Wow, how confusing am I? I skip three years, and then this chapter is three years in the past...oh well. I re-wrote this chapter too, this is probably the least changed of the five i worked on, but hopefully it's a little better. (and sorry to the people getting excited when this story keeps re-apearing at the top of the list)

oh yeah, Disclaimer: you know i really think people realize i don't own naruto. and if you don't then...wow... you're retarded

Three Years Earlier, Akatsuki Base.

Naruto woke up, with his entire body screaming in pain. At first he attempted to stand, or at least sit up, but every time he tried to move, his aching body protested with agonizing waves of misery. He soon abandoned the attempt, panting with exhaustion. Eventually however, he mustered enough energy to move his pounding head enough to get a good look around.

The blonde genin was in a dark, cold, concrete cell, probably underground. He was sprawled out on his back with no restraints. "Who ever put me in here knew there was no way I would be able to move." The normally hyperactive ninja thought. "Speaking of moving… hey Kyuubi!!!"

"What now you aggravating little shrimp?"

"Hey for your information I'm not a such a shrimp anymore."

"Maybe to other humans your not, with me it's hard to notice any change, shrimp. Anyway, what irritating reason do you have for bothering me this time?"

"Why can't I move? I should have been healed by now."

"I've already done quite a bit, idiot. I can't do much more with out leaving you in worse shape than before. However, if you want me to anyway, for once I'd be ready and willing. 'Be easier to get out of this stupid seal with out you to get in the way, shrimp. Do you even remember who kicked your ass?"

"Akatsuki right? Kisame and Itachi?"

"Bingo, shrimp."

Naruto groaned. He also remembered how he'd ended up fighting Itachi and Kisame. "Stupid council. Can't solve their own problems, and have nooo issues with making a backroom deal with people they're supposed to be enemies with." The blonde painfully remembered how the council had traded him over to Akatsuki, no regrets about it at all. He doubted they'd told Tsunade about it, there was no way she would have let them. Well, he hoped she wouldn't have anyway.

The worst part about the entire situation was, well several things were currently competing for that top number one slot on the problem list.

First, he had a limited amount of time before Akatsuki tried to extract the Kyuubi from him. Second, everyone in Konoha probably thought he was dead or had betrayed the village. Even if it was the later however, he doubted the council would allow search teams. The way he remembered it, it was pretty darn clear where his fight with the two Akatsuki members had taken place, meaning it would be to easy for a search team to figure out what happened. And third, he had no idea where he was, so even if he managed to heal in time and try and escape, any plans he could make would have to be short term. Akatsuki definitely had home court advantage.

Again the teen attempted to move, and again it ended in tormenting after-effects. Desperate for alleviation from the pain, he went to his resident fox once more. "Can't you do something about this?!" He complained. "There has to be someway to at least get rid of the pain. Hey, are you listening you stupid fox?"

"Yes I'm listening, and I'm a lot smarter than you for the record. I was trying to ignore you but apparently that's impossible these days. Anyway, as for the pain, of course I can get rid of it idiot. I can even give you the strength to bust out of here and make a run for it." Naruto started to reply but the Kyuubi cut him off. "I'm just not very keen on hearing you whine about the consequences later."

"What are they?"

The fox sighed. "Honestly, you are so annoying. If I give you my chakra in this form, you'll be in total control. You won't go berserk like you do normally. However, it'll interfere with some of you're higher-level jutsus, causing them to have unnatural effects. Also, when the chakra runs out, if you're not taken care of by a highly skilled medical nin with in about half an hour, you'll die." He paused to give his host a moment to take in the information before he continued. "Considering we don't even know where we are, I'd say the chances of you getting good medical help in time a pretty slim."

"I'd rather die trying to escape than let them kill me with out putting up a fight. How long would it last?"

"Two hours or so."

"Do it."

"No way, are you serious?"

"As I'll every be, like I said, I'd rather die trying to escape than let them kill me with out a fight."

