For some reason, I couldn't sleep... The bed was too soft and wide. It smelled of something I couldn't identify. And this entire magical world—everything about it—was strange...
The only things Harry Potter had managed to impress me with so far were the moving photographs in their newspapers and the 'living' portrait of one of his relatives. She hadn't said much, though Harry explained that she usually spent her time shouting insults. The wizarding photographs in the papers helped me determine whom I was supposed to look for beyond the Veil and what Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, looked like. They also let me learn the faces of the important people in this world.
There was Albus Dumbledore, an old man with spectacles and bells in his very long beard, the headmaster of the school of magic Harry attended. Severus Snape looked intimidating and formidable even in a photograph—it was obvious at once that the man had been through a war. I respected him after Harry told me that his Potions professor was a spy inside the Dark Lord's camp. Harry didn't say it openly, but I sensed that he and this Se-ve-rus—what a name!—had some kind of conflict.
I cut out all the moving pictures and pasted them into the notebook Kreacher had found for me. The house-elf also brought ink and writing brushes, so I added notes for my 'Bingo Book': their names, and everything I could remember Harry saying about them. I also gave everyone nicknames to help myself remember and avoid having to pronounce tongue-twisting names like Dolores Umbridge or Rufus Scrimgeour every time. My tongue felt as though it had to tie itself in loops to speak English! It was now swollen and sore enough to keep me awake.
Still, it was strange that Harry Potter's friends had abandoned him after the death—or disappearance with a ninety-percent chance of death—of his godfather. They had dumped him, as he himself had put it, 'with relatives who hated him.'
When news came of Jiraiya's death, I... I remembered wandering alone, thinking, remembering, even crying a little. No point denying it—it happened... Then Shikamaru found me and told me how he had survived the death of his own teacher and friend. Ino came, and we slept together again. Then Sakura came and smacked me over the head so I would stop falling apart. Sai tried to give me books like How to Survive Grief. I told him exactly where to shove them, of course, but he'd wanted to help and simply didn't know how. His own emotions had frozen after his brother's death... Yet I felt their support. All of them tried to cheer me up, shake me out of it, and show me that I wasn't alone.
Harry Potter had rotten friends. That was what I thought.
This half-trained wizard had summoned me and lost a great deal of blood and strength during the ritual. So we had only sorted out who was who by looking through stacks of newspapers. Unfortunately, knowledge of the local written language hadn't been transmitted, so I could only study the pictures. After eating, Harry could barely remain on his feet and went to bed. I stayed up longer, gluing pictures and writing down everything I remembered in my Bingo Book, then went to the room assigned to me.
"Kyūbi, my dear fluffy Nine-Tails, is there anything you'd like to explain?" I asked sweetly when I realized I wasn't going to sleep until I understood everything.
The fox looked away and bared his teeth.
"Come on. What the hell happened? Harry showed me that grimoire from a distance. The demons in the pictures don't look much like you. And something tells me there isn't a single word in it about nine-tailed foxes."
"I am a demon!" the fox roared, sounding less than fully confident.
"No, no, of course I don't doubt you..." Then it dawned on me. "Waaait. Tell me the truth. Do they not consider you a demon?"
"I... What? No!" he began denying it far too quickly and vehemently. "How could you even—Naruto! I am a demon!"
"Uh-huh." I pursed my lips. "Don't tell me you decided to prove something to someone..."
"I... I..." His ears flattened, and he wilted. "When you split my chakra, I was able to reach the demonic plane mentally, and they... Everyone there... They..."
The fox looked so crushed that I felt sorry for him. In the trembling darkness of my inner world I heard giggles and mocking laughter, and images of eyes appeared. Different eyes. It was obvious that they probably didn't belong to humans, but those looks... I could never mistake them for anything else. They had followed me through my entire childhood and adolescence. Hatred, contempt, revulsion, disgust.
People had looked at me that way while whispering that I was 'the demon's spawn,' 'the filthy fox,' 'a dangerous jinchūriki.'
"Bastards!" I snarled, releasing chakra and drowning out the whispers, erasing the images. "You're the best demon there is! How dare they doubt you? You're strong, dangerous, and you've got enormous teeth! What could they possibly object to? You should've thrown a Tailed Beast Bomb at them so they wouldn't get too full of themselves!"
"Huh?" Kyūbi's eyes widened. He straightened as much as he could in his position and grinned. "I... did. And then... that summoning seal appeared, and I jumped into it."
I burst out laughing, vividly imagining the demons' long faces when my fox had screwed—no, tricked—all of them. Hit them hard and then left in the local, English fashion. Apparently he'd picked up some bad habits from me, such as 'act first, think later' and 'rub everyone's nose in it.'
"Ha-ha-ha! I hope they all—ha-ha—completely lost their damn minds?"
"They did!" the fox said with a toothy grin.
"You did great. Ha-ha-ha! I'm proud of you." I wiped tears from my eyes. "Serves them right for acting superior."
