Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Danmachi

Kurama's apartment early in the morning

Naruto, Hanabi and Kurama were speaking in the living room before Naruto and Hanabi headed out to the dungeon.

"A new familia member?" Naruto asked as Kurama had finished her explanation of her talk with Chomei the day before.

"Potentially, I still need to meet her and I want you two to meet her as well before I make the final decision." Kurama explained.

"Why do you want us to meet her?" Naruto asked.

"If she ends up join the familia she's probably going to head to the dungeon with us, after all we're still a pretty small familia. If that's the case, Kurama-sama probably wants to see if we work well together." Hanabi explained what she thought was the reason

"Exactly, I won't accept a familia member if he or she doesn't plan to get along with the current familia members." Kurama explained.

Naruto nodded in understanding "When are we going to meet her then?" Naruto asked his next question.

"I don't know yet, Chomei said she was going to tell me later" Kurama explained "But I don't expect it to take long, Chomei will probably tell me today. I'll tell you when she informs me, for now just continue like normal."

"Well then Hanabi, let's head to the dungeon. After the rest yesterday I want to train a lot today." Naruto said as he stood up, looked towards Hanabi and headed out.

Hanabi nodded and followed Naruto out of the apartment in the direction of the dungeon.

Konoha dungeon – 14th floor

On their way to the dungeon Naruto and Hanabi joined up with Kabuto once again as they had arranged two days before. They decided to try to head as deep into the dungeon as they could that meant floor 17 but if it started getting difficult they would turn back and train on other floors.

This time their travel all the way to floor 14 had gone pretty good, they fought a few hellhounds but they managed to defeat them before they called for reinforcement apart from that the occasional orc or minotaur wasn't that much of a challenge as long as they were alone, they had seen three minotaurs roaming together Kabuto said that was rather rare around this part of the dungeon but not impossible, they decided not to engage on them even though they might have been able to defeat them because it could be dangerous.

"This is as far as we've gone together in the past" Kabuto remarked when they reached the 14th floor "We should start being a little more careful as we continue."

Naruto nodded as he looked forward through the corridor they were walking in at the moment.

As they explored the floor in search for the stairs for the next floor Naruto noticed how the dungeon was becoming even more labyrinthine as they moved forward, many paths lead to many branches, death ends and holes on the floor that although they lead to the next floor no one could be sure of how big was the drop or where they would end up if they jumped down one of this holes, they could end far away from the stairs back up without even knowing where they were, that would only lead to trouble if anyone of them ended getting hurt and they needed to head back.

"We should be close to the stairs now if I remember correctly" Kabuto said as they moved forward.

And just as Kabuto said not to long later they found the stairs and continued heading down towards the 15th floor of the dungeon.

The 15th floor wasn't that different from the 14th floor or even the 13th floor, the labyrinthine pathways and corridors illuminated by the crystals in the walls all started to look the same to Naruto as they continued, he wasn't sure if he could remember the way back at this point.

Naruto looked at his side towards Hanabi who was focused on keeping an eye so that they wouldn't get attacked from behind, Hanabi noticed Naruto looking at her and gave him a reassuring smile as if saying that she knew the way back and he shouldn't worry. Naruto was curious if Hanabi could read his thoughts sometimes, she always knew what he had in mind and what to do to solve their problems. Feeling that he shouldn't worry that much Naruto turned his attention back to the front of the group as he continued following Kabuto down the quickest route to the stairs.

Kabuto had taken the lead of the group back when they entered the 14th floor as he was the only one that had been this down into the dungeon in the past and he had said he remember the way through for the most part, Naruto trusted him and decided that Kabuto should lead the group so that they didn't get lost.

The walk through the 15th floor was going a little slow but also really peaceful, they had rarely seen monsters since they entered this floor, their luck ran out as they entered a big opened room with many exits going both forward and backwards.

Once they entered the room a howl caught their attention they turned to see what had made the sound and a hellhound jumped straight at them giving Naruto little time to react only managing to dodge the leap thanks to Kabuto who pushed Naruto back away from the attacking monster.

Naruto took out his sword and looked around to see how many they were fighting, with a quick glance he could count 6 but as he looked to the other side he saw another 6 coming out from one of the corridor towards them.

"I'll take the ones over there, you take the other" Naruto said quickly to Kabuto as they took a small formation with Hanabi in the middle.

Hanabi was a great support but if the hellhounds got close to her there was little she could do at short range. It was something she was trying to work on to get better at but right now she couldn't really do much about it.

