My Little Naruto: Friendship is--WHERE AM I!?

by DragonLS

CH12: Like Father, Like Daughter (Revised)

AN: This chapter is kinda short, since I’ve been rather busy during the past week or so... but it gets the point across. Enjoy everyone!

Naruto was cold. Not the normal kind of cold but the dank, wet kind. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his mind swimming with fatigue. The brief moments of clarity were spent trying to figure out his predicament. What happened to him? Where is he now? This mind-numbing cold was all to familiar. Finally, his vision decided that the coffee break was over and the room around him came into focus.

No longer was he in the depths of the Everfree Forest, surrounded by wild fauna and the cliff. He found himself in... a familiar place, one that he frequented on occasion. Home, perhaps? No, he found himself in a massive sewer pipe, knee-deep in frigid water, staring at a wall of gigantic iron bars. A red, blood-like substance lined the surrounding area, more concentrated around the iron bars than anywhere else. However, those weren’t ordinary bars. They were part of a much larger contraption meant to keep anything big—human or monster— from escaping. A massive prison.

Naruto shook his head a couple of times in disbelief, staring at the broken seal mark. It all came back to him. It was the place where the Kyuubi was imprisoned; the same Kyuubi that he met so many times in this sorry place. Did this mean the Kyuubi was calling out to him? No, that’s impossible. Yet here he was, within throwing distance of the Kyuubi’s cell.

Naruto slowly got up on his legs, wobbling a little from the combination of fatigue and cold. The fight with the Manticore took a lot out of him and, even now, he was having trouble standing up. But he couldn’t stay here. He forced his legs to comply, ignoring the pain, and he eventually stood up completely. He needed to walk... he needed to find a way out of this accursed place.

As Naruto took a few steps forward, he could feel the water beneath him, cold, dank and murky. Even though his legs consisted of bone, skin, and fur, it didn’t make him resistant to the cold. Strangely enough, he felt as though he had never left his old world, due to the discovery of the Kyuubi’s prison.

“It doesn’t make any sense… I thought the Kyuubi was gone when I died… but then, what was that familiar voice I had earlier…”

He remembered it vividly. When Twilight and Pinkie were attacked by the Manticore, he was angry beyond belief. Sitting there just agitated it, making him even more angry as the seconds passed. He wanted to do something, anything, to help them. Yet, he physically couldn’t.  That was when it happened… he somehow attained another tail. He looked back at his rear end, to confirm what he saw before. The tails in question just moved of their own accord.

“So it wasn’t just a dream… I really did grow another tail…” Did his feelings have something to do with it? As of this moment, it didn’t seem all that important. He still needed answers to other questions. He watched his tails move a few moments more, before turning back to the front. The cold had seeped down into his bones now, sending him into full body shivers every few seconds. This is nothing. I’ve been through much worse, he thought, pushing the the cold to the back of his mind. He stopped for a moment, looking further down the tunnel and then back the way he came.

It soon occurred to him that he was in a two-way tunnel. No branching off, no intersecting tunnels, just forward and backward. Occasionally, a small pipe would open up into the main one, its opening covered by wrought iron bars. Each one he looked into had the same thing behind it, darkness. There was nobody—or pony—in sight. He was alone in this place...wherever he was.

His ears perked up, catching something on the still air in the tunnel. A small voice, something he never would have picked up on unless it had been this quiet. It was soft, gentle crying. It didn’t sound aggressive nor did it sound frightening. It was plain old crying. 

He marched forward, now listening intently, trying to hone in on the tiny voice. He tried to keep his hoof steps as quiet as possible while moving as fast as possible, hoping to not spook whomever was crying. The sobbing grew louder as he proceeded further down the tunnel, indicating he was closing in.

He kept a watchful eye out for anything out of the ordinary, still trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Multiple pipes , wrought iron fences on all of the openings, were the only things he could see in front of him. As he trotted forward, the sounds started to grow quieter. He froze in place, turning around to look back the way he came. He took a couple steps backward, confirming that in fact he had passed where the voice was coming from. The only thing that was in the tunnel were those obstructed openings whose contents contained nothing but darkness. Of course.

