A/N: Hello everyone, I guess you would have already noticed that the first chapter was updated not so long ago and now the second one is being updated by my beta-editor GBAboy313 as well. To those who are here looking for a new chapter, I apologize for the let down, but don't worry the chapter will be coming within a week or so. For the time being, me and GBA have decided to update chapters 1-12. Now, let's get on to the chapter.
CHAPTER 2: Round 2 begins
Matatabi knew something was wrong and yet right…so confusing.
Like something horrible happened and the memories of things that could not be true began invading her mind.
A surrounded her within Yugito's mindscape and soon when the Monster Cat became visible again, she was slightly bigger. The two selves had merged.
Matatabi remembered everything, the horrors of the Gedo Mazo's stomach and being part of Jyuubi and Kaguya.
Yugito's death by the hands of Hidan and Kakuzu, indirectly through capturing her, stuck with the Nibi. Preventing that from happening was her highest priority.
The easiest way would be to just go ahead and tell Yugito and work towards convincing her of the horrible future that hopefully could be averted…
…but Matatabi had other ideas.
"So good to be back in a familiar place, especially after my…sudden eviction and imprisonment. We have plenty of time to change things…"
"MEOOOOOOOWWWWOOWWWWWOOOOWWAAAAUUUUU" The Nibi meowed, then yawned, curled up and went to sleep. (really helping with the Biju/animal appearance behavior stereotype there)
Son Goku didn't really have much trouble assimilating his past self.
His boast of being a sage didn't lack merit.
When the Yonbi of the past felt something happening and sensed the Six Path Chakra at play, he just sat there and waited to see what happened.
Deep down…he had a pretty good idea of what was going on and knew that the other Biju were experiencing similar things at this moment.
"Wonder how bad things got if we had to resort this?" The Gorilla wondered as his consciousness faded into the future Son Goku's own.
When the light shown and then died down, the Gorilla emerged slightly larger and the with mind and memories of the Goku from over 10 years later.
"OI! ROSHI! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! WE NEED TO TALK!"
"What do you want now Yonbi?"
"I TRAVELED BACK IN TIME FROM A DECADE FROM NOW TO TRY TO SAVE YOUR ASS AND THAT'S HOW YOU THANK ME?! I SHOULD HAVE LET YOU ROT AND THE WORLD SLEEP!" Goku yelled furiously.
And then realized that he let a few too many details slip out too quickly.
"W-what?" Roshi gasped out after realizing what his tenant had said.
Goku facepalmed and sighed: "Like I said, we need to talk."
Out of all the Biju, Kokuo could sense something was happening. She could sense Six Path Chakra at play.
Six Path Chakra last showed up over a decade ago and vanished almost entirely soon after, relatively speaking. The Gobi still held fear that the brief shimmer from those years ago meant something had changed, or even something had been freed from imprisonment.
Something like the Gedo Mazo.
So, when the light shown down and the Dolphin Horse emerged slightly larger and with the memories of the future, it took a moment for her to get her bearings.
"Han, we need to talk…" Kokuo politely tried to get her Jinchuriki's attention.
Nothing
"Han…" Kokuo tried again.
Still nothing.
"Are you ignoring me?" Kokuo accused in a moment of stress from having escaped the eternally sleeping world (which she hoped to have ceased to exist entirely. Humanity deserved better than to be trapped in sleep for eternity, dreaming of gaining everything they wanted but many would likely come to realize how hollow it was without the struggle)
"I'm trying to enjoy my tea…it's not very often when I can enjoy a nice cup of tea without any humans trying to piss me off or Iwa doing a good job of making me consider going Missing-Nin. Whatever you have to say can wait till after I'm done…"
"Your obsession with hot leaf juice astounds me…"
"…How could you say something so horrible about tea?" Han asked sounding sincerely offended and demanding an answer.
Kokuo face palmed with her hoof: "This is going to be a long day…Ugh."
Chomei was trying not to wake up Fu with the assimilating occurring.
Once the now slightly larger Chomei had regained his bearing, he tried to get the Nanabi Jinchuriki's attention…
Only to realize that she was peacefully dreaming away in her sleep.
Chomei let her sleep.
Gyuki knew he was going to be walking into more of Bee's rapping when he agreed to this idea.
Cheesy as they were, Bee could definitely put together at least something catchy. Especially when he was dissing someone.
So the first thing he happened to hear upon regaining awareness in the past was Bee writing his lyrics.
"Ya know my swords, my awards, hittin' chords, Eight Sword Style from the hills to the fjords. Yeah, like the sound of that." Bee smirked as he began scribbling into his notebook in the section labeled 'keepers'
"Bee."
