Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Naruto or Digimon franchises. Comments/Criticism is fine as long as it isn't straight up hate or flaming. If you do not like, no one is forcing you to read and you can just leave.

Thank you and please enjoy

Humon?

-Chapter 17-

-Last Time-

Out of the ground, an odd circular machine burst out of the ground and began emitting a rainbow of light. In the middle of the light show, an image of a mostly bald, hunched over man with squinted eyes was revealed. [Hello? Hello? Is this thing working?]

Distracted by this sudden event, Joe looked away just as the scar on Naruto's chest pulsed ever so slightly. Because of that, he also missed as Naruto's eyes gained a light red tint for a split second before fading back to normal.

-And now-

[Ah! So you must be the digidestined. You must be strong to have defeated Devimon.] The elderly man said, surprising everyone their even more.

"Wha? How do you know who we are? Who are you?" Tai demanded.

"Are you one of Devimon's associates?" Matt added, putting everyone else on edge.

[At ease young ones, I am friend to all yet friend to none.] The old man told them, which only ended up confusing the majority of them.

"Okay… well it is nice to know there are other humans other than us in this world." Sora said with a smile, getting a few nods and agreements from the others.

[I am human, and yet I am not.]

"Oh can we please stop with the riddles already." Naruto groaned, causing the old man to look at him in surprise. "They're really starting to give me a headache." The chibi blonde emphasized this by grabbing his head dramatically.

This actually seemed to stump the man for a moment as he did nothing but stare at Naruto for several moments before speaking again. [Hmph, I tried to contact you all earlier but was unable to get a connection during your battle with Devimon. Now however, the lines are perfectly clear and only ten cents a minute.]

"You still haven't explained who you are. And where are you anyway?" Izzy cut in.

[My name is Gennai, and I am speaking to you from far away from File Island, across the ocean from the continent of Server.]

"Wow, that's one heck of a long-distance call," Sora said with surprise, "How long have you been here?"

[Since before the beginning and until the end.] The elderly man told her, ignoring the groan Naruto gave at the elusive response.

"Are… are you the one who brought us here to the digital world?" Mimi asked hesitantly, a good amount of distain and fear in her voice as she spoke. This caused everyone but Izzy and Sora to look at her in surprise, not used to hearing such a tone of voice from the kind, albeit slightly spoiled, girl.

[It was not I,]

"Then who was it?" Mimi insisted, her hold on Naruto tightening slightly.

[It was…] Everyone leaned in slightly as he started, [… I don't know…]

*Crash!* That was the sound of everyone faceplanting at once.

"Do you at least know how these guys can get back home?" Naruto asked, making the children look towards him with confusion. They were wondering why he left himself out of that, but decided not to worry about it for now.

[I am sorry, I do not.]

"Well your just a regular fountain of information aren't you," Tai said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes.

[I apologize for not being able to help you… but perhaps you can be of help to m-]

"Let me guess, you need us to go on a long perilous journey to reach where you are and beat up some bad guys that are causing problems for you," Naruto cut Gennai off with a bored look.

The elderly man coughed awkwardly as all the other's but Tai and Agumon gave him a deadpan look. [Errm, yes, many evil digimon have been causing havoc here and I have not the ability to stop them myself. As the digidestined and with your most recent triumph over Devimon, I have great faith in your ability to handle them.]

"As… much as we would like to… help," Izzy said somewhat hesitantly, "We have no idea how to reach you and it would be nothing short of suicide to just go off sailing in a random direction."

If he noticed the hesitation, Gennai didn't react to it as he turned to the computer whizz. [Oh right, I forgot that you all are from out of town. Let me create a map on your computer real quick.]

"Huh, Wha!?" Izzy exclaimed as his head snapped towards the computer bag on his back.

"And how exactly are we supposed to beat these bad guys?" Joe asked, waving his arms in mild hysteria before stopping to grab his arm with a yelp. "Ow ow ow, their probably just as strong if not stronger than Devimon and we only beat him by the skin of our teeth."

[You are right, as you are you would be no match for them… But, if you can get your digimon digivolve again then you would be.]

"Wait, we can digivolve even more?" Agumon asked in shock, getting a nod from the elderly man.

[Yes, but you need special items in order to do so.] He said before his image vanished, replaced with the images of a golden ta and a blank orange crest. [If you have the tags and crests together then your digimon will be able to digivolve even further.]