“I must have passed it… But who’s crying?”

Listening carefully, he found his way toward a medium-sized opening with the bars now missing. He swore that all of those passages were barred up when he passed the first time. Maybe he just missed this one. Nonetheless, he strode forward into the passageway. It opened up into a small ante-chamber, much like the one he woke up in except that it was maybe half the size at best. Rust covered just about every exposed surface and more bars, like the ones outside, cut off any further progress. However, these seemed worn out, as if someone had gone and scratched them repeatedly. In the center, an iron bar door filled in a section of the fence.  Naruto walked up to the bars, trying to get a closer look at whatever was inside. It was a rather big... no, in this case, a small surprise.

The room through the door had a ceiling light hanging from above casting its dull, yellow light on a circular section of floor. In the center, lay a small figure—nay, a small creature—who was scrunched up into itself. It was a small dark orange fox, complete with yellow beastly eyes, dark and mystical wavy stripes on its entire body, and not only that…

“9 tails…? It can’t be…”

On the small fox, 9 orange, white-tipped tails swayed, as if caught in an imaginary breeze. Naruto blinked, trying to comprehend what he was looking at. Had the Kyuubi shrunk in size? No, this wasn’t the Kyuubi... It was too different.

For starters, the Kyuubi that he knew was one hell of a sadistic beast. And yet, here he was, staring at a mini-Kyuubi in the fetal position, crying... Demons like that wouldn’t—or couldn’t—cry, right? 

It left him confused. The fox kept crying, every now and then wiping away some tears with its fury , white-tipped paws . In fact, despite the freaky looking striped patterns and the resemblances to a demonic entity capable of flattening mountains with a single swipe of a tail, it was quite adorable. Naruto found himself wanting to go inside the cage, to comfort the poor fox. He pushed open the small gate and strode forth into the fox’s cage. As his hoof touched the ground beyond the door, the crying stopped. The fox looked up, apparently startled by the yellow intruder who just entered his domain. It looked on in what Naruto could describe as shock and confusion. Naruto was the first to break the brief, yet tense silence.

“Um, hi there…” Naruto said. The fox went wide-eye, the yellow of it’s eyes now more pronounced than before, eying Naruto. It blinked a couple of times before it started to growl menacingly. Naruto flinched, not expecting such a deep, monstrous growl from a tiny fox. Although, the fox did have resemblances to a much bigger and meaner fox, so he can’t say he wasn’t completely surprised.

“Who are you, and where’s Daddy!?” The fox demanded.

If he could have, Naruto would have pissed in his pants... except he no longer wore pants. The deep and threatening voice reminded him of the Kyuubi, but what confused him even more was that the fox was asking for its Daddy...whoever that might be. Naruto blinked a couple times before waving his hooves around, trying to calm down the menacing fur ball.

“I-I don’t know? I’m just lost down here, and, um… I heard you were crying, and it sort of… led me here? Eh heh heh… hehhhhh…” Naruto said with a forced smile.

“LIAR, I WANT TO KNOW WHERE DADDY IS!” the deep-voiced fox growled even more, now on its four legs ready to pounce.

“W-wait, I don’t know who or what you are, but I’m telling you, I don’t know where your dad is… whoever that may be.” Naruto said as he cautiously stepped forward into the light. The light revealed more of his body to the fox. The fox stopped growling, now staring at Naruto in the light. In fact, the fox didn’t even feel hostile anymore. It just stared at Naruto with a look of disbelief.

Naruto tilted his head in confusion. First the fox was threatening him... and now it wasn’t? He was meeting all sorts of animals with confusing problems, it seems. The fox slowly walked towards Naruto, its eyes locked not on him, but at a spot directly behind him. He followed the foxes line of sight. It was staring… at the two tails Naruto had.

“Are you… Daddy?”