It took no longer than a second for the hellhounds to continue with their assault as they all charge at both Naruto and Kabuto. Kabuto quickly went through some hand signs and threw a lightning bolt towards the hellhounds killing two of them in a matter of seconds.

Naruto slashed a hellhound that jumped towards him, by now he knew more or less where the crystal was located inside the hellhounds and managed to slice at it killing that one instantly, a second one did the same from the other side giving Naruto little choice but to dodge but as he looked back at the hounds he saw two of them charging their flame breath, as he saw that he rolled out of the way and moved to slice another of the hounds as the streams of fire sailed harmlessly through the air.

Hanabi looked around trying to keep a close eye on the battlefield in case any other monsters decided to appear, suddenly a flask of some kind felt from the ceiling of the cave breaking on impact with the floor, when a hellhound's fiery breath came into contact with the contents of the flask while trying to burn Naruto, the liquid that was in the flask quickly caught on fire making the area harder to move at.

Hanabi looked up to see where the flask had come on and she noticed a small group of imps on the upper floor snickering and pointing at several things with similar flasks on their hands from a across a hole on the ceiling.

"There are some imps throwing some flammable liquid down, be careful!" Hanabi quickly inform Naruto and Kabuto.

Naruto took a quick glace up to see the imps but he quickly returned his gaze back on the hellhounds he was fighting before any of them could attack him "I can't reach them, I leave them to you Hanabi." Naruto said as he continued fighting now having to evade the hellhounds, the 'pranks' by the imps and the fire on the ground, this was definitely more intense than in the other floors.

Hanabi nodded hearing Naruto's command and took out a kunai and quickly threw it at the closest imp she could aim to impacting true on the imp's chest, the other imps saw this and snickered in anger they handed over all the flask to one imp and the others picked up small rocks which they started throwing at Hanabi in anger, the imp with the flask started dropping them on top of Naruto and Kabuto who managed to evade them for the most part while continuing their fight with the hounds, the fact that they had to stay in the move in the first place to avoid many of the hounds' attacks help them avoid the flasks as well.

Kabuto looked back towards Naruto and Hanabi, he started to get annoyed this fight wasn't going to end well if it continued like this, Naruto still made many mistakes with his movements, for now he was safe but it wouldn't take long for the fire to reduce his options and he would get surrounded. Hanabi was not better, she was going to get killed by the hellhounds if she only focused on the imps on the other floor, to her credit she had managed to kill several of the imps but they had already thrown most of their flammable bottles by now so it didn't help that much. It looked like he had to get a little more serious that this, after all he couldn't let Naruto die yet his master had gotten interested in him and that red cloak.

Kabuto thought for a few seconds on how serious he could get without showing that he was stronger than a lv3 adventurer and after avoiding another fire breath from a hellhound he did a quick set of hand signs and then aimed his hands towards his pack of hellhounds and said "Lighting explosion jutsu!"

A big ball of lightning came out of Kabuto's hand then a second later the ball exploded into a series of lightning bolts that flew towards all the hellhounds at the same time killing all of them, Kabuto then quickly turned around to make sure Naruto didn't die before his master learned what he needed to learn.

Meanwhile Naruto had been struggling with the remaining hellhounds, the few patches of flames around him made it hard for him to move around but he had manage to barely evade the slashes, bites and breaths from the hellhounds for a little while now.

He looked around and saw an opening on a hellhound, he moved to slash at the hound immediately but what he didn't expected was another hellhound jumping from the patch of flames besides him, he hadn't seen them move through the flames until then.

Naruto turned towards the jumping hellhound and caught his bite with his sword protecting himself from the beast "Naruto-sama watch out!" Hanabi said as she turned towards Naruto, just then a flask from the imps felt on top of him covering him in the strange flammable liquid.

At the same time a kunai flew from Hanabi's hand and impacted the hellhound on top of Naruto killing it before he could release his breath at point blank of Naruto, but the original hellhound Naruto was attacking was already opening his mouth to release his breath towards Naruto who was still on the ground and was not able to evade it in time.

Just before the hellhound could release his breath Kabuto jumped besides Naruto and moved him out of the way before throwing one of his scalpel like knifes towards the hellhound hitting it in his head, using the opportunity Kabuto moved forward and with a quick movement of his arm sliced the head of the hellhound off with another of his knives.

Suddenly the cave was quiet; nothing else could be heard apart from the burning fire on the ground where the bottles of liquid had been thrown by the imps and a few moments later not even that could be heard as the fire died down.

