The darkness inside him was complete.
There was no light here. No moon. No stars. No sun. Just an endless black void that stretched in every direction, pressing against him from all sides, filling his lungs with nothing and his ears with silence. Naruto stood in the void and waited for his eyes to adjust. They did not adjust. There was nothing to adjust to.
He walked forward. He did not know which direction he was walking. There was no forward here. No backward. No left or right. He simply moved, placing one foot in front of the other, trusting that the void would lead him where he needed to go.
It did.
A light appeared in the distance. Faint at first, a pinprick of orange in the endless black, then growing, spreading, resolving itself into the shape of a cage. The bars were massive. Thick as tree trunks. Golden and glowing and covered in seals that writhed and shifted like living things. The paper tags hung from the bars like dead leaves, each one inscribed with characters that burned with their own inner fire.
Behind the bars, two eyes opened.
They were enormous. Red. Slitted. Vertical pupils that contracted as they focused on him. The eyes of a predator. The eyes of something that had killed more people than Naruto had ever met.
The Nine Tailed Fox stepped forward. The cage rattled. The seals flared. The beast's massive form filled the space behind the bars, orange fur and massive claws and nine tails that swayed slowly, each one tipped with a tuft of red. The fox was taller than any building Naruto had ever seen. Wider than any street. Its presence pressed against the inside of his skull like a fever.
Naruto looked at it. He did not step back. He did not flinch. He simply stood there with his hands in his pockets and his headband around his forehead and his face completely blank.
The fox leaned down. Its massive snout pressed against the bars. Its breath smelled of smoke and blood and something older than both.
"So. The brat finally comes to visit."
Naruto said nothing.
The fox's lips curled back. Teeth the size of swords gleamed in the orange light of the cage. "What is the matter? Cat got your tongue? Or have you finally realized what you are and come to beg for mercy?"
Naruto tilted his head. "Why would I beg for mercy from something locked in a cage?"
The fox slammed its paw against the bars. The cage rattled. The seals flared brighter. The sound was enormous, a thunderclap in the enclosed space of the void. The impact sent vibrations through the floor beneath Naruto's feet.
Naruto did not move. His hands remained in his pockets. His expression remained blank. He looked at the fox the way you look at a dog that is barking behind a fence. Mild curiosity. No fear.
The fox's eyes narrowed. "You are not the same boy I have been watching."
"I am not."
"What happened to you."
Naruto touched the back of his head. The scar had healed. The skin was smooth. But he remembered the impact. The rock. The white. The moment when everything had shifted and the noise had stopped and the world had become clear for the first time.
"I hit my head."
The fox stared at him. Then it laughed. The sound was deep and rumbling, like an earthquake given voice. It shook the void. It shook the cage. It shook the seals on the bars until they glowed almost white.
"You hit your head. That is your answer. A twelve year old boy hits his head and suddenly he is no longer afraid of the most powerful creature in the world."
"I did not say I was not afraid."
"You did not flinch."
"I did not say I was not afraid." Naruto's voice was quiet. "I did not flinch. There is a difference."
The fox stopped laughing. It looked at him with those red eyes, those slitted pupils, and something in its expression shifted. Not respect. Not yet. But recognition. The acknowledgment that the creature standing before it was not the same noisy, desperate, attention hungry child it had been watching for twelve years.
"Why are you here, boy?"
Naruto looked up at the massive face behind the bars. The orange fur. The red eyes. The nine tails that swayed slowly, hypnotically, each one large enough to crush a house.
"I want to know why you attacked the village."
The fox's eyes gleamed. "You want to know why I killed your parents. Why I destroyed your home. Why I made your life a living hell."
"I want to know the truth."
"The truth." The fox's voice was dark. Amused. "You think there is a truth worth knowing? I am a tailed beast. I am destruction incarnate. I attacked because that is what I do. That is what I am."
Naruto said nothing. He simply stood there. Waiting. Patient. The way you wait for a person to finish lying so you can ask the question again.
The fox's tails stopped moving.
"What."
"You are not telling me everything."
"I am a fox. Lying is what I do."
"You are not lying to protect yourself." Naruto's voice was still quiet. Still calm. "You are lying because you do not want to admit that you do not remember."
