CHAPTER 9: Untold Tales

*Creak

The door opened. Kurama was far away from the door but in reality, he was still sitting near it the whole time. The wars and the breakdowns were all fake. All in his mind. But the place was real. Hell is real.

In the mindscape of Kurama, he stared at the door, without any light in his pupils. Expect it to be one of the stupid wars and battles Madara puts him through. But, as he stared at it a bit longer a small sparkle showed in his eyes. It looked like hope. An emotion that was believed to have disappeared ages ago.

A figure of a person stood at the door. Kurama's hopes skydived. It fell apart.

'Another opponent to fight. Another battle. Another war. When will it end? Did this happen to me because I destroyed Konoha? If that's true then no matter how many times I apologized for that day, I still killed hundreds of people. I also killed Naruto's parents....now that I think about it. What did he look like? What did he sound like? What was his personality like? Did he ever smile? If he did, what was it like? I have forgotten all about it.'

The figure walked towards him, and the more steps he took, the surrounding around him began to disappear. Strangely enough, Kurama thought he saw his body lying around beside the door, but he pushed that thought away since he stood over here.

The person got closer and he noticed it was a man. A man wearing a very eloquent Hanyu. As Kurama observed him, the man began to smile at him. A sly and unreadable smile. Smiles like these are dangerous.

Even so, the man before him looked eerily familiar. "Have we met?" Kurama monotonously asked. It was a little too straightforward for him, but he didn't care.

This man didn't show any killing intent nor showed any intention of harming him. But that didn't mean he trusted him.

No. After he escapes, he will thank him and then make a run for the hills. He isn't going to be anyone's slave. Nope! He won't. If he did have the intention of taking him in as his weapon, then he's going to kill him with the use of his 3,000 years of experience.

Kurama was in a defense position, ready to strike him if he said or tried anything funny. The man just stood there and when Kurama blinked he was gone and the place he has been trapped in for centuries was just a small concrete box? Kurama laughed.

He laughed so hard, he didn't know what to think about this. This was the biggest joke he ever received. He wanted to just kill everyone. Kill God if possible...but God wasn't real. If he was, put him in such a miserable predicament or created him to be the perfect war trophy.

He wanted to cry, but no tears came out as he was already broken. His emotions have already been suppressed. His chakra was stolen...His freedom was nothing more than a dream. It was taken from him.

His life was controlled by someone else. Just when he thought he could finally escape, he was always just a wounded animal cornered and hunted down by mindless predators.

The man before him was to be his new master whether he liked it or not.

"So...are going to make me your slave or what?" he asked with venom.

"No. I have no intention to. Your current situation now is a bit of a mistake on my part. Sorry." he said with a cheerfulness that was so pretentious and fake. It angered Kurama but he couldn't do anything.

"Kurama... although your suffering was my mistake, the practice you got through suffering was achieved. You got stronger and became stronger than Madara could ever dream of being," he said as he tried to soothe him. Kurama just scoffed.

"Naruto is probably going through the same thing except it was probably not suffering. Training through the memories of his past self." The man said. This piqued Kurama's lost interest a bit. The man seemed to have noticed.

"Ah yes. Memories of his past self as Michio. You Kurama just so happens to be part of his life in the past. Let's just turn you into a human for now." After saying that, Kurama became human. Looked human, but thought like a beast. He however also noticed that he wore the same outfit as the man.

"Sorry, being stuck here made my creativity degrade. Lol." he joked. Kurama simply rolls his eyes. Annoyed the man but he couldn't be truly angry at him. After all, he saved him from his own personal Hell.

"You must be wondering why you're here right?" He said as they walked together in the fiery abyss.

"Not really. God must be really angry."

"No, he isn't. The God you speak of is a good guy, the God now is the bad guy."

"I don't understand."

"Well...it's complicated but...two millenniums ago...the Great Change happened, which caused the ruler of this world to be changed." Kurama just silently listened.

"...I see...another war."

"Yes."

"Do I have to participate?"

"Unfortunately yes..." he said solemnly. 'Hopefully, this will be the last time the clock turns and repeats time. After all, our Lord did a risky thing bringing him in here, to return old techniques that were locked within him. My skills. Our skills were sealed deep in his mind and body. I just wondered why he just had to make him suffer. Make him remember this way? Not like how he treated Naruto where it was like a training event with a new teacher. Himself. Surprisingly, Sasuke or Hitori also got special training, except his existence is kept a secret.' He internally scoffed. 'Why did Kurama have to put up with it? Why did he have to suffer like how I suffered before he saved me.'

"Why did it happen?" Kurama asked, cutting off the silence.

"Well, it's a funny story. A very stupid one, I might add."

"Oh? Try me. How stupid can it be?" Kurama said with a hint of the emotion of mockery danced in his eyes and tone. It made the man smile.

"Well, first of all, it all started from the beginning of time. God, has been alone for millenniums. Impossible to measure, impossible to know. Until he decided to have a companion. He created an angle. The angle's name was Princeps. The Roman word for 'First'. "

"What's Roman?"

