Naruto: Cautious Ninja

From what Naruto could recall from the many hours leading up to his current predicament, he could say without a shadow of a doubt that it had been one of the greatest days of his life. His past three years of education in the academy, accompanied by great trials, errors and adventures inside and outside of the walls of Konohagakure, had all led him to this single moment.

The moment he realized the headband had been placed around his crown and had been tied by his incredibly pleased teacher was like almost every single one of his dreams coming true all at once. It was a memory and experience he would not soon forget and probably never will.

Thankfully Iruka had been there to calm him down from his emotional high and after getting him to stop jumping off of walls, reminded him that he still had a fair ways to go. Being the sensible character that he was, it took several deep breaths and a small talking to quell the boy's excitement. Everything after that was just a running blur.

Following the closing ceremony was a quick hop and skip to his personal training field to spend time with Tayuya, who had also gotten her headband from Anko in their own private ceremony. Working up a sweat and burning off their excitement from a fantabulous day of non-stop good news, they then headed off for a celebratory soiree over at the Ichiraku Ramen stand.

It had been a wicked evening for all of them. But what came after that came as a bit of a puzzle to young Naruto.

The jinchuriki last remembered falling asleep, exhausted from all the bounding around and partying he'd been doing all afternoon. For all he knew, he should have been in bed.

Why the heck was he standing on a shallow pool of perfectly reflecting water inside a massive sewer? Looking around in confusion, the blonde decided to explore this dark new environment and began following the tunnel to wherever it led.

In all his life Naruto had never seen a sewer system like this before. Not even the pipelines underneath the village were this huge and he'd been around all of them. It was a no-holds-barred life for a master prankster; he needed to be prepared to get his hands dirty in all senses of the word.

Still, this new, underground world perplexed him beyond belief. It didn't smell, it was quite clean and the water seemed pretty good… not that he wanted to drink it or anything. God no. The only depressing features inside this place were the poor lighting and the soulless walls of concrete surrounding him that didn't have any windows or ducts to provide any kind of filtration. It also didn't allow any natural radiance from the outside world.

"Someone should really think about sticking some fluorescent lights in here. It'll do wonders for this place," Naruto commented to himself, pointing towards the ceiling observantly before arriving at a sudden and unexpected blockage.

It wasn't an ordinary blockage either; it was a God damn massive set of iron gates standing in his way with an odd seal slapped over the lock-whoa… several stories up. Naruto shook his head once at the sight of the barrier and looked it over, wondering why someone would build something like this down here in a tunnel.

Curious, he walked closer and tried to peer into the darkness beyond the gates. The tunnel led into some sort of large chamber, but it was so dark inside he couldn't see a damn thing past the bars. Naturally the mystery of the gate and the room beyond beckoned the child forward, only to stop when he heard a low rumble followed by a booming, demonic voice.

"I was wondering when you were going to drop by."

Naruto blinked and looked up. The moment he did, he saw a pair of blood red eyes suddenly open up in the darkness and instantly lock onto him. Caught a little by surprise, the boy skittered back till he was able to get a good view of the pair of irises and the entity that they were attached to. The moment he put space between himself and the iron gates, light suddenly poured into the chamber and the prone form of a gargantuan orange fox emerged from the shadows.

The giant animal grunted drearily at the sight of his container, "Not too impressive considering you're still just a child, but certainly a change from my last two cells."

With the illumination provided for him, Naruto was able to see that the fox was about several times larger than a building. By his estimate… it was fucking enormous. A huge maw with rows of sharp, pointed canine teeth, with black around its eyes, huge arms folded in front of it where it was resting its head on and, if his eyes didn't deceive him, nine massive tails swishing about behind it. The sight was both jaw-dropping and a little bit terrifying, but Naruto wasn't scared one bit.

Instead of jumping in shock at the gigantic animal glaring down at him through the gates, Naruto merely smiled and pointed up at him.

"Cat!"

He saw the massive animal's orange fur bristle and expression visibly change to one of outrage, "I'M NOT A GOD DAMN CAT YOU BRAINDEAD FOOL!"

Naruto's clothes ruffled on the wind that came from the colossal beast shouting at him. Blinking after its outburst, the blonde beamed and raised an eyebrow, "You've got whiskers. Cats have whiskers. If you're not a cat then what are you?" Duh, a fox. But what the hell kind of fox had a head the size of one of the Hokage Monument faces and a body to match its canvas?

The animal grounded its teeth as it glared irritably down at the boy, "Are you honestly this stupid? Do you know who I am?"

Naruto shrugged. "Nope."

Wanting to slap himself in the face, the monster growled and fixed its best death glare on the kid staring cheerfully up at him. "I'm the great Kyuubi no Yoko, or what the people of your village like to call the Kyuubi or Demon Fox. Call me whatever you like."

"Oh," Naruto simply murmured, tilting his head as he got a better look at the gigantic creature, who continued to glare down at him impatiently.

So this was the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox; the same being that attacked his village all those years ago. Hm.

…

…

…

Hey… wait a minute!

.

.

.

🎉The novel is available in PDF with more than 400 chapters, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉

🎉ko-fi.com/shihao123🎉