The fox was silent. The seals glowed. The cage rattled softly, as if the beast inside had shifted its weight.
"You are curious too," Naruto said. "You have been locked inside me for twelve years. You have had nothing to do but think. And you have been thinking about that night. Wondering what really happened. Wondering how a creature as powerful as you could be sealed by a single man."
The fox's eyes narrowed. "You are playing a dangerous game, boy."
"I am not playing a game. I am asking a question. And you want to answer it. Because you do not know. And not knowing has been eating at you for twelve years."
The silence stretched between them. The void pressed in from all sides. The cage glowed. The seals writhed.
Then the fox sat down. The ground shook. The impact was enormous. Nine tails curled around its massive body like a nest of serpents.
"The last thing I remember."
Naruto waited.
"Kushina was giving birth. Your mother. The seal on me was tied to her life force. During childbirth, the seal weakens. It is a vulnerability. The Uzumaki knew it. They built contingencies. But no contingency can account for everything."
The fox's eyes seemed to look through Naruto, past him, into a memory that was twelve years old.
"A man appeared. He wore a mask. One eye was visible. The eye was red. The mask had red flames painted on it. He attacked the birthing chamber. He killed the medics. He took you. A newborn. Still covered in blood. He held you in one hand and Kushina in the other."
Naruto's expression did not change. But his hands came out of his pockets.
"Your father tracked him. Minato. He moved faster than anyone I have ever seen. He took you from the masked man. He disappeared with you. While they were gone, the masked man did something to the seal on Kushina. He released me."
The fox's voice was quieter now. Less performative.
"I do not remember the rampage. I do not remember killing. I do not remember the fire or the screams or the village burning. The last thing I saw was that red eye. The Sharingan. Only the works of the Uchiha could do such a thing. Control me. Release me from my seal against my will."
The fox's claws dug into the floor of the cage.
"The next thing I knew, I was inside you. Sealed. Weakened. Split in half. Your father had taken the other half of my chakra with him to the grave. And I have been here ever since. Trapped. Blind. Listening to you snore and eat ramen and fail at everything you tried."
Naruto closed his eyes. He stood in the void with his hands at his sides and his head bowed and his breathing slow and even. The information settled into him the way things settled now. Like stones dropped into still water. Each one finding its place.
He opened his eyes.
"So someone in the Uchiha clan was able to take control of you. A masked man. One eye visible. The Sharingan."
The fox growled. "Yes."
"Well. Too bad for you. All the Uchiha were killed by one of their own sometime ago."
The fox slammed its paw against the cage. The impact was enormous. The seals flared white hot. The void shook. The sound was deafening.
"Do not joke with me, boy. No ordinary Uchiha could have done what that man did. No ordinary Sharingan could control me. I am the Nine Tails. I answer to no one."
Naruto did not flinch. "No ordinary Uchiha. A one eyed Uchiha. I suppose there are not many one eyed Uchiha."
He paused. His hand came up to his chin. His fingers tapped against his jaw in a slow rhythm.
"Interesting thing. Kakashi Hatake has a Sharingan. He got it from a comrade who reportedly died. That comrade was Obito Uchiha. According to the sealed classified records in the archives, Obito gave Kakashi his left eye before dying."
The fox was silent.
"So we have two men. Both with one eye. Both with the Sharingan. One is Kakashi Hatake, the Copy Ninja, who received his eye from a dying friend. The other is a masked stranger who attacked my mother's birthing chamber and released you from your seal." Naruto looked up at the fox. "I do not think that is a coincidence."
The fox stared at him. The red eyes were unblinking. The nine tails had stopped moving entirely.
"That head injury of yours really did change you."
Naruto reached up and touched the back of his head. The skin was smooth. The bone underneath was healed. But the memory was still there. The rock. The impact. The white. The moment when the old Naruto had ended and someone else had opened his eyes.
"I suppose it did." His voice was quieter now. Less certain. Not afraid. Just thoughtful. "I am just not sure if that is a good thing or not."
The fox said nothing. The cage glowed. The seals writhed. The void pressed in from all sides.
Naruto looked up at the massive creature behind the bars. The most powerful demon in the world. The killer of thousands. The monster that lived inside his stomach.
He was not afraid.
That was probably the problem.
Next Time: Chakra of the Nine Tails