The big fox sighed once more. "This is not going to end well," he thought, but to the hyperactive blonde he replied, "Whatever shrimp, your funeral. Get ready."

Naruto felt a surge of energy. The throbbing pain in his body seemed to cease automatically. "Now this is more like it." The hyperactive genin thought, relieved that the pain had in fact gone away. He stood up quickly, aware that he had a very small window of time to get as far away from Akatsuki as he could.

The blonde walked over to the cell door. After studying it for a few seconds he found it weak and poorly made. More evidence to support the assumption that his jailors were positive he wouldn't have been able to move when he awoke. The jinchuuriki smiled, realizing it meant that he had the element of surprise on his side. Remembering Kyuubi's warning about the effect whatever he had done would have on his ninjustu, the teen decided to rely on physical strength as much as possible.

Kicking down the door, he gave the man out side his cell an obvious shock. Before the man could react Naruto placed a chakra filled punch to his ribs, breaking several of them and knocking the man unconscious. The hyperactive blonde immediately lost interest in the unknown man and raced down the hall.

Bursting through the door, he paused for a minute, trying to figure out which way to go. If he went left, it would lead to a bunch of doors going apparently nowhere special. On his right were stairs leading up. Assuming he was probably underground somewhere, the genin turned right and raced up the stairs.

As the blonde continued going gradually upward, at one point having to search hallway's for another set of stairs, he dismantled the men in his way. He knew he had to be getting near the top; he'd already climbed five flights of stairs. Nervously, he asked the Kyuubi,

"How much time do I have left?"

"One hour and ten minutes shrimp." Came the quick and insensitive reply.

Naruto picked up the pace. He still had a long way to go to insure the Akatsuki didn't end up with the Kyuubi. Not to mention he was becoming increasingly concerned with the obvious absence of his cloaked captors. "This is weird, where the heck are the Akatsuki? All of these losers are just staff or something."

He spoke too soon.

Immediately he saw a clay bird fly toward him down the hallway. The following explosion set him flying into the wall.

Luck was with him today though; when the smoke cleared he saw the burst had knocked a hole in the wall opposite him. As the Kyuubi healed his minimal damage from the blast, Naruto realized Deidara was rushing at him from the side, followed closely by Kisame. Without hesitation, he jumped though the newly made window, and into the outside world.

The jinchuuriki ran about ten feet and jumped into the air, dodging what could have been a deadly strike from Kisame's gigantic sword. "Not so fast kid." Kisame stated coolly as he straightened up, preparing for a new attack.

"Yeah, wouldn't be good for us to loose you after it took freaking three years to capture you, yeah." Deidara said as he jumped through the hole his explosive 'art' had just made.

For once Naruto thought quickly. " Crap! I'm totally screwed. I can't compete with these guys physically, and the Kyuubi told me not to use many jutsus. If I try to just out run them, that's no good either. They'd catch up to me in no time. I need a distraction. A big one." Suddenly the teen got an idea.

He didn't even bother asking the Kyuubi if it would work. Wasting no time, he bit down hard on his thumb, drawing blood. Quickly doing hand signs he shouted, "Kuchiyose no Justu!" He slammed his hand down on the ground, and immediately knew something was wrong.

Instead of the usually rush of chakra being pushed out of him, the feeling he got was more of a pull. It was as if something was sucking his chakra in the opposite direction it was supposed to go, and taking him with it. The area around the blonde dissolved into a black abyss, and he began to drift into unconsciousness.

"Sigh. You idiot, I told you not to do that." The Kyuubi's irritated voice was the last thing he heard before the darkness consumed him.

Naruto awoke to a very alarming sight. As he opened his eyes, they made contact with the hard, cold, gray eyes of a fox, two inches from his face. The fox, seeing the human was finally back among the conscious, sat back on his haunches, removing his massive paw from the genin's chest. The blonde felt a surge of pain, the fox had been pressing down on his chest so hard it seemed as if it had broken at least one of his ribs.

