6 Red

/Make sure to vote and I'll drop another chapter today. Things are gonna start picking up for me now that I got more free time away from work. This novel is just getting started.

Zetuo's palm was itching like crazy.

Ever since he was young, whenever something dangerous was around the corner, be it an event or a person, the center of the black-haired youth's hand would begin to tingle on endless repeat, an itchy feeling alerting him to potential threats. This weird bodily function had prevented countless problems in the past, but now it just left him genuinely stumped.

Since the very moment, he had made contact with Minato, Zetuo's palm had been going off without end, a clear indication that everything happening to him was a blatant hazard to his own well-being. This constant tingle was like a domino effect, causing multiple unsavory outcomes in its wake; the main one being that Zetuo could no longer detect any actual oncoming back luck, essentially being left half-blind. While not truly needing the tingle to sense danger, it had been a huge part in the deterrent of the twisted fate that life had dished out for him.

This partial blindness was the reason for not reacting to the female that had fallen from the two-story building, prompting him to make sweet love to the dirt road with him as the top and the ground as the bottom.

Now, standing in front of the red-headed female with his palm still itching like crazy, Zetuo pondered his next move. With his palm out of the picture, he needed to proceed along the road with the least amount of trouble, the road that would most likely keep him alive. Since he could only rely on his physical senses to pick out anomalies, of which were finitely limited to his sight, smell, and hearing, he couldn't afford to take any route that offered below a 50% success rate. Survival was all that really mattered to him at the moment as he was figuratively hovering over a deep chasm, held up by a mere thread.

The young black haired youth tilted his head and quickly examined those in front of him, his black eyes sweeping over every last detail, right down to the specks in their eyes. After a full moment, he inwardly smiled as a lightbulb went off in his head, the beginning of a plan with a success rate of 75% coming into existence.

"What do you want?" The girl repeated, prompting the two males in front of her once again and interrupting Zetuo's train of thought. "You just gonna stare? Got a problem?"

"I mean, you DO have some beautifully colored hair," Zetuo answered without hesitation, an attempt at manipulating the flow of the conversation. He needed the conversation that would elicit the desired emotion and determined that this was the best way to do so.

"Indeed," Minato responded, readily offering his own opinion "It's amazing. Nothing quite like it."

"How do you think it would look braided?" Zetuo asked casually, touching his own fluffy head of black hair.

"Depends on what kind of braid," Minato replied with a tilt of his head. "double braid maybe?"

"Nah. What about a ponytail?"

"I'm not sure that look would do justice to her facial features though. What about pigtails?"

Zetuo shook his head, making a face. "No way. A French braid would be hella better than that!!"

In all honesty, Zetuo was fine with any hairstyle, the redhead being cute enough to pull off the majority of said styles. However, the youth needed to get the girl flustered, embarrassed or annoyed enough to butt her head into the conversation. It was all part of Zetuo's two-part plan, to have the girl follow him, making them a group of three and less likely for himself to get injured from unfortunate events. The only thing he hadn't accounted for was Minato playing along with him in the examination of the girl's hair which was both unexpected and entirely welcome.

Another thing he hadn't taken into account was the female's personal pet peeves, something he couldn't have known about, mainly when anyone began to talk about her hair in any way she deemed as an insult. This sore spot was immediately apparent when Zetuo's black eyes shifted towards the girl, only to find a fist rapidly approaching his face. Caught unawares, he did the only thing he could think to do in the situation, which was to try and redirect the force of it as much as possible. His miscalculation had resulted in this scenario so he needed to rectify his mistake.

The instant the fist touched his face, however, there was a bright flash of light before everything went dark, no pain, just a flash of something similar to getting struck by lightning.

The darkness didn't last very long, around ten seconds, before the world came back into view, but in a completely different landscape from the previous. Of course, at this point, literally nothing f*cking surprised him anymore.

Standing in a pool of water that reached just above his ankles, Zetuo was situated inside of an enormous room, roughly the size of a football field. The dim light provided by the room barely allotted enough to see anything, but it was still extremely hard to miss the MASSIVE cage positioned in front of him, iron bars thicker than he was tall taking up the whole one side of the room.

'Who are you?' A voice filled with a boiling hatred filled his head as Zetuo continued to stare at the cage 'How'd you get in here?'

Zetuo did a double-take, his eyes narrowing as a shadow deep within the cage's interior began moving, ever so slowly stretching itself out before making its way to the front. Oddly enough, despite the shadow's obvious size, Zetuo didn't feel the least bit afraid, which was odd seeing as Minato had caused irrational fear before this. Instead of fear or semblance thereof, all he truly felt was warmth and even comfort despite standing in water with his bare feet. Even when he was able to see the large menacing face of a blood-red fox, Zetuo didn't feel even a tinge of negative emotions, merely curiosity. Hell, even the itch on his palm had fallen completely silent as the youth's black eyes stared unflinchingly into the slitted hues of something that would've simply killed him if given the chance.

