***
Kurama struggled against the grip of the seals and the chains binding him …
He could feel the blade of the fake aspect of death hanging over him …
They wanted to kill his spirit and keep his chakra …
To get rid of his fury but keep his power …
Kurama would not ALLOW them to …
As the blade of the fake aspect of death hung over his head … Kurama shifted his form …
The sacrifice was too uneven … two mortal lives didn't equate Kurama's far longer one …
They couldn't take all of it, for all their preparations, they underestimated Kurama's existence … they forgot he wasn't a simple-minded beast …
When the fake aspect of death cut through Kurama's Spirit … two mortal lives worth of existence and experiences were taken from his Spirit … A nap in the vastness of Kurama's life …
Two mortal lives worth of existence and chakra, gone … the equal exchange enforced by the fake aspect of death …
A century worth of worthless memories as a spec of chakra gone …
But then … the second part of their plan took place … using his own Chakra they bargained for, a seal was crafted …
Kurama's own chakra was being used against him … a prison made out of his own power …
***
Kurama's form was compressed and stuffed inside the newly crafted Sealwork … And then … nothingness …
***
Kurama awoke inside a mindscape, a prison around him …
He knew he was stuffed inside an infant … but the mind of said infant was almost empty, there was nothing there …
There were no cries … there were no feelings that should have been present in a new born … just a vast ‘emptiness’ that greedily absorbed everything from the outside …
Kurama watched as the ‘meat puppet’ grew … its mind slowly being filled with a well organized wealth of knowledge from everything it could perceive …
But it was simply the raw sum of what the empty vessels experienced … no true thoughts or feelings were present, just the memorization of everything around …
Like a library being built …
Kurama observed as his host followed through the motions, imitating those around him, absorbing knowledge and growing …
That time felt like a blur, Kurama would nap for most of it …
The years slowly passed until the child grew enough …
Kurama woke from his nap as something stirred in the previously empty mindscape …
Kurama kept himself laid down, waiting for what this new entity would do …
To finally know the true form of his jailer …
*** *** ***
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Hiruzen watched with sadness in his eyes …
… Another empty report from the Ninjas tasked to care for little Naruto …
As the Jinchuriki of the Village, Naruto was also a ward from Konoha itself …
The civilians' anxiousness was palpable, despite reassurances, they still remembered the Nine Tails rampage … the sacrifice needed to contain it …
They gave Naruto a wide breath, the same reserved for the more ‘recluse’ ninjas …
Not that Hiruzen could ever tell if young Naruto cared …
Since he was a baby, Naruto was oddly silent … always watching with eyes that seemed to peer through you … like he was analyzing everything, every moment with minute precision … there was an intelligence behind those eyes but there was also a ‘lack’ of something …
Hizuren put his most trusted Yamanaka to mindwalk the young mind, the brave ninja risked his life by entering the mindscape containing the Demon Fox …
… All of it to try and uncover what might have been the problem …
There was no problem … only a surprisingly well organized mind … there was barely an Ego in there to speak with the Yamanaka that entered …
Just the same placid eyes …
***
… every ninja of chunin rank or above knew of young Naruto's importance …
The vital role he carried … but young Naruto sometimes didn't even feel Human … just a cold emotionless calculating intelligence … cataloguing everything it saw …
Hiruzen even let the chunins train with young Naruto, teaching him the ways of a ninja so he could be well prepared for the Academy …
Many knew Minato personally and Naruto was the spitting image of the Village’s hero … the ‘intelligence’ behind those eyes struck hope in them for another prodigy in the making …
And young Naruto absorbed it all, the same silence as always … only small words of agreement or pointed questions for clarifications …
Hiruzen even received a concerning report … young Naruto snapped his arm during training as he tried to perform an enhanced punch using the principles of ‘Chakra adhesion inversion’ …
The impact snapped his forearm, the arm hanging limp as the broken bone perforated the skin …
There was no crying, there was barely a hint of discomfort behind those eyes …
The reports said that the boy simply cradled his arm with an exposed fracture and slowly walked to the stunned Chunin responsible to watch him …
[Naruto] - Chunin-san, I require medical aid … -
And the still stuned chunin ran with him towards an available med nin …
***
Hiruzen breathed out the smoke of his pipe …
The Academy would start soon enough …
