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The Hybrid Tamer

-Chapter 20-

-Last Time-

His eyes zeroing in on the source, Naruto felt his blood run cold upon.

Pinned to a wall by a small pitch-black crystal with nothing else attached to it was a familiar red ponytail…

with the words Come Get Her Ningen scratched into the wall below it.

-And Now-

"Uuuuuh…" Violet eyes slowly flickering open, a groan escaped Rika's lips as she slowly came back to the world of consciousness. As her brain kicked into gear, the first thing the redhead noticed was the feeling of freezing stone against her back, prompting her to sit up with a shiver. "Gah! Cold!"

Instinctually rubbing her arms for warmth, the redhead blinked away the remaining blurriness in her vision as she looked around, confusion written all over her face. The girl found herself inside a moderately sized decrepit concrete room with a solitary lightbulb hanging from the ceiling as the only source of light, a few cardboard boxes that were falling apart, and a rusty metal door on the far wall.

"Where… where am I?" Rika wondered aloud, her voice unsteady as panic started to settle in. The last thing she remembered was storming down the street looking for Naruto so she could kick his ass, at no point did she remember falling asleep or entering a creepy basement. And was it just her or did her head feel lighter or something?

"Nowhere special, just my little abode for the time being." A deep gravelly voice said right behind her, causing Rika to whirl around with a shriek of surprise, before her eyes nearly bugged out of her head at what she saw.

Leaning against the wall, a sadistic smirk on his lips, was someone who looked exactly like Naruto, yet not at the same time. For starters this 'Naruto's' hair and tail was a mixture of blood red and purple instead of blonde while his eyes were a glowing ruby color not cerulean.

The fur on his arms was a pure pitch black, his arm-sleeves were a light grey with the kanji for 'Wrath' in black on the backs, his skin was a deathly pale white, the digivice in his hand was black with a light red screen, and finally the whiskers on his cheeks were much bolder and pronounced.

"What the hell… who are you?" Rika asked, her brain unable to come up with anything else to say due to the shock.

"Hmm, I thought you'd assume that I was that worthless ningen I now resemble. I guess you aren't as stupid as I thought," Chuckling darkly as Rika continued to gawk at him, the fake Naruto wiped some imaginary dust off his shoulder. "You are not worthy of knowing my name, so you may address me as title your kind gave me, Kyuubi."

Finally snapping out of her surprise at this statement, Rika growled in irritation at the now named Kyuubi's condescending tone. Pushing herself up to her feet, she wobbled a little bit until she caught her balance and marching towards her fellow redhead angrily.

"Hey! Who do you think you are calling me-Gah!" Unfortunately for Rika, she only made it a few steps before she blinked and Kyuubi was suddenly right in front her, his fist buried into her gut.

"I stand corrected, you are even dumber than I initially assumed." The transformed biju said blandly while pulling his fist back and flicking Rika in the forehead, causing the gasping girl to fall back to the floor.

Clutching her stomach in pain, the redheaded girl was unable to do anything as Kyuubi walked up to her with a sigh. "It would seem that you haven't truly grasped the situation that you are in, so I'll spell it out for you."

Kneeling beside Rika, the Naruto look-a-like smirked darkly and pressed a single clawed digit against the downed girl's cheek. "You are my prisoner now little ningen. That means you have no power here, you have no rights here, you are nothing here."

*Shnk* "AAH!" With a single smooth motion, Kyuubi swiped his claw away, leaving a long shallow gash on Rika's cheek in the process.

"I on the other hand have power," Grabbing his fellow redhead by the collar of her shirt, the transformed biju stood up with her in his grasp and stared her dead in the eye. "To be more specific, I have the power to kill you at any time and in any way I please, whether it be by crushing your scrawny neck or slowly carving you apart one piece at a time."

As he spoke, Kyuubi held up his free hand and slowly inched it towards Rika's undamaged cheek, prompting the girl to struggle furiously to get loose. Grabbing the arm holding her, she tried to pry it off to no avail before switching to the approaching hand and pushing it back with all her strength.

Sadly though, she didn't manage to even slow him down slightly and a whimper slipped past her lips once the clawed limb got within an inch of her face.

However, literally just before it reached her, Kyuubi suddenly pulled his hand back and threw Rika across the room, making her yelp as she smashed through several boxes that collapsed around her, revealing their contents to be random bits of random trash like old papers, empty cups, and oily wrappers. "Fortunately for you though, I need you alive for the time being, so you'll get to continue your miserable existence… for now."

"Why are you doing this!?" Rika yelled as she squirmed around to get free of the moldy cardboard and garbage. "What do you want from me?!"

Watching her squirm with the same amused smirk, Kyuubi waited till she was most of the way out before reaching out and knocking over a nearby stack right onto her, chuckling as the girl shrieked out as she was buried in junk again. "From you, nothing. You were just the most convenient bait I could find on short notice."

Pausing in her struggling upon hearing this, Rika looked towards the fake-Naruto with confusion. "…bait?"

