The Nine-Tails? An old acquaintance

At around ten that night, Naruto went to bed right on schedule.

After all, he had to get up at four thirty tomorrow morning to train.

He was still growing, so he didn't dare stay up late and miss out on sleep.

The night was silent. Naruto cleared his mind and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Yet only a short while later, he groggily woke up.

He hadn't woken naturally. The icy chill around his ankles had jolted him awake.

Naruto opened his eyes blearily, but the moment he saw his surroundings, he dropped into a fighting stance and scanned the area warily.

The deep corridor was dim and gray, its end nowhere in sight, as though he were inside the belly of a giant snake.

Clear but freezing water covered his ankles. That was what had woken him.

Naruto remembered perfectly well that he had fallen asleep in his own home. So why had he opened his eyes somewhere he had never been before?

Countless possibilities flashed through his mind.

Kidnapping?

Had the Third Hokage or Danzo made a move against me? Was this some secret prison in Konoha?

Naruto's expression shifted slightly at the thought. If that were true, he was screwed.

He might have a system backing him up, but getting stronger through it still required him to lie low and develop.

"No... it couldn't be Danzo. I'm certain I haven't left any clues during my previous activities. With the Third keeping him in check, Danzo shouldn't dare take custody of a hot potato like me."

Naruto quickly calmed down and carefully examined the holes in that theory.

Danzo might possess a game-breaking ability like Shisui's Kotoamatsukami.

But Kotoamatsukami was also his greatest lifesaving trump card. Unless he was absolutely certain he could control both Naruto and the Nine-Tails, he would never invest that much in him.

At the thought of the Nine-Tails, a flash of realization struck Naruto. He examined his surroundings again, beginning to understand.

"The mental space inside the Eight Trigrams Sealing?"

Naruto murmured softly. Once he understood the unknown, the fear in his heart gradually faded.

"The Nine-Tails... an old acquaintance."

With the Eight Trigrams Seal's formula in place, he had nothing to fear from facing the Nine-Tails, even if he had arrived at the Nine-Tails' Home ahead of schedule.

"Kurama, one of the strongest fighters in early Naruto?"

A smile curled Naruto's lips at the thought, and he waded deeper into the dark corridor.

He cautiously reached the end of the corridor, then froze at the sight before him.

The corridor split into eight branches, each stretching into unfathomable darkness.

"Damn, it really is an Eight Trigrams Sealing. Even its mental space is this complicated?"

Naruto couldn't help complaining, but he had a method of his own.

By his reckoning, the Nine-Tails was sealed inside him, so his sudden, unexpected arrival here today had to have something to do with the fox.

Looking at the eight branching corridors, Naruto sat straight down, steadied his mind, and gradually relaxed his consciousness, carefully sensing his surroundings.

In less than three seconds, Naruto slowly opened his eyes and looked toward the Gate of Death among the eight trigrams.

"So he's sealed behind the Gate of Death?"

He got up and headed straight down that corridor.

Having watched Naruto closely, he knew that although the mental space inside the Eight Trigrams Sealing was a winding maze, it wasn't particularly sophisticated in the eyes of a true expert.

In the original story, when Sasuke met Naruto after graduating from Orochimaru's training base, hadn't he used his Mangekyo's visual prowess to enter Naruto's mental space and see the Nine-Tails?

He kept imagining what the Nine-Tails would look like.

Before long, Naruto arrived at the entrance to a stone hall.

Unlike the low corridors from before, this hall was built from enormous black stones. Its entrance alone was roughly thirty meters tall, and Naruto had no idea how vast the interior might be.

Although the hall had no door, he could see inside through the entrance.

Whether it was the lighting or the black stone construction, all he could make out through the entrance was a pool of clear water. Everything else was hidden.

If Naruto hadn't already known what awaited him inside, he wouldn't have dared walk straight into a place like this.

It was fucking terrifying.

Swallowing, Naruto stepped into the black stone hall.

