CHAPTER FOUR: MEET THE DEMON
All around him, smothering and wrapping around him like the warm comfort of a blanket, was the unsettling swathe of black, holding him tightly like a mother would to her newborn as he floated in the seas of nothingness.
The connection to his body felt somewhat non existent, as if it were simply his pure soul wafting around the strange space. He felt weightless, as though gravity were a tangible thing he had simply pushed away. He couldn't even feel the normally steady beating of his heart, or even the tips of his fingers. The only thing he could feel at this point, was an even stranger concept to him than the murky swamp he was currently submerged in.
Calm...and peaceful.
But, perhaps this was normal for a dead person.
"This is so nice...I could stay here forever…" Naruto thought tranquility.
If he had known that death would feel so much better than living, he would've died so long ago. The only thing that had held him down from the decision, had been the fear of losing his entire essence and who he was as his spirit entered the astral planes.
The fear of losing who he was, ended up being greater than the fear of losing someone close to him. His precious people, and how few they were, did not seem to have withstood the wills of his ambitions.
Was it selfish to want what was best for himself? To want to self-preserve?
Giving an odd impression of a snort in his mind, he supposed he deserved to be at least a little bit selfish.
Just a bit.
In an attempt to grasp the controls of his body, he tried to connect a little stronger with it instead of simply lying idly inside his own mind. On the outside view of Naruto, one would think he was sleeping, which he technically was.
Just, you know, without the breathing part.
After a struggle of about 5 minutes internally, he managed to gain control of the cerulean pools of blue that were his eyes to first stop staring blankly at a random space, and have a glance over himself, worried that he would not see anything.
How very wrong he was.
It seemed as though the clothing he had once possessed and died in had disappeared, leaving him stripped bare before the expanse of darkness, with only a small piece of burnt orange silk draping delicately across his most private place.
The best part about this though, was that, for once in his life, he felt good. Clean. Reshaped.
His light golden crown of hair was purged of its usual dirt brown staining, the locks of his fringe lying softly against his forehead and almost reaching his eyes. He couldn't see it, but not only was his hair back to its original state. But it felt like there was a foreign something in it, dangling from his floating form.
His once, scarred and dirty skin that was just about worse than the condition his hair had been in, was now back to its old luster, clear of blemishes, with the small amount of tan kissing his developing lean figure. There was not a single piece of evidence that there had once been a small river of blood streaming out of his body. Even his nails were without a single speck of grime beneath them.
His eyes were wide as they took all this information in, staring in awe at the sight.
The shinigami or whoever sent him to where he currently was, must've been a kind soul to have done such for one like him.
He had never been so cleancleanclean before. So pleasantly fulfilled.
It was weird. But a good kind of weird.
Gaining the control of his voice box however, was infact much harder than the muscles of his eyes, taking a full 15 minutes approximately for him to even start to feel it working and how each syllable was going to sound. It was even harder to just try and move his lips to not even say the word, but mutter it like he had a facial deformity or something.
So, he settled for moaning and grunting into the empty space, working the muscles back to sounding out the alphabet before he even attempted to say a sentence, and by then at least 15 more minutes would have passed.
But, who would be counting anyway.
Remembering the final friend he had made just before his demise, he decided it couldn't hurt to call out to him, after all, he said he was gonna take him away. So, maybe he's here too?
"Ku...rama..kun? A-are you...st-ill with me? Ku..ra-kun?" Naruto choked out, the strain of the simple activity causing him to squint and his eyebrows to crease in concentration.
In truth, Naruto could not feel the presence of anyone or, really, anything at all in the lonely atmosphere of black. He couldn't feel a single breeze, no brush of warmth from another being. He couldn't hear the clunk of shoes hitting the floor, or the soft breathing of any other apart from himself.
It was like an oddly comfortable confinement cell, only without the restriction of walls, but instead the restriction of the body. It was extremely disorienting, and in some ways frightening, but he couldn't find the emotion within himself to really care. As if he took a literal chill pill.
Almost like anesthetic, morphine and happy gas all rolled into one.
How...lovely.