Once the fire died down Naruto looked around and noticed that the rest of the hellhounds he had been fighting with had already been dealt with by Kabuto and the remaining imps of the ceiling had fled.

"I think that was the last of them" Hanabi said as she finished observing the area "That got pretty close Naruto-sama."

"If Kabuto hadn't been here this could have ended way different" Naruto said standing back up.

"This was just bad luck, we were pinned down on this area where other monsters could interfere in the fight from above and the imps had managed to get their hands on those flasks of liquid" Kabuto explained "Even for these floors that group was stronger that it should have been thanks to the area we fought in."

"What was that ball of lighting you used?" Hanabi asked having been able to see Kabuto's jutsu when it went off.

"That was a jutsu called lighting explosion jutsu, I don't like using it because it consumes way too much chakra for my level I doubt I can do another jutsu without passing out" Kabuto explained although the part about being drained on chakra was a lie, it did drain a lot of chakra but he could still cast it a few more times before passing out.

"I see why you didn't use it earlier then. Well I'm also covered in this stuff" Naruto said referring to the flammable liquid the imps threw on top of him "so maybe we should head back for today before anything else happens."

"I agree, we should probably be extra careful in avoiding monsters if possible another fight in this state could be bad" Kabuto said as he turned to the tunnel they had come through "this is the way back, come on follow me."

Naruto and Hanabi followed Kabuto as he started walking down the corridor back to the surface. Their way back was slow and cautious any time they saw a group of monsters they took a different path or waited for them to move on, when they reached floor 12 they felt a lot safer knowing that they could quickly kill many of the monsters in these floors if they became a problem.

Halfway through floor 11 Hanabi moved to the lead of the group to let Kabuto take a break, making use of the situation Kabuto approached Naruto and said "You know Naruto-san that was the second time I almost saw you die, but unlike the first time this time I manage to be of help and not just a spectator."

Naruto was confused for a second as to what Kabuto was referring to but then he remembered the suna tournament "Oh yeah the suna tournament" Naruto said

"Yes unlike back then I managed to be helpful this time" Kabuto said.

"I'm glad you jumped in when you did, I would be toast if you hadn't done it, thank you for doing that Kabuto" Naruto said.

"You don't need to thank me Naruto-san, I just did what any adventurer would have done" Kabuto said smiling "but speaking of the suna tournament I really thought that maybe that cloak that appeared back then would appear once again to save you."

"If only I knew more about that cloak maybe I could have used it to prevent all of that from becoming such a big problem" Naruto said.

"Maybe we can learn a little more about that if we tried remembering what happened back in suna to make it appear" Kabuto suggested.

"As I told you before I don't remember much of what happened then" Naruto said reminding Kabuto of their previous conversation on this topic.

"Maybe I can help with that then, after all I was there maybe I can jug your memory if I tell you what I saw" Kabuto suggested.

Naruto looked down and thought about it for a moment, before turning towards Kabuto "You know that might work, let's give it a try" Naruto said.

"This is really too easy" thought Kabuto as he recalled what he saw that day.

"If I remember correctly you were alongside your familia goddess at the time, the rock troll attacked you both" Kabuto started.

"I remember that at least, I was trying to save Kurama-sama from a Cyclops but ended up being attacked by the troll" Naruto said.

"You then tried to fight the rock troll to no avail and as it was preparing it final strike, Kurama-sama jumped in front of the strike to protect you and then I don't really know what happened as a flash of light occurred and then you were in the red cloak" Kabuto finished his explanation of what had happened back then.

"I remember the troll and then I just remember that I wanted to protect Kurama-sama no matter what and after it nothing I just remember waking up in the hospital" Naruto said "I think this wasn't of much help after all."

"I guess so" Kabuto said disappointedly with a sigh.

"Don't get sad, about that, I don't really need the cloak I'm just happy it was there back then to save me" Naruto said trying to cheer up Kabuto "I need to get stronger on my own and stop relying on people or mysterious cloaks to save me or else I'll never become the greatest adventurer."

Kabuto smiled at Naruto and they continued talking about other things as they continued forward back to the surface.

"So he wanted to protect Kurama no matter what. I wonder if wanting to protect someone is the trigger." Kabuto thought as he looked forwards towards the leader of the group at the moment.

"Oh Kabuto had you heard?" Naruto asked as he continued with his conversation "There's going to be an expedition soon."

"Really an expedition?" Kabuto freighted ignorance "I actually didn't know that, which familia is having this expedition?"

