9 Nine Tails 9

Chapter 2: What Is This All About?

After they read the sign, Naruto and Kyūbi continued to walk towards the town. They came across a wide wooden bridge that helped pass an also wide river. They crossed without incident and found themselves in the town that the sign foretold.

Azalea Town was a relatively big place, with wide dirt roads containing trees here and there. Concrete buildings of all sizes and forms were located at the sides of the roads. At the back of the town there was a mountain range that extended as far as the eye could see.

While at first the town seemed normal enough, as they explored more they found out it wasn't so. Their first clue were the signs scattered around the town, all of which portrayed a pink creature that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and a salamander, however at the time it didn't matter really much. Their second clue was a purple monkey running along one of the dirt roads, holding something on its tail-hand. While running, it shouted an 'A-pam' and another two monkeys arrived to the scene. Then they proceeded to run until they turned a corner into another street and got out of the Jinchūriki-Bijū duo's sight.

However, their third clue was the one that made them realize something was wrong with the town: After wandering for a while around the town, the pair didn't found a single soul to which they could ask a question. They continued to walk around the town, but to their frustration not a single person was on the streets.

"What the hell do the people in here do that they don't even get out of their houses?" Naruto asked annoyed. Their search proved fruitless till the moment "This is a damn ghost town! We better go to another town, but if this is how all the places in this world are, I don't know what to do…"

"We should check the town's outskirts, just in case someone lives there" Kyūbi supplied helpfully, but also annoyed at the lack of moving things on the town. That said, they moved towards the town's edges, trying without much hope to find someone that could answer their questions, which is why the duo was surprised to hear some ruckus coming from a dirt path that leaded to a forest at the town's west side. Intrigued, the duo walked down the forest path to find a huge clearing with hundreds and hundreds of square meters of crops.

The crops resembled pine trees, but with the distinction of the trunks being much thinner, the leaves somewhat round, and with the mayor oddity of giving weird fruits that looked just like a bunch of small pink bananas about eight centimeters in length.

"So even this world's fruits are weird. What a bizarre place…" Kyūbi trailed lamely, before focusing on the cause of the ruckus that they had heard before. Naruto's eyes widened and the fox huffed in annoyance due to the cause of the disturbance: the purple monkeys they had seen before on two occasions. This time there were at least two dozen of the yellow-faced apes, all of them trying to pluck away the pink bananas from the crops. The problem was, that instead of a swift robbery, the monkeys found themselves having to avoid attacks from several of the insects the Jinchūriki-Bijū duo saw at the forest, trying to protect the crops. Beetles and ladybugs were trying to swat away the sneaky apes, which sometimes managed to pluck away a fruit, and then proceeded to run away with the fruit clasped tightly in their tail-hand.

The conflict reached the spectator duo when one of the monkeys managed to get away with a plentiful bunch of pink bananas, and ran towards their direction with the intention to escape. A blue butterfly, with red eyes and wings that made the creature almost five feet tall, gave chase to the ape, shooting a string of what appeared to be a type of cobweb material. The monkey jumped and evaded the shot, which hit the ground and covered it with cobwebs in a second. The butterfly kept on the offensive, and shot another string at the ape while it was still in the air, which the monkey evaded by unexpectedly ducking low. The string, however, continued its path on the air straight towards Kyūbi, and he fox rapidly moved one of its tails to take the blow. To the Bijū's and Naruto's astonishment, the string shot quickly wrapped itself around the furry limb, and the tail dropped inert to the ground, due to Kyūbi being unable to move it.

The blue butterfly was getting desperate to capture the purple monkey, so it fired several string shots that missed the elusive ape and thus continued their trajectory towards the Jinchūriki-Bijū pair. Naruto did the hand-seals for the Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Technique), and in a poof of smoke replaced himself with an innocent log that was suddenly covered in cobwebs.

"Thou shall thank thy log for thy task" the blond muttered solemnly about ten meters away from the spot where the log was attacked, safe from any kind of retaliation.

Kyūbi, however, couldn't do a Substitution Technique and found itself in a precarious position, so the fox threw a small flamethrower blast that dissolved the string shot in mere seconds. The flames didn't fade away and continued traveling in a straight line, finally colliding with some crops that began to burn rapidly. Alarmed, the butterfly halted the pursue of the troublemaker monkey to try to extinguish the fire, flapping its wings to shut down the flames.

While the crops began burning, the yellow-faced monkey realized that even though it evaded the flame blast unscathed, the pink banana the ape had been holding in its tail-hand had caught fire and right now it was just hot melted pink goo. Seeing that there was no more meaning with staying in the crop field, the monkey decided to dash towards the forest, slipped between two bushes and disappeared onto the forest.

Back at the pink banana crops field, the blue insect saw that its efforts to shut the fire down weren't working, so it fired a string shot that wrapped itself around the burning plants. In a matter of seconds, the flames were covered by a white flexible material and the problem seemingly ended there, when suddenly the cobwebbed crops began to exude smoke and cracks appeared on the cobweb's surface. In an instant, fire erupted from the cobwebs and the crops began to burn with twice the intensity from before.

The blue butterfly-like creature let a screech of anguish before desperately renewing again its efforts to shut down the fire using the wind produced by its wings. However it wasn't enough and the fire spread rapidly to adjacent crops and to the crops next to those ones, as if gunpowder had been laid all over the place. All the creatures that were within the range of the fire got away from the flames, abandoning their invasion or defense of the crops. The heat of the fire grew more noticeable as grew the desperation of the butterfly, which began to screech uncontrollably and flew from one point to another trying without results to extinguish the fire.

"Butterfree! Calm down!" a voice shouted from within the forest. A man suddenly got out from some shrubs next to the ones where the monkey disappeared. The man was around 5'6" in height, and had purple hair cut into a bowl shape, with bangs of hair that made the cut larger at the back and shorter at the front. He also had opaque green eyes behind a pair of round glasses, and was wearing a boy-scout outfit with a green vest on top that reminded Naruto of the vests Jōnin and Chūnin wore.

"Butterfree!" the purple-haired man shouted at the blue butterfly, but the insect-like creature didn't seem to listen "BUTTERFREE! CALM DOWN!" the man shouted so loud he coughed afterwards, but it served its purpose and the butterfly stopped screeching over the crops enough to pay attention to the purple-haired man.

"Calm down! Don't forget that you have Rain Dance!" after those words were said, the butterfly appeared to realize something, and the insect creature stopped the frenetic flap of its wings to suddenly materialize a blue orb that looked strikingly similar to the Rasengan, but the blond user of the authentic Spiral Sphere sensed the similar orb to lack any kind of attack force inside itself.

The shinobi and the fox had just watched the events develop after Kyūbi had accidentally set fire to some crops, the duo being too interested with what the blue butterfly creature was doing. The Jinchūriki-Bijū pair watched as the butterfly launched the azure sphere high into the air, and when the blue butterfly let it free, the orb kept propelling itself until it disappeared behind the clouds. The blue sphere continued soaring out of sight up in the sky, when suddenly it imploded and let free a huge wave of deep blue energy that was absorbed by the surrounding clouds, which darkened steadily to the point they became pure black storm clouds. The roars of thunders were heard down in the crops, where everyone saw lightning flash a few times before suddenly it began to rain.

The water droplets first began as a drizzle, but as time passed by it grew into a heavy downpour that extinguished rapidly and without mercy all the fire that had spread over the crops. The blue butterfly collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. It sure used a lot of energy to be able to summon rain this strong.

"…You do realize we caused all of this fire in the first place, right?" Kyūbi commented quietly to its pseudo-jailer, who was at the fox's side.

"We? You mean you!" Naruto answered in an equally low voice, refusing to accept the guilt of the problem. Hey, it wasn't his fault that the Bijū couldn't do a Kawarimi no Jutsu.

"…I blame the non-possession of opposable thumbs in a fox's paw" the vulpine Bijū replied. Hey, it wasn't its fault that foxes lacked an opposable thumb. What could the Bijū do on the matter?

"Well I keep blaming you, and I say that we better flee from scene before the guy with glasses sues us for burning their weird banana crops!" the blond suggested troubled by the situation.

The fox reached the same conclusion that its Jinchūriki, and so the duo did small sidesteps, taking advantage of obliviousness of their presence to flee away, and continued sidestepping enough to end up at the edges of the forest clearing.