After listening intently into the space, waiting patiently for an answer, he still heard no indication that his friend had heard him.
So he called again.
And again.
And again.
Until he was screaming into the heavy blanket that smothered him, calling out to the unknown entity he had come to know as Kurama, as the bones in his body began to creak and crack. A strange ripple of his spine and back muscles spasmed as he unconsciously fought against the odd restraint holding back his own body, jerking at the pressure.
"KURAMA! KURAMA! WHERE ARE YOU!" he cried out, the cold, disconnection of calm that he had once felt, draining out fast as panic replaced it, the strong urge to find his one friend and cling to him forcing the entirety of his body to work, snatching it out of the warm embrace of deaths arms.
He began to realise that he was not safe just lying there, not safe being so vulnerable to whatever found him first. Even if he was already dead, it's not like he wanted the damned catching him unawares as he found peace in the unknown, Not when he had finally found a way out of his last hell. There was no way he was going to relive a worse one in the death god's stomach.
He blatantly refused such a display of weak will, and if that 'entity' as he had told him, was his only ticket out of that version of hell, so be it.
Anything, other than rewinding his deepest fears and playing them over and over ten fold.
Soon, he was able to move his arms and back, as they squeezed with the effort, twitching his calf muscles and thighs struggling to lift the from their condition.
"Argh! Kura..KURAMA!"
Grunting and puffing, naruto clenched his eyes shut in frustration, gritting his teeth and fisting his hands, before his eyelids snapped open in a glint of burning vermillion red as a surge of white hot poured over his entire self.
And as he began his last attempt to call out, the orange silk that had draped across his lap had turned into an almost volatile flame-like gas, that slowly circled up his figure not unlike a snake would, lighting up the darkness in a burst of fiery vengeance, taking the figure of a fox's head as he roared into the black sea.
Bursting it like shattered glass.
"KURAMA!"
And just like that, a shower of pure white flushed over his body, warm like the sun as he embraced it, only just realising he stood on his own too feet, face to face with a giant furry orange snout that seemed to be huffing in what sounded like an amused chuckle, before once again, passing out.
But he truly only slept this time, a content smile on his face as he listened to the melody of the fox's deep rumbling laughter, immediately recognising it.
He even heard the faint mutterings that slid out of his muzzle, the lone sentence not lost on him even as he slumped onto one of the huge paws.
"Such an intriguing little human you are kit."
X X X
'Drip'
'Drop'
'Drip'
Tiredly, the normally erratic blonde yawned into the plush feathery feeling thing beneath his head, nuzzling his face into it like a kitten, as he shifted on what felt similar to a heated futon.
The sticky feeling of sleep crusted at the edges of his bright eyes, as he raised one lazy hand from the fetal position he lay in, to rub irately at the uncomfortable feeling, despite a small rosy blush on his cheeks betraying his comfort.
"Ugh..Where am I?" He grumbled out quietly, still wanting to go back to sleep as he slowly gathered his bearings. It was a vast comparison to what he was used to sleeping like, normally being awoken by even the tiniest of noises, be it a rat or someone walking 50 metres away, he would still hear the sounds as if they were right beside his flank, and shoot up like a rocket with his dulled kunai held awkwardly in his left hand.
Experiences left him restless and paranoia ever so slowly began to consume his entire nights, and if there was an attempt at his life, he would go into a state of insomnia for the next week, sometimes month if the experience was bad enough.
And even if he knew he would be healed by the morning, it still wasn't enough (and he knew) to protect him from certain death.
But this was strange, because when he had woken up just now, he couldn't feel an inch of that very same paranoia creeping at the edges of his mind at all. He didn't rouse from sleep as he usually did, and even though he didn't know where he was, he didn't even feel any fear over that fact. Not even the instinctual urge to run as he usually did when he found himself in unknown places.
Squeezing his eyes against the penetration of light, he sat up from where he lay, the tell-tale ruffle of clothing alerting him of his now dressed state.
Sitting in indian-style, he squinted a little bit as he opened his lids, taking a slow moment to adjust to the onslaught of light, before taking a quick once-over of his form, which had once again, been changed.