"Yeah, the Isobu and Enma familias are having a joined expedition of the Konoha dungeon in 3 days, I was wondering if you were free that day, even though we can't participate in it, I wanted to see them depart and how they went through the dungeon." Naruto explained.

"I see, so you want my help in the dungeon that day. I'm free that day and I wouldn't mind accompanying you two, so count me in" Kabuto said as he looked forwards again "seems like I'll be able to put my theory to test sooner than expected." Kabuto thought.

Somewhere else in Konoha

"I'm sorry Sasuke but I already told you, Enma-sama said not accepting volunteers for this expedition" Kiba said to his friend for maybe the third time just this day.

"You just need to ask one more time, I need to get stronger and this expedition could be what does it for me" Sasuke pleaded once again.

Kiba sighted, he really didn't wanted to say no to Sasuke having him in the expedition would be great but he had gone through this for several day now, since Sasuke found out that Kiba had gotten into the expedition team "Have you even asked Yatagarasu-sama if you can participate, he might not appreciate you disappearing for a few days" Kiba remarked.

"He already knows how much I want to participate in this and he's ok with it, I just need Enma-sama's approval" Sasuke said.

"Fine I'll ask him one more time then" Kiba said "But this is the last time"

"That's fine" Sasuke responded.

Kiba was sure that even if Enma-sama said no, Sasuke would follow them out and stick to the group anyways so he was just going to ask to get Sasuke off his back for a while.

"I'll be right back then" Kiba said turning around and going into the building they were standing outside of. Not long later he came right back out from the same door.

"So?" Sasuke asked even thought he didn't really care for the answer he would just go on that day anyways if Enma said no.

"He ….. Said yes" Kiba said slowly as he was still a little surprised with what Enma had said "You can accompany us on the expedition."

"Great, this is one step forward" Sasuke said "Thank you Kiba, I'll see you on the day of the expedition then" and with that Sasuke turned around and left before hearing anything else from Kiba.

"Why would Enma-sama allow a volunteer now?" Kiba thought to himself still confused with Enma's response.

Later that day Kurama's apartment

Naruto and Hanabi managed to arrive back at Kurama's apartment with little problem after their troubles in the dungeon and not long after they arrived Kurama said that Chomei had sent the message of when they were meeting the familia member she wanted to be part of the Kurama familia.

"You'll be meeting her in 3 days" Kurama said.

"What!? 3 days? But that's the same day of the expedition" Naruto said.

"Expedition?" Kurama asked not knowing about it yet.

"The Enma familia is having an expedition beyond floor 20 on that same day" Hanabi explained "Naruto-sama wanted to see them head off."

"I think I can learn a lot from watching how the expedition went through the dungeon even if just for the first few floors." Naruto explained

"As long as you don't follow them to somewhere you shouldn't be in, I'm ok with it" Kurama said. "And it shouldn't be a with you meeting Tenten" Kurama said "just meet with her outside the dungeon before the expedition starts and get to know her while you go into the dungeon."

"I guess there's no problem" Naruto said accepting Kurama's proposal.

"And when are you meeting her Kurama-sama?" Hanabi asked seeing that she had only told them when they would meet her.

"I'll meet her on the same day when you come back" Kurama explained "I want to make my decision about Tenten that same day. I don't want to keep Chomei or Tenten waiting for my answer, so I want to hear your opinions about her as fast as possible so that's why you two are meeting her first. And Chomei was the one recommending her so I don't think she would try anything funny while you were in the dungeon, so I'm confident in letting you two meeting her before me."

Somewhere else in Konoha

"And that's the end of my report" Kabuto said.

"Interesting" Orochimaru said as he heard Kabuto's report "So you want to use the expedition?"

"Yes Orochimaru-sama, I believe it would be the best opportunity to test my theory" Kabuto answered.

Orochimaru walked towards a cabinet and grabbed a small bottle before he handed over to Kabuto "Then you'll need this" Orochimaru hissed.

Kabuto looked at the bottle and his eyes went wide "Are you sure that I can use this Orochimaru-sama?" Kabuto asked surprised.

"Yes this would bring the best results but be sure to not waste it" Orochimaru said "And make sure to not fail, I want something out of this, I don't care if the girl dies but the boy must stay alive until I know what that cloak was."

"As you order Orochimaru-sama" Kabuto said taking the bottle and exiting the room.

"This expedition ….. I thought it was going to be boring but now" Orochimaru said before laughing.

Decided to leave it there, tell me what you thought.