"What, did you think I was doing this because I was interested in you? What a laugh," Kyuubi said with a wry chuckle. "The only reason you're still breathing is so you can squirm around like the worthless little worm you are to lure in that pathetic old host of mine."

'Old host?' Rika parroted in her thoughts, confused by what the evil doppelganger meant by that. However, before she could voice her thoughts, Kyuubi raised a hand and snapped his fingers dramatically, causing the light to go out and bathing the room in darkness.

"One last thing, feel free to try and escape by yourself if you want, the door is unlocked and I won't try to stop you. In fact I look forward to seeing your no doubt pathetic attempt as it fails miserably," The Kyuubi said, his voice seemingly coming from all directions at once. "Just know that the second you step through the door there is no going back, no matter how much you plead or beg."

*Snap*

The light returned, revealing to Rika that she was now completely alone within the room, no sign of the evil redhead to be seen anywhere. Looking around a few times to confirm Kyuubi's absence, the girl scowled heavily and quickly scrambled out of the trash she was buried under.

"Ugh, who the heck was that fricking jerk?" Rika muttered while getting back on her feet, lightly clutching her stomach and cheek as pain flashed through those parts of her body. Shrugging it off after a moment, the redhead grumbled under her breath and glared at the door. "How dare he call me nothing, a worm, pathetic."

Marching towards the door angrily, shaking off the last few bits of garbage still clinging to her as she went, the girl grabbed the doorknob and tried turning it to check if it was truly unlocked like the transformed biju had said.

*Click*

It was.

"I'll show that asshole who's pathetic."

-Meanwhile-

"Kuso! Kuso! KUSO!" Naruto swore at the top of his lungs as he paced back and forth in the alleyway, Rika's ponytail in one hand while he ran the other through his own hair. "This is bad, very bad, disastrous!"

"There you are," Dropping from a nearby rooftop, Renamon stared at the panicking blonde with a quirked brow before her gaze locked onto the bundle of red hair held in the blonde's grasp. "Is that…"

Before she could finish the question, the fox digimon spotted the message scrawled into the wall, her eyes widening as she easily put the pieces together.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Renamon was snapped from her thoughts when the alleyway was filled with smoke that soon cleared away to reveal a dozen whiskered blondes. "Get back to Rika's house now! Make sure everyone else is okay!"

"HAI BOSS!"

Renamon couldn't help but grimace as the collaborative yell of the clones caused her ears to ring before they all vanished in static blurs. Upon seeing the real Naruto getting ready to summon even more clones though, the anthro fox quickly zipped over and pulled his hands apart. "Hold on Naruto, I want some answers. Who has Rika? Why did they take her? And how do you know them?"

Growling in annoyance, Naruto tried to pull his hands free. "There's no time for this, we need to-"

"Then give me the short version," Renamon cut her fellow blonde off, tightening her grasp and pulling her fellow blonde closer till their faces were a mere inch apart. "I can't help Rika if I have no idea what we're going up against."

This statement caused Naruto to stop, the panic and worry on his face briefly replaced by surprise.

"What? Our link may have been broken for now and I may not like her all that much, but like you said before Rika is still my partner," Renamon stated with a huff as she let Naruto go. "I'm not gonna let some two-bit wannabe keep their dirty paws on her if I have anything to say about it."

Staring at the foxy digimon for a few more moments, Naruto slowly nodded in understanding as the tiniest of smiles formed on his lips. "I knew you cared about her."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, now get to the answering already." Renamon said with a roll of her eyes.

"Alright, but let's move as we talk, we got no time to waste," Naruto said, getting a nod from the foxy digimon before the duo leapt up to the rooftops. "The one who took Rika is known as the Kyuubi no Kitsune… and to put simply I used to be his prison."

-Back with Rika-

'Should I do this?' Rika wondered as she gripped the doorknob firmly with an unsure expression on her face.

On one hand, the logical part of her brain was screaming at her that this was a trap, how she was way out of her league, and she should just stay put until rescue came. She wasn't dumb after all, this Kyuubi character was clearly taunting her to do this for some reason and she doubted it was anything good.

Yet in the other hand, her ego demanded she go, find that man… boy… digimon… whatever the fuck he was, and get recompense for the bruising she had received both to her pride and body, possible consequences be damned.

It should also be noted that there was also an itsy bitsy, teeny tiny, miniscule part of her that believed this was all some elaborate revenge prank from Naruto, though it was mostly ignored since she doubted that he would go this far just to get back at her.

…Right?

"You know what, screw it, I ain't no fricking damsel in distress. I'm the digimon queen."Rika muttered, her pride winning out as it ruthlessly squashed down the doubts she felt.

With a single tug the door popped open, making a loud creak that echoed ominously and sent a cold shiver of dread running down the redhead's spine. Peering out the doorway, she was met with a short empty hall with the only notably features being a pair of doors on either side, one immediately to the left while the one on the right was almost all the way at the end.

'Oh wow, two unmarked mystery doors inside a creepy empty hallway, how original.' Rika thought dully at the cliché horror movie/game setup, though that didn't stop her from stepping out of her 'cell'.