He was already being as careful as he could, but the place was unnervingly quiet. Water lay everywhere he looked, and every step still sent ripples splashing through it.

In such absolute silence, those faint splashes sounded unusually loud.

Splash...

One of Naruto's feet had barely landed inside the hall, before he could even look around for the Sealing's core.

Suddenly.

Waves of chilling, scorching energy swept through the air and engulfed him in an instant.

Naruto immediately found himself acutely sensitive to his surroundings and the atmosphere. Not only did impish whispers reach his ears, but so did sounds like mocking laughter and sinister chuckles.

Those sounds instantly stirred his hatred toward the Konoha Villagers, as though all the negative emotions he had long grown accustomed to had been magnified without limit.

Agitation, rage, loathing, and the urge to destroy everything before him welled up naturally in Naruto's heart.

"Damn it... damn it!"

Anime was still just anime. It couldn't begin to compare with actually experiencing this.

In the original anime, all viewers saw was Naruto suddenly appearing in his mental space, quickly following the corridor to the Nine-Tails' prison, and waking up perfectly fine after learning a few things.

But here and now.

Naruto snapped out of it immediately after that furious shout, his eyes filled with fear.

He had only been ruled by hatred for a brief moment, yet when he regained his senses, dark red chakra visibly coiled around his body.

"What terrifying power."

Once he came to his senses, Naruto hurriedly steadied his mind. Only then did the red chakra wrapped around his body, trying to erode his will, slowly fade.

Before Naruto could breathe a sigh of relief and search for the Nine-Tails' prison.

Suddenly.

A low, resonant voice, cold and disdainful, reached his ears.

It echoed through the hall, lofty and contemptuous, like a king looking down upon the world.

"Naruto... Uzumaki?"

Startled by those words, Naruto slowly raised his head.

There was still nothing but endless darkness before him, but as he looked questioningly into the shadows on either side.

Suddenly.

Two enormous slit-pupiled eyes slowly opened in the darkness ahead, radiating a constant scarlet glow.

Those slit pupils were like gateways to an abyss. A single glance gave him the illusion that they could seize his very soul.

And at that moment, Naruto stood less than five meters from those enormous scarlet eyes.

The sheer visual impact was almost too much to take.

"Who are you...?"

Naruto suppressed his shock and ventured a question.

After all, his soul had transmigrated here, and the Nine-Tails had a very special connection to him. He wasn't sure whether the fox knew that Naruto had been replaced.

If the Nine-Tails didn't know, he would follow his original plan. If he did, Naruto would lay his cards on the table.

Know yourself and your enemy, and you could win every battle. Naruto had always preferred to plan before acting.

"Hmph. Who am I?"

The enormous slit pupils reflected the boy's youthful face as he forced himself to stay calm.

"To think... you would make it here so soon."

Naruto breathed an inward sigh of relief. Those words suggested that the Nine-Tails didn't know he had replaced the original Naruto.

"You're weird. I asked you a question, and instead of answering, you just said something that makes no sense."

Naruto immediately put on the innocent expression of a child and gazed curiously at the eyes before him. "Oh, right, what do you look like? Are you just a pair of eyes?"

"Hmph."

The Nine-Tails snorted, and clusters of yellow light instantly appeared throughout the dark hall.

Naruto could now clearly see an enormous iron gate towering before him.

Through the huge gaps in the gate, he then saw a savage, orange-red silhouette of terrifying size.

"Wow... how did you get so big?"

Though utterly awestruck inside, Naruto still acted innocent and guileless. "Oh, right, who was mean enough to lock you up in here?"

Naruto tilted his head and looked around, then spoke apologetically to the Nine-Tails. "Sorry. This gate is too tall. I can't let you out, either."

At first, the Nine-Tails had merely been curious that this brat could bring his consciousness here to meet him at such a young age.

Who could have imagined that someone as outstanding and wise as Minato Namikaze would have an idiot for a son?

He had actually said, right to his face, that he wanted to let him out.

"Hmph. Brat, do you really want to let me out?"