“C’mon ladies… turn this way… that’s it… oh yeah, do it for Jiraiya!”

“For Kami’s sake, dad!” Naruto took a break from dying of embarrassment to try and talk some sense into his godfather, who was currently using chakra-enhanced senses and who knew what other perverted techniques to spy on the girls bathing in the valley river, which lay next to their forest training grounds. “They’re almost the same age I am! Can’t you at least pretend to be ashamed about it?”

Jiraiya snorted derisively. “Shame is an unnatural perversion invented by tyrants to prevent man from enjoying nature’s beauty. Now shush, I think that one’s about to take her top off.”

Naruto groaned. “Dad, you’re one of the Sannin; a former student of the Third and one of the most famous and respected ninjas of all time! At least, you would be if you didn’t go around doing stuff like this all the time.” He recalled the words of the head of Torture and Interrogation, Morino Ibiki: “Your father is a pervert and a drunk”. The man had not even felt the need to hide his contempt. “You could be the next Hokage if you wanted to, dad, I mean if you really tried.”

“Pfff, Hokage? A sage like me is above such base needs for influence and power. Enlightenment is all about taking time to enjoy the finer things in life, and there’s naught finer than those ripe melons over there.” He wiggled his white eyebrows suggestively, but his face fell when he realized Naruto was not biting. “Kami, kid, you’re no fun at all. It’s just as well I never got married, seeing how you’re already such an old woman.”

“Dad, we came here to train. You said you were gonna help me become stronger, since Kakashi is off teaching Sasuke a secret technique or whatever.” He did not even know where Sakura was or who was teaching her, if anyone. She had not forfeited the exam, so she had to be planning something.

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme a break already.” Jiraiya turned around and sat in seiza style, his expression slowly turning serious. “Aright, so you wanna get stronger, huh? Well I’ve got just the thing for ya – it’s called the Rasengan, and it’s the ultimate destructive technique created by the Fourth Hokage.” He held up his hand, and in his open palm a pattern of blue chakra began to swirl, forming a translucent orb of radiant energy kept together by a constant inwards spiralling motion like a miniature whirlpool.

Naruto stared at the sphere in awe, his eyes seeming to be drawn into the centre of the vortex as though his spirit would be trapped there forever if he looked for too long. “It’s amazing,” he said, “but… you’re saying it’s a close range attack technique? What’s the point of learning that instead of just using a sword or a knife or something?”

Jiraiya grinned. “Oh, it’s a lot more than just an unstoppable melee attack – that’s just what you let the other guy think until it’s too late. Watch!” He got up and extended his arm away from Naruto. For an instant the blue sphere just hovered there in front of his palm, and then it detonated like no explosion he had ever seen: The blue chakra blasted outwards in a hurricane of force that carved a trench through the earth until it struck one of the surrounding trees, causing it to splinter and crash to the ground with a deafening racket.

“What’dya think?” Jiraiya called out over the cacophony. “Pretty good, no?”

Naruto had stood up without even realizing it, his limbs trembling along with the vibration of the earth. A directional explosion of force that can be set off at will… That really did sound like an unstoppable attack. If he used that in tandem with his clones, not even Gaara would stand a chance against him.

Then he remembered Sakura’s furious lecture, and he slowly sat down again. “That’s… I mean, it’s really impressive, dad, but I think… I think maybe I’ve got enough ways to blow stuff up already.”

Jiraiya looked crestfallen. “But that was your dad’s… Bah, never mind. I guess you’re just too young for such an incredible technique.” He glanced towards the valley river, but the girls had quickly packed up and ran off at the sound of the explosion, making his expression even more mournful. Then he snapped his fingers and his eyes lit up again. “Wait, I’ve got just the thing for ya. The Summoning Technique!”

“The summoning technique? What, you mean like the scroll Iruka’s sensei used to teleport to the tower in the Forest of Death?” Now that sounded like a useful ability to have.

“That’s right, kiddo. Only instead of summoning scruffy pen-pushers, you’ll be calling upon the awesome force of the Toads of Mount Myōboku! I originally passed the toad contract to your dad, so now-”

“Wait,” said Naruto. “A toad contract? So I can only choose one kind of creature to summon? Why’s that? And if that’s the case, are toads really the most useful type of spirit I could pick? What else is there? Could I summon really powerful spirits like the Nine-tails instead?”

As if in reply, Naruto’s stomach cramped up in pain as something burned it like acid. I’ll get to you in a minute, you old Fox. You just sit tight.

Jiraiya crossed his arms in a huff. “You gotta sign a contract ‘cause there’s no point in summoning something that won’t agree to fight for you, and the spirits tend to not like each other much. It costs more chakra to summon something the more powerful it is: The only one that’s ever summoned the Nine-tails is Uchiha Madara in his final duel with the First Hokage at the Valley of the End, and nobody knows how even he managed to pull that one off, so you can forget about trying anything like that.”

“Huh.” Naruto rubbed his stomach as the pain slowly faded again. “So what can these toads do?”

Jiraiya shrugged. “Oh, y’know, they come in all shapes and sizes. Some of ‘em fight with weapons and armour while others use techniques based on their chakra nature, which in the case of toads means water techniques. Then there’s the space-time combination techniques that I like to use, and-”

“Wait,” said Naruto. “You’re saying that the toad contract would let me summon spirits that can themselves cast techniques that even I can’t use? And I’m allowed to do that during the exam?”

“Yup. Though, if you’d rather summon something else you could ask Kakashi for his dog summoning contract. They’re great trackers, dogs. Or I could ask the Third for his Monkey-summoning contract. The monkey king can turn into a staff, you know. You never know when you need a good staff. Could be you’re out by the river doing your laundry, and you completely forgot your drying pole, and then bam! Instant staff.”

“No, no,” Naruto said hurriedly. “I’m really feeling the toad affinity here. Plus I gotta carry on, you know, my dad’s legacy and stuff. I mean, the Fourth was your student and uh, there’s that whole ‘Will of Fire’ thing where we’re supposed to pass that stuff down and all…”

Jiraiya grinned impishly. “Well, if you’re sure…” He pulled a scroll from his green short-kimono, and with a puff of air manifested one of his meter-long scrolls from it. “This is the toad contract,” he said as he spread it out across the crisp grass. “Just sign your name in blood next to mine, and we’re good to go.”

“Uhm, okay…” Naruto gingerly pricked his finger with a kunai and scrawled his name down next to Minato’s and Jiraiya’s, only barely managing to make it legible. There was something decidedly sinister about writing a blood contract with spirits, but Jiraiya thought it was a good idea, and so…

“Your father is a pervert and a drunk,” Ibiki’s voice came again. “He is just as mad as you are,” Sakura had yelled to him. “This whole world is insane, and you’re the worst of them all!”

“Good enough,” said Jiraiya, rolling up the scroll before Naruto could say or do anything else. “Now, whenever you wanna summon a toad, you gotta get a bit of blood on your hands to let the toads know who’s calling on ‘em. Then you just need to learn to form the seals and cast the technique. Watch.”

After drawing some blood from his thumb, Jiraiya went through the Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram seals, moving slowly enough that Naruto could see them easily, and slammed his hands down onto the ground. Suddenly there was a blast of air and Jiraiya was standing on top of a giant toad. It had big yellow eyes, a pattern of blue swirls on its orange skin and a necklace of purple beads around its neck.

“Wow,” said Naruto, too flabbergasted to think of anything else to say. “Is it… intelligent?”

“Can’t be any dumber than I am,” Jiraiya said with a grin. He leaped down and slapped the toad on its side. “Ol’ Gama here isn’t the most personable of the bunch, but he always does as he’s asked. The ones you summon are probably gonna be a bit smaller though, depending on how much chakra you put in.”

“Wait,” said Naruto, still reeling from the last revelation. “How does that work? I mean… you need more chakra the more powerful they are? What does that even mean? And why are humans so much harder to summon than spirits? Does it depend on how much chakra the target has, or how big they are, or… what?”

Jiraiya shrugged. “Both, I guess.”

“You guess. Okay, then… does it cost more if the target is further away? Wait, this mount Myō… Moki… this mount thing, is it like a spirit dimension or is it an actual place? I mean, could you walk there?”

“Sure, if you’ve got a lot of patience and know where it is. I wouldn’t try the food there though, it’s dreadful.” Jiraiya shared a knowing look with the orange toad, who stared dumbly back at him in response. There was something decidedly creepy about the way its yellow eyes kept following them as they talked. What was it the Kyūbi had said back then? “Small wonder the frogs and snakes are all domesticated, with us as an example of what should happen to them if they ever refuse your will!”

“Okay,” Naruto said, as he ran a hand through his messy blond hair. “Okay. Then I’m guessing they get a chakra signal when you try to summon them, right? And the blood contract functions as a seal network set up to let them know it’s you. So then does a toad with the right size and chakra get summoned automatically, or do they choose who answers the summoning themselves? But if that’s the case, then why…” He was still trying to figure out how the whole thing worked when there was a sudden intake of air and the giant toad vanished. “Wait, what? What just happened? Where did it go?”

