Immediately, Naruto reached for his tantō—and then she turned around. In the pale moonlight, he saw something blue glint in her long hair.
Naruto felt his heart stop. The girl fled.
...
Before he could stop himself, before he could hold back everything he had been keeping locked away, he called out – "Mayu! Wait!"
She didn't stop. She was already at the torii gate before Naruto managed to pull himself together and began to give chase.
Somehow, the lanterns along the stairwell had all been lit. In the darkness, their glowing lights appeared to float in midair, illuminating a path much longer than what he remembered. The girl ran impossibly fast. It was as though the wind carried her; her sandaled feet seemed to barely touch the ground.
The air grew colder and thicker with fog. Finally, Naruto started to close the distance on the girl—she was right there, an arm's length away and almost within reach.
"Wait!" he cried out again, his voice breaking.
The girl must have heard him, for she let out a ghostly laugh. She started to turn her face towards him...and then disappeared into the fog.
His heels skidding on the ground, Naruto came to a quick stop. He spun in a circle, but couldn't make out anything. Almost fumbling in his impatience, his hands blurred through the seals: "Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough)!"
Naruto exhaled, all the air leaving his lungs in a single rush, and a strong wind swept through the area, blowing away the mist. It left him alone in a forest clearing—there was no one else there. As the rest of his surroundings came into sharp focus, he suddenly realized that the jutsu hadn't cleared up just the mist, it had cleared up his mind as well. His stomach twisted, and Naruto felt burgeoning disgust for himself: What was he doing, chasing a phantom from his nightmares in the middle of the night?
Just as he was about to leave the area, however, he heard it—a faint rustling sound in a nearby bush. In an instant, Naruto moved. Reaching for a kunai with one hand, he lunged forward with the other and made contact. It was warm and had the texture of fur, and as soon as his hand tightened around it, it began to struggle furiously in his grasp. Paying little heed, Naruto yanked it out of the bush.
It was larger than a cat but smaller than a wolf, with a bushy tail and a reddish coat. It was a fox; its pointy ears lay flat on its head, and it yowled angrily, flailing in the air before him.
"What's the big deal!" it yelped. "Let go of me!"
"Was that you?" Naruto demanded.
"It was just a little prank, I swear; no harm intended!"
Naruto reeled—and in a flash, it seized the chance to bite his hand. Letting out a startled cry, his grip slackened. Wriggling out of his hold, it dropped to the ground and disappeared with a rustle into the bushes.
Blood dripped from his hand. Naruto stared after the bushes. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted mournfully.
Letting his hand drop to his side, Naruto's legs collapsed below his weight and he landed on his back on the ground. With that, the rows of trees gave way to the night sky. The first thing he noticed were the stars: They glimmered, shining like scattered dust across a black sea. He thought of how far away they were, and how small he was in comparison.
It brought back a memory of the first time Naruto had entered the Academy. Nervous and excited, he had looked up at the sign that hung above the doors and traced the character for shinobi in his palm. The separate characters of blade and heart came together in a word that by definition meant to endure.
"How do you deal with it, sensei?"
"We endure."
When the Nine-tails had been egging him on in the battlefield, that had been Kakashi's answer as well—to endure. What did it mean to endure? Did it mean to forget?
He had thought that by traveling the world with Jiraiya, he would be able to fill the void in his chest. To this end, for the past year, he had tried his best to avoid thinking about anything other than his training and his new experiences.
As he looked up at the stars however, just for that moment, he allowed himself to think about what he had left behind, and his heart ached.
"It's hard, sensei," Naruto said aloud.
But there was no response.
...
The Great Toad Sage was waiting for Jiraiya in a shallow pool of water surrounded by giant scrolls. "Here it is revealed... In my dream, despite your perversions, you will manage to become a splendid shinobi. You will come to stand on your own two feet, acquiring disciples... One such disciple will one day bring about a great change to the world of shinobi. This I saw in my dream."
"A great change?" Jiraiya repeated.
"Either great stability or great destruction... The likes of which this world has never seen before. One of those two changes."
