Saints and Suffering: A Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 8- A walk in the woods

Naruto was wandering around the forests surrounding Konoha. He was in a dilemma. He had left Sasuke, who had essentially become a cripple, following the complete depletion of his chakra from the time-travel jutsu.

Naruto, quite frankly, had no idea where Sasuke was, though, with Sasukes power being equivalent to a civilian at this point, he couldnt have gotten too far.

That being said, Naruto, in a rare moment of salience, remembered his frantic approach to Konoha and the fight between Kurama and Minato. His ramshackle approach had carved a line of broken, uprooted trees and smashed rocks through the forest.

Once he found his trail again, he could backtrack his way to Sasuke, who should be walking the same path, as it led from their original location directly to Konoha.

Naruto was somewhat exhausted following his actions, suppressing both Kurama and Minato had taken an excessive amount of life force, but the jutsus he had envisioned prior to his journey back in time worked perfectly as theorized.

The problem was his recovery. The extensive usage of the life energy he had gained from the God Tree had left his reserves low, and though they were slowly recovering, it would take a while. Naruto could intuitively feel, however, that were he to channel the power of the God Tree, he could indiscriminately pull the life energy from surrounding lifeforms to recover his own power.

Naruto was nauseous at the thought of killing for such a selfish reason. The life energy would slowly return, and he was perfectly willing to allow time for the natural order.

The next concern Naruto had was the sleeping fox on top his head. Kurama had decided to accompany him in the name of observation and monitor him for corruption from the negative emotions Naruto had stripped from the Kyuubi and then consumed.

The presence was welcome, and Naruto was glad to have the fox nearby. Naruto had sorely missed his life-long companion during their time apart.

The problem was that Kurama had changed in an unpredictable manner. Following the removal of negative emotions from the fox, Kurama had seemingly regressed in maturity, and was, tragically, acting like a spoiled child.

Naruto, when he was younger often sought the fox out as a mentor and sounding board, but now the fox was somewhat unreliable.

Naruto and the fox continued wandering, and sson enough, Naruto found his previous trail and started backtracking through the woods. To conserve his energy, he simply walked along the furrow. His chakra had reformed, but he found himself extremely out of practive, and should he try to employ it, it would only backfire on him.

So the only option was to walk. Though before he could travel a simple 30 minutes, a voice rang out and the gox atop his head spoke.

  Mortal, I hunger. Deliver the food I am promised.

Naruto sighed and closed his eyes before pinching his the bridge of his nose.

  Mortal, did you not hear me? I hunger.

Naruto tried to ignore the fox, but soon enough, Kurama was angrily swishing his tails about, smacking Naruto in the face with each swing. Naruto tried to appease to fox.

  Were in the woods right now, can you wait until we get to a village?

  No.

  Well, there is nothing to eat here, so youll just have to wait.

That was not the correct answer. Kurama seemed to take exception to the refusal. The fox twisted his head and body before chomping on Narutos ear.

  OW, LET GO, I GET IT, YOULL GET SOME FOOD!