"By the way, I wanted to do this immediately, but we were interrupted." I rebuilt his cage around him and removed the restraining torii gates. The fox sat up, rubbed his neck with his paws, and moved his tails with obvious pleasure.
"Don't worry too much, Naruto. When we return home, not much time will probably have passed there..."
"Like on Myōboku?" I asked. "One day passed in Konoha while an entire week went by there?"
"Yes, only the difference is even stronger here," the fox said, scratching himself. "The farther apart the worlds are, the greater the difference in time. A couple of weeks might pass here while less than a minute passes in our world."
"Wow." I brightened. "Do you know how to get back?"
"No," the fox snorted.
I thought about it. It wasn't critical yet, which meant I could consider it later. The problem might even 'solve itself.' Summoned animals returned to their own world, and it didn't always happen consciously. Sometimes the technique ended, sometimes they ran out of chakra, sometimes they were injured—there were all sorts of reasons. I would spend a couple of weeks studying this world, help Harry if I could, and then go home... Somehow. I would definitely manage it.
"All right, we'll think about it later, Kyū..." I yawned widely, suddenly feeling exhausted. "I'm going to sleep."
"Good night, Naruto," was the last thing I heard before falling into dreamless darkness.
* * *
"Naruto! Wake up!"
I opened my eyes and found a frightened face in spectacles directly in front of me. For some reason, the boy was lying beneath me and struggling to get free.
"What are you doing?" I sprang away from him.
A disheveled Harry adjusted his glasses and sat up on the bed.
"Me? What were you doing?! I tried to wake you, and you grabbed me and nearly strangled me in bed." His mouth fell slightly open as he stared at my morning erection and my underwear patterned with spirals.
"You've got..." Harry turned red and looked away.
"Haven't had sex in a while," I finished for him. "Couldn't think of anything smarter than sneaking up and touching me in my sleep?"
"Sorry. I didn't think..." The boy lowered his head in repentance. Apparently I had guessed correctly.
"I fell asleep alone, so I expected to wake up alone. Sorry—instinct. Strange world, and here you are creeping up to wake me." I smiled, trying to ease the suddenly tense atmosphere. Actually, now I could sense something from Harry. Not chakra, but...
"Yesterday you said you can't use magic without a wand," I reminded him. "Can you at least feel magic? I mean, not cast spells with it, but make it circulate through your body?"
"I don't know." Harry shrugged. "Probably..."
I sat cross-legged on the bed. I needed to understand this magic. There had to be some way to distinguish these wizards from ordinary people.
"Try concentrating your magic while I attempt to sense it," I suggested, holding still and drawing natural energy into my body.
Nature here was terrible. By the feel of it, nothing but artificial stone... The air wasn't much better: stale and foul. But beggars couldn't be choosers.
"N-Naruto, your eyelids turned orange!" Harry exclaimed, breaking my concentration and his own. The faint sensation I had begun to perceive from him disappeared at once.
Now I understood Master Fukasaku when he complained that I had an awl stuck up my backside. I took a couple of breaths to calm down and avoid smashing Harry between the lenses as a preventive measure.
"What did I tell you to do?" I opened my eyes, and Harry went pale.
"Y-your eyes turned yellow, and your pupils..."
Damn it, this was my own fault. I hadn't explained anything beforehand, and now he'd wet my bed.
"Calm down, savior of the wizarding world," I said with as much sarcasm as I could manage. "You summoned a demon yourself. Why are you surprised now?"
"B-but you... You're right." Harry drooped again.
"Stop whining. You're a terrible savior. You can't even concentrate chakra—I mean, your magic! I'm trying to enter Sage Mode so I can sense your world's magic. I need some way to distinguish ordinary people—your 'Muggles'—from wizards. Something tells me you didn't even do basic morning exercises. You just wander from room to room and complain. I've dreamed my entire life of becoming Hokage—a person respected by everyone, someone willing to sacrifice his life for his country and village. I've trained my whole life, even when people tried to keep me from learning. You, as far as I can see, refuse to study despite having every opportunity. You're behaving like a hysterical child, not a man."
"I am a man!" Harry clenched his fists. "You don't know anything about me!"
Whew. That did it. The air vibrated noticeably, and I finally detected a release of power. A good strong release—the walls reacted to it. Apparently they were covered in signs and lines like some complicated fūinjutsu array. Excellent. Now I understood the difference between his world, which ran on magic, and ours, which ran on chakra. Hopefully I would be able to sense people with these traits even outside Sage Mode now.
"All right, man, I understand what this magic stuff is." I rose from the bed and stretched.
Harry stared at me with his mouth open.
"You did that on purpose?" he finally realized. "To make me angry?"
For some reason he blushed again and looked sideways at me. Maybe he had some kind of complex?
"I don't like whining either way," I said, heading for the bathroom. "We'll eat breakfast and then go to your Ministry of Magic."