"Dude, you're freakin huge," Zetuo said after a few seconds of staring. "What're they feeding you?"

The only response Zetuo received for this comment was a mighty growl that shook the room in its entirety, letting the black-haired youth know that his question hadn't exactly pleased the mountain-sized behemoth of a fox. Zetuo hadn't meant any offense when he said that but now he had to assume that the guy was sensitive about his weight, leading to a whole slew of jokes he could make if he wanted. Truth be told though, he never was one to poke a sleeping bear.

"Okay, my bad. Let's start this again. I'm Zetuo Tetsuya," He said, replying to the inquiry the large fox had asked in the beginning. "What's yours?"

There was a lower growl, but this one not as hostile as the first as the fox spoke once again. 'You're a strange one. Are you not afraid of me?'

"Of course I'm no-"

The sound of splashing interrupted his sentence as a bare-knuckled fist kissed the left side of his face, knocking clean to the side with an explosive amount of force. Pain, an old and dear friend, visited him once again as he splashed faceup into the water, his clothes getting completely soaked. It only lasted for a moment, but it seemed to take an eternity for the pain to dissolve, the punch having caused him to bite the inside of his cheek.

"How dare you....insult....me," a familiar voice shouted, a speech that almost immediately drifted off into silence as the current location seemed to register. "Why in the hell am I back in here again?!"

'No clue. I'm wondering why I still took a punch to the jaw over something that wasn't even an insult yet here we are.' Zetuo was beyond salty as he struggled to sit up, his vision distorting for a brief second due to the massive blow to his chin, it had knocked his brain for a loop. He hadn't been expecting an assault to appear from thin air, leading to yet another piece of rotten luck. On the plus side, he was still alive, so it was still a win in his book. 'I guess people just slug others over hair discrimination now. Definitely noted. Time to begin a petition to end hair racism. It must be stopped once and for all.'

After a bit of effort, Zetuo was once again on his feet, his physical self restored to the way it was before the punch, apart from the wound on the inside of his mouth. While he wanted to crack a few jokes at the redhead's expense, he decided to simply let it go and see it as another learning experience. Hair racism wasn't something he could hope to combat at the moment so it was best to treat it like something gross, avoiding it entirely. The main priority was to figure out where the hell he was and it seemed like the girl knew the exact answers he was looking for.

"Why the hell did you bring me here ya damned fox!! And why on earth is HE here!!" The redhead was in the middle of screaming at the top of her lungs, clearly in full on 'F*ck you' mode.

From this brief exchange, Zetuo was almost immediately able to deduce that this plane of existence wasn't accessible to just anyone, the girl's incredulity and surprise being all the evidence he really needed. Furthermore, the fox wasn't the one who even brought him here in the first place, the initial question from the creature being one of confusion rather than expectancy.

"I don't know why I'm here but you really ought to tone it down a bit there Red," Zetuo said as he came forward, politeness evident in his tone. "The big guy doesn't know why either of us is here. He literally asked me the same question you're asking him, but in a slightly nicer way."

The redhead turned and glared at him, her eyes glowing red and her hair wriggling about ever so menacingly. He wasn't sure when he had gotten on her bad side but he knew she already wasn't a fan of him, just as ready to strike as she had been previously. While not at all afraid of getting hit, Zetuo would rather avoid anything that would make this female his enemy, meaning that he had to be as polite as possible.

"Look, let's just take a breath and talk this out okay? I'm sorry about earlier okay. I had ACTUALLY liked your hair color but what I said may have been rubbed you the wrong way. My apologies." Zetuo put as much sincerity into his words, wanting her to know that he hadn't actually meant any harm.

This actually seemed to work as, little by little, the anger and annoyance previously held in her gaze slowly dissipating, leaving only a slight frown.

"I might have gone a little overboard myself. I'm trying to work on my temper, ya know?" The redhead fell silent for a moment as she looked back at the ground, clearly a bit embarrassed by her behavior once she managed to calm down enough. "I'm sorry for punching you."

Zetuo waved his hand in front of his face. "Never mind that. I'd rather skip to the part where you explain where the hell we are."

The girl stared at him for what seemed like ages before finally speaking. "Kushina."

"What?"

"My name is Kushina Uzumaki. What's yours?"

"Zetuo Tetsuya," He replied, giving her a smile. "Kushina is quite the name. It suits you." For some reason, the name Kushina seemed to fit her perfectly, just like her red hair fit her perfectly.

"So where are w-"

Everything once again went black, darkness taking hold of him before he could even finish his sentence.

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