Chapter 5 - K

Looking mournfully at the state of his fur and the clothes that are already dirty that were on his paws, he glances at the kitchen. "Is the water working?"

She shakes her head. "There's a small lake not far away from where you found me. There are lots of walkers near, though."

He gives a tentative lick to the back of his paw before scrunching his nose in distaste. "I need to go there. I take pride in my fur, I can't leave it in this state."

"Oh."

He's still weak but it seems he has slept at least a day. It's not enough to recover but it is to avoid those walkers. They can't transform him, anyways. Is not like he has an actual body to react to whatever infection they have. He can just go to that lake, clean himself, then walk on top of it until those beings are no longer near and he can search for a place to rest for some time, safe enough so Naruto can find him. The brat may be weak, like him, but he has most of his chakra in him so he'll be able to recover faster, even if he has just suffered through a biju extraction.

He's going to wait until the brat has enough chakra to attempt sage mode and search for him. Probably will take a week or a little more.

Now he only hopes the knucklehead will be able to remember he can use it.

"I won't see you then, Nine?"

Kurama is already ready to just turn around and walk away but Sophie's question stops him. He looks in her direction and sees her legs drawn to her chest, arms hugging them protectively. Her chin is on top of her knees Kurama doesn't need to be able to sense emotions to know she's afraid and lonely.

Again, he no longer sees her. He sees a boy sitting on a swing, watching how parents hug their children as they take them home, ignoring him, whispering harsh words.

Her eyes and hair are a darker shade, her skin is pale and not tan, but…

"You can go with me if you want, brat. We can look out for your group while I wait for my friend. If we find him first and he gets to know you, he'll want to search for your group anyways so it's better to start now."

Looking up, her eyes widen in hope. "Really?"

"Yeah. I'm weak now though, so we better search for a place where we can stay and I can rest."

She stands up quickly and smiles.

Kurama sighs. He blames his weakness with blue-eyed, blond-haired brats on Naruto.

- Normal POV -

Far away from the place Kurama is, a man checks the pulse of a teenager laid on a table.

"Is amazing how stable he is. He fell from really high but there are only a couple of wounds on him caused by it."

"Do you think it was from a helicopter or an airplane he fell from?" asks another man, charisma and an air of power giving him the air of the one in charge.

"Hard to guess. I ain't see anythin' on the sky," says a gruff man with a false hand. "Ye know what that purple thin' was?"

The doctor looks at him with apprehension but answers anyway. "No. But I didn't see it, so I can't guess its origin either. You said it disappeared as soon as the guys went to where he fell?"

"Yeah. Kinda looked like bones. Weird shit."

"Just try to get as much info as you can from him. I want to know what that purple energy was. Perhaps the military is working on some weapon. If we can get it, it'll be beneficial to us."

"What? But I don't have the equipment to do any throughout research. It'll be impossible. Our safest bet would be to ask him…" he trails off, glancing at the young, pale teenager laid on the bed. He couldn't be more than eighteen.

"If the lil doc can't, do we kill him, Governor?"

The Governor sighs and shakes his head sadly as if seeing already a dead body instead of a sleeping teenager on the table. The doctor sees this action and offers weakly: "He's just a kid."

"A kid that fell from who knows where and still kicks it. That's crazy shit, doc."

"I've to agree with Merle here. We can't have him. He could destroy the peace we've so fought hard to maintain."

He nods towards Merle and he smiles with his own, far too pleased smile as he takes a knife from the back of his pants. He's taking momentum so the weapon can get all the way down to the brain when the boy's eyes open, one red eye and another purple making their appearance.

Everything occurs fast from that point.