Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Naruto or Digimon franchises. Comments/Criticism is fine as long as it isn't just hate or flaming.

Thanks for reading and please enjoy

Humon

-Chapter 34-

-Last Time-

Not even ten minutes after he'd fallen asleep though, Mimi's eyes suddenly snapped open and immediately focused on the slumbering blonde as she sidled over until she was snuggled right up to him.

"You really are too caring," She whispered while wrapping her arms around his waist, her voice compassionate and supporting. "We're lucky to have someone like you helping us. So please, don't doubt yourself because of us."

Her piece said, Mimi gave Naruto a soft kiss on his whiskered cheek before snuggling her head against the crook of his neck with a gentle smile.

-And Now-

The sun was just starting to peek up over the horizon as the off ramp for the Sandoraida slid to the ground with a loud *Clang*, allowing Naruto to casually walk down it with a sleepy expression as he rubbed his eye. "Man, why do mornings have to suck so much?"

A quick detail one would notice about the whiskered blonde would he his state of dress, as instead of his normal outfit he wore a thin orange t-shirt, plain grey shorts, and a wide straw hat.

"That's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it?" Mimi asked rhetorically as she popped up next to Naruto, leaning against the whiskered boy's side for support as she yawned tiredly. Like Naruto her outfit had changed, only now she was back to wearing the dress he'd sown for her and her original hat.

Chuckling softly in response, the blonde ninja nodded in agreement before stretching his arms and tail out, sighing in satisfaction as his joints popped. "That it is, that it is."

"If you two don't like it then why did you insist on waking everybody up this early?" A grumpy looking Tai asked as he and the rest of the crew followed after the duo, all of them in varying states of grogginess, aside from TK who was still completely asleep riding on Matt's back piggyback style.

And just like Naruto and Mimi, all of the children were dressed in lighter clothing and they along with their digimon were each donning hats ranging from a cowboy hat for Agumon to a simply baseball cap Sora managed to fit under her helmet.

"Because the longer we linger around, the more likely that annoying monkey and his minions end up finding out where we are, or worse." Naruto stated while suddenly stepping to the side once he and Mimi were at the bottom of the ramp, counting the kids and digimon as they past by.

"While the hour of waking is undesirable, it does maximize the amount of distance we can traverse before the next nocturnal cycle," Izzy said as he dug around inside his computer bag, double checking that he had everything that he needed. "Though it is a shame that we will have to abandon our primary means of transportation in order to proceed."

"Yeah, I'll miss being able to sleep on an actual bed." Joe said, looking surprisingly awake and alert compared to everybody else, though that was likely thanks to the cup of coffee the worrywart was holding.

"And all the food you could eat." Agumon said with a wistful sigh.

"Don't forget the napping." Palmon added as she stretched her leafy arms, the front of her face looking a bit odd thanks to the sunglasses shaped tan line around her eyes.

"It was nice while it lasted." Patamon said as he perched atop of Matt's head.

"Heh, don't be so dramatic," Naruto said with a knowing smirk, waiting until everybody had gotten off before placing a hand onto the ramp. "You guys make it sound like this will be the last time we'll be using my ship."

"Well unless you have a way of hauling a several ton ship around, I don't see how-*POOF*" Matt started to say, only to be cut off when the Sandoraida was engulfed by a massive cloud of smoke. When it cleared, the cruise ship was nowhere to be seen, the only evidence it was even there being the trench it had dug into the ground from its weight.

At the same time, Naruto was seen rolling up a large sheet of paper into a makeshift scroll almost as large as he was which he then sealed into his smaller scroll.

"Huh, guess that works." Gomamon said with a low whistle while everyone else just stared with bugged eyes and dropped jaws.

"And done, I'm sorry what were you guys saying?" The blonde asked while stuffing the roll of paper into his pocket, grinning cheekily at the flabbergasted kids while Mimi giggled.