“Oh, I guess its contract period just ended,” Jiraiya said offhandedly. “I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it just now, so it’s already gone back to mount Myōboku.”

“It what? You’re saying it teleported back? How the heck’s that even possible? I mean, it cost chakra and you had to form seals to summon it here, so how can it just automatically go back after a certain time?”

“Oh, that one’s easy to explain,” Jiraiya said confidently. “It was the technique that brought it here, but then the jutsu ran out, so now it’s not here anymore. It’s pretty simple when you think about it.”

“That’s not…” Naruto resisted the urge to groan. “Dad, it doesn’t work that way. If you cast the Grand Fireball technique, the trees and houses you burn down don’t just come back afterwards. It would completely change the way we understand ninjutsu if that happened!” Not that they understood much of it in the first place. “Even if ninjutsu is magic, it still has to obey the rules of logic and consistency. The Second Hokage clearly established the Laws of Chakra: You can’t influence anything unless your chakra is in contact with it, and you gotta spend chakra to change something, so unless the technique… Wait.”

He frowned, considering the issue. Chakra has to be in contact with the thing you change… but in the case of the summoning technique, you’re not influencing the toad but space itself, making it so that the distance between you and the toad is effectively zero. Could it be that space just… snaps back after a while?

He tapped the sealing scroll thoughtfully. “Dad, you said you need this contract because otherwise the toads wouldn’t agree to come, right? But we managed to summon Iruka without even knowing it would happen, so does that mean it’s the contract seal itself that determines who you summon? Like, since my blood is in there now along with the toads’, does that mean I could be summoned as well?”

“Sure,” said Jiraiya, “that’s called the reverse summoning technique. Well, truth be told it’s really just the same technique but with the destination and origin swapped. Won’t do you much good unless you somehow were to find a toad that can cast it for you though, since there’s really not much point in you summoning yourself to your own location. Plus the more powerful your target is the more chakra you need, and so to summon yourself you’d need to be stronger than yourself, which is kind of impossible.”

Naruto nodded slowly. Jiraiya was clearly still thinking of the technique as being a literal contract between ninjas and spirits, but what he said matched with Naruto’s understanding: If the technique really just bent space so as to set the distance between the caster and the target to zero, then it made perfect sense that you’d be able to summon yourself to your target as well – though apparently the cost depended on how much chakra was being moved around, somehow? That was weird.

The theory seemed plausible, but he remembered Kakashi’s lesson about always looking underneath the underneath, and so he kept on thinking. What else could make the summoned animal teleport back like that? Maybe the technique itself is designed to do that? But why would it do that, and even if that’s the case, how could I tell?

He looked up again. “Dad… this mount whatsit place where the toads come from – you said you’ve been there, right? Was everything else there really huge as well?”

“Oh yeah. Giant trees the size of mountains, huge toadstools… you’d have to see it to believe it, kiddo.”

“So just like the Forest of Death then,” Naruto said, realizing. “Did you ever summon toads in another area with huge trees and plants like that? And did the contract last longer then?”

Jiraiya blinked. “Huh, come to think of it… I summoned Gama Bunta in this weird valley in the Land of Grass once – huge place filled with crazy stuff – and he never popped ‘till we got into combat with this rogue Grass ninja and he took a few bad hits. Never really thought about it, but that was pretty strange.”

That settled it. “Dad, it sounds like these giant animal spirits can only survive in areas with lots of natural chakra like the Forest of Death or this Mount place they’re from, and if they go away from there they slowly run out of chakra until they die from it. I’m guessing whoever invented the technique made it so that it automatically calls the spirits back to the place they were summoned from when that’s about to happen.” And in fact, that implied they were not spirits at all, but just unusually intelligent chakra animals.

Jiraiya shrugged. “That’s what I just said, isn’t it? The contract calls them here but when their time’s up they gotta go back to where they came from. You gotta learn to listen to your elders sometimes, kiddo.”

“That’s so not what you said! You said…” He stopped when he saw the teasing grin on his godfather’s face. “Nevermind…”

“All right,” said Jiraiya, still grinning. “Now that that stuff’s taken care off, we can get on with the other thing we came here to do.” He manifested another scroll, this one even larger than the one before, and spread it out onto the grass. It was the same array of seals that they had used the last time back in their apartment, again with a circle in the middle for Naruto to sit on. “You’re still sure about this, kiddo?”

