!" Seiko called out as she walked into her home with Fox Naruto in her arms.
"Hello Kaa-san… uh Naruto-kun?" Rumiko said/asked as she glanced at the bandaged golden fox in her mother's arms.
"It's me Rumi-chan," Naruto confirmed with a nod before looking towards Seiko. "Can you put me down now."
"Alright, but you stay like you are and off that leg when you walk." The elderly woman said in a stern tone.
"Hai, hai, I got it Baa-chan, you told me a dozen times already." He said as Seiko bent over and set him on the floor, making sure to keep his bad leg held up as she did so. Stretching like a cat, Naruto sighed as his joints and back popped before he hobbled in a circle a few times to get used to walking on three legs. "Finally, I was going nuts from sitting still so long."
While he was doing this though, Seiko took a look around the room with a frown as she noticed something missing. "Rumiko, where's Rika and Renamon?"
"Oh, Renamon's taking a shower and Rika's in her room with a friend." The model said, a happy smile forming on her face while Seiko blinked in surprise.
"Rika has a friend over?" She asked in shock and sadly a hint of disbelief. Seiko knew her granddaughter was a living definition of the term anti-social, generally refusing to interact with others unless it was unavoidable. So to hear that she actually had a friend over was news that the elderly woman had to take with a grain of salt.
"Well, not exactly friend," See, just like she thought, "She's apparently that girl you saved last night, Naruto-kun." Rumiko said, causing Naruto's ears to perk up.
"Jeri's here?"
"Yeah, she's back in… and he's gone." Rumiko sighed good-naturedly as Naruto scampered off as soon as she said 'Yeah'.
"So anything else interesting happen while we were gone?" Seiko asked.
"Well… Rika accidentally discovered that Renamon likes risqué love stories."
"Tell me everything."
With a soft clicking of claws against wood, Naruto slipped a bit as he skip to a stop in front of Rika's bedroom door. Seeing that it was slightly ajar, he quietly nudged it open and peeked inside.
"How the heck did you get all these rare cards? I've been trying to find most of these for months." Rika demanded, sitting on her bedroom floor with a jealous look as she shuffled through a stack of cards.
"Well you see, while I was buying booster packs, I noticed something odd." Jeri said from her spot across from the Rika, pulling an unopened booster pack from her pocket and held it out upside down for the redhead to see. "Look closer at the bottom right corner."
Wondering what she was getting at, Rika took the pack from the brunette and held it up to her face as she squinted her eyes in focus. Whilst she was doing this, Naruto snickered quietly as he slunk into the room and silently got Jeri's attention before making a shushing motion with his paw.
Thankfully, she got the message and kept quiet, though she was clearly confused, not to mention concerned given his limp and bandaged state, until Naruto walked up to her side and jerked his head towards Rika with a wink. Understanding dawning in her eyes, the odd girl nodded her head with a smile as Naruto got as close as he could to Rika without alerting her and sat down in front of her with a wide, and quiet literally foxy, grin.
Meanwhile, the ever-oblivious Rika continued to stare at the booster pack in her hands intently, her eyes practically glaring a hole into the bottom right corner. 'What am I supposed to be seeing, there's nothing… what the?'
Just as she was about to give up, the light in the room flickered slightly and for the ever so briefest amount of time, the redhead swore she saw something flash on the foil surface. Blinking a few times in surprise, Rika's eyes narrowed as she tilted the package ever so slightly, before widening as that action caused an extremely faint D symbol appear.
It was so transparent, small, and pale that if it wasn't for the fact she had been specifically looking for something, the redhead would have missed entirely.
"Why those cheap little jerkwads, they marked the packs." She said with gritted teeth, tearing the foil wrapping off to reveal a rare holo-foil Magnaangemon card. There was only one reason why a company would do something like that, and that would be so sellers would be able to keep the ratio of garbage pack higher than the rare packs, thus make it so you'd have to keep buying more.
"If I ever meet one of those cheapskates I'm gon-WHAT THE HELL!" Rika's rant ended before it could truly start as she tossed the cards down in frustration and looked back up to Jeri, only to be met with the fanged grin of a blonde fox barely half a foot from her face.
With a high pitched shriek she would deny for the rest of her life, Rika scrambled backwards until she bumped into the wall.
"Bwahahaha! Oh my Kami that was priceless!" Naruto exclaimed, rolling around on his back in laughter while Jeri giggled uncontrollable. Calming down once she figured out what happened, a growl slowly escaped Rika's throat as she stood up and marched back across the room towards Naruto.
Not sensing the danger he was in thanks to his laughing, the blonde fox yelped in surprise as he was suddenly lifted off the floor by the scruff of his neck and brought eye to eye with a very angry redhead. "Think that was funny huh?" Rika asked, her powerful glare causing Naruto to lose all his previous humor in favor of unending dread.
"…Just a little." He said in a quiet voice, gulping slightly as Rika gained a very evil grin on her face.
"Then maybe you should have a taste of your own medicine."
Before Naruto could wonder what she meant by that, he froze as he felt a hand rest on top of his head, right between the ears. "No… please… anything but that." He pleaded, holding up his front paws in a praying pose for added affect.
"Sorry, payback's a bitch, and I'm her favorite niece." Rika said with a smug smirk as she started rubbing and petting the top of foxified boy's head.