"You were right, that was funny to see."

Hearing this, most of the group quickly snapped out of their shocked stupor in order to look at Naruto with either look stares or annoyed glares upon realizing he'd just pranked them all.

"What's with all those sour looks guys, I'd thought you'd be happy we'd get to keep the ship after all." Naruto said while doing his best 'innocent' look, complete with chibi angel wings and halo… somehow.

"…Let's just get going already." Sora said dully, getting a round of agreements from the rest of the children and digimon before they continued to walk towards the nearby canyon.

"Aw come on guys," Naruto called out with a faux hurt expression as he and Mimi followed after the group. "Where's your sense of humor? It's called a joke."

Not getting any response aside from some muttered grumblings about it being too early and such, the blonde chuckled softly while the brunette leaning on him kept giggling.

-Later-

The time passed in relative silence after that as the group trekked through the large series of gorges and canyons, along with the occasional cavern or tunnel. Once the kids and digimon had gotten over Naruto's little vanishing ship gag they started to chatter a bit about random things, mostly the digimon inquiring about what the human word was like.

However, as the day wore on, said chatter gradually turned to grumbles of misery and groans of exhaustion, especially once it reached noon and the sun bore down on them mercilessly. One would think that since they were in a canyon it would be a bit easier to stay cool, what given the plentiful sources of shade and such.

Sadly, you would be wrong though, as the brief areas of coolness were countered by how the heat from the sunlight was absorbed and reflected by the rocky terrain, effectively turning the whole area into a giant oven. Which is why everyone was glad they followed Izzy's advice on dressing in lighter clothing and that Joe had packed several bottles of water and icepacks into his bag, one of which Naruto was currently guzzling away.

"Hah… I'm really starting to hate being hot all the time." The foxy teen grunted once he finished downing the entire bottle in just a few gulps before tossing the now empty bottle back to Joe.

"Are you sure about that?" Sora asked jokingly while glancing at the blonde's waist, which was currently uncovered as his sweat-soaked shirt was tied around his waist, thus allowing all to see his lean form. Every inch of him was toned, from solid pecs to taut biceps to his washboard smooth gut on which Sora swore she could see hints of a six-pack forming. "I'm pretty sure most guys would kill to be as 'hot' as you are."

At first confused at what the helmeted redhead was talking about, Naruto tilted his head to the side with a raised brow before it finally clicked in his mind and a chuckle escaped his lips. "Hehe, good one Sora."

"Thanks, but I'm only half kidding," Sora admitted with a shrug, her eyes flickering towards his chest a few more times as she was speaking. "I mean just look at Mimi, she hasn't stopped drooling since you took your shirt off."

"H-hey!" Said girl exclaimed from her spot beside the whiskered blonde, her cheeks flushing a bright red as she glowered at the giggling redhead. "I wasn't drooling! Stop making stuff up!"

"Oh sure you weren't, and I'm not wearing a helmet." Sora said in a teasing sarcastic tone while tapping the side of her protective headwear.

"Sora, you should really stop," Tai said from the front of the group where he, Agumon, Izzy, and Tentomon were leading the way, making the brunette sigh in relief at the support. "We already know those two are pretty much dating already, don't want Mimi getting jealous from you hitting on her boyfriend."

…Until he said that with a wide grin.

"You two have been spending a lot of time together, I don't think I've ever seen you apart since we took over the cruise ship." Joe stated in a somewhat serious tone as he stared at the pair curiously, and with just a hint of amusement.

"Indeed, at the rate things are progressing I would not be surprised if she was picking out her bridesmaids, don't want to hurt your chances." Izzy added casually as he typed away at his computer.

"Does that mean we should be expecting some human eggs soon?" Gomamon asked with a coy smirk, causing the whole group to freeze briefly.