“Yeah,” said Naruto, clutching his aching stomach with one hand. “The last time I talked to the Kyūbi I didn’t have any safeguards at all, and it turned out fine, so this should be more than enough.”

He sat down in the centre of the seal, and Jiraiya lifted his shirt and drove his hand into his stomach.

-o-

Naruto gasped, and then he was back in that dark place where light held no meaning. He stood bent over in the pool of colourless liquid, clenching his stomach which now burned with an excruciating pain.

“At last! Do you have any idea how long I have been attempting to summon you, boy? I was beginning to think you were utterly insensate to your own body’s cohabitant calling you.”

“I’m starting to sense it now,” Naruto groaned. “Would you mind?

“Pwah.” The pain vanished and Naruto sagged in relief. “You should be grateful for that burning sensation. After all, it was my beneficent chakra that saved your life when you were so eager to discard it.”

“I hadn’t forgotten.” Naruto stared up at the roaring fire behind the forbidding iron bars and grinned weakly. “So… cohabitant, huh? And here I thought I was just a visitor trespassing on your domain.”

“Don’t be smart with me, kit!” The raging fire coalesced into a single burning eye that stared down at him, which was by now if not familiar at least less mind-numbingly terrifying than it once was. “The uninterrupted flow of my consciousness is dependent on the continued wellbeing of your physical form, and so in that sense our lives are indeed intertwined. In fact, that is the very reason I called you here. Would you say that you have been taking exceptionally good care of our vessel, child?”

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. “Uh, well I guess I haven’t been eating all my greens, but…”

“ENOUGH!” A blast of scorching wind struck Naruto and he was hurled backwards, his flesh burning even as scalding water forced its way down his throat, and he gasped for breath even as he screamed. “Do you think this is a game, boy? Do you believe your life means NOTHING?” Naruto struggled vainly to stand up but a roiling wave rushed in and forced him under again, and yet still he heard the Fox’s titanic voice booming from above the waves, echoing through the water. “From the very moment you were born, others have bound the essence of their being to yours: Your father and your mother, who gave up their lives for you – and everyone else who died to protect you. With every selfish risk you take you insult their memories!”

At last Naruto rose to the surface, and as he struggled for breath he saw that the Kyūbi had transformed: Instead of a single crimson eye there was now a snarling visage; a burning mass of teeth and claws with nine smouldering tails twisting around it, like an eldritch horror from a forgotten age. The vision was so bright it burnt itself into Naruto’s retinas, and he knew then and there that this image was no mere facade meant to frighten him – this had to simply be the way the Kyūbi was, the only way it could be.

“From now on we shall do things more sensibly around here. Whenever you come up with a clever ploy that is like to destroy you, you will first consult me so that I may have the opportunity to burn you for your stupidity. If coming to me is impractical, you will simply imagine how I would react if I were present, and then you shall grab some flint and tinder and do it for me. Do you understand me, brat?”

“Yes!” Naruto scrambled backwards through the scalding water, searching vainly for a way to escape, but then he remembered that Kakashi was not there – Jiraiya could pull him out but they had no way to communicate and so there was nothing to hold the Kyūbi’s fury back this time. “I understand!”

“Good.” The Fox’s true form faded, transforming into a fire more akin to a crackling hearth. “Now, those burn wounds look exceedingly painful. Would you like me to use my chakra to heal those for you?”

“Yes!” The terror had almost made him forget, but now Naruto’s tortured skin screamed out in agony once more. “Please!”

“My will is done.” Bubbling crimson chakra leaked out from the seal on Naruto’s belly and crawled over his skin, and though it was agony to the touch, any injury it met was burned away into nothingness. At last Naruto stopped squirming as the pain receded, and he stared at his renewed pink skin in total awe.

“You sought to throw away your life once, and then you nearly did so again: I shall not permit you a third attempt. Do you understand, kit? That opponent you faced was no ordinary Sand ninja. Even from within these dark halls, I could sense the foulness of his chakra seeping through. That child is host to the One-tailed Spirit of the Desert Sands, Shukaku, and it is he who gives the boy his power.”

“The One-tail?” Naruto had been slowly recovering his senses, only for a wave of dread to assail him once again. “That’s… not good.” He turned his arms over again just to make sure his injuries were really gone. “But if he only has one tail, that means he’s less dangerous than you are, right?”

“No, it does not work that way. I am indeed the last and greatest of the Nine, but in terms of the danger I present, it could be said that in truth I am the least.”