"And they are… where exactly?" Matt asked.

[The crests are scattered about, you can find them all over the continent of Server.] Gennai told them as the image of the crest slid into the tag before vanishing and he reappeared. [The tags however, were stolen and secretly sealed away somewhere by Devim-] *Kzzzzt* The old man was cut off as the hologram started going on the fritz.

[GAAH! *Kzzzt* Ple-please hurry! *Kzzt* You must come! *Kzzt* I'll be waiting...] *kzzzzzsput* Was all he managed to get out before the hologram sputtered out completely.

"…"

Complete silence surrounded the group as they stared at the inactive device, mulling over the information they just got. Naruto looked annoyed with a face that just screamed 'I knew this would happen', All of the kids but Tai had looks of nervousness, exhaustion, and irritation, Tai himself looked somewhat excited, and the digimon were curious and, judging by the way they were holding their stomach, hungry.

"Soooo… do we really follow the instructions of some weird old guy that we just met and know nothing about?" Matt asked.

"While your suspicion is warranted, we don't exactly have many other options or leads to go on." Izzy said while pulling his computer out and typed a few commands. "I at least got the map he promised before the transmission was cut off."

"Still, it just… just seems like a bad idea. The saying stranger danger exists for a reason after all." Sora said, still fidgeting with her hands nervously.

"Hold on, I have a full proof plan guys." Tai said, getting all of their attention. "Let's grab some grub and then afterwards I'm open to suggestions." He said trying to lighten the mood.

The response he received were several annoyed and deadpan stares.

-The next day-

A now Kitsumon Naruto groaned in frustration as he listened to the others, mostly Tai, Matt, and Joe, bicker. They had gone to the beach of the now fully reassembled island after eating and getting some sleep, and after a short debate had decided to go to where this 'Gennai' guy was. The only problem though, they had no boat.

Using Izzy's computer to make a schematic, the group had swiftly devolved into an arguing mess over how the bout should be built. "The raft should have railings! That way no one will fall off!"

"No! They'd make it two clunky and it wouldn't sail right!"

"And what do you know about sailing!"

"More than you do!"

'Dear Kami! I really owe Kakashi-sensei an apology as well if this is what he had to deal with all the time!' Naruto thought remembering all the times he and Sasuke would get at each-other's throats over petty things.

'If only I could get the stupid summoning jutsu to work. I'm pretty sure it just needs more power but how would I… Wait a minute…' "YOU COMPLETE DUMBASS!" Naruto screamed while bashing his head repeatedly into a boulder until it was nothing but rubble, causing the argument around to come screeching to a halt.

Without responding as Mimi and Joe repeatedly asked him what was wrong, he simply flared his chakra making him evolve into his Teumesemon. Then, biting his thumb until it bled, he swiftly went through the familiar three hand signs while channeling as much chakra as he could into his hands. "Summoning Jutsu!" He yelled while slamming his hands onto the ground, creating a large cloud of smoke with a 'poof'.

"Hey! What the hell's going on!?" An unfamiliar male voice called out as the smoke slowly dissipated, revealing a small orange toad with purple and black markings wearing a blue vest. It looked around for a few seconds before spotting Naruto and gasping in surprise. "WHAT THE FUCK! Naruto!? Is that you?!"

"Gamakichi! Oh am I glad to see you dattabayo!" Naruto exclaimed as he grabbed the large amphibian and hugged him tightly. "You would not believe the insanity I've had to deal with for the last few days!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down Naruto!" The orange toad cried out, squirming out of the blonde's grip and landed on the ground with a thump. "What in the world happened to you?! You look like the-"

"I know exactly what I look like!" Naruto cut in, "And if you think that's bad, the Kyuubi's out of the seal!" As soon as the words left Naruto's lips, Gamakichi literally turned completely white.

"It's WHAAAAT!?"

"Yeah, that Teme's the reason I look like this!" Naruto explained as he gestured to himself, "Look, I need you to contact Baa-chan and Ero-sennin and tell them what's happened. Like I said, a lot of crazy stuff has been going on and me looking like this is actually pretty low on the list." To emphasize this, Naruto pointed over his shoulder where the digidestined and their digimon where standing with shocked faces.