"Not now, Eight-o. The Killer is on a roll, yo."
That was going to be defining a lot of conversations Gyuki tried to start.
Now not every Biju arrived to find things calm.
Shukaku arrived and laughed, "HEHEHE! Can't say I like being in this awful seal again but it beats being in that fucked up situation and it already tells me where I arrived. NOW- oh no." Shukaku declared bombastically before backpedaling when he heard a voice speaking.
"-love only yourself, because that's the only one who will love you." *BOOM* Shukaku had arrived at the time of Yashumaru's attack on Gaara.
Gaara's sobbing gradually began to turn to enraged and pained howls as Shukaku, uncharacteristically, nervously tried to reach out: "Hey kid, I know it hurts but, uh, maybe he was lying?"
"GGGGRRRRAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Gaara yelled as Shukaku felt his power begin being pulled en masse through the already fragile opening of the seal.
"NO, NO! I'M TRYING TO HELP DAMMIT! THIS RUINED YOUR LIFE LAST TIME AND YOUR BOUT TO FUCK UP BEFORE I CAN HELP! SHIT, COME ON CHAKRA, STAY IN YOUR HOUSE! DON'T LEAVE DADDY!" Shukaku screamed in a fit of hysterical mania.
He managed to resist Gaara's pull and a minute later, Gaara calmed down.
"Phew, had me worried there kid. I could use a drink after that…wonder how I can get one in he-" and then Shukaku noticed Rasa in Gaara's line of sight, smirking smugly. "-yanno what, never mind about that drink. Oh fuck me."
Isobu arrived and to no surprise, he was in Yagura as he was trapped in the Genjutsu that Tobi controlled him with for years.
"Fan-friggin-tastic. Wonder how this will end? Akatsuki taking Yagura for me, Mei defeating Yagura again and imprisoning him again before a botched retrieval attempt kills Yagura and sets me free to get grabbed by Deidara and Tobi after that boy who could control my chakra gets spirited away by his caretakers, or perhaps I might actually save my friend?" Isobu asked cynically. To no one.
The Sanbi sighed and stretched: "Dammit, Kurama and that boy of his got to me…Well, I spent over a decade in this illusion before, maybe I can use this time to further my understanding and possibly break it. Or at least erode part of it."
Isobu began stretching his metaphorical feelers out into Yagura's network and began analyzing the genjutsu: "I wonder if Tobi came up with this himself or if he got the idea from elsewhere. It looks like it is only truly controlling Yagura at times, the rest it seems to be clouding his moral compass and exacerbating certain emotions… this might take years to break."
Saiken arrived in his seal and noticed something unspeakable…
…it was dirty. Kurama often compared the Rokubi to cockroaches with his obsession with keeping his living area clean. That nothing could be as obsessed with room cleaning as Saiken (in another universe, where people used 'bending' rather than chakra to manipulate the elements, a young girl named Kyoshi cleaning for her master and friend, the young 'Avatar' Yun, sneezed before she could cover her mouth and sneezed on Yun's Pai Sho set. Completely unaware of the blast of wind that emerged from her mouth and blasted a piece away alongside the small tongue of flames that didn't sear any of the pieces. The girl grumbled before going back to work and cleaning the game set and setting it back to a neutral configuration)
How his past self could allow this filthy perversion of their living space, Saiken was unsure but the Sea Slug began moving to rectify this.
At first, he tried to simply wet it and scrub it. That however did not work.
So, the Biju tried something else: he produced a white bubble foam and sprayed it on the dirt spots, let it sit for a while and then scrubbed which finally broke down the dirt and rinsed off.
"Now that that's done, Utakata…can you hear me? We need to t-" Saiken started before stopping and realizing something was happening…the seal was unraveling!
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! UTAKATA'S MASTER IS TRYING TO EXTRACT ME HAPPENED YEARS LATER! DARN IT!"
The Biju arrived throughout the same day. Some to favorable circumstances, others to decidedly unfavorable ones, and one to the consequence of messing with time in the first place, the Butterfly Effect, taking hold in front of them.
But one shall arrive to fulfill a promise, in time.
Konohagakure no Sato (The Village Hidden in the Leaves), December 6th 1027.
A pale eyed girl was being forced to kneel and apologize by 3 boys who seemed to be a year or two older than her. The girl began to sob and apologized again, but the boys were not satisfied.
"Apologize again!", yelled one of the three bullies.
"I-I-a-a-m s-s-sorr-ry-y" the pale eyed girl pleaded sobbing.
