A Chance Encounter

I don't own Naruto or Solo Leveling

...

After first obtaining the Demon Castle's dungeon key, Jin woo was afraid that this place would be an S-rank dungeon, after a series of boring and one-sided battles progressing through each floor his anxiety started to disappeared. This was the 48th floor and nothing interesting had happened, his tactic of barraging the floor with his shadow army had not been circumvented by any demon up until this point and it was starting to unnerve him about how smoothly this was going.

'Maybe higher floors will get exponentially more difficult, but when will that be?' he wondered. Seeing the light finally appear in the distance meant that one of his shadow generals had obtained the floor key to progress to floor 49.

Igris swiftly and silently trailed behind him after handing over the item he needed to progress further. 

He would grow stronger. There were threats outside this dungeon that needed a strong Sung Jin woo.

...

"Alright, Tank, its your unit this time," he said simply, and the enormous, shadow ice bear leader roared calling forth his fellow bears together. The bears then charged forth in the light towards the next floor followed closely behind by the rest of his shadow army. Leaving him to trail at the back at his own leisurely pace. 

Atop the massive tower, he surveyed the decimated city below and watched his shadows get to work easily eliminating every demon in sight and it was minutes before everything was over.

How boring.

However, he was confused when a notification form the system didn't appear telling that he'd gained a floor key to pass on to the 50th floor. 'Oh, hello?' he thought, only now sensing the blonde-haired demon sticking to a window opposite the tower he stood on. 'It masks its presence well. If I didn't have perception stat up so high I probably wouldn't have noticed him until it was too late,' he complimented, the demon on its impressive stealth capabilities.

"Igris," he called out and the knight spawned in silently from his shadow. His long black cape fluttering in the wind, "Take care of it," he pointed towards the demon with sun-kissed blonde hair ahead of them. The knight nodded springing forward into action and crossing a massive distance in seconds before strike at the demon. He saw the demon fall through the air with no visible damage from Igris's attack. 'This might be interesting..." he thought moving to meet the demon face to face, it was probably the one with floor key.

...

"Sung Jin Woo," he replied to Minato's inquiry. He was having serious doubts that the spiky haired blonde was a demon, but he needed to progress further and he was the only one left on this floor.

"Are you human?" he asked the blonde. Minato only rose a brow at this as if to say, 'what kind of question is that?' 

"Yes, I am. I'm not quite sure how I even got here? I remember... Dying," Minato replied as a slightly disturbed expression graced his, ultimately, expressionless face.

"Is this hell?" He asked him. Jin woo kept his expression neutral, "Of sorts," he had to admit to himself after spending a significant amount of time here, this would be what he imagined an image of hell would be like.

"You say you don't remember how you got here? And you remember dying before arriving here? You also claim to be human and not demon. Do you perhaps by any chance hear voices in your head?" Jin Woo asked producing a confused expression from Minato, leaving him wondering where he was going with these questions.

"Just my own thoughts. I can't say that they're anything more than that," Minato shook his head. His answer only manufactured a frown on Jin Woo's face, he was hoping to get an inkling of what were the mysteries of system through the blonde.

Alas, things didn't always go his way. He'll just have to progress further for more answers. Speaking of which...

"Do you have the floor key?" he questioned. "Floor key?" Minato wondered what the young man was on about, not for the first time. "One of theses," Jin Woo pulled out an old wrinkled piece of paper with strange writing on it, "They're keys to progress the next floor."

"Can't say that I have, but one of my kunai are inscribed with similar strange writing to the one on that paper," Minato said, pulling out the three pronged kunai from his shinobi pouch. He held the knife up to show Jin Woo.

"That looks like it... Will you hand it over willing?" He asked, an edge to his tone, but with no change to his blank expression.

"I will, but I just have two questions before I do."

"Which are?" Jin Woo asked curiously.

"You seem to have a lot of knowledge of this place, care to share that with little old me?" Minato said to which he nodded. He had no problem relinquishing that information. "I'm not too sure myself... All I know is that this world is called the Demons Castle. It's a world with a 100 different and separate dimensions or floors, if you will. You can progress through each floor with one of those 'floor keys' but they are guarded by high level demons on each floor, so you'll have to kill them or pry the key off their hands to obtain one. And only someone wielding the key may pass through to the next floor"

"Interesting... My second question is, am I able to leave this Demon Castle. I imagine you don't originate from this world, do you?"

Jin woo pondered the question for a moment, wondering what he would do with such information. It was difficult to read his intentions with that cool expression of his.

Jin Woo didn't know this person, he was a human in the demon world. For what reason he would never know, but that was exactly why he couldn't give him the knowledge of leaving this place. The blonde was clearly very sharp to be able to deduce that he didn't belong here. He'll just give him the run around.

"Sure... There is a way, but it requires a hearthstone," he showed him the shiny green rock before storing it back in his inventory, "The problem is I've only ever managed to obtain one by luck and only one person can use it at a time. I'm sure you can imagine why I'd be reluctant to just hand it over," he finished, lying out of his teeth knowing that he didn't really need the stone since he had the key to the dungeon and even if he did need it, only he could use the items of the system.

But Minato didn't need to know that.

"Does that satisfy you?" he questioned. Minato didn't answer and instead opted to just toss him the weird knife. In the distance an beam of light shot through to the heavens, showing Jin Woo the path forward. He would have thanked Minato in any other instance for how cooperative he was being, but something about the blonde's attitude was seriously bugging him.

"Yes, it did," he replied simply.

"I don't have much use for it anyway and fighting to keep something I don't need is just irrational," Minato continued, unknowingly, cutting off the question he was about to ask. Right on the tip of his tongue. "You have a skeptical mind, Sung Jin Woo, the attributes of a top-level shinobi. I like that." That was the last thing the blonde said before flickering off into the distance.

Jin woo was just left in the silence of winds blowing and fire raging all around him with just a lingering feeling that that wouldn't be the last he saw of Minato Namikaze.

"Tank."

The leader of ice bear didn't need any further prompting before appearing underneath Jin Woo and swooping him off his feet, onto its back. 

"Go forth!" he commanded, as Tank charged forward into the light of the 50th floor.