Young Naruto was capable of advancing quickly … Like Kakashi or even young Itachi …
But Hiruzen would recommend the boy to be retained for longer …
… Hiruzen just hoped more human contact would awaken something in him …
Even those that believed in young Naruto's prodigy and pedigree, seeing Minato in him … they were slowly becoming wary of the strange boy …
***
Jay's mind slowly stirred out of its ‘Low Powers' mode …
Reincarnation in an actual infant was always a slow process … especially something like a Human …
The brain took time before it was ‘able’ to host complex thought and the vastness of an immortal mind …
It was one of the benefits of starting as something closer to an animal … they were born ready to go … Humans ? They took a while after being born before they were remotely ‘ready’ …
That's why Jay was glad to have trained to ‘Sleep Off’ most of the ‘infancy’ … It was such a time saver, sure, the body acted oddly without most of the emotions and ‘consciousness’ to pilot it, but it could store information and ‘learn’ while it grew enough …
And so, Jay ‘woke up' inside the prepared mindscape, slowly acclimating with the new set of memories, instincts and ‘skills’ the body acquired …
***
Kurama watched as the figure of that empty shell of a boy transformed to its fullness …
Kurama knew not what this … person … was, nor who it was … but it felt … different … vast …
Kurama watched as the figure perused through the Memories carefully organized by the empty shell …
Kurama could tell this was not a ‘new’ thing for the figure … it moved with practice and the familiarity of someone that had done this countless times …
Then, the voice spoke out loud … a weird conflagration of noise that spoke in a language Kurama knew not in a voice that didn't belong to a ‘human’ … there was something artificial about it …
Kurama watched in fascination as the ‘Stranger’ slowly adjusted his voice to how the empty boy previously spoke … soon the language was also changing, slowly becoming recognizable until in practically no time, the stranger was reciting a collection of words and sounds as if getting used to them …
[Jay] - Alright … this … this is a high roll, wow … Noble birth, good training, respect and I’m already going straight to an education institution without having to do shit … wow, this feels almost like cheating now … hahaha -
Kurama saw the stranger’s form consolidate into the empty boy …
[Jay] - Naruto … no, I don't like that name … at least it won't be that weird for me to request that they call me Jay … -
Kurama watched as Jay tested his form and then … tested his own Chakra …
[Jay] - Okay … I could figure out most of this after my stint as a snake … but these handseals feel so clunky … at least they have other modalities of Somatic components … -
Kurama felt as this ‘Jay’ flexed his chakra and Spirit into the mindscape, warping the carefully made library into a view Kurama never saw … There was a hole of pure darkness floating in space … the stars themselves dancing around that gargantuan thing that swallowed all light … Kurama was transfixed at the scene when suddenly… Jay’s attention snapped towards him.
Kurama felt like Jay’s eyes were looking at him with the amusement of someone who found an interesting puzzle to solve …
[Jay] - What are you doing in my mind ? … Wait, you're the Kyuubi no Yoko right ? … You don't strike me as a mindless beast … Can you understand me ? -
***
Jay observed the caged Fox … there were some big inconsistencies over the story his body learned and chief amongst those was the ‘Biju’ … Immortal beings of pure energy that roamed the land causing untold destruction … but there weren't really signs of it in the geography … besides, the timeline of things simply made no sense …
The Villages were founded fifty something years ago, where their First Hokage made the brain dead decision to capture natural disasters and hand them out like candy …
That felt odd … there was an imbalance in things … technology was present and in use … but disregarded … knowledge and usage of chakra was something so … easy to do … and yet, its use wasn't widespread …
And now …
Now the supposed mindless beast stuffed inside his vessel didn't look quite as mindless …
What else about the history of this civilization feels … ‘wrong’ ? …
So Jay asked a simple question ... "Can you understand me ?" …
So … Now that this is finished I need to address a few things …
As I’m writing this, the objective is for their conversation to happen, Kurama and another Immortal being without the baggage Kurama has …
And for that I need to study Kurama as a character with more depth …
And BOY … our Favorite Furry Sexy Foxy is a walking disaster of contradictions and paradoxes …
So much so that I feel like a need to make a chapter just to address HIM, like literally just him as a character … This is why this chapter is short, because in the next chapter, I’ll be taking Kurama apart …
