Disclaimer: Naruto (Pilot chapter) - Mieruko-chan, I own neither
Story Start!

Kurama.

The Nine Tailed Fox spirit that once almost destroyed the world 19 years previously, the fox who was sealed away by 9 of the greatest spiritual masters to ever grace the earth. Masters gathered from all over the planet, in which 8 of those masters died.

His father.

'Stupid spirits... ugly as fuck.' Uzumaki Naruto's eye twitched as he brushed off a spirit that was bothering him. He was the son, the biological only child, of the fox demon that nearly wiped the human species off the map.

Not that any regular humans even knew about it.

Most humans couldn't even see spirits, so they never even knew that 19 years previously their world almost ended. It was for the best though that as few people knew about the supernatural as possible, and the boogeymen that went bump in the night. The human world progressed, humans bred more and more, and human society degraded to a point that spirits became more... twisted than ever before.

Now, human spirits on average turned into disfigured, ugly, monsterous things.

Creepy as fuck.

"Still... they do make the funniest of things." Naruto looked at his human phone with a small smile. As a half-physical and half-spiritual being himself, unlike his father regular humans could see and touch him. He could also touch them, just as much as he could touch and see spiritual beings like himself. He was a bridge between the two worlds, having the power to interact with both sides of the coin.

The dead and the living.
The living and the dead.

The sweet and the soured.

"I hate the rain." Naruto muttered to himself as he walked under a bus stop, his hands moving to his pockets. A girl ran passed him, a high school girl, and a very cute one at that. She didn't pay him any attention at a first glance, he was just another person to her after all. One wouldn't look at everyone who they passed by when they were worried about something.

"I hope my phone's okay."

'A spirit... and an ugly one at that.' Naruto glanced over at the girl's shoulder, and he saw a huge, hulking beast of a spirit slowly coming closer to the girl.

Not that it mattered.

The girl wouldn't be able to see the spirit, and if she couldn't see it, then it would get bored and leave her alone soon enough. She was just a regular girl, one with no powerful spirit energy at all. Her spirit power was no greater than an average human, period. The only thing that should ever draw a spirit to her was her youth, the sickly sweet smell of a young woman.

The strong chemicals of Lactone C10 and C11.

It causes a girl between 10 and 20 to smell strongly of a peach and coconut sweetness to those with a good nose, and it practically disappeared by the age of 30. Women made excellent sacrifices, because the gods loved them young and sweet. He himself couldn't help but want to just take a bite of a young woman at her peak in deliciousness. He was a Kitsune after all, a Kyuubi at that. His instinct did tell him to just give her a nibble, because she was at her most ripe at the moment.

This normal girl, with no spiritual power, was not going to even notice the spirit next to her.

"What's going on?" She asked.

Naruto raised an eyebrow when he looked at her phone, and saw the spirit was manipulating her phone to send her pictures of herself... and continue to do so in order to distort those pictures more and more. This girl with no spirit power, was able to see the spirit manipulating her phone to show her something only the spiritual should be able to see.

'... I don't smell any spirit power from her at all... she just smells like a cute young woman... weird...' Naruto couldn't help but turn his head to stare at the girl. She blinked and raised her arm up to rub her eyes.

"Sheesh, I must be seeing things."

Well shit.

'Oh... how is this girl with no power able to see a spirit?' Naruto wondered as he rubbed his chin.

The girl froze in terror, her face blankened by fear.

"Can you see me?"

The spirit was crouched over her, asking her a question. Naruto looked at the girl, and he could tell from her body that she was frozen. Her eyes locked dead solid on the spirit in front of her for a brief moment, and he could practically smell the hamster in her brain running on the little wheel, trying to think of a strategy to get out of this mess. She turned her head though, and managed to play off her fear and keep a perfectly blank face.

"Man, the bus is taking forever. Hope is comes soon."

'Smart girl, she figured out that is doesn't know if she can see it... but... should I get involved?' Naruto wondered for a moment. The spirit moved around her and leaned in even closer, it's voice asking once more if she could see it.

"Hey, leave the girl alone."

"YOU CAN SEE!"

"EEEP!" The girl yelped when the spirit monster jumped into her direction. She droppped to her butt, her phone flying out of her hand. It was at that moment the spirit changed it's target from Naruto, who had just spoken to the monster, to the girl, who just reacted to it and showed that she could see it.

It morphed, uglier than before.

*Snap*

Naruto reached out over the girl's head and snapped his fingers inside of the mouth of the spirit when it tried to consume her. When he snapped, the creature started to fade away from existence, turning into a golden mist. The girl couldn't help but stare all around her in a dead shock when the monster was turned into mist.

