Chapter 26 - K
It's hard to gauge the time that passes when he's in a meditation state so he doesn't know how long it has been since Sasha tried to talk to him. It could be minutes or hours. His mind is blank and emotions don't longer bother him. However, it's hard to ignore when the feeling is strong and directed at him.
Kurama opens his eyes and the first thing he notices is that its midday; they came at night. The second is the odor of putrid flesh and death. There are walkers near but he can't see them. Nor he can see the group he's been with for a couple of weeks. However, he can hear the sounds of fighting and sense the worry Sophia is directing at him.
With a jump, he's touching the ground and running. They chose to stop in a small town, hoping to find some food inside the houses and stores. They offered him to accompany them but Kurama needs to get stronger and for that, he needs to rest so he didn't follow them. The walkers aren't that strong and are easy to deal with, they don't need him. Though perhaps he should have sniffed the place first so he could've known if there were walkers around just in case.
A couple of minutes later and he's outside a big building. It looks like those schools Sophia's told him about and he feels dread when the smell becomes stronger. The sound of wood and metal hitting flesh is louder and Kurama follows it.
He really should have scouted the place first. He doesn't know how he hasn't noticed these larger numbers of walkers. Mostly kids but there are a couple of adults mixed in there. They're small and it should be easier to deal with them, but he can see their reluctance and somehow knows that dealing with them is harder than if they were older. He catches the sight of an open door and immediately knows where they came from.
"Nine!" Sophia shouts when she sees him. There's relief in her voice but the sound has attracted a couple of walkers. He makes a mental note to tell her what one doesn't do when fighting when all this is over.
He opens a path toward the others by killing the walkers near. In seconds, he's with them and helping. It's slow but they do manage to move away, trying to escape. It's hard; the number that surrounds them is large, after all. More than fifty, perhaps. He's just a fox to them so his abilities are reduced to what a fox can only do.
It's bothersome though. He always needs to restrain his strength, whatever little he regained, but it still takes a lot of concentration to not let his temper flare. He's lucky these walkers were previously kids and that they're small enough for him to reach their necks with ease.
"Shit!" Sophia hisses behind him and his lips tilt upwards because he knows her cursing is because of his influence. She's probably scowling at him because she knows that too. He turns to look over his shoulder, ready to send her a smirk if she's blushing, when he senses a familiar feeling. His body stops, it becomes tense and motionless. Like a statue, he's immobile, ignoring the movement going on around him. He can't bring himself to care when a walker bites him. Or the second that follows.
"Naruto?" he whispers. The feeling increases. It's a tug inside him that points in the direction the feeling is coming from. It's captivating and entrances him to follow. He turns his head to the left, thrilled by the sudden appearance of his own familiar chakra mixed with a warmth in it that's pure Naruto's.
He hears the echo of Sophia's voice and he blinks to see himself surrounded, four walkers biting him while the others are trying to get a piece of him. His hackles rise and he growls, rage manifesting outside of him in his chakra. Whatever walker that touches him hiss as it dissolves the parts where it met his fur and they move away, some primal instinct telling them to escape, too ingrained for them to completely ignore. Chakra arms form to push them away as he prepares to bolt and follow his chakra.
"Nine!"
Kurama stops for a second time and glances at Sophia. He growls in frustration, his body wanting to follow. He stops it and runs towards her. He grows with what chakra he's saved, making him just a tad smaller than a horse, and moves next to her. "Mount," he says, pointing at his back with his nose.
The walkers are giving them a wide berth and she takes that advantage to hesitate, her hands gripping the weapon she obtained from one house. "What about the others?"
He doesn't completely hear her as the sensation he's got from Naruto using bijuu mode is waning. A distressed sound escapes his throat. "It's disappearing."
"What's disappearing?"
"Naruto. Naruto is that way. I need to go there."
He wants to just run in the direction he knows Naruto is but he can't leave Sophia. He hasn't exactly promised her something but he can't leave her. However much he really, really wants to.
The walkers become bold and start surrounding them again. And they're now obstructing his view of the path he wants to follow. He opens his mouth. A small ball of energy forms, darker than whatever color humans can create. A void of energy whose only purpose is to destroy.
It's a stupid move that surprises him he's doing, but at the moment he doesn't care. Though, on the other hand, is not so surprising considering who his current jinchuriki is.
The feeling he's got vanishes at the same time he lets out the bijuudama. It's much smaller than what a normal one is. Barely a sixteenth of its strength, but it decimates everything and creates a linear path.
There's a moment of silence until he takes a step forward and falls on his face.
"Well, that was stupid," he mumbles and his voice seems to have shaken Sophia from her shock as she moves to his side. He has a flashback of the first day he came into this world as his body slowly loses its form.
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