Naruto and the Nine-Tails Meet

Late spring, Konoha Year 53.

Kushina was still on her way to River Country.

After getting enough sleep, Anju returned to Naruto's Sealing Space.

Sometimes, even Anju had to marvel at Kurama's utterly absurd talent for creating ninjutsu.

Without pursuing destructive power, Kurama had developed a large number of low-consumption ninjutsu for these punching-bag monsters.

The Chakra consumption could not be too high. If it was, these punching bags would quickly collapse ahead of time from exhausting their Chakra too fast.

Flame sprays, Lightning Balls, slime, glowing beams—a whole pile of ninjutsu that looked incredibly intimidating, yet none of them could so much as damage a single hair on Kurama.

Of course, Anju could not find any other targets to test them on. He could not exactly use Naruto—the boy was not even five yet!

Naturally, Anju also made the little monsters tiny so Naruto could practice against them. He could not let Naruto watch enviously, then look over with longing in his eyes.

By now, Naruto had also begun slowly extracting Chakra.

More than a year earlier than in the original story.

And this time, without Kurama interfering, Naruto's talent stood out as well.

Soon after extracting Chakra, he learned the Transformation Technique and transformed into the Enlightenment Teacher who had taught him before, then went to trick Uchiha Sasuke.

At first, Uchiha Sasuke did not notice. But once he realized Naruto had disappeared, he immediately caught on.

Both of them had trained and extracted Chakra, so their fight was extremely intense.

However, because Naruto often used little monsters as punching bags in the Sealing Space, he ended up having the upper hand over Sasuke.

Having tasted success, Naruto came to the Sealing Space even more frequently.

This time, Anju happened to run into Naruto as well.

"Anju, how can I learn the monsters' ninjutsu?" Naruto pointed at the scene of the towering Kurama beating up a giant monster nearby.

Anju's mouth twitched. "Why do you want to learn those?"

"Because they're awesome!"

"Didn't you see them getting smashed apart by the Nine-Tails?"

"That's because the Nine-Tails is awesome too!"

The big fox, who had been listening intently from the side, laughed as well. "See? Now that's more like it! Naruto, if you'd shown me this much respect earlier, I might've taught you something! But right now, you definitely don't mean it sincerely."

Anju looked toward Kurama too, somewhat puzzled as to why he had said that.

Kurama looked at Anju. "Hehehe, this kid and Sasuke both saw Itachi use the Great Fireball Technique, so Sasuke went to ask Itachi to teach him ninjutsu."

"Oh? So, Naruto, did you come to ask the Nine-Tails to teach you ninjutsu?" As soon as Anju said that, Naruto began to squirm awkwardly.

"I-I just want to learn the monsters' ninjutsu."

"Naruto, all of those monsters' ninjutsu were researched by Kurama."

"Ah?"

"Naruto, if you want to learn them, you can have Kurama teach you. But let me make one thing clear first: the ninjutsu Kurama knows might not suit you."

"Why?"

"Because Tailed Beasts do not have Chakra pathways like you humans do. So if you want to use those ninjutsu, you have to use them together with Kurama's Chakra."

"That's fine too!"

"Then you first need to master Tailed Beast Chakra."

"How do I do that?"

"I'm not the Tailed Beast inside you, so I can't help you. You'll have to ask Kurama. There, that big fox beating up the little monsters."

Anju pointed at the big fox that had just smashed apart a little monster's Chakra body.

Naruto immediately felt crushed.

He had originally wanted to avoid Kurama, since Naruto could sometimes act forcefully toward him.

He had felt that way ever since learning Kurama was sealed inside him.

Naturally, Anju wanted Naruto and Kurama to get along better.

Naruto had never been targeted by others, so he naturally could not understand Kurama as he had in the original story. At a time like this, Anju needed to step in.

If he could not make Naruto understand Kurama, then he had to at least make Naruto and Kurama become friends.

The first step was to set Naruto's attitude straight.

Kurama could not stand people acting superior toward him.

Before long, Naruto returned to Anju's side with a dejected face.

"That big fox is so stingy. He won't even lend me a little Chakra."

Anju facepalmed. Naruto was far too impolite—he had directly asked Kurama for Chakra. Did he really take Kurama for a charity worker?

"Naruto, you need to become friends with Kurama. If you do that, how could Kurama possibly refuse to lend you Chakra?"

"But how can I become friends with the big fox?"

"Naruto, do you think living together with Kurama would affect your normal life?"

"No."

"But what if Kurama hated other people?"

"Then I'll convince him!"

At that moment, Kurama turned his head and stared fixedly at Naruto.

"Brat, that's because you don't know what you humans have done to me."

Naruto raised his head to look at Kurama as well, his face full of disbelief.

Anju shook his head. "Kurama, show him the darkness of the Ninja World."

Kurama clenched his hand into a fist and held it out before Naruto. "Since you want to know, then bump fists with me."

Naruto did not hesitate. He clenched his own hand into a fist and thrust it against Kurama's.

Then Naruto fainted.

"Uh, Kurama, what happened?"

Anju looked at the unconscious Naruto, then at Kurama.

Kurama looked a little embarrassed as well.

"I transmitted too many memories and made him take in too much, so he probably couldn't handle it."

Anju did not know whether to laugh or cry. He had forgotten that Naruto was still too young.

"Fine, Kurama. This is the Child of Destiny. We'll be relying on him to regain our freedom in the future."

"Are you telling the truth? Why do I feel like you're lying to me?"

"Why would I lie to myself? Don't tell me you forgot that I'm your future self! You don't even trust your future self?"

"No, it just feels so surreal."

"It's supposed to feel surreal. Otherwise, why would I call him the Child of Destiny?"

"Oh, right, Anju. I recently developed a new ninjutsu. How about you take a look and give me some feedback?"

Anju was pleasantly surprised. Kurama had developed another new ninjutsu?

Before Anju could react, a grayish-brown ray shot from Kurama's mouth and struck Anju directly on the head.

Anju was a Chakra body and originally had no such thing as weight, but now he felt his head growing heavy.

Very soon, Anju realized that he could no longer see.

In the end, Anju could not even move.

Realizing what was happening, Anju immediately used Chakra to form a new little fox body.

When he looked back at his original position, there stood a stone fox statue.

"This is... Petrification Ray?"

Anju was greatly surprised. He had not expected Kurama to create a petrification-type ninjutsu.

"Oh, I accidentally came up with it while researching Monster ninjutsu. It can be used for offense and defense, though its range is rather short. Also, it can only be used on people with Chakra or tailed beasts."

It specifically targeted Chakra, using the Yin Yang Attribute to guide the Earth Veins into directly interfering with Chakra, petrifying both the Chakra and the physical body.

For defense, it could petrify only part of the body, then immediately undo it.