…

…

"GEEAAAH!" The pink loving girl screamed in embarrassment, her whole face rapidly turning a bright glowing red before she covered it with both hands whilst Tai and Gomamon burst into laughter, Joe bopped his digimon on the head, the rest of the digimon stared in confusion, and poor Naruto stuttered wildly with a similar blush. Meanwhile, unnoticed by those three, Izzy and Sora shared a quick glance, a knowing look flashing between them.

'Sorry Mimi, but that was for your own good.' The helmeted girl thought with a light grimace as she turned her attention back to the blonde-brunette duo, immediately noting the small distance that had formed between them. She was hoping that by making them more self-conscious on how much time they were spending literally side by side it would help ease Mimi out of her reliance on Naruto for comfort.

Of course Gomamon making a crack about them having kids wasn't expected at all, but hey, when does a plan ever work out like it should?

"What are they talking about Matt?" TK asked his brother in confusion as they and their digimon walked a ways behind the trio, both he and Patamon looking at the elder boy for answers.

"I'll tell you when you're older." The 'cool kid' said without hesitation, earning a pout from the youngest of the group.

"Aw man, you say that about everything."

"I didn't know humans had eggs," Tentomon said as he turned towards Izzy with a confused buzz. "Centarumon told me that they went through something called preg-ant-itsy, where they carried the child within their bellies for several months as they were growing."

"That would be pregnancy Tentomon," The computer whizz corrected, briefly glancing back to make sure TK was out of earshot before continuing. "And while the exact biological mechanics of fetal development are vastly more complicated, what you just said would be a relatively accurate basic rundown."

"Oh… I must say your kind is most peculiar."

"I could say the same about being an entity comprised of sentient computer data in the shape of an insectoid organism."

"Touché."

*Grumble* "Aww, all this talk about eggs is making me hungry for an omelet." Agumon grumbled as his stomach growled lightly.

"Hey Sora, how does a human get pregnant?" Biyomon asked with a tilted head right as the redhead was taking a sip from a water bottle, causing her to choke as the fluid went down the wrong pipe.

*Cough* "T-that- *cough* *cough* that is… erm *cough* w-well…." Sora muttered as she hacked up the water she'd inhaled. 'Oh man, where's an evil digimon interruption when you need one?'

"So Izzy, how much father-gah, farther! How much farther is that crest?" Naruto asked suddenly and loudly, stumbling over his words as he desperately tried to change the subject as he stared up at the sky, refusing to look at anyone.

"We're almost there," The short redhead stated bluntly, speaking louder this time so everyone could hear him. "By my estimate, Sora's or TK's tags should start reacting to the crest's presence any time now."

Grabbing the tag hanging from her neck upon hearing that, Sora looked at the shiny hunk of metal for several moments before letting it drop back down. "I'm getting nothing."

"Yeah, same he-" TK started to say while cupping his own tag in his hand, before blinking in surprise when it suddenly started shining brightly. "Oh cool! It's glowing!"

"Great! Let's go!" Naruto said while grabbing TK and pulling him to the front of the group before speed-walking away, with Mimi, Palmon, Matt, and Gabumon doing the same a moment later to keep up with the blonde.

*Thwack* *Thwack* *Thwack* *Thwack* "Ow!" "Yeowch!" "Gah!" "Owie!" At the same time though, Sora, Tai, Gomamon, and Izzy cried out in pained surprise as the whiskered blonde's tail lashed out like a whip and smacked each of them across the face, knocking all four of them onto their rears.

…

"I'll admit, we deserved that." Tai groaned while slowly sitting up with Agumon's help, revealing the angry red welt covering the majority of his left cheek.

"We might have gone a little bit too far with that one." Gomamon muttered as Joe picked him back up off the ground.

"You think?" The glasses wearing boy asked rhetorically with a roll of his eyes.

'Now I'm really regretting going through with this plan.' Sora thought miserably while gingerly rubbing her already swelling cheek with a wince, unknowingly mirroring Izzy thoughts as he made sure his laptop was alright.