"Oh. Right. Roman history exists in another world. A world ruled by another God. Or a replica of Our God."

"I don't get it."

"God is one. But he decided to shatter himself and make duplicates of 'Earth' galaxies and all that. There are more than 19,000 different versions of reality. Our world is one of them. The main world where the main God resides is called Xin. The place where main versions of reality predict and write our futures and pasts. They are the sub creators of realism."

"Are you saying...they wrote our sufferings? Our pains? For the sake of entertainment?"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean, yes and no?" he said in a low, hostile voice. His emotions were slowly returning but this statement made the recovery faster in a bad way.

"They write our stories to express their feeling about their reality or situation. As they do not possess the abilities you or any ninja in this world have. To them, the ability to punch through walls without breaking their hands is a gift. A dream. A fantasy. Partially for entertainment but it's also their self-comfort and to them, you or Naruto, for example, are their heroes. Their reason to live in some cases." Kurama silently thought about what he said but said nothing. The man took this as a sign to continue with the story, similar to what Xin calls the 'Bible' 'Quran' 'Vedas', etc.

"Anyways, Princeps and God took care of each other, God treated him as his son. His most precious and favored son. He stayed with Him when He first created the heavens. Then the many universes, galaxies, stars, planets, and most of all 'Earth'. The land of mortals. It was beautiful. Wonderful.

However, after He rested for seven days and seven nights, He decided to create Hell, after the great downfall of Samael and the first humans, Adam and Eve. Princeps stayed relatively the same until God asked him to visit Hell for a little bit. He obeyed and visited it.

Nevertheless, the unmoved Princeps, the purest of the creatures made by God was tempted by something. That something just so happens to be a beautiful fox. The fox queen herself. She fell from the Heavens after trying to seduce one of God's sons who were already married and bored children."

Kurama then asks him if the Fox Queen is the woman he used to serve in his past life since he's a fox. The man simply says no, but told him, he did respect her, for her strong leadership in protecting the clan's fur.

She was also appointed as the captain of Hell's military. He explained that, before the Fox clan was thrown to Hell their fur could bring God's sons, humans, animals, and life itself an infinite amount of luck.

Their luck is so powerful that they could make God's sons and daughters so strong they could almost rival Him, but they lost after God upgraded his powers. Implying that he has always hidden his power level. Kurama was amazed as he continued to listen to the man's tales.

While listening the man uncovered a shocking truth. Naruto and Sasuke were blood-related siblings before the Otsutsuki decided to make them candidates for the brothers that "won't stop fighting".

Anyways, they were the Princes of Hell, but Naruto got a promotion because he was far too kind to have the title of Prince of Hell, so God adopted him and made him one of his sons. God's sons didn't like it. They disdained him. The only ones nice to him were Hera, Artemis, Athena, Pistis, and Poseidon.

However, this was one of God's plans to test them, if they were worthy of staying in Heaven as one of his sons or not. Kurama nodded. "God then began to realize that, Princeps hasn't returned after 300 hundred years. It was past the time limit.

He was supposed to go back on the hundredth year, but he didn't.

God then hovered around Hell and saw Princeps and the Fox Queen kissing, laughing, talking, etc. God was furious. Princeps begged God to let them be, but God didn't.

The love between a demon and an angel was forbidden for various reasons, but the main one was demons could turn angles immoral and make them turn against God. So, God then banished them to earth. They lost their abilities as a powerful angel and demons."

He said before pausing for a couple of minutes. Kurama waited but he was beginning to get a bit annoyed since he liked the story a lot. It was interesting, he also thought of the possibility of this story being true. "Then? What happened?"

"Oh sorry...got lost track of the story..." the man said as his body began to disappear.

"Hey...Hey! HEY! Why are you disappearing!"

"Kurama...remember when I told you that you were part of Naruto's life in the past? Yeah...well, I am the past of you. My name is Ezra. It's nice to meet you. Kurama." Ezra said with a tired smile.

"I don't care! Why are you disappearing! Stop!"

"That I can't tell you." 'Because if I did, you would blame yourself. After all, to return your sanity and emotions, and memories...I used my chakra to help you. It seems that my time has come...Ezra is gone now. Michio no Naruto.... you're on your own now...Bye."

Kurama cried and begged him to not go, but in a matter of seconds, the body of the man was gone. Kurama stared at it in horror before screaming at top of his lungs and releasing a chakra blast that spread throughout the smoldering ember lands of Hell. His desperate and broken screams were heard. All of Hell fell in silence before returning to the way it was after he had finished.

Kurama laid down on the putrid, obsidian black stones.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep. As he fell asleep the stones moved, hands formed, and erupted from the stones, slowly consuming him.

He was engulfed in black liquid that was about to turn hard, like concrete when bathed in the sun for three days, but not for long.

He sat up, and he spread his killing intent morphed from both Ezra and Kurama.

They were one, and their power combined shook the grounds of Hell. Kurama remembered everything and so did Naruto.