Naruto fell face first into the water below him, sending a new batch of shivers cascading through his body. Did he just call me his Dad?!, he thought. Naruto immediately jumped to all four hoofs and pointed one at the fox.

“Do I look like a damn fox!? Sure, I’ve got the tails, but I’m a huma—a pony, or a stallion… god dammit, I don’t even know what I am anymore!” Naruto said, scratching his head in frustration from his own identity crisis. The fox merely tilted its head at the amusing sight before him.

“No… you are my Daddy… You have the tails, and…” The fox leaned forward, sniffing Naruto, before grinning, “...you have Daddy’s scent… Or, maybe… you’re Daddy’s cousin, or maybe my Mother? Maybe even my Brother but… you smell like Daddy…”

Now that any trace of anger within the voice was gone, the voice sounded strangely… feminine. Was the fox a female? He let go a sigh of relief. In that case, it couldn’t be the Kyuubi. What still confused him was that the fox said he smelled the same as her Daddy. How was that even possible? As he thought about the implications, the fox circled around him, constantly sniffing him. He grew uncomfortable being in such close proximity to her. He took a couple of steps back.

“Look, I’m pretty sure I’m not your daddy… Heck, I’m not even married! Nor have I done anything like that… So I’m pretty sure you’re not my kid… Besides…,” Naruto said, looking around, “I was expecting to find the Kyuubi in here… not a pint-sized fox.”

The fox flicked its nine tails, squinting at Naruto, his mouth now sporting a grin.

“Pint... sized?” The fox slammed a tail into the ground, emphasizing each word. Each impact sent tremors throughout the ground on the level of an earthquake. Naruto lost his balance and fell flat on his ass, where the cold water was. He yelped, jumping up almost instantly, the only part of his body that was dry was now waterlogged. The nine tailed, pint-sized fox was powerful enough to shake the entire room using just a single tail. Not only that, but it has nine of them. He gulped.

“Now, who is pint-sized, hmm?” The fox said, delighted at Naruto’s reaction.

“Y-Yeah… Definitely not you…”

“Good… I’m glad you realized that.” The fox walked up to Naruto and eyed him carefully, a small, threatening smile graced her face. “Don’t  you ever call me pint-sized, small, or anything that associates me with little. You got that?”

“Yeah, loud and clear… loud and clear…” Naruto said, each repetition quieter than the last.

“So… The Kyuubi… You said the Kyuubi, right?”

“Uhh, yeah…” Naruto began. “Do you know where… the Kyuubi is? Wait, stupid question… The Kyuubi can’t be here anymore… And yet…” He looked at the small fox. “You’re here, but you can’t be the Kyuubi either, you’re too sm—er, I mean you’re not what I was expecting… Uh…”

“You call him Kyuubi… What did he look like?”

“Well… He looked a lot like you, except he didn’t have all those black patterns you have on your fur… really evil and mean too… Didn’t care about humanity. Kinda like the big bad wolf or something… or was it the big bad pig? I don’t know how the story goes, um…” While he tried to figure out how to describe the situation, the fox just frowned in annoyance.

“Did he glow really red when he gets angry, really sharp teeth, and had nine tails just like me?”

“Y-Yes, that sounds like him alright!”, he said. The fox just smiled back.

“He’s my Daddy.”

Those three words were like being hit by a falling anvil… No, make it a million anvils to his entire god damn body, mind, and spirit… and maybe his soul too. Naruto’s lower jaw fell, his mouth gaping open in disbelief at what he just learned.

“EHHH!? HE’S WHAT!?” Naruto shouted out loud, having regained use of his mouth.

“He’s my Daddy… What’s wrong? You look like someone just died and got killed again.”

That didn’t even make a lick of sense.

“What? No, that’s not it! You… how the hell!? When did… Who… You’ve got to… ARGH!”

First it was dying. Then it was the pony world. Now the realization that the Kyuubi had a daughter. How the Kyuubi even managed to have a daughter without a potential mate—inside his own seal even—was disturbing enough. So he decided to do the next best thing: