Chapter 163: Big Change

Terrible opening.

The Nine-Tailed Fox - Kurama, slowly opened his eyes again, his eyes were gloomy and expressionless.

"Funny how you never asked before," he growled.

This touched a nerve in Jiraiya. He made a mistake for the first time. Although this might be a common mistake that all ninjas would make.

"Uh……"

"Okay, you're both idiots," Naruto interrupted. "But that's not the point now. The point is, this is Kurama."

He stood straighter, his palm firmly pressed against the fox's nose.

"He's my tailed beast, he's my partner, he's my friend," the child said the last word with such intensity it almost took on a whole new meaning, something deeper than just family or relatives.

He stood visibly between them, as if Jiraiya was a threat in some way.

"do you understand?"

After a while, Jiraiya nodded.

Naruto looked pleased with the response, and Kurama ruffled his hair with one of his giant claws.

Jiu Lama was quiet for a while.

"Actually, little one, would you mind leaving us alone for a moment?"

The question caught Naruto off guard and he blinked, tilting his head curiously at the giant beast from beneath its massive claws.

"Of course. Will it take long? Kakashi-sensei said he'd be home before dinner."

"It won't be long. Let's go now." Kurama ordered, and Naruto was swept away several meters by the beast's tail.

The little devil made a face at him in retaliation, but went away gladly.

"Want a change of scenery before you go?" he asked.

Jiu Lama growled deep in his fox chest.

"The Violet Garden," it decided. "At midnight."

"No problem!" the boy shouted happily, and then he disappeared.

Jiraiya wished he had said everything he wanted to say before, because now he was alone in a chakra soul space with a tailed beast that might still want to suck his marrow dry, with no clear way out unless someone broke the seal connection from the outside.

But the fox just snorted again and used his nose to push Jiraiya closer to the pond.

"You might need to back off a bit."

Suddenly there was a distorted rumble, and then a melodious sound, like a huge bell being struck.

Without warning, the world around him begins to shift and melt;

The colors of the sunset faded from the sky, and the sun itself disappeared, and the navy blue night fell, and a bright silver moon hung in the zenith, taking the place that had originally belonged to the sun.

The willow trees were gone, the grass turned into more gleaming black sand, and the ruins became the decorative boulders common in dry landscape gardens.

The waterfall changed, too, becoming a gentle stream that zigzags over moss-covered granite, and the pond narrowed and stretched into a decorative stream.

Plants began to grow out of the sand and spread over the boulders, growing taller and taller, dark vine-like branches entwining themselves around the stones and each other.

Then, suddenly, Jiraiya's vision was filled with nothing but beautiful violet as dozens of giant wisteria trees blossomed simultaneously, every branch covered in dangling purple flowers that shimmered in the light of the full moon overhead.

Jiraiya could barely see anything else now, as the trees blocked his view.

Below his feet the sand arranged itself into flowing spirals and circles, as if worked by a hundred invisible rakes, like the well-tended stone courtyard of a fire temple.

After a few minutes, everything settled down and a gentle breeze began to move through the low-hanging flowers, filling the air with the fragrance of the flowers.

Everything seemed so real and yet so dreamlike; from the scent of the wisteria flowers, to every particle of sand, to the glow of the huge moon and the sweet sound of water running over the rocks.

"How is this possible..." Jiraiya couldn't help but mutter to himself.

"The little guy created these with his memory." Jiu Lama answered unexpectedly.

Jiraiya turned to face the fox, Kurama's head held high, the branches politely parting as it moved.

It raised a nimble paw and gently stroked a cluster of wisteria flowers with the tip of its paw, tenderly gathering the flowers in its paw.

It was a thoughtless gesture, but one that was full of humanity.

"Memory?" he asked curiously, reaching out to pluck a small flower from the nearest branch. The flower felt real, smooth as velvet, and delicate against his fingertips. "What do you mean?"

The fox snorted.

"What I mean is that these boulders come from the memories of the Moss Canyon in the Land of Waves. The patterns of the garden come from the memories of the Hyuga family mansion. The sand comes from the memories of the beach in the Land of Wind."

"The Kingdom of Wind?" Jiraiya blurted out, forgetting for a moment who he was talking to, but the fox just raised an eyebrow in condescending manner.

Where did that bad temper go? According to Kyuubi's own statement, it should hate Jiraiya just because he is a human.

"Yes, the Kingdom of Wind. There are many things you don't know."

Jiraiya agreed with it on that point at least, and now he understood why the fragments of ruins in the previous scene looked so familiar - that was the part of the island that Jiraiya got close enough to see clearly, and then the sky began to roar angrily and the sea began to churn violently.

"What about wisteria?" he couldn't help but ask. These plants are more commonly found in waterfall or hot spring countries, and don't grow well in the shade of the Fire Country. "And this color? There's no way he's seen them anywhere nearby."

The fox paused for a moment.

"…They are from his Uchiha memories."

"Uchiha Sasuke? His teammate?"

Jiu Lama nodded.

"Traveling to some estate with his father when he was a child."

"They can share memories?" Jiraiya asked in surprise. "This... This is too advanced, even for an Uchiha genius."

Kurama crossed his claws again.

"Yes. But it's not because he's some genius that can share memories."

Okay, Jiraiya admitted that he was a little slow to react sometimes, but even he caught the second hint.

"Okay, what are these flowers for?"

"They're important," Kurama whispered, "because if you want to play any role in my little one's life, you need to understand how this family works."

Those were the most threatening words Jiraiya had yet heard from it, and the fox's tone was filled with a strong sense of protectiveness, so strong that Jiraiya felt it penetrate his bones like the hatred before.

"Why not just kill me? If you're worried I'll hurt him?" Jiraiya asked.

The Kyuubi snorted disdainfully, its teeth as long as broadswords and gleaming like pearls, its dark lips pulled back in the foreshadowing of a snarl.

"If I wanted to hurt you, you would be dead."

Jiraiya swallowed hard, confused.

"Why? You hate humans, you hate ninjas. What changed you?"