As Naruto set one foot beyond the bars, the fox's closed lids parted to a thin slit. A glint flashed within.
Clack.
The instant Naruto slipped fully through the gap and stood on the other side, the beast's crimson eyes opened wide. Its titanic body stirred. Nine tails rose like spears and its scarlet fur stood on end.
Roar. Roar.
The fox howled to the dark.
Naruto looked up, gaze steady, studying the Nine Tails. He had already raised the Mirror World's safeguard. Up close, the fox seemed several times larger than it had from beyond the gate.
Its howl carried a strange savor of release. As Naruto listened, parsing that feeling, the fox lowered its mountain sized head until its muzzle nearly pressed against him.
"Brat. I cannot sense fear in you."
Those blood bright eyes burned. Rows of steel fangs clicked, as if measuring whether a single bite could swallow him whole.
"I did not know you before today. Why should I fear you. This space belongs to both you and me. In some sense we are equals. Why define our meeting first by who fears whom."
Naruto's reflection shimmered in those red pupils. His tone did not waver.
"Equal."
At that word the fox's face twisted. Scarlet chakra rose around it like a tide of fresh blood. Ferocity flashed across its eyes. The snarling muzzle became something terrible.
Not good. So much for keeping its word.
Outside the bars, Minato's heart jolted. His hands flew through seals, readying for the worst.
The baleful chakra wrapped Naruto in a blink.
Warning. Mental world under attack. Under current defense you may choose Forced Expulsion or Forced Capture.
The moment that chakra bound him, Naruto's vision went red. The Mirror World's prompt rang in his mind, yet he did not answer at once. The fox's chakra had not seized his will. It was dragging him into a space of swirling haze.
There shapes flitted like phantoms from old dramas of ghosts and demons. First came whispers that coaxed and tempted. Then a flood of hatred surged in, a black tide of rancor crashing over him.
Pure malice. Within it he felt traces of the fox's feelings. The taste was familiar. It pulled up the dream he had clung to in his past life, when he had longed to rise from the wheelchair and be whole.
He remembered the moment before the disaster took his life, when the terror of death filled him and every emotion failed to save him.
That world had given him two decades of scraping survival. He had looked into human darkness too many times to count.
At the instant of release he had hurled a curse, the vilest he could shape, at the world that had denied him fairness.
Since coming here, he had believed that feelings did nothing to change reality. The worse life grew, the more people hid in fantasies.
Hatred, numbness, despair, bitterness, collapse, fear. He had tasted them all. Only now did he see it. Those very poisons had kept his meager life upright.
"Great fox, you can sense it. These shadows mean little to me."
"Do not poke me with such clumsy tricks. You are near immortal. You cannot know the true despair of a human. You should already feel that I bear you no malice. I came with sincerity to find a way through."
The haze fell away. The fox's eyes watched him with new interest.
Outside, Minato staggered at the sound of Naruto's voice. Even so, he kept his hands in motion, ready in case the storm returned.
"Brat, you are the strangest human I have seen."
"Hatred roots deep in you. You feed your shadows into something else I cannot name. I feel that while this hatred gives rise to that thing, you are stripping the hatred itself away from the world. You stand outside it with cold reason."
The trial had convinced the fox. The savage mask eased.
Naruto smiled. "Curious what that something is."
The fox bared its teeth. "Curious indeed. I have watched you since you were small. I did not expect such vast grievance to coil within you."
"If I am right, it becomes will. The will to live and grow stronger."
"Will. What is that."
Its pupils widened a fraction.
"Will is when a person fixes a purpose, then bends action to it, overcomes hardship, and realizes the chosen goal. It is the mind's force within decision."
"These wounds and shadows, their pain has carved me to the bone. They have also intoxicated me."
The fox mulled his words, then snorted. "You only learned to read less than a year ago. How does a little brat conjure this nonsense."
Outside, Minato felt a chill. Watching his son's growth and hearing him now, he could no longer see a child. What stood before him spoke like someone seasoned by a life already lived. Not an ordinary life either.
His face darkened as a thought seized him. He fell into silence.
Naruto's eyes shone. "Pain makes people grow. Now, shall we speak of cooperation."
The fox's vertical pupils narrowed with doubt. "What kind of cooperation."
Minato leaned in, listening.
Naruto's tone turned solemn. "I offer you a promise."
The fox answered without thinking. "What promise."
Naruto met its gaze head on. "Within sixteen years I will free you from this seal and give you true freedom, if you place your trust in me."
Silence fell over the seal.
The fox was stunned. Even Minato, for once, did not object.
At length the fox roared. "Then hear me. If I am free I will destroy Konoha."
"That is not my concern."
Naruto's reply was light, as if his father, the Fourth Hokage of Konoha, did not stand just beyond the bars.
"Tell me, brat. You would grant a tailed beast freedom. Do you understand that when a beast leaves the host, the jinchuriki dies."
"Certain death. There are no absolutes. This is the shinobi world, where chakra shapes miracles. I will find a way to free you and live."
"And I will repeat this. You possess a mind no less than ours. In my eyes there is no difference between tailed beasts and humans. We can meet as equals and speak as equals."
"Good. Brat, you are not bad. I sense no malice from you. To step in here shows your courage."
"I have held no malice from the start."
Naruto bowed his head. A memory stirred.
In the later tale, the fox could sense malice. Standing this close, it must have kept that sense fixed on him from the first. When its chakra lapped against his body a moment ago, he had felt the beast's thoughts stir.
"Brat. Your fist."
The fox's voice boomed until his ears hummed. He raised his head. A clenched paw blotted his sky, hovering so close it brushed his hair.
He knew this gesture.
He lifted his arm, calm as a still pond, and set his knuckles to the beast's.
Thud.
In that touch, boy and fox could read the truest shape of each other's hearts.
"Brat. My name is Kurama. Do not forget your promise."
"I will remember. A promise, once spoken, will be kept. Uzumaki Naruto. That is my name. Remember it."
A discordant tone cut in at once.
Warning. Mental world under attack. Under current defense you may choose Forced Expulsion or Forced Capture.
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