However, while the purple-haired man moved towards the blue butterfly that was laying on the ground in the center of the crops, more people got out of hiding in the forest. Some of them got outside parts of the forest just ahead from where the duo was, all of them facing the crops and trying to evaluate the damage the fire caused, thereby giving the back to the Jinchūriki-Bijū pair. No one had noticed them, but their presence meant the duo had to halt their plans to escape. If they had people witnessing their escape then it would worsen their situation, because if that happened the shinobi and the fox would be marked as criminals trying to get away, and the pair just couldn't go around knocking everyone seeing them.

"…We should knock out the people in front of us and then escape" well, apparently Kyūbi thought they could.

"No!" Naruto disagreed "That's a stupid thing to do"

"And having 'common sense' is stupid! I don't care if I knock them out" was what the fox refrained from saying. Now wasn't the time to start arguing "And what should we do then?" was what the silver fox said instead.

"They haven't noticed us yet. We can still sneak away…" as if on cue, one of the men in front of the pair turned around to spit on the ground (that was gross, even for Naruto and Kyūbi), and when the man did he also saw the blond and the fox discussing between themselves. At first the man was surprised, but then composed enough to ask a "What are ya doin' here!" to the blond ninja.

Said blond found himself cornered by the unexpected turn of events and the inquiry. The shinobi twitched nervously when the rest of the men (Kyūbi counted five) turned around to see why the first man asked the question. Fortunately, the attention they were paying to him faltered when the group of men took notice of the silver fox standing at the blonde's side. They stared incredulous at the downed Bijū, and their distraction gave Naruto time to devise an excuse, albeit an improvised one. When the men shrugged off their distraction enough, they focused again on the shinobi.

"What are ya doin' here, boy?" one of the men asked, this one wearing a military style bandana on his forehead "Do ya have anythin' to do with this?"

"No! No, I was just wandering around here when suddenly the fire began" the blond quickly denied responsibility of the problem.

"Are ya sure?" a man with war paint asked with suspicion clear on his voice.

"Really, we were just wandering around" the ninja managed to make his voice sound truthful, even though inside he was very angsty. He always really hated lying…

"Well, in that case then we gotta bring ya with us just in case ya witnessed somethin' important" a third man expressed, this one wearing a bug net, throwing the Jinchūriki off.

"What?" Naruto seemed surprised. Why would they want to take him if he had already given them an excuse? The bug net holder, oblivious to his indignation, took a hold of his arm and carried him towards the crops, Kyūbi following cautiously behind.

Meanwhile, the purple-haired man had reached the five-feet blue butterfly lying on the floor, and proceeded to take a small round object from a pouch on his vest, not visible from the point the duo was walking. The man pressed the tiny round object with his thumb (opposable thumb, Kyūbi noticed), and to Naruto's and Kyūbi's surprise, the object suddenly expanded until the Jinchūriki-Bijū duo could see what it was clearly: it was a ball, at first small, but that now barely fit on his hand, which was divided in hemispheres by a horizontal black line, the top half a red color and the lower half white.

"Rest, Butterfree" the man murmured, pointing the bi-colored ball at the butterfly-like creature "You have earned it"

The Jinchūriki-Bijū pair jumped in an unexpected reaction when a red, translucent beam of energy shot from the ball and touched the insect, and the duo watched in astounded silence as, instead of harming the creature, the blue butterfly suddenly dissolved in red energy, which was re-absorbed by the red-and-white ball. The man wearing boy-scout outfit then pocketed the ball back in his vest, and watched intrigued as a man using a bug net approached him, also bringing along a young blond man that he had never seen before. Then he caught sight of the silver fox beside the blond, and the purple-haired man's eyes widened, before blinking a couple times behind his glasses and scratching his nose, perplexed.

"Sir! This boy here says that he was wanderin' 'round when the crops caught fire, and the fox beside followed him!"

"Hn…does he says so?" the opaque green-eyed man was perplexed, but his voice sounded calm enough, which for Naruto's view was not bad, considering they were suspicious witnesses that happened to be around at the time of the fire. The vested man gave them a scrutinizing glance before Naruto's stomach grumbled and the shinobi shared a quick stare with the fox that told him what he wanted to know.

"Umm…not to take advantage of you guys, but could somebody take us somewhere to eat? I haven't eat in a few days and I'm starving" the blond rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, and the purple-haired man nodded.