*SLAM* "GAH!" Rika yelped in surprise as the door behind her suddenly slammed shut by itself literally the second she was completely in the hallway. Whirling around, she instinctually tried to reopen the door only for the knob to stubbornly refuse to turn. At the same time, Rika couldn't help but notice the message 'I told you' that was written on the door in messy red paint which was definitely not there a second ago.

'Oh Rika, you've really got yourself into it now,' The redhead thought to herself with a nervous gulp before shaking her head with a scowl. 'Get a hold of yourself! That jerk is just trying to mess with my head with some cheap tricks. If that Kyuubi guy thinks I'm gonna back off after a few lame jump-scares, then he's got another thing coming.'

Having coaxed her nerves back under control, Rika stepped away from the now sealed doorway and headed over to the one on the left since it was the closest. Testing the handle to see if it was unlocked, the metal knob turned with a soft click and she pushed the door open before cautiously peeking inside.

To the redhead's mild surprise, she found this new room to be in almost perfect condition compared to the dereliction of the prior two areas, with smooth unblemished walls and an almost sparkling clean floor. It was obviously recently refurbished, with the smell of bleach, sanitizer, and paint lingering in the air and making Rika's nose crinkle at the slightly nauseating mixture of scents.

Also unlike the hall or her 'cell', this room had actually furnishing albeit not the kind that inspired any form of relief in the girl. Given that it consisted of an autopsy table, a few mobile trays covered in surgical tools, a few metal cabinets, and two rows of mortuary freezers along the far with all but one open, it was easy to guess why.

Gulping nervously as she fully stepped into the room, the first thing she did was quickly grab a nearby tray table and jam it in the doorway, just in case this one tried to 'magically' close on her like earlier.

'Oh god… is this guy planning on dissecting me?' She wondered with a shiver upon seeing all the sparkling new medical equipment laid out before grabbing a pair of scalpels and holding them out in a threatening manner with her slightly shaking hands as she inched back towards the doorway. 'I need to get out of here, now.'

However, just before the redhead reached the exit, she noticed something unusual about the autopsy table, more specifically something that was laying on the table itself, that got her attention. Her curiosity getting the better of her briefly, Rika walked over to check it out, her brow raising at what she saw.

"What the hell?"

-Naruto and Renamon-

"So let me see if I got this straight," Renamon started as she and Naruto raced across the rooftops at high speed. "This Kyuubi thing was sealed into you as an infant after attacking your home, somehow managed to escape without you noticing, and now you think it took Rika in order to get revenge agaisnt you for imprisoning it for so many years. Did I forget anything?"

"Nope, that's pretty much sums it up," Naruto said with a nod, a deep frown on his face as he sniffed the air for any trace of Rika's scent. "But there's one thing that's bothering me."

"You mean aside from the fact Rika is in the hands of a supposedly very homicidal giant fox that apparently looks almost identical to yourself currently?" Renamon asked somewhat sarcastically.

"That's the thing, she's in his hands," Naruto stated with a frown, causing Renamon to look at him with a raised brow until he continued. "Kyuubi has always been very blunt when I've dealt with him, he doesn't bother with subtleties or manipulation unless he has too."

Suddenly coming to a stop, Naruto held up his hand with Rika's ponytail still firmly held in its grasp, a confused and contemplative look on the blonde's face. "His method of revenge is to obliterate those who wrong him along with everyone and everything they care about, plain and simple. Taking hostages is just not his thing, too human for his tastes you could say… so why did he?"

"Perhaps you do not know him as well as you thought." Renamon suggested with a shrug.

Sighing, Naruto let his arm drop back down as he opened his mouth to say something…

"Or maybe I decided to just make you suffer for bit before I finally decide to put you out of your pathetic misery."

…Only to snap it back shut as an unfortunately very familiar voice sounded out from above.

Jerking their heads upwards, the blonde pair saw none other than Kyuubi smirking down at them from atop a large jumbotron skyscraper.

"Hello Ningen, did you miss me?" The transformed biju asked, his grin widening as Naruto glared at him.

"Like a kunai in my foot, now what did you do with Rika? I swear if hurt her I'll-"

"What, kill me? Ha! Don't kid yourself," Kyuubi cut in with a chuckle as Naruto grit his teeth in annoyance. "As for your little friend, she was alive when I last checked, though I doubt she will be for much longer."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Renamon demanded with a frown as her fists were engulfed in blue flames.

"Well if you must know, I may have left a few… friends to take care of her if she tried anything stupid, like attempting to escape," Kyuubi said with a wicked grin. "Here, why don't we see for ourselves how she's doing?"

Before Naruto or Renamon could question what he meant by that, the biju-turned-humanish stomped his foot, causing a pulse of red electrical energy to flash below him as the jumbotron flickered to life.

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!]

""Rika!""

-End Chapter-

AN: Alright, before anyone asks, no the Kyuubi is not doing all this JUST because he hates Naruto or such, he has a reason for all of this. What is that reason? Who were these 'friends' he mentioned? And will Rika be okay? Keep reading to find out.