Painfully the jinchuuriki sat up and looked at the massive fox sitting a few feet away from him.

"Well, well, well. The nine tails jinchuuriki is finally awake," Seeing the look of panic on the boy's face he added, "Don't worry blondie, you've still got a good 45 minutes before the Kyuubi's jutsu wears off." The teen was visibly relieved, but he stilled looked extremely confused. Almost immediately he began firing questions at the fox.

"Where am I? How did I get here? Why are you here and not Gamma Bunta? And who are you, anyway?"

"As for where you are, you're one of the few lucky souls who get to see where all of us who get summoned occasionally, hang out in between jobs. Also known as, The Summoning Dimension. You're here because your Kuchiyose no Justu backfired and instead of bringing one of the frogs to you, it brought you here. I'm sitting here and not a frog because you landed in fox territory. As for me, the name's Taka, king of the foxes. Basically I'm the fox version of Gamma Bunta, only I'm not that big. I can be, but I prefer to keep my size at merely a very large fox, much less conspicuous. Any other questions?"

The hyperactive ninja was currently in between emotions. On one hand he was almost terrified of the enormous fox beside him. It was even large enough to carry at least two people on it's back with out having to give up speed. He was still confused, but more importantly more than curious about the black canine.

The fox, or Taka, as he said his name was, so far showed the personality and mind set of a 19 year-old adventure hungry, adrenalin addict. His voice wasn't to far from that either. His fur was all black, and his eyes were a stone cold gray. Inquisitively he popped a question. "Isn't the Kyuubi the king of foxes?"

"No, a very common and annoying misconception. The Kyuubi's just a demon in the form of a fox. He in no way represents any of the foxes. Well except for maybe the old geezer who lives in the northeast cave. Never has an optimistic thing to say, so annoying."

He obviously liked the word annoying. "Ha, it's like Shikamaru and the word 'troublesome'." He thought. Aloud, he asked, "So how come I've never seen anyone summon a fox before?"

Unlike the Kyuubi, Taka seemed more than happy to answer the questions. "Because, and no disrespect to any of the other animals, but foxes in combination with the wolves, are the hardest animals to summon. In order to summon us a person would have to have a ridiculous amount of chakra. Finding someone with that much chakra is hard, we haven't seen anyone worth teaching how to summon us in over a hundred years. It's annoying really. Now you on the other hand, have a ridiculous amount of chakra. If you weren't already enlisted to the frogs I'd teach you how to summon foxes in a heartbeat."

"What do you mean if I wasn't already enlisted to the frogs?"

"You can only summon one animal. Every group of animals uses the same jutsu and hand signs to be summoned. It's the contract you sign that depicts what animal you can summon. You signed the frog's contract so now you can summon frogs. If you signed more than one contract, every time you performed Kuchiyose no Jutsu, it would be totally random which animal would appear. Understand?"

"Nope, you totally lost me in the 'why' part. But I get the fact that you have to choose one animal and stick with it, I think."

"Good enough."

"So, can I switch which animal I summon, or am I stuck with frogs for life?"

"You can change animals, but there is a limit on how many times you can switch. Why, you wanna learn how to summon foxes?" Taka grinned, hoping the boy would say yes. The fox longed for the sweet smell of the real world once more. Plus, he had to admit, even though he'd only known him for fifteen minutes, he liked the kid.

"Sure. Why not? Gamma Bunta will probably be grateful for peace and quiet."

"Finally! Something that's not annoying. All right kid, you know the drill." The gray eyed fox got up and walked over to a near by tree. Gracefully, he stood up on his hind legs, leaning his forepaws on the tree for support. He stretched his head into the tree and brought his feet back down to the ground, with a massive scroll in his jaws. Taking his time, he returned to his previous spot and placed the scroll on the ground in front of Naruto.