"Hey! What are you doing?", yelled a short blonde-haired boy, wrapped in a red scarf.
"Leave her alone!", he yelled to the three bullies.
"Huh, and who the hell are you?"
"I am Uzumaki Naruto, I will be Hokage one day Dattebayo!", the blonde yelled.
The three looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.
"You! The Hokage, What a joke!"
"SHUT UP or I will beat you up with my awesome jutsu!", yelled the blonde with his hands in a cross sign.
Unbeknownst to any of the people present at that time, the blonde had a very powerful creature sealed in his gut, the yang-half of the legendary Nine-tailed Fox. At that moment, suddenly the fox inside the seal was engulfed in a bright white light and grew to double his size, as the light faded, the mighty Kurama smirked in victory.
'10 years back in time, right at the point when the Gaki met his vixen, this will be fun.'
"Oi! Naruto! Naruto!", the fox tried to get the attention of his jinchuuriki, only to get nothing in response.
"FUCK! Looks like I can't talk to the kit, the seal is blocking me from establishing a connection outside the mindscape, even with my other half restored. Tch! Means I'm going to have to play the long game here. That doesn't mean those three are going to get away again. No one gets away insulting the Nine-tailed fox ever, let alone twice!"
By that time Naruto's attempt at the Clone jutsu had failed and after he had beaten up one of the bullies catching him off guard, the other two were in the process beating the shit out of him. Suddenly the blonde felt a surge of strength in his muscles, and to his surprise he was able to push one of them off himself. The blonde then punched the other one still holding on to him right on his face, causing him to lose a tooth. He then proceeded to beat the shit out of him.
"TOLD YA I WOULD BEAT YOU UP! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE UZUMAKI NARUTO! DATTEBAYO!", Yelled the blonde in victory as other two bullies seeing that the blonde was obviously stronger than them and ran away.
"A-ar-re y-you o-ok-kay?", asked the pale eyed girl.
"Yeah! That was nothing at all! Are you okay?", asked Naruto in a kind voice.
"H-ha-ai. B-but your s-sca-arf, i-it's ruined."
"It's okay, by the way what's your name?"
"H-h-yu-uga H-H-Hinata"
"Hinata huh! That's a nice name, so where do you live, it's getting dark so I'll walk you home." The blonde offered his hand with a grin.
Hinata nodded and Naruto took her hand. The two walked away and minutes later, found themselves outside the Hyuuga compound.
Hinata suddenly remembered why she had run away in the first place, she had lost in a spar with her cousin and her father had called her a failure. She started to sob again.
"Hey! Why are you crying?", asked Naruto concerned.
"I-I.."
"Hey! You live in such a huge place and you are crying? I don't have anyone but I don't cry. So, cheer up a bit.", said Naruto, trying to comfort the girl.
Hinata found his words reassuring and collected herself, wiping her tears away.
"H-h-Hai"
"That's good, so now that you're home go get some rest and take care. See ya around Hinata!", saying that the blonde ran away waving his hand.
"Hmm, this went a little better than last time.", said the fox to itself.
*Six years later*
To Kurama's frustration he couldn't make any improvements in Naruto's life or strengthen him. The only thing he did was better his chakra control. In the previous timeline, in order to make Naruto more dependent on him, Kurama knowingly messed up the Blonde's chakra control by sending large bursts of chakra into his chakra network which made the blonde's chakra network unbalanced. However, this time, Kurama let out a steady flow of chakra into the blonde's chakra network, which the fox believed would make the chakra network more balanced. However, he couldn't verify the theory until the blonde attempted the tree walking exercise. The fox was yet to speak to his host. He had figured out that he wouldn't be meeting the boy till Jiraiya threw him off the cliff. Due to the fox strengthening his chakra, Naruto was made physically stronger. Still, the academy instructors, especially Mizuki had knowingly given him wrong taijutsu instructions, due to which the blonde's performance in hand to hand remained rather poor. To his further annoyance, the blonde had remained a loudmouthed fool just like the previous timeline. He was poor in academics, taijutsu, he still couldn't perform the clone jutsu. He had again made himself the self-proclaimed rival of the Last Uchiha. He was again having a one-sided crush on Sakura and had gotten a lot of punches to his head after asking the pinkette out. Of all the things, the blonde's obsession with Sakura had annoyed the Kyuubi the most. Even after being stuck inside Naruto's gut for 17 years in the original timeline and 6 in the new one, Kurama couldn't still figure out why the blonde had a crush on perhaps the loudest fangirl of Sasuke Uchiha. Kurama even believed that the growth of Naruto's brain had been slowed down from Naruto being repeatedly punched in head by Sakura. The blonde's obliviousness to Hinata's affection for him did not help with the fox's frustrations either. The fox was eager to bring the two together. In short, the whole time-travel thing was yet to make any positive contributions towards making this timeline better than the original one, in what Kurama could influence and was hoping to accomplish.
