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 22-

-Last Time-

It was to these thoughts that each of the kids and digimon slipped into slumber one by one until only Mimi was left awake. Staring into the fire, the flames reflected in her drooping eyes as she stroked Naruto's head again. "…Thank you," She whispered into his ear, causing it to twitch slightly as she moved her hand and rested her chin atop his head while allowing her eyes to close. "Thank you for everything."

-And Now-

Naruto slowly sat up with a yawn as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his chibi-sized fists. A little more awake now, he proceeded to carefully wiggle his way out of Mimi's grip and slip out of the blanket they were sharing. Shivering slightly as the cold washed over him, he carefully navigated around everyone's sleeping forms as he made his way to the burnt-out pit where after a quick digivolution to his base form restocked the smoldering pile into a decent flame.

While he was doing so, the others slowly started to stir and wake up starting with Mimi herself as she shivered slightly from the loss of warmth that she was holding. Slowly getting up, she groggily looked around the cavern before spotting her target by the rebuilt fire stirring the contents of a small pot on a makeshift cooking rack. With her teeth already starting to chatter, the pink loving girl stumbled over to him and hesitantly snuggled into his side for warmth much to the blonde's surprise.

"M-morning Naruto," She mumbled with a light blush on her cheeks.

"Oh, morning Mimi, I hope you like canned hash." He said while holding a spoonful up for her to taste that she happily accepted. "How is it?"

"Bit salty, but otherwise fine. Could use a little syrup though." She said with a thoughtful look before snagging the spoon from him and scooping herself up another mouthful.

"Oh, like this?" Naruto asked with a silly grin as he held up a small bottle of brownish amber liquid with a picture of a maple leaf on it. For a brief moment, Naruto could have sworn he could see stars in the girl's eyes as she grabbed the maple syrup and popped it open. Pouring its contents over the spoon, she shoved the food into her mouth with a happy look.

"Oi! Save some for the rest of us, would ya." Tai said as he and the others slowly clustered around the fire. "You're not the only one who's hungry after all."

"Don't worry, I made enough to go around." Naruto replied as he pulled out his scroll and unsealed the plates Leomon had given them and started serving everyone up. Soon, they were all chowing away, a comfortable silence settling over them for several minutes before Joe decided to speak up.

"Look, I don't want to be 'that guy' and all, but we need to come up with a plan… and fast. That blizzard is still blowing outside, there's only enough wood to keep the fire going for a day at most, and last I checked we aren't exactly dressed up for winter weather." The bespectacled boy said with a frown, pulling at his shirt then pointing to the small gap in the barricade where the wind could still be heard howling for added emphasis.

This statement brought the cheery atmosphere in the room to a grinding halt as everyone stopped eating. "We could just wait it out." Tai suggested. "We have plenty of food and water, and besides it will probably be gone as fast as it came."

"That is possible, we have experienced stranger oddities when it comes to the weather in the digi-world so far." Izzy said as he pulled out his computer and had Tentomon power it with a weak 'Super Shocker' through the charger. "Naruto, would you mind?" The computer whiz asked the whiskered teen while holding up the same cord from when he scanned the blonde before.

"Uh sure, but what do you need that for?" Naruto asked, not even flinching as the small piece of metal sunk into the back of his hand.

"Simple really. By using the data components in your body, which I have the most understanding of thanks to my prior study on it, as an amplifying catalyst I should be able to indirectly interface with the ambient digital programing of the surrounding environment to accurately deduce just how long this anomalous weather will remain before dissipating." Izzy said as he typed a variety of commands into his computer at a rapid pace.

"…"

"…what?" Everyone asked at once.

*Sigh* "I'm using you as a way to plug into this world and see how long until the snow goes away. Thus finding out how long we'll have to hide in this hole before we can move out." He said in a dull tone, his eyes never leaving his screen while understanding dawned on his companions' faces as they peered over his shoulders. "Just give me a few more seconds and… done." Hitting the enter key, the screen changed from streams of code to a map of the area with a weather radar overlapping it. "… … …Oh boy, that's not good."

"Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means." Joe pleaded while pointing to a timer that sat in the top right corner of the screen.

"Unfortunately yes, that is how long it will be until the snow storm ends." Izzy said as everyone gazed at the ticking numbers in disbelief.

[01y:10M:26d:11h:37m:21s]

"Two years? It'll take almost two freaking years for the blizzard to end?!" Joe exclaimed.

"There goes waiting it out then." Sora muttered as she and the others plopped back down in their spots dejectedly. "What do we do now?"

"Well," Izzy started as he fiddled with the computer some more, "According to my readings the storm itself is completely stationary. With our given position, if we walk straight east, it would only be roughly a mile until we're clear." He said before raising his eyebrow when one of the windows on his screen started glitching. 'Odd, what's causing that? Some kind of bug?'

"Yeah, just a casual mile long stroll through blistering winds, sheets of falling snow, and freezing below zero temperatures." Matt said sarcastically. "Get real, we'd never make it halfway without getting lost and freezing to death."

"Oi! Stop being all negative Matt, we've gotten out of worse than this." Tai said, trying to bring up the moral a bit. "Besides, being pessimistic is Joe's job, and I think he's got it covered." He added while jabbing his thumb towards the hyperventilating boy while Gomamon tried to snap him out of it with a bland look.

"Okay then smart-aleck, what do you suggest? Going through that blizzard is suicide and waiting is out unless you want to freeze and/or starving to death." The 'cool kid' of the group demanded while getting up in the goggle-headed boy's face.

"We uh, we um…" Tai's bravado broke slightly as he struggled to come with an idea. Looking around the cavern for any kind of inspiration, his eyes settled on Gabumon who was in the far corner filling up a hole after erm… taking care of his business. "We go under it!" He declared.

"Say what now?" Gomamon asked with a raised eyebrow, his clawed flipper poised in the air while Joe's cheeks had a nice rosy tint to them.

"We dig a tunnel to travel through, that way we won't have to go out and face the blizzard." Tai said with a wide grin, getting everyone to mull it over.

"…it could work, but it would take us weeks to dig that far even if we had shovels, which I may remind you we don't." Izzy said before turning to Naruto. "Unless you happen to have some in that scroll of yours."

"Nope, but I may have something a bit better." The whiskered blonde said with a smirk.

-Two hours Later-

*CHHHHHHHHHHHZZZZZZZZZZT*

The kids stood inside a perfectly round tunnel just wide enough for them to fit inside with some holding crude torches watching in awe as Naruto almost effortlessly drilled through the frozen dirt and rock using a familiar spiraling energy ball. At the same time, the digimon and a few of his clones were moving back and forth with armloads of dirt, either packing it back into the walls for support or moving it out of way.

After a minute or so though, the Rasengan dispersed in the blonde's hand and he sat down on a pile of dirt with a sigh while wiping the sweat off his brow. "How much farther do we need to go? This is starting to wear me out." Naruto said, catching a bottle of water that one of his clones threw towards him and quickly downing its contents.

"If my calculations are correct, about two thirds of the way there." Izzy stated, a look of concentration on his face as he tried to find the bug that had been messing with his computer. He had already gone through the primary coding and back up drive and hadn't found anything and had just started searching through the programing of his most recent actions.

He was broken from his thoughts however when a soft crackling noise reached his ears. Following the noise, Izzy and the others looked up just in time to see small cracks quickly spreading across the roof of the tunnel. "Crud, the tunnels starting to cave! We need to get out of here!" Tai said as he took a few steps back.

"No, those aren't stress cracks. They're to evenly spread out. Somethings burrowing in." Izzy said, his declaration was proven seconds later when several pairs of clawed paws made of ice burst through the earth, followed with the snarling faces of wolves with glowing red eyes brimming with malice. Clawing the rest of the way through, the icy beast fell to the floor with several heavy thumps and vicious growls as they immediately attacked, dispelling several of the clones that leapt in the way.