"You're safe now." Naruto grabbed the girl by the bicep, and pulled her back to her feet. When he let go of her feet, she collapsed to the side. She latched onto him when her knees gave out. He did catch her. He licked the inside of his mouth as he thought about how to handle this delicate situation.

"Wh-what was... I saw?"

'How do I handle this... the girl is is crying.' Naruto had never dealt with a crying woman before. He could hear her heartbeat in her chest, and he could smell her salty tears at her eyes. She was latched onto him, because the second she let go she would collapse back to the wet ground. She was lucky that she didn't wet herself in the state that she was in. '... for a regular human, that would have been horrifying.' Naruto could also see the girl hadn't even realized he was really there.

She recognized him as standing there, but she hadn't really realized she was holding onto him, or that he had saved her.

"Who..." The girl let go of him.

Her strength returned to her slowly, and she realized she was holding onto a stranger.

"Huge."

He was 180cm tall, and she seemed to be between 155 and 160 cm tall, not a very big person, but the average Japanese woman. The average height for a man was 170cm, so he must seem huge in comparison to the men she was used to seeing around in her life.

"I... I'm sorry, thank you for saving me! Oh no, my phone!" The girl bowed to him in thanks.

She remembered her manners, and then was distracted by her phone's broken screen from when she launched it out of her hand and onto the ground, where the rain also soaked it. She picked up her phone and tried to look at her message, and sighed in relief that her phone still worked. Naruto grabbed her wrist and prevented her from even turning around to walk off.

"Is this your first time seeing a spirit like that?" Naruto asked her.

"I'm sorry, did I offend you?!"

Naruto let go of her wrist, and for a second she appeared like she was going to run away from him. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, letting out a really long sigh.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want you running away. I didn't mean to scare you there. I'm not going to hurt you... so... is this your first time seeing a spirit like that?" Naruto raised his hands in surrender and stepped back from her to give her comfort. He had acted a little too harsh with her, and it had put her on alert.

She nodded her head, afraid.

Naruto sighed and leaned his head back, thinking.

'She has zero potential as a spiritual expert, all she can do is see them... she won't be able to protect herself in the future, other than trying to pretend she doesn't see them.' Naruto glanced down at the girl. There wasn't much of a conversation going on between them. They didn't know each other, they were practically strangers.

"You killed it... right... it won't come back?"

"I didn't kill it... I banished it... purified it... sent it to the afterlife... it's gone, but it died a long time ago. Don't worry, it won't come back." Naruto promised her with a sigh. He didn't really know what happened to the spirits when he did what he did. It was just a trick that he picked up from the spiritual chief of the village he was raised in. It was a trick, but since he was powerful, a trick from him packed a punch to it. He had never seen a monster he pulled that trick on a second time, so he was sure it was gone at least.

The girl was silent.

"I'm... I'm Yotsuya Miko." Miko introduced herself.

Naruto thought about it.

"Uzumaki Naruto... here... I'll teach you a spell to protect you. If you ever can't deal with a spirit, all you need to do is this..." Naruto was a lot more gentle as he took her wrist this time. He took her wrist and gently opened her hand. He touched the base of her thumb, and drew a circle that spanned over the entire course of her palm. He went slowly so that she could see and feel what he was doing, and then he created a spiral that went from the starting point, right to the center of her palm.

Miko watched while holding her breath.

"... And then... eat the spiral. If you do that when you're scared, a guardian will show up to protect you." Naruto brought her hand to his mouth and mimed eating the spiral on her hand. He let go of her hand after that, and pulled out his phone and looked at the time. He looked down at the girl, who almost instantly traced the spiral on her palm to make sure that she got it right.

He nodded his head and turned to walk away.

"Wait, please... let me thank you!"

"No need Miko, I'm always happy to help a person who needs me. Oh, and since your clothes are soaked, you can have this." Naruto unzipped and tossed his jacket to her.

It landed right on her head.

"No, it's okay, you've..." Miko took the jacket off of her head, only to stop talking when she realized that Naruto wasn't standing there. She turned around and he wasn't behind her. She walked out into the rain and looked around the corner of a nearby alleyway, but he wasn't there either. "... done... more than enough?" Miko realized he was gone.

She hugged the jacket in her arms closer to her chest.

His jacket was warm, she had been talking to a person... his jacket was warm and smelled like sunshine.

She wondered if she would ever see him again.

The stranger that helped her.

Chapter End!
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