Chapter 162: Facing the Beast
"Their love for each other is terrifyingly deep. Did you know that they signed a life and death contract before they even got married?"
Naruto shook his head.
"Did you know that if they go on a mission together, this contract will be upgraded to a fugitive agreement?"
Naruto sniffed.
"This is amazing."
"Yeah." Jiraiya exclaimed, "It's really amazing."
Together they eventually perfected the Flying Thunder God Technique, turning the empty space into a sea of formulas and patterns, revising and perfecting it over and over again.
Naruto is smart, intuitive, and has a sharp tongue - not the kind of frivolous humor like Kushina, nor the kind of good-natured teasing like Minato, but a kind of sharp tongue that is smart, mean, yet innocent and kind.
This is…interesting.
Naruto is everything Jiraiya has always desired:
Happy, kind, confident, and possessing enough intelligence to make the brightest genius of the Sand Village jealous.
Jiraiya never thought of blaming Naruto, as he saw through all of his hidden emotions and thoughts, but the thought almost never crossed his mind.
They talked and laughed together...
Jiraiya never would have thought that a thirteen year old would become one of his best friends in years.
There were still some formula kinks to work out, but they had been working on it for hours.
Jiraiya stared in annoyance at the Konoha sunset which was beginning to turn bright red, staining the horizon red.
He was fairly certain that Kakashi would come after him and kill him if he kept his student for too long, so he regretfully interrupted Naruto's current train of thought and patted him gently on the back.
"Sorry, kid, I really don't want to interrupt you right now, but I still have to go..."
---
Naruto removed his shirt and strange wrappings while Jiraiya prepared to check the seals and corresponding chakra.
He was thinking now that maybe Naruto had changed something about the seal with his experiments, maybe even on purpose.
He charged the seal to his fingertips, preparing for the worst.
---
It turned out that he was not prepared at all.
The interior of Naruto's seal didn't look like the prison it was supposed to be.
No darkness, no compression, no damn fences.
It’s open and bright and beautiful; the air smells of water and sun and greenery, the energy tastes like the air after a storm, like sea salt, and the space feels like it stretches on forever.
The warm, shallow ocean around him was filled with lotuses, both intense black and vivid indigo, and ranging in size from small enough to float at his feet to large enough to be as big as Kakashi's living room.
Light-colored basalt columns rise from the crystal-clear water like fingertips, and fractured geometric walls of volcanic stone rise and converge behind island-sized mounds.
The blue-green grass swayed in the impossible breeze, dotted with wildflowers and fragments of what looked like old ruins, familiar ruins, buried diagonally in the soft earth.
The water beats against the laws of physics at the top of the highest basalt structure, rushing over the stone in a rich spray and flowing into a large pond at the center of the mound, on which grows a willow tree much larger than it could naturally grow.
Beneath the soft, swaying branches of a massive tree, partially obscured by its green canopy, lay the nine-tailed demon fox.
The giant fox lay lazily in the shade of the tree, one huge beast eye lazily opened, observing Jiraiya.
Its massive head rests on its crossed front paws, and its nine tails form a crescent around the beast's body. What on earth is going on?
Jiraiya remembered the Kyuubi clearly.
He'd seen the damn thing up close, felt the bone-deep fear and suffocating hatred of its presence, and even with Kushina restrained, the power and chakra it radiated suffocated him.
It should be locked away behind the most powerful imprisonment seal known to the ninja world - not lying lazily in the sunset glow beneath a dreamy sky, looking content with where it is.
Seeing the murderer of Kushina and Minato Namikaze so comfortable and at home in their son made the anger and fear burn in Jiraiya's blood, it had never looked so strong in Kushina's seal;
The fur was a darker, richer amber than he remembered, embellished with tiny black streaks that had never been there before.
The darkness surrounding its eyes was thicker and deeper as well, and there was a third thing that made the hair on Jiraiya's arms stand up.
It looks peaceful.
Jiraiya remembered the Kyuubi as a creature of fury and rage, claws tearing, spit flying, never quiet, never calm.
But calm is always more dangerous than anger, and you can always expect anger from Kyuubi.
But before Jiraiya could move, breathe, or speak, there was movement to his left, and Naruto - without a single sign of fear or hesitation - ran towards the center of the mound, splashing glittering water behind his bare feet.
"Nine Lamas! I've brought the old pervert!" he shouted, his bare feet pattering on the black sand at the edge of the mound as he climbed up.
The fox looked up as he approached, its black mouth opening wide and soft in what Jiraiya could only describe as a smile.
Not a sneer, not a roar, but a smile.
"I see, little one. Your choice of companion is really... hard to describe."
The Beast's voice was deep and resonant, with a palpable warmth and playful familiarity.
"Hey, watch your words!" Naruto retorted, reaching out and caressing the fox's nose with ease. "He's already scared enough."
"Hmph," the beast responded in a low voice, his tone softening in a reluctant agreement.
Jiraiya was completely stunned. He stared for what felt like an hour, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
No fences, no barriers, no hatred, no fear.
A little boy and a tailed beast snuggled together, like brothers, like comrades, like friends.
Jiraiya witnessed firsthand this extremely rare display of human emotion in the eyes of this bloody leaf monster, this most feared creature, this greatest scourge of the Elemental Nations.
If all this was a huge, elaborate joke, Jiraiya really couldn't see the funny part.
---
After a moment, Naruto looked up, still leaning against Kyuubi's nose, and waved at him impatiently.
"Come on! He won't hurt you, he promised."
Is it guaranteed?
Jiraiya swallowed hard.
He felt like his legs might be shaking and tried to react rationally, to act like a ninja instead of a scared rabbit.
Jiraiya approached cautiously, following the path the child had taken, keeping his eyes on the beast.
The fox stared back at him calmly, and truth be told, Jiraiya wasn't bitten in half, even when he was close enough to feel the massive impact of the monster's breath.
"Well, kid..." he said slowly, breathlessly. "Can you explain what's going on?"
"Watch your tone." The beast growled in warning and Jiraiya flinched. "He's not obligated to tell you anything."
Naruto scoffed, roughly combing his fingers through the tailed beast's fur.
"It's okay, Kurama. Don't be like this."
The fox responded with a low whine and an obvious gesture of affection before it lowered its head and closed its eyes again.
Naruto turned to Jiraiya, one hand still gently caressing the Kyuubi's muzzle.
"I know you've met before. This is Jiu Lama."
Jiraiya's mind was filled with countless questions.
He sorted through the questions, trying to put them in order, starting with the most innocuous one he could think of.
"I didn't realize the tailed beasts had names."