"Must be some sort of jutsu" he thought absently as he gazed at the weird garb of clothing he was wearing.
Underneath a long dark brown tail coat with golden buttons, he wore a white button-up, collared blouse with a deep red vermillion bow wrapped around the collar. On top of the blouse was a burnt orange backless vest, with white trim and similar to his coat, golden buttoning that was perfectly fitted on his form. A pair of black shorts that puffed out a bit before tightening mid-thigh were held up by the invisible suspenders that naruto could feel on his skin beneath the layers of clothing stacked on his figure, along with an odd bright orange, white-tipped fox tail that seemed to hang off his hip via gold chain.
Black sock-like things also hung up by suspenders on his hips descended from an inch where the shorts stopped, diving into shin-high brown boots with burnt orange laces wrapping into a neat bow at the top of each shoe.
Curiously, he pinched the weird sock suspender, stretching his booted leg out comically as he wound it back and let go, wincing as the sharp slap at the tan skin of his thigh.
"Ouch! What even is this thing?" He grouched, his eyebrow twitching as his blue hues narrowed at the stip of black.
It was then he took notice of his surroundings, and to his shock, the weird heat that he had slept on (now sitting on) was covered in the main colour of his strange outfit, the fluff of the thing that rose and fell steadily- the colour of dull flame.
He was almost drowning in the warmth of fur, as two odd long, orange and black pointy things that looked suspiciously like ears appeared to flick on either side of him at the sound of his voice, completely dwarfing him.
Shaking his own head of soft spiky gold, Naruto gripped carefully at the sprouts of soft tuffs coming from what he assumed to be the great things head, crouching as he slowly began to crawl to the very top, his eyes sparkling with the urge to both scream and explore with a child-like wonder. So instead of doing one of those options, he did a mixture and unconsciously held his breath with a grin that spread so far it threatened to split his cheeks as he found his way up.
And in no way did the view of what lay before him disappoint.
Infact it would be safe to say it exceeded his expectations.
As he slowly took in the view above the humongous fox head, his eyes swept over the long furry snout in front of him, the black outline of its opening hung slightly ajar, as a pool of drool driped a new river beneath the beast, which must have been the source of the dripping earlier that woke him up.
"Gross" he thought, disgusted as he followed the drips of spit hitting the floor.
Turning around, he saw the backside of the animal, that curled around itself, but the strange thing was that instead of the normal one tail, that normal (not that this was a normal fox) animals had, this one had nine full orange ones that sprouted from its tail bone, all lying on the large expanse of white that surrounded them both, fanned out to show them each individually. Eyes going even wider than what they already were, Naruto guessed the each one could've measured to at least a mile from their gigantic proportions.
But as inquisitive as he was, there was no way he wanted to be flattened like a bloody pancake of one of those things moved.
Blinking away the thought, he bent over the head he stood on, which actually seemed to be the tip of eyebrows, and ended up having to bend so far he was almost upside down, with his blonde spikes of hair wavering and almost brushing at the spot where the fox's snout meet its brows.
As he squinted at the two closed black slits buried within symmetrical black lines of fur that went up to the tips of its ears, one of his hands that gripped the fur slipped.
It was as if a slow motion switch had been pulled, as he fell forward, a scared gasp rushing out of his throat as he descended head first, the dark brown coat making a whisper of warning, before the time crashed into him full throttle.
"AHH!" he screeched, blue eyes tearing with panic as the weird white surface got closer and closer to him. His hands were grabbing uselessly at the air, legs kicking as he flipped and turned, heart liable to pound out of his chest at this point.
"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck oh FUCK" he thought desperately as he braced himself for the impact, gritting his teeth and scrunching up his face, bringing his flailing arms up to cover his head, shutting his eyes against the sight of yet another death experience.
The only thing was though, that instead of a bone crushing burst of pain he expected to feel, when he hit the ground, it felt more like the soft padding of the 'bed' he had woken up in.
How strange.
"Huh? I should be screaming in pain right now. So why does pain feel so good?" He muttered, flinching as he took his sweet time opening his eyes and unfurling from the defensive position he was in, only to look up and come face to face with two satellite sized, cat like eyes that were a deeper red than his new bow, narrowing in what felt like irritation at him from his position on its muzzle.
