Chapter 4 - K

Heavy breathing echoes in the house and Kurama decides to use the time to assess his surroundings while waiting for the girl to calm down.

The room where he's in is taller than what he has seen before in the Elemental Nation. He assumes that the beings in this world are taller than in his then. That would probably piss Naruto off as he has always leaned to the shorter side.

There's a layer of dust in everything and it looks as if whoever lived there escaped hastily, only grabbing the essentials. That by itself says much about the situation this world lives in. Considering the 'things' that he has seen he can guess the cause easily enough.

"You can talk?"

Kurama directs his gaze to the girl peeking from the doorframe.

"I just did, didn't I?" He huffs. "And before I went to sleep, I talked, too, right?"

He is shameless enough to not admit he fainted.

She bites her lips. "I thought it was my imagination that first time."

That means that there aren't talking animals in this world then. He's going to have to be silent from now on. It's not wise to attract attention to himself.

"My name's Sophia."

Half of her body is now visible and Kurama senses her fear withdrawing, giving away to curiosity.

Kids.

"I'm—"

Kurama blinks. He has never introduced himself to anyone but Naruto before. And after they teamed up, the one introducing him as his partner and a member of Konoha was Naruto. Kurama doesn't like how his name was easily given to others but Naruto always said 'If they are trusting you with their lives, trust them with your name' and that was it. He let him be but never had to give it. And he won't. Not to a kid who he doesn't know.

"Call me Nine," he finally answers. "So, you were the one who put me these… shoes?" After receiving a nod he adds, "Why?"

"You, um, bit the walkers. I thought you were infected. You only need to bite or scratch someone to infect them."

The kid's smart, he'll give her that.

"There's something else I need to know that they're infected? What are they?"

"You don't know?"

"I'm not from here."

"Uhm, well, it starts with the bite and then they get sick until they… die. Then they come back." She hesitates but it only takes her a second for her to walk forward until he can see her entirely. "I was with my mom and dad when they appeared a couple of months ago. We were with a group but I got separated and now I'm…"

She bites her lower lip and blinks quickly but she doesn't continue. He hasn't interacted with many humans and the only one he can call friend is the kind that bounces from sadness to happy determination with Kurama just saying 'Are you going to give up then?' in a mocking tone. Somehow he doesn't think it'll work with her.

It's not as if he cares either, so why bother?

"Now that we've concluded that I'm not infected, mind if you give me a hand? This thing bruises."

He points his snout with a paw and that makes her giggle. She walks toward him nervously and it only takes her a few moments to free him.

"I didn't know foxes could be this big."

He scoffs. "I was bigger. You were probably the same height as my eye."

"Really?" she asks as if waiting for an epic tale, "What happened then?"

"An idiotic friend."

It's obvious she wants to ask for more, but she goes quiet as she sits on the floor in front of him. It's unlike Naruto when he was younger. He'd have pestered him annoyingly until they had a heart to heart.

He sighs tiredly and stands in an attempt to search for something to clean the blood from his fur because he is so not going to use his tongue to clean himself.

As he walks he notices that there's an open can next to her. It smells of food. She catches his line of sight and offers timidly the can at him. "Want some?"

The food smells okay but he doesn't need it. Kurama appreciates the gesture, though. It's obvious that there isn't much food and she's offering him what little she has.

"You're the one who needs to eat, brat. You're too thin."

"…Thanks." She looks down at her food and starts eating. Kurama has already found a bigger cloth to clean himself when she asks, "What are you?"

He doesn't think 'biju' will answer her questions. 'Demonic entity' probably has the same meaning that has in the elemental nations. So he only says he's a 'fox spirit'.

It rubs him the wrong way but after mentioning how he's the strongest of all the spirits, it dwells.

"So how much this… thing has affected humanity? Is there some sort of order? Is someone dealing with the problem or is everything fucked?"

The girl frowns, clenching her can tighter. She explains what she knows. Tells him about the police and military. Everything the scientist her former group met explained to them and what she understood from it.

So… apparently, this world is fucked.

Peachy.

Hopefully, he can find Naruto quickly and they can search for a way to return. Knowing him, he'll try to help this world and fix it if he finds how fucked they are.

Thought that Uchiha brat was with them, too. Naruto will want to find him, too. And Naruto is too much of a trouble magnet to avoid people for long. He's going to find the truth and that means they're going to stay for some time.

Great.