Naruto looked up in faint surprise. Was the Nine-tails actually being humble for once?

“I see disbelief in your eyes, and you are right to doubt: It is true that females of every species agree that mere sand cannot hold a candle to the majesty of my flames, yet there is a fundamental difference between having the ability to inspire awe and being itself a creature of terror.” The flames flickered and weakened then, and when the Kyūbi spoke again its voice was quiet, almost subdued. “Do you remember what I told you about my siblings, back when we both lay dying amongst the ice and snow? Each time one of us falls, we come back diminished – a mere shadow of our former selves. My younger brother Shukaku was indeed the weakest, and he was hunted time and again by cruel men who sought to profit from his enslavement. Each time he fell his spirit was lessened, until finally…” The Fox sounded almost pained now, if such a thing was even possible. “There is nothing left of him, kit. Just as I am called the Incarnate of Rage by some, so he has become the Whisper of Oblivion.”

Naruto swallowed. He remembered the look in Gaara’s eyes, and found it all too easy to believe.

“It is said that Shukaku’s host can never sleep: His voice stays with him always, babbling lunacy and hatred into his ears, forever looking for an opening to destroy all life. No sane and healthy mind could wish for the destruction of the world it inhabits, kit. Your Enemy is, and has always been, madness.”

“I understand.” And he really did get what the Kyūbi was saying: I am not your enemy. He only wished he could really be sure that it was true. “So, you’re saying I should stay far away from Gaara, right?”

“No.” The flames flickered again as the force that empowered them weakened and waned. “Against this opponent, I will not compel you to stand down. When the stakes are high enough to be worthwhile, it is acceptable to risk your life – otherwise, what is even the point of living? All I ask of you is that if you do what must be done, you are quick about it… for my sake. I only called you here to say that much.”

Naruto stared into the very heart of the fireplace, unsure of what he was truly looking at. “Kyūbi…”

“That is not my name, Naruto,” the Fox said softly. “The name given to me by the Sage of Six paths is Kurama. Please use it from now on, and promise me that you will never forget.”

“I will,” said Naruto. “I mean, I won’t.” He turned to leave, and remembered that he did not have a way to contact Jiraiya before the agreed time limit was up. “Ah… would you mind? I’m kinda stuck here.”

“You are a fool, kit,” Kurama said gently. “I only hope that I will not have to watch you die as a result.”

The world plunged into darkness once again.

-o-

“What happened?” Jiraiya asked worriedly. He was crouched in front of Naruto, an intense look in his eyes as he spoke. “You looked like you were in pain for a moment there. What did you talk about?”

“Oh, not much,” said Naruto, too tired to even stand up anymore. “That boy from the Sand I told you about, Gaara? Turns out he’s host to the one-tailed Sand Spirit, Shukaku, and he could go insane and kill everyone at any moment. I mean, not that everyone didn’t know that last part already.”

“The Sand was bold enough to bring their Daemon Host into the Leaf?” Jiraiya took this in slowly. “If they’re planning an invasion… I gotta tell the Hokage about this, ask him what should be done.” He started to get up, but stopped. “I could teach you to control the Fox’s power, to counter the Sand Spirit if worst comes to worst and we end up facing the Beast itself. The Five Elements Unsealing technique isn’t too hard to learn if you put your mind to it.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, dad.” Naruto rubbed his forehead wearily. “And he’s not called ‘the Fox’, his name is Kurama. He and his brothers and sisters all have their own names.”

Jiraiya gave him a concerned look. “Kid, you know he isn’t your friend, right? When I was just a lad they used to say that he’s the living incarnation of hatred itself – a mass of malevolent chakra that was loosed during the wars, come together and given life to punish us for our sins. Even if all that’s all just a bunch of hokey people say to scare their kids, he was still Uchiha Madara’s greatest living weapon, and if he was controlled against his will I still kinda doubt he was resisting much when he was ordered to destroy the same folks that helped imprison him.”

“I guess.” Thinking of a giant vengeful fire spirit as his friend did seem like the sort of foolish thing that Naruto had resolved not to do anymore. “But, how is that right? Thinking of someone as an enemy because of something they can do nothing about, treating them like a prisoner and using them as a weapon when they never really did anything wrong… maybe it’s the smart thing to do, but is it fair?”

“No,” Jiraiya agreed sadly, as he stood up and dusted off his green kimono and red haori. “One day we’ll take on all the darkness in the world, kiddo, you and me – but right now this world just isn’t fair at all.”