He then proceeded to give the toad a full explanation on what had happened over the last few days from when he first landed here to now, eventually having the others introduce themselves. About halfway through, he devolved back to his Kitsumon form which raised even more question. Naruto intentionally avoided mentioning how he got to the island in the first place, something only Izzy, Mimi, Joe, and their digimon noticed but didn't mention for now.

"…how in Kami's name do you always end up in these convoluted messes?" Gamakichi as with a dull look as he looked towards the kids and their digimon partners.

"I have been asking myself that question ever since I got my first C-rank mission." Naruto admitted with his head drooping.

"Whatever, I'll inform Hokage-sama and the pervert as quickly as possible. Try to stay… oh who am I kidding." Gamakichi said with a laugh as he vanished in a puff of smoke, making Naruto grumble about smart-alecky toads. Turning around, he saw the others looking at him with odd looks. "What?"

"Nothing," They all said at the same time, creeping him out a little, before they went back to squabbling with each-other. Sighing in exasperation while rubbing his forehead, the fox boy left the group and headed into the woods.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! Let's get to work! I want a stack of logs and other crap we'll need for the raft within the next two hours!" He called out, getting a chorus of agreements with a few grumbles as the few dozen clones scattered into the forest, the sound of explosions and crashing soon echoing out.

The original just leaned against a tree tiredly, sighing for the Kami only knows time that day as he stared up at the sky. 'I hope everyone's okay,' He thought as the memories of the mission he was on before he arrived here played through his head. Many of his friends had gone with him to retrieve Sasuke and all of them had ended up separating to fight extremely dangerous opponents just so he could catch up with the duck haired Uchiha.

With all the excitement that had been going on for the last few days they had completely slipped his mind, but talking to Gamakichi had made him remember and guilt coursed through him at how easily he'd forgotten about them. He knew there was a very good chance one or more of them could have died on that mission.

"You seem pretty down young man, what seems to be the problem." Naruto jumped in surprise at the unexpected voice, his head snapping to the side to see Centarumon standing next to him.

"Huh? Oh hey Centarumon, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked, "I thought you couldn't leave the ruins."

"Normally I cannot," The horse-man digimon admitted, "But I and a few others agreed that an exception could be made this one time." He gestured over to his side where most of the digimon they had encountered, including Leomon, Monzaemon, and Frigimon now helping the clones. "Now what seems to be the matter with you?"

Naruto didn't respond right away, opting to go back to looking at the sky. 'Heh, Shikamaru would probably be jealous of this view' "…It's nothing… I'm just overthinking things," His friend would be fine, he was sure they could take of themselves.

"Hmmm, if you say so." Centarumon said, his tone holding slight disbelief but he didn't push the subject. Instead, he trotted over to the other children as they showed up to investigate the noise. After a short but very cheerful reunion, the centaur digimon used his years of knowledge to whip up some medical remedies that would keep out infections and speed up healing.

The children then watched in awe as the digimon and clones swiftly collected the materials and built a raft. In less than an hour the vessel was completed, stocked, and sailing away with the kids waving goodbye.

"This is farewell, we wish you luck on your travels!" Leomon called as to them as the island rapidly shrunk into the distance.

"Goodbye!"

"It was nice to meet you all!"

*Crack*

Everyone stopped their yelling as they heard something breaking. Looking towards the source of the noise, they were greeted with the sight of the egg in T.K.'s arms gaining several wide cracks before falling apart. In its place was a small white blob with tiny black eyes and a small mouth. "Poyomon!"

-Chapter End-

AN: Sorry if this was a bland chapter. I made the kids more suspicious of Gennai cause honestly who wouldn't be? Some old guy you don't know just pops out of nowhere in a hologram, says and I quote 'Please come to Server and defeat our enemies', and then conveniently cuts out seconds later. Even if they are kids, with all the tricks, scams, and dangers they've run into before would have definitely made them more suspicious.

Also, as I'm sure noticed, Naruto is becoming more thoughtful, cautious, and all around less reckless than he usually is. That is cause, like I mentioned in this chapter and chapter 7, he is starting to see other people acting like he usually does from an outside perspective and it is making him more aware of his own actions. Not to mention that it was Renamon data that was used to hybridize him and they are known to be highly intelligent. He won't immediately be super mature or some crap like that, but expect to see him act or think more intelligently as the story progresses. Thank you for reading and please review.