An odd vibration rumbled through the lump of orange underneath him as he scrambled back in shock, whimpering pathetically as goosebumps rose on the back of his neck.
It was akin to a more human chuckle, those odd vibrations that continued to shake his small form, if one listened close enough, but it was lucky because Naruto was so close to the beast he didn't really need to listen too hard.
No that he had wanted to anyway.
And for what felt like the millionth time in those few hours, he screamed.
And yes, maybe it was a bit high pitched, but it was a manly scream.
To him anyway.
"AHHHHH! K-KITSUNE!" the words were thrust out of his throat before he could realise that maybe it could understand him, as he pointed at the very obvious subject of his fear. Oh well.
*KURAMA*
The great demon fox blinked placidly at the small human that shook in fear on the bridge of his orange muzzle, the large glimmering ruby-like eyes almost crossing as they gazed on at the boy.
He was like a hairless monkey, by the looks of the lanky limbs and alike features, and he was also a clothless monkey when he had first stumbled back to Kurama's side.
Straight out of the Shinigami's stomach, ripping it open, and by the force of his very own chakra, violent and rippling all over the human.
Not that Kurama had expected anything less of his container.
Well, Last container anyway.
Now, by all means, Kurama was a spiteful, centuries old fox. Yes, he still loathed those irritating humans that had chained him to the lives of even more pathetic humans, sealing his great power in weak vessel's, as they continually abused his chakra, stealing it and tainting it with the blood of others as he watched on in anger.
He still despised the way they used his brothers and sisters as if they were merely mindless tools to be used at the expense of a single sacrifice.
Indeed, he still hated the disgusting pests that were nothing more than the size a cockroaches, with egos the size of Mount Myobokuzan.
But it seemed, that he could see the memories of this one. He could feel them. Emotionally.
The young brat he had come to know as Uzumaki Naruto, had been continually abused and punished although he did nothing to warrant it, by the very same people his father before him had sworn to 'Protect' by caging Kurama's entity inside Naruto's frail innocence.
They had completely crushed his dreams, demolished his ability to love and care for anyone without asking if they wanted something from him in return, becoming fearful if they didn't ask for anything. They burnt down the foundations of his inner self with fire's of amaterasu, ruining him and taunting him with blood and violence, taunts and humiliation.
They were alike in a way.
The hate from others towards themselves was a painfully mutual and familiar feeling, after all.
Only difference being that Naruto's innocence had been seemingly reserved, unlike his own blackened soul.
Kurama had seen every single event that had happened in Naruto's life and re-lived it as if it were his own, from the moment the kid got kicked from the orphanage at the age of four, to the rush of adrenaline and fear when he ran from mobs of angry civilians, right to the age of 15, his last look on Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves. He was right there inside of the seal, roaring and growling at every attempt at life, every wail of suffering, every cut and bruise to broken bone.
Kurama was right beside this hairless monkey the whole time.
And as the beatings and ignorance grew worse and worse, and the brat began to hate more and more as time went on, the great Kyuubi no Kitsune, a force of nature itself, a piece of the Chakra God, Juubi...
Felt something other than anger for once.
It was pity and….sadness.
In a (for him) random bout of kindness, he willingly gave his chakra to the boy, but turned its nature from burning and violent as was its originator, to soothing and healing every time he was injured. Be it physically or mentally.
The great nine tailed fox wished to help, however stubbornness would never let that thought slip free from his mouth.
But even if he did provide the care his jailer was sorely lacking, it could not help the deep emotion of depression that began its infection in the corners of the boy's mind, hooking its claws into every memory he received, be it old or new, as those memories good or bad warped into dark ones. The depression even warped his sense of who he could trust and who he did trust, which, in the end, became no one.
Not a single person was important to this creature that trembled on the tip of his orange snout.
It was a disturbing sight, even for the chakra construct.
And as something that had watched from inside of the seal for a decade and five years, he knew that he had to do something. For both of them. For his kit.
Adopted offspring when one had no way to conceive.