Finally, Naruto had graduated the way he did in the previous timeline by beating the shit out of Mizuki using the 'Shadow Clone Jutsu'. Due to being fed a steady supply of the fox's chakra, Naruto's clones were slightly more durable than last time, however nobody had noticed this slight difference. Just like the previous timeline, Naruto was placed in Team 7 with the same teammates. Kurama repeatedly facepalmed upon knowing that he and his host would have to be in the constant company of the loudmouthed fangirl and the arrogant emo Uchiha.
The wave mission went the same way it did last time. Kurama actually wanted to save Haku, Naruto's memories painted a picture of a boy who Kurama found could be an exemplary example of what the Sage envisioned for Humanity when he created Ninshu. However, due not being in touch with Naruto, he couldn't affect Naruto's actions. After the wave mission, the Chunin exams went exactly the same way they did last time, all the way till the preliminaries. Naruto was slammed by the five-point seal, effectively stopping Kurama from supplying chakra into Naruto's system. Naruto eventually defeated Kiba, who was superior to him in speed and taijutsu, by thinking outside the box. He again vowed vengeance upon Neji on Hinata's blood. And finally, the blonde had ended up with Jiraiya at the valley where he was to meet Kurama eventually. The fox was rather impatient to meet Naruto this time around.
"Gaki you need to chakra from your other chakra source to perform summoning correctly.", commented Jiraiya.
"How do I draw chakra from the damned fox Ero-Sennin?"
"When have you been able to access the fox's chakra previously?"
The blonde placed his finger on his chin and thought for a moment and replied,
"When I was fighting Haku, I thought he'd killed Sasuke and then I went on a rampage perhaps then I subconsciously drew upon the fox's chakra."
'Maybe when he's angry or desperate he can use the fox's chakra. And if the Gaki were face to face with death, the fox would share it's chakra with him at least for his own survival.'
After that, just like last time, Jiraiya pushed Naruto off the cliff.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!", screamed the blonde plummeting towards the bottom of the crater AAAAANNNNDDDD finally to Kurama's tremendous relief, Naruto ended up in his mindscape.
"Huh, where am I, is this what heaven looks like?", the blonde thought out loud.
"You're not dead yet Gaki!", said Kurama as loud as possible to draw the blonde towards himself to finally have a long overdue conversation with him.
Naruto found himself in what resembled a rather dark gutter with he found himself walking on water. He tried to follow the fox's voice and ended up before Kurama's cage.
"Show yourself whoever's in here!"
Then he saw a red eye open up inside the dark cage. Naruto gulped. Then slowly he saw the full form of a great fox, hundreds of stories tall, with nine massive tails swinging in random directions.
"Uzumaki Naruto, I have been waiting for a long time to have a chat with you."
"Huh!, One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, NINE!,", Naruto counted Kurama's tails, completely forgetting that he was currently plummeting towards his death.
"YOU ARE THE BASTARD FOX THAT MADE MY LIFE HELL!"
"SHUT UP! I DID NOT ASK TO BE SEALED INSIDE YOU! But… I am willing to work with you show better show some respect.", exclaimed Kurama, remembering how loud and annoying Naruto can be at times.
"Gaki, I know that you're currently plummeting towards your death and I will give you my chakra so that you can use that Summoning jutsu of yours."
"Huh!" Naruto was surprised, the fox seemed rather cooperative. Definitely hotheaded but cooperative, much like himself.
"Umm…Thanks, uuhh, Kyuubi."
"I have a name it's Kurama and I don't like being called Kyuubi. How would you like it if I called you whiskers or blondey all the time"
"Okay! Okay! Thanks, Kurama."
"Hmm, but promise me that you'll come back here tonight, you and I need to have a chat that is long overdue."
"You got it Kurama. See ya tonight."
The blonde went away from his mindscape and successfully summoned Gamabunta using the boost of chakra Kurama provided.
'Finally, we meet again, I hate to admit it but it's good to see you alive and kicking. I really missed you Kit', thought Kurama and prepared himself to finally take his first serious step towards changing the future for the better.
A/N: I believe I ended up combining two different scenes from Naruto: The Last in this chapter but I thought it would be convenient. I hope you all have enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for all the reviews and support. Special thanks to GBAboy313 and for looking out for me with his awesome editing skills.