"One of those two...? What do you mean?"
The Sage's right eye opened a crack; the dark pupil stared straight into what felt like Jiraiya's soul. "You will guide that revolution. And eventually, there shall come a day when you will be forced to make a critical decision. That choice you make...will decide which way the change goes."
His mind churned with questions, the weight of the prophecy already bearing heavily on his shoulders. "I... what do I do? In order to make the correct choice?"
"In my dream you walked the world, writing books."
"Books...?"
...
A flash of red sparked brilliantly in the puddle by his feet. Naruto's eyes narrowed, but he didn't stop moving: The fox had been following him all morning, making no real effort to conceal its movements. He had a feeling it had been on his scent for longer than he'd realized.
As soon as they'd crossed from Rice country into Hot Water country, Jiraiya waved Naruto off with a conspiring glint in his eye. "I think it's about time I took off."
Out of consideration for each other's sanity, they had taken to occasionally splitting off for a day at a time. Naruto usually spent the time training with his clones, and as for Jiraiya—well, he assumed the older man had his own needs to take care of.
The path Naruto chose took him through a bamboo grove. Green bamboo trunks shot up from the ground, crowding the sky; rays of sunlight filtered through, reflecting off the trunks and lighting his way through the forest.
Crack.
His gaze shot to the source of the sound, but there was nothing there. While it was clear the fox was still on his trail, it was maintaining its distance, making it difficult to pinpoint its current location.
Naruto wondered whether his previous summons attempt hadn't been as unsuccessful as they'd thought. The only question was, why had it not revealed itself to him? Judging by the lack of hostility, it didn't seem to have any malicious intent, notwithstanding its previous attempt at a prank.
When he decided he'd had enough, he stopped. "Come on out already."
A summer breeze blew through the grove, and he heard the bamboo trunks crackle. In the distance, a bird whistled.
Then with a rustle, the fox emerged from the thicket. In the daylight, Naruto was able to get a much better look at it: It looked like an ordinary red fox, albeit dressed in a black haori coat.
To his bemusement, it lay on the ground and let out a yawn. "What's for lunch?"
Judging by the tone of its voice, it was a male fox—though, the fact that it was talking at all meant that it wasn't an ordinary animal.
"Why are you following me? What is it that you want?" When the fox didn't respond, letting out another yawn instead, Naruto raised a hand to the handle of his tantō.
The fox was back up in a flash, his tail swishing in the air. "Alright, alright! I'll tell you, so calm down!"
Folding his arms across his chest, Naruto looked at the fox expectantly.
With a delicate cough, the fox bent his forelegs in a stiff bow. "My name is Amakurō. You summoned me here with that pitiful offering, and I've been following you to see whether you're worthy of signing my contract."
That confirmed it: His natural affinity was for a fox. The irony of the situation didn't escape Naruto and he had to wonder whether his being the jinchūriki for the purported demon fox had anything to do with it.
"So why did you turn into my teammate? How do you know who she is?"
"I didn't and I don't." The fox—Amakurō—licked at a paw. "I was testing you with an illusion. You saw only what you didn't want to see."
'Didn't want to see'? What did that mean?
In an effort to clear his head, Naruto exhaled. "Well, then? Am I worthy?"
Amakurō let out another yawn. "No, I don't think so. You don't talk much and you're too violent. I'm going to pass on this one."
Caught off-guard, Naruto blinked. While he didn't know what he'd been expecting, it certainly hadn't been rejection. A thorn of irritation was starting to twist in his chest—and for some reason, that irritated him even more.
He hadn't expected himself to care at all.
"Fine then."
It was Amakurō's turn to look taken aback, as he said quickly, "That's it? Just so you know, I'm pretty powerful. You're going to lose out big time by not signing a contract with me. I mean, where else are you going to get a summons as good as me?"
"I don't need a summons," said Naruto. Or so he told himself, anyways.
As he left the fox behind, he felt a sharp gaze trained on his back. But he could no longer hear anything behind him.
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