So what better way to do this than to send them to another dimension, where no one would know of either of them, of the boys past. A place where he could live again is all that he wished for the first human he cared about.
It was very strange, because the kid reminded the old fox of his 'father' figure, the old sage, from the strange feel of his chakra, to his similar spiky hair, and even his aura. All of it, was just like the old man's used to be before he died. Old man Otsutsuki.
Perhaps that is why he favoured this hairless monkey more than the others that stood against and before him, why he felt something akin to affection to the young boy, eccentric and curious as he was.
Flicking one of his giant ears, Kurama snorted, staring right into his kit's eyes and felt his resolve harden at the thoughts that played as memories and emotions of Naruto overtook him.
Oh yes. He would make his final act and finally find peace.
Within the heart of his adopted son.
"Hello, kit. Don't you remember me?" He chuckled softly.
*NARUTO*
'No way….' "K-Kurama?! HUH?!" The blonde shook his head furiously as he jumped up from his spot on the fur of the fox's nose, jaw dropping as the deep voice of his friend vibrated through his entire being.
"B-But, YOU'RE a-a FOX!" He exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his arms, eyes scrunched in total confusion.
This was by far the oddest thing he had seen yet. He never expected Kura-kun to be a gigantic orange blob of fox. Never in a million years.
But, he guessed the world was a strange place, even if it was extremely unlikely that one would find oneself becoming friends with an oversized forest animal.
With eight extra tails at that.
Feeling yet another vibration under him, the glinting red of Kurama's eyes had narrowed a little bit, looking as though he were about to fall asleep.
He stumbled, falling back on his butt, finding himself sitting once again.
"Yes. Yes I am a fox, Naruto. And you are a human." Bellowed the great kitsune, as a puff of hot air blew from his nostrils, a grin full of sharp, pearly white teeth seen stretching across his orange face.
'I would hate to be the victim of those teeth…' he shivered, mentally picturing his mangled body hanging from a bloody maw, his own wide, blue eyes dangling out of their sockets by the small threads of the retina.
What a dreadful thought.
"W-well...why are you here? A-are you dead too, Kurama?" he asked, the edge of guilt infecting his voice as he remembered the first time they had talked.
"I'm really sorry i-if it was my fault. I didn't mean to kill you as well…" he moped, staring forlornly at the orange tufts below him. Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes, as he drew patterns on his friends snout, sniffing at the mere implication of his only relationship with another pers- no, being dying at his hand.
A growl caused Naruto to jump fearfully, cerulean pools leaking streams down flushed cheeks when his head shot up in a jerky motion.
"Boy, you could not kill me if you tried. I am Nature. I am Life. I am Power." Kurama glared viciously.
"I refuse to die at the hands of lesser beings. I simply will not allow such an atrocity. I am above the ranking of those who call themselves 'gods' of our original world, for they cannot truly comprehend what such… influence the power of such an ethereal being possesses. So, no kit, you did not kill me." Naruto noticed his voice becoming gentler as he wound down from his rant, the almost angry sounding tone becoming subdued into a more tired one.
Confused, he asked, cautiously, "Well, then, if you're not dead, then why are you here with me? And where is here, anyway? Am I still dead too?" He scratched his head, the questions swirling around in his mind, as the huge blobs of red closed in resignation.
"For one," The fox began, "You are not dead, you managed to rip yourself out of the Death God's stomach in your old world, with the support of my own chakra, and since we are connected, your body was transported to where I myself was. Safely far, far away from that angry old bastard that tried to claim you." Kurama said firmly, a giant back foot raising up to scratch absently behind his ear as he talked, huffing.
"And where is here, you ask? Well, right now, outside of this plane, your physical body is in a coma-like state somewhere in our new world, a place they call, 'London' . I transported us here as soon as the kunai touched your heart. It was actually a troubling process, because I had to re-create an entirely new body for your soul to survive in since I couldn't bring your old one. Sorry about that by the way." He said, sounding completely unapologetic as Naruto sweatdropped.
"Where we are now, is infact your mindscape, the inner of your brain and chakra pathways. This," He gestured around himself to the wide expanse of white with an odd hand-paw, one of his eyes opening to stare lazily at his face.