Grunting in pain, the genin moved closer to the scroll, unraveled it, and proceeded to sign the contract, just as he had done 3 years ago with Jiraiya for the frogs. When he finished he rerolled the scroll and handed it back to the fox, who then put it back in the tree.

"Okay, congratulations kid, you can now summon foxes." Taka was visibly pleased.

"Now, I think we need to get you back into your world before the Kyuubi's jutsu runs out. Come on, I know a place where someone's sure to find you."

The blonde nodded in agreement. Ignoring the pain in his chest he stood up and followed the fox. The walked for five minutes, the hyperactive genin having to nearly jog in order to keep up with Taka's long strides. As the walked, Taka explained other aspects of the Summoning Dimension.

"Every place in this world corresponds with another place in your world. So however far we go in this world, you enter into your world the same distance away from where you were when you entered into this one. Understand?"

"No." Was the short reply. Naruto was to busy trying to keep up with the fox, and deal with the pain flowering in his chest.

Finally Taka slowed to a stopped. "Alright here's your stop kid!" The black fox turned to face the blonde. Grinning, he pushed his nose into the boy's chest. "Good luck kid, and summon me sometime okay?"

With those words the world around the hyperactive jinchuuriki dissolved once more into the black abyss. He closed his eyes as he drifted into unconsciousness. After what seemed like seconds he opened his eyes again. This time, he was surrounded by thousands of trees. While he was looking around, his body screamed in a sudden wave of unbearable, excruciating pain. He collapsed into the ground, and for the third time that day blacked out as he watched a pair of boots gradually get closer to him.

Naruto slowly opened his eyes. He shut them instantly again, as his face contorted in pain. A wave of pure and utter misery ran over his entire body. The blonde thought he had felt real pain while lying in a cell at the Akatsuki base. That was like getting a mere shot compared to this. He gritted his teeth, attempting to hold in the urge to cry out in agony.

Suddenly the pain lessened, a lot. The hyperactive genin felt the sensation of chakra flowing into him. It wasn't his chakra though, nor the Kyuubi's. Panting with the aftermath of the pain, he forced his eyes open, fueled by curiosity. A girl about his age was standing over him, her hands placed gently on his chest, her chakra flowing into him.

She gave him a pleasant expression, complete with a half-cocked smile. She had realized he was awake, and looking at her. "It's about time! I was beginning to think you would never wake up." She said speaking in at a low volume. Naruto liked her voice. It was soft, and rather low for a girl. He could have listened to her talk for hours. Although maybe that was simply because the only two personalities he'd talked to in forty-eight hours were both foxes.

Sighing, he decided to go ahead and ask the many questions he had nagging in his mind, but the girl beat him to it. "You've probably got a lot of questions, huh?" She said knowingly. He nodded, instantly regretted it, and let her continue; for once he was too tired to really say anything.

The girl happily took on the task of explaining what she could. "First off, you're in Fang. I seriously doubt you've ever heard of it. You don't have to worry though; nobody's going to hurt you here. One of our patrols found you collapsed on the ground. You were in really bad shape, it's both a miracle that you're alive, and a miracle that we found you when we did. My name's Lina, and I'm the best medic ninja here," She ended with emphasis on the 'best'. She looked at him with that half smile of hers again, as if not entirely happy to be where she was, but couldn't think of any place better she could go.

The jinchuuriki was mildly surprised. Lina had answered every one of his questions. Albeit they were standard questions asked by someone waking up in a strange room, and with a person they'd never seen.

Grunting as a sign that he'd at least halfway processed what she had said, he let the after effects of her healing jutsu take over, and drifted off to sleep.

ha, yeah, so that's basically what happened to him. and yes i know, i doubt the Kyuubi would really do that for Naruto, but whatever, so it's an ooc fox. Anyway, i hope you liked it, for me and my update lengths this thing was a beast of a chapter. Hope you liked it,

colonelZ