After a less than stellar encounter with an irate, talented young wizard with a chip on his shoulder, Naruto found himself the victim of a spell eerily similar to that used by the ancient archmage Iceron when he created his lycanthropic servants. The wizard had intended to merge Naruto with a slug, but no one - certainly not the wizard - expected the spell to pull on the Kyuubi from within the seal and merge it with Naruto.
The results had been… well, initially unimpressive. Naruto didn’t really look too different from how he normally did. Sure, he had a few minuscule streaks of ‘Uzumaki red’ in his spiky blonde hair, and his ears were pointy, but as the wizard indignantly pointed out, he should have been some kind of freakish slug monster! One stress-induced (you’d be stressful too if you’d just dodged the slug monster bullet!) burst of energy later, Naruto discovered why the wizard’s spell had failed.
At first, Naruto had panicked, screaming that he really was the Kyuubi now… until Thropan, who was slapping a pair of mage cuffs on the wizard, pointed out that he only had one tail, anyway. Naruto spent the next half hour staring at his lone tail, which seemed a mix between a traditional fox’s tail and the ridiculously long tails that the Kyuubi was often depicted as having in the drawings and paintings he’d seen.
The next week saw Naruto learning what it meant to be a lycanthrope from the Northern Edge-Guard. Changing form wasn’t too difficult thanks to his expertise with the Transformation jutsu, but getting used to the idea of being on the lookout for anything made of silver was hard. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one’s viewpoint, the young neo-lycanthrope discovered entirely by accident that he seemed resistant to the effects of silver. Not completely immune, but a rash is preferable to contact setting you on fire, isn’t it?
Regardless, by the time they’d joined up with the Diggers’ little troupe of adventurers, Naruto had learned that, much like his ‘chakra cloak’ the number of tails he possessed seemed to depend on how much power he was using. After training with Julia- who he decided to never make angry after seeing her make other students build pyramids as punishment- he found that his current limit seemed to be three tails. Trying for any more than that just caused him to pass out from the strain.
At first, Dr. Diggers had been apprehensive about Gina inviting Naruto along on her expeditions. After all, there was a chance he could afflict someone, and the fact that he was for all intents and purposes a child. Jiraiya, however, had been insistent that the experience would be good for Naruto, and as he was the closest thing Naruto had to a legal guardian (oh, if only they knew…), Theo grudgingly passed his daughter’s invitation to Naruto, who gleefully accepted.
But that was then, and now… now they had a report to make. Jiraiya smirked and made an arcane gesture- he knew he’d just love the look on Tsunade’s face at this entrance. Moments later, he and Naruto appeared in the middle of the Hokage’s office, and Tsunade’s expression was well worth to paltry effort such a short range teleportation spell required.
“Jiraiya! Since when does your Transparent Escape jutsu cover more than yourself?!” Tsunade practically roared as she stood up to glare at her former teammate. “And I’ve told you at least a hundred times not to use that technique around me!”
“Ah, but this isn’t my Transparent Escape jutsu, hime-chan!” Jiraiya said, his smirk becoming a widening grin. “This is something entirely unique in our world, actual magic! And I’m not the only one who’s changed. Go ahead, Naruto.” The sage cleared his throat and eyed Tsunade and Shizune critically. “Remember, for all intents and purposes, the seal is still fully intact. The Kyuubi is not loose.”
“Jiraiya-sama, what are you ta-“ Shizune began before gasping in surprise as Naruto changed.
Where before a relatively unchanged young man had been standing now stood a red-furred, bestial figure of roughly similar height to Jiraiya. Naruto was lanky, his limbs narrow and somewhat spindly as the Kyuubi’s had been, with similarly large ears and patches of black fur on his face that went from around his eyes back towards his ears. The transformed ninja gave a thumb’s up and grinned foxily, his lips pulling back from his slight snout to reveal a mouth full of fangs.
“Yo! Uzumaki Naruto, the next Hokage, reporting in, dattebayo!” Naruto chirped, his ears splaying outward as he looked between Shizune and Tsunade.
“Wh… what the hell happened to you, Naruto?!” Tsunade asked, a look of worry on her face as she regarded her surrogate grandson. “This is… more extreme than any change I expected from your trip, Jiraiya.”
“Maa, hime-chan… it was unavoidable. For the most part.” Jiraiya said, chuckling as he rubbed the back of his head. “All things considered, I think it turned out better than it could have. The ‘wizard’ he annoyed apparently wanted to turn him into some kind of slug monster.”
That proclamation was met with wide-eyed stares from the ‘Slug Princess’ and her first apprentice. Despite working with Katsuyu and her smaller kin, neither truly relished the thought of being that… close with a slug. Tsunade’s constant genjutsu was more than adequate proof of her opinion when it came to appearance, and while demure, Shizune did have some pride in her own appearance.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:29)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.