"Is the seal, which was placed on you at birth, by your father. It holds me, cadges me to not only your body like a normal seal would, but also to your spirit. Your soul.
In any case, it has the same properties as a sealing scroll, the same as when you seal a kunai within it. The only catch being, that you cannot unseal this kunai. With this seal, it would be forever engraved onto your astral being, like a tattoo to your physical being, until you were in a situation where I could no longer heal you, or I was forcibly extracted.
Neither of which, was the case in this situation," He explained.
But, instead of focusing, all he could think about was- "I...My father? I...I had a father? What was his name? Do you know?!" He demanded, the burning need to know rising, as he knelt forward, tugging softly, but demandingly at Kurama's pelt.
Grunting, the old fox closed his eye once again and shook himself a little.
"I was getting to that." He said irately. Naruto backed down immediately, looking down sheepishly and scratching the back of his head.
"Aha, right, sorry hehe." he laughed nervously. "Carry on."
"As I was saying, the reason why I did not die was infact because of your father, who had installed a timetravel seal within the original, seemingly last minute. And because you wanted to go by choice, there were no repercussions from the additive that there would've been had you been murdered. It was specifically designed incase of attempted suicide, not reacting to murder because he didn't want me to take you over and use that seal had you been murdered to travel back in time and free myself. So, when the Death God attempted to consume your soul, the seal reacted along with my own chakra, and tried to send you away,"
"But your father did not put enough power in it to rip away from the Shinigami, I knew. Thus, I gave you a surplus of my power, that would only work if you still wanted to live. Which was obviously the case." Kurama exclaimed, chuckling and sending bone rattling vibrations throughout his body.
"Your father went by the name, Minato Namikaze, nicknamed the 'Yellow Flash Of Konoha' in his prime days, and became the youngest Hokage after the third. Yondaime.
He was truly a young genius, engaged to my previous container before you, your mother, Kushina Uzumaki which is where your last name originates from." Kurama said reminiscently.
Wonder sparked in Naruto's eyes, as he thought of how his parents may have looked, and what they must've done in their time on the earth.
Of course he had seen pictures of the Yondaime Hokage, he was his hero after all.
With his portrait hung high in the Hokage tower, the big toothy smile and familiar light blonde hair was hard to miss. In the portrait, he stood on the top of the Hokage Mountain, his straight posture perfectly balanced upon the spikes of his own hair, that view of Konoha stretched behind him. But it was hard to even imagine such an empowering icon like the forth as his father.
He thought he didn't know much about his mother, never had he seen pictures nor heard of an Uzumaki called Kushina. He hadn't even heard of another Uzumaki other than himself.
Thinking about her, he decided she must've been the most beautiful woman in Konoha to capture the attention of his father, even if he himself didn't really get any of his mother's traits and couldn't tell much from his limited knowledge, he felt like he knew she was a beautiful young woman.
Unknowingly, he was smiling in a soft sort of way that one does when they think about someone they love, so wrapped up he nearly missed the Kyubi continue on with his explanation.
"You father created this seal with nothing but his mind and a brush, and where it would have taken a normal person decades to come up with such an ingenious design, it took him just 9 months, the months where your mother was pregnant with you. Even though I hate him for what he did to me, I do have to give him credit.
He was good for a human." 'but you never heard that from me.' he gritted out internally, still hot with loathing about the sealing, that, for him was a very recent experience.
Hopefully one he would never have to worry about after today.
"Anyway, I do not have as much time as I thought I did Naruto. I wish I could've spoken with you just a little bit longer, but even as we speak, I am slipping away." Kurama said solemnly, his huge fluffy ears drooping at the thought of what he was about to do, and what he wished he could've done.
Oblivious to the giant fox's internal suffering, the blonde-haired 15 year old felt the rush of panic and fear that washed over him as soon as those words left Kurama's mouth, eyes widening as he stood up from his place on the fox's muzzle.
This couldn't be happening. They had just met for fucks sake. There were so many things he wanted to ask him, like where he had come from, if there were others, what his favourite colour was, where he had lived.