"Hey guys, we should get moving or we'll be left behind." Biyomon said as she watched Naruto and the others vanished around a corner, getting the doddling group to kick themselves back into gear.

However, upon rounding that same turn in a hurry, the four kids and their digimon were greeted by the sight of everyone else at a dead end staring at the wall, or more exactly a large glowing stone plate embedded within the wall of the canyon with the symbol for 'Hope' engraved into it.

After a few moments, said plate glowed a pure white color before rapidly shrinking down to the proper size of a crest and floated over into TK's tag, revealing the tunnel the crest had been covering in the process.

"Yay! I got my crest! I got my crest!" TK said excitedly as he looked at his newly acquired crest in awe. "Isn't this awesome Patamon?"

"Heck yeah that's awesome TK!" Mirroring his partner excitement, Patamon was practically dancing on the young boy's head.

While the pair was having their little celebration moment, Naruto walked past them and peered curiously into the newly opened tunnel, his hand lighting up with white flames as he held it out in front of him. It was a short tunnel, only going a couple yards in before cutting off at an abrupt dead-end, yet that wasn't what really caught his attention.

"Izzy, come here, I'm pretty sure you'll want to see this." He called out a second later, getting said redhead to jump slightly before hurrying over to the whiskered blonde's side, not wanting to get on his bad side anymore that he already was.

Once he saw the inside of the tunnel for himself though, all those worries vanished from Izzy's mind as his gaze zeroed in on the hundreds of familiar symbols written on the walls. Stepping inside, the young computer whizz wasted no time examining the many hieroglyphic-like symbols while pulling his laptop back out.

"Amazing, I wonder what this all means, is it some kind of information bank? Maybe a control hub? Perhaps even…" Everything after that was inaudible as the redhead rambled under his breath while rapidly typing away at his computer, eventually sinking into a sitting position as he became absorbed into his work.

As that was happening, Naruto turned his attention back to the rest of the group, briefly glancing up at the sky to see the sun sinking into the horizon as he pulled out a small palm sized scroll from his pocket. "Alright guys, Izzy's probably gonna be at that for a while and it's getting late anyway so I say we set up camp for the night. Any objections?"

"None here." "Nope." "Finally, a break." "Can I have something to eat?" Were just some of the many responses the blonde got as the kids and digimon agreed with his proposal.

"Great," Unrolling the scroll in his grasp, Naruto channeled a bit of chakra through it, causing a large pile of stuff ranging from random chunks of wood to bundles of cloth and even sleeping bags. "You all know your jobs already, so let's just get this over with quickly so we can all relax."

Once again, he was greeted with a chorus of agreements as all of the kids and digimon aside from Izzy got to work. A few days ago on the Sandoraida, Joe had suggested to Naruto how the group could divvy up the work for getting camp ready for when they were no longer able to travel on the ship.

It was simple enough to remember:

Tai, Matt, Izzy, TK, and Sora would set up makeshift tents from insulated sheets and poles

Agumon, Biyomon, and he would check the general area for any unwanted surprises

Gabumon, Joe, Mimi, and Gomamon would build the fire pit and start cooking the food

And finally Palmon, Tentomon, and Patamon would stand guard in case any digimon attacked.

Thanks to this, everything was all done in no time and almost everyone was soon found sitting around the newly built fire as they waited for the pot of soup cooking over it to finish. The exceptions were Izzy, because he was still absorbed in his work in the tunnel, and Naruto, who was currently sitting on the top of the canyon wall while watching the sun's descent.

'Another day goes by,' The foxy blonde thought as the last rays of light slowly faded away, the sky gradually turning a deep blackish purple and the first stars began to twinkle into view. 'How long has it been now, four months? Five? I can't even remember anymore.'

With the sun no longer in view, Naruto lazily fell onto his back with a quiet *thump* as he opted to stare at the darkening night sky.