"No Nooo… stoop… oooh…" Naruto's voice trailed off as he went completely limp, his good hindleg kicking like crazy, even after Rika set him back down on the floor while continuing to pet.
"So where were we?" Rika asked as Jeri in a casual yet warning tone that made the brunette sweat a little from nervousness.
"Um well, I'm sure you figured it out already, but after I discovered the rare packs were marked it was just a matter of picking them out from the rest whenever I bought new ones." Jeri explained with an awkward smile, her gaze constantly flickering towards Naruto.
"Makes sense, and now I can't wait until my next trip to the card store." Rika said, a victorious grin crossing her lips as she thought of all the great cards she was gonna get… or it could be from the 'torture' she was putting Naruto through, Jeri wasn't sure. "Speaking of which, I gotta go talk to my grandma and see if I can finally leave the house."
Standing back up, Rika set a practically comatose Naruto onto Jeri's lap before heading for the door. Once she was gone, a semi-awkward silence filled the air as Jeri watched the blonde fox slowly regain his bearings.
"Aagh, I hate when someone does that." Naruto grumbled while shaking his head a few times to clear the remaining cobwebs from his mind.
"Is it really that bad?" Jeri asked curiously, to which Naruto shook his head negatively.
"It's not that it's bad," Naruto started to say as he hopped off of the girl's lap and onto the bed, where he promptly turned back into his regular form with a short puff of smoke. "It just… feels really weird-Ttebayo."
The whiskered teen scratched at one of his ears in irritation as he spoke, before blinking in surprise when Jeri got right in front of him. "Are you alright?" She asked worriedly as she checked over the various bandages covering his body.
"Huh? Oh yeah, it's just a few cuts and bruises, I'll be all better by tomorrow." Naruto said, getting the girl to calm down a bit. "Though I have to stay off my leg until then, so no rooftop rides today sorry."
"It's fine, there's always next time." Jeri said with an understanding smile as she sat down beside the blonde. "What happened to you anyway Fluff-erm… Naruto?"
"A bunch of jerks jumped me and tried to make me into their lab rat." Naruto grumbled, mentally promising to give whoever sent those men after him a nice left hook to the jaw.
Elsewhere, one Ramirez Darelight felt a chill go down his spine… and an odd urge to upgrade his dental plan.
"Oh, well at least you got away." Jeri said happily, before tilting her head in confusion when the whiskered blonde pouted.
"Only because I was lucky enough to get help." Naruto admitted with a defeated sigh. He'd been caught completely off guard and had been neutralized before he could even pull off a single jutsu in his defense. If it hadn't been for Riley and Tally saving his ass, he'd be six feet under right now and he knew that.
"Um, there there," Jeri said as she awkwardly patted Naruto's back, not sure what she should do to cheer him up. Turns out she wouldn't have to either as Rika burst into the room seconds later with a grin on her face, Renamon following behind her with her usual impassive expression as she read her book.
"Alright you two, up and at em. We got some card shopping to do." The redhead said while hurrying over to her dresser, pulling open the second to top drawer, and fishing around inside until she pulled out a roll of bills and stuffing it into her pocket.
"Well somebody's excited." Naruto said with a chuckle as Rika didn't even wait for them to move as she hurried right back out the door with Renamon still in tow before turning back into a fox and curling up around Jeri's shoulders.
"…Wait a second, is Renamon reading Icha-Icha Paradise?"
Jeri's massively blushing face was all the answer he needed.
-Hypnos Building-
"What do you mean you lost it!?" Darelight demanded angrily as he smashed his fist onto Mitsou's desk, creating a small indent in its wooden surface.
"It's as I said sir, Subject Anomaly escaped containment during a power outage that was caused by one of the janitors, a cousin of yours if I remember correctly." The sunglasses wearing man said, the tiniest of smirks appearing on his lips as he saw the outrage grow on the head director's face.
"I want that thing recaptured immediately!"
"And how exactly do you intend for me to do that?" Mitsou asked, causing Darelight to pause. "Two-thirds of my men are still recovering from the first encounter with Anomaly and sedatives no longer work on him just like Riley said would happen."
Gritting his teeth in annoyance as he realized that Mitsou was right, the military man straightened up and stomped towards the doorway. "Fine, hold off until the men are recovered and a proper plan of attack is devised, but I want Anomaly under constant observation and threat assessment until then."
"Of course sir," 'It's not like we're already doing that or something.' Mitsou thought sarcastically, even as his face retained its impassive expression. 'Riley's right, that guy is a total ass. Which reminds me.'
Pulling a cellphone out of his pocket, the blonde pushed a single button before raising it up to his ear.
*Ring* *Ring* *Click* [This had better be an apology mister, or I'm hanging up.] Riley's voice said angrily through the device.
"I know it was you."
[…Should've known you'd figure it out this fast. Guess I should be expecting a police escort soon?]
"I covered for you this time, but don't ever think about pulling such a stunt again."
[I make no promises.] *Click*
'I swear that woman is gonna make my hair grey.' Mitsou thought with a sigh.
-End Chapter-
AN: Fun fact, card companies like pokemon and yu-gi-oh did in fact mark booster packs like that, though I'm not sure if they still do these days. Sorry for the short chapter, life has been real hectic recently and I just don't have as much time to write. Thank you for reading and please review.