He wanted to let him out of here, to run with him and get to know him better, not just have this...this vague conversation, if you could call it that, about recent events. He wanted a long meaningful chat with the tenant who had stayed in silence within his body and soul for the entirety of his lifespan, since he seemed to know so much about Naruto's life.
He didn't want to leave him like this. Not his first real friend, not when they had just met.
Even if he was an oversized fox.
"What do you mean?! I thought you said you couldn't die?! Isn't there something I can do?! Anything! Name it! Just please, please, please…." 'Don't leave me like the rest of them' he cried sadly, running lightly up the muzzle to hug the space between Kurama's eyes, burying his face in the softness of the orange that seemed to heat like a warm fire on his skin.
His tears were dampening the fur as he sobbed, a strange mixture of betrayal and grief striking him at that moment.
The kitsune beneath him, was overcome with surprise and confusion at the little humans cries, not fully understanding why he cared so much when they had only just met.
Even still, he did something he had never done for anyone apart from the man who had raised him as a newborn, deciding there was nothing to be lost if he did.
And so he purred, the gentle sound comforting to Naruto, slowing down the tears that threatened to create an ocean, as hiccups racked his body.
Manifesting his chakra, the Kyuubi wrapped it around his kit delicately, more or less holding him in the only way he could without crushing his adopted son, closing his eyes and smiling sadly at the emotions that crumbled like fine pastry onto him from the small boy.
"I never said I could not die, I said I refused to." he said softly. "But the price to pay for such time travel, was fusion. I managed to stave it off until you came to, but it seems that I can't do so forever."
Naruto only squeezed tighter, as if his grip could ground Kurama to him.
The chakra stroked his body comfortingly, drying up his tears as they spilled from his eyes.
"Fusion?" He sulked, mumbling into his warmth.
"It means I will become one with you. You will inherit all my chakra, maybe gain an extra limb or nine, not too sure. But you will basically still be you, only with my power and chakra." He admitted quietly, the machine-like purr rumbling like a well oiled motor.
"Can I still...will you still be around? Can't I still see you like this?" Naruto whimpered, clutching tighter, not wanting to let him go, even though he knew the answer.
"No, kit. I won't… I won't be mentally there, only what was physically there, or here." Kurama sniffed, his huge tails curling around his form, as Naruto watched the white void slowly begin to consume his form, the grief and panic, crushing as he watched on uselessly.
It only made his shameless tears more prominent.
"NO! I don't… Please, Kurama, there has to be a way, something, ANYTHING I can do, just..don't leave me please...I don't know how I'll survive in this new world without you, how will I know what to do? Who to trust? Who will heal me after you're gone? Who will stop me from being reckless? Who will fill the void you'll leave Kurama?" He sobbed, the tears coming out non stop as he watched the white reach the Fox's shoulder blades, slinking up towards his head.
"Kit, listen to me. I want you to know that for me, this is the most honorable thing I could have ever done. For me, this is possibly the most liberating experience, although it hurts like shit." The fox said, grimacing in pain.
"I want you to know that, even if I haven't had the pleasure to live alongside you as you lived, I still thrive as long as you do, so don't you dare give in to death until you know it is your time. Do it for me, as a sort of last request"
Kurama was tearing up too now, the pools of red glistening as the white reached the tips of his ears and began to finish what it started.
For what felt like the longest moment in Kurama's immortal life, he acknowledged death, even if it wasn't a true death. It was still a favourable one.
Death in exchange for his illegitimate kit.
'What a beautiful way to go' he chuckled lazily.
Looking his kit in the eye, and memorising his face even if he didn't need to, he smiled lovingly and purred one last time, nuzzling into his morning kid for the final countdown.
And as the white swallowed him whole he closed his eyes and chuckled as he said his last words.
Even if Naruto was Human now, he would forever be his.
Until he too found eternal peace.
And Kurama would be right there to greet him first.
So his words were really no surprise.
"I believe in you Naruto. Don't forget me kit."
And, with that, the Great Kyuubi no Kitsune, the Fox God and force of Nature herself.
Died.