'I wonder how everyone back home will react when I tell them about all this,' He thought while tracing out several unique constellations with his eyes as they appeared, a small grin popping up on the side of his lips. 'I can see it now, Baa-chan yelling at me for being stupid while she worked on how to fix this mess, Shizune-nee making sure she stayed out of the Sake, and Ero-sennin probably make a pervy comment that would end with him getting punched.'

Imaging the scene in his head, Naruto couldn't help but chuckle softly. 'Sakura-chan would probably say she should have expected something crazy like this would happen to me and Kakashi-sensei tell me something like 'Only you Naruto, only you could end up in this kind of situation'.'

As these thoughts and more continued to pass through his mind, the foxified ninja continued to chuckle under his breath. However, if one listened closely they would hear the sadness slowly bleeding into tone of the laughter, eventually giving it a dull almost lifeless feel as it escaped his lips.

'If I can ever make it back that is.' Even if he didn't consider that his current appearance would just be asking for a riot to happen should he been seen in Konoha, there was the fact that he was in a completely different world. Naruto may not be the smartest, but he knew that jumping from one world to another wasn't exactly an easy thing.

Hell, it took blowing himself up with several different volatile chakras mixing together with enough force to demolish a small mountain just to end up here.

'No! Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! Don't think like that!' The blonde tells himself as he shakes his head to clear his mind while sitting back up and taking a few deep breaths. 'It'll be fine, everything will be fine. Baa-chan can fix me up when I get back. Just have to keep moving forward until then.'

"Hey Naruto! Naruto!" Before Naruto could continue his little mental pep-talk, he was snapped back to reality by someone yelling his name. Snapping his gaze towards the source, the foxy teen was briefly surprised to see that it was Izzy who was calling for him as he and everyone else now stood just inside the tunnel.

Curious what the computer whizz needed, Naruto scooched forward a bit until he slid back down into the canyon. Right as he reached the bottom though, his tail suddenly coiled up behind him and launched him forward like a spring.

Zipping across the canyon at high speed, the whiskered blonde quickly planted his feet once he was close, making him come to a skidding halt right in front of the tunnel's entrance. "What's up Izzy? Something wrong?"

"Yeah, first, stop being such a showoff, we get it, you're learning how to do cool stuff with your tail," Izzy said dully, to which Naruto retorted maturely by sticking his tongue out at him, before gaining a serious expression. "Secondly, and more importantly, not only have I confirmed my theory that we are all within a literal digital world but I also found where both the last crest is and where that SOS we received came from. The good news after analyzing the virtual code that has been inscribed within this cavern, I was able to determine that both are at the same destination and was able to create a shortcut for us to said location."

As he spoke, Izzy gestured to the other side of the tunnel, which actually led somewhere now instead of just cutting off to a dead end.

"And the bad news?" Naruto asked dryly, already knowing he wouldn't like the answer as he walked through the new opening.

Upon reaching the end, he found himself standing inside the gaping mouth of a stone sphinx half buried in sand while desert stretched out in every direction, only broken by a large upside-down pyramid.

"They're both inside of that." Mimi stated, pointing at the flipped triangle building as she took her normal spot beside the blonde.

"Which according to the map on Izzy's computer, is Etemon's main base of operations." Matt added as he leaned against the wall.

Naruto sighed in annoyance while pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to stave off the coming headache. "Why does the universe love to fuck with me?"

"Yeah, I thought that was Mimi's job." Gomamon said with a coy grin.

*THWACK!*

…

"…Worth it."

-End Chapter-

AN: Hope nobodies upset with the raunchy humor in this chapter but I honestly felt it was a bit overdue. I mean Mimi spends almost all her time with Naruto, even sharing the same bed as him when she sleeps, so it was only a matter of time before somebody cracked open that can of worms. While it wasn't what Sora and Izzy were aiming for, we all know that once the teasing train leaves the station, ain't nobody gonna stop it. Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review.