"W-w-what are those t-things?" Mimi asked, her body trembling violently as she hid behind Naruto.

"I don't know, I have never heard of this kind of digimon before. Super Shocker!" Tentomon said while blasting one of the wolves to pieces when it lunged at him.

At the same time, Naruto grabbed one by the jaws as it tried to bite his leg and promptly shattered it against the wall. "Well whatever they are, they definitely aren't friendly!"

"Oh really? And here I was thinking they were just stopping by for some tea and biscuits." Gomamon snarked, swiping at the wolves whenever they got to close for comfort.

"This is not the time for your quipping. Naruto keep drilling while we fend these things off." Sora said while she, the others, and the remaining clones aligned themselves like a barrier around the whiskered blonde.

"Not without giving you guys a hand first, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto cried out with his hands held in a cross shape. Several puffs of smoke appeared around them signaling the arrival of more clones while the original glowed brightly. "Kitsumon digivolve to… Teumesemon! Seirei-en Rasengan! Seirei-en no Dangan!" With the added heat of his fox-fire, the destructive attack practically vaporized the ground it touched while his tails shot a barrage of miniature blue fireballs backwards at the ice wolves.

"Don't forget about us now! Pepper Breath!"

"Blue Blaster!"

"Spiral Twister!"

"Super Shocker!"

"Poison Ivy!"

"Boom Bubble!"

"…I really need an attack that doesn't require bodies of water with fish nearby." Gomamon groaned as he watched his fellow digimon and one hybrid decimate the group of baddies, idly slicing the head of one into bits when it managed to slip through the absolute massacre. "These things aren't really that tough, are they?" He commented once the last one was reduced to rubble.

"Yeah, but they're definitely make up for it in numbers!" Joe said as dozens of the beasts clambered through the gradually widening holes while others continued to burst through the newly made ceiling.

"Well, you know what they say-Hiyah! Quality trumps quantity every time!" Tai quipped while bashing the head off of one of the wolves with his torch. "Ha! Take that you wannabe ice sculptu-AAGH!" Too focused on his boasting, Tai missed the second wolf coming up on his side until it savagely bit into his leg.

"Pepper Breath!" Thankfully Agumon was able to blast it off before it could rip a chunk out of his calf. "You okay Tai?"

"Y-yeah, it's j-just a scratch." The goggle-headed boy said between gritted teeth as he limped back with the others as Naruto continued to drill ahead.

"Just hold them off a bit longer, we're almost there!" Izzy called out.

"Easier, Spiral Twister! Said then done, Spiral Twister! They just keep coming, Spiral Twister!" Biyomon said between attacks, each shot taking out at least two baddies only four more to take their place.

"Naruto's not looking that hot either!" Gomamon added in, taking a sideways glance at the panting boy as the fireball coming from his tails steadily decreased in size. "Could the universe cut us some slack for once?" As soon as he spoke, the ceiling started cracking again in front of them, however instead of more ice wolves bursting out the tunnel itself suddenly caved in before them, cutting the wolves off from reaching them. "…Thank you universe!"

"And not a moment too soon, this should be it!" Izzy yelled towards Naruto while covering his ears, getting the blonde to nod before redirecting his flaming Rasengan upwards and allowed it to detonate with a deafening *Boom!*.

As the dust settled, a warm breeze drifted into the now exposed tunnel while sunlight streamed in, making the group cheer happily. Eager to get out of the hole, the kids and their digimon clambered up the sloped tunnel and emerged to find…

"…A freaking desert!? OH SCREW YOU UNIVERSE!"

-End Chapter-

AN: The Ice wolves are based on the Ice Wolfos from Twilight Princess. Sorry about the late update for this story, lost the original due to some saving errors. Thank you for reading and please review.