"I'll take him somewhere to eat. We'll talk about he operation later" that said, he walked away from the crops and gestured Naruto to follow him.

"Kyūbi, let's go" the blond then told the fox, who also began to follow the purple-haired man. The duo followed the man outside of the clearing and into the town, walking in uncomfortable silence.

"Sorry about that" the man suddenly commented apologetically "We've been having some trouble recently, and things around the crops have been getting tense. My name is Bugsir by the way, and you could say that I'm the leader of the town"

"My name's Naruto" the shinobi introduced himself in response with a tension-breaker smile, hoping to lighten the mood, then gestured towards the form of the silver fox following them "And this is Kyūbi. We want to ask you many questions, but something tells me that we should answer yours first"

Bugsir nodded appreciatively "Thanks, and you're right. You need to answer my questions first before anything else, so I'll begin: How did you end up witnessing the fire?"

Naruto twitched nervously "Well…"

( Five Minutes Later)

Naruto had told the purple-haired man how they entered the town searching for food and money, but finding no one on the streets then they began wandering in the town's outskirts and how they ended up (or how Kyūbi ended up, as he specified clearly much to the fox's annoyance) launching a blast of fire in self-defense, which accidentally set the crops on fire. Of course, the Jinchūriki omitted things like who he or Kyūbi were, what abilities they had, or anything on a personal level. Bugsir seemed nice, but Naruto still didn't trust him enough. While the blond told the duo's story, the group had crossed had crossed the town and now they were walking in a dirt path that lead towards a forest at the other side of the town.

"Where are we heading?" Naruto asked, finally deciding to question their direction.

"To my house. Even if I'm the town's leader I find it quite problematic to stay in the town. Besides, my house is even closer to the Slowpoke Well" was the answer of the purple-haired man, who then did a pause before deciding to express his thoughts about the duo's story "I should give you both a punishment for burning the crops" Naruto was about to complain when the man muttered "But I'm not a iron-fist ruler, you didn't do it intentionally and the damage is nothing serious, so I think I'll pass" the purple-haired man scratched his nose.

That calmed Naruto down, and he let himself be lead by Bugsir through the dirt path until they arrived at an extensive, one-story yellow brick house located just aside the forest. Bugsir guided them through the front garden, which was littered with tall trees and vivd flowers, and where a kid Naruto swore was Bugsir's replica was playing with a one-foot green worm with two small red horns.

"Hey! That kid looks just like you" the blond said to the purple-haired man, who stopped on his tracks to take a look at where Naruto was looking at.

"Hn? Ah, yes. He is my son, Bugsy" Bugsir told amiably "He just turned thirteen years old about a month ago" He then whistled and yelled to the boy "Bugsy! Come here!" The boy halted his game with the small green creature to hear his father, and then ran towards the group "What do you want, dad?" he asked, grumbling for being taken out of a game.

"Just present yourself and then you can go back to play with the Caterpie"

"Fine" the boy grunted. The Bugsir-replica then turned towards Naruto "Hi, my name is Bugsy. I'm thirteen, and I go to the Azalea School. You know my dad, I know my mom and you'll probably too, so I think that's enough. Oh, wait, my dream is to be an awesome Gym Leader like my dad is!" the boy had said all in a flat tone except for the last part, when his tone contained determination and hope.

"Good, Bugsy. You can go to play now" as soon as Bugsir said that, Bugsy dashed towards the green one-feet worm, and continued to play with the creature.

"He sure is a smooth kid" was what Naruto said about the boy. The purple-haired man nodded, and continued to walk across the garden. Kyūbi just snorted, but only the blond knew it was because of his comment. They arrived at the porch, and the group passed a wooden door that lead to the house's interior.

"So…now that we answered your questions, can you answer ours?" The purple-haired man nodded, and that was all the permission Naruto needed. However, there were many questions Naruto wanted to ask and he didn't know where to start, so he decided to begin with a simple inquiry. "What kind of problem is the town having?" the shinobi asked feigning half-interest, even if he was actually curious about the matter.

Bugsir seemed to have expected the question, but even then the man coughed uncomfortably before responding "Well…the town has been recently plagued by a horde of Aipom that are always trying to steal our Nanab Berry crops" Well, those were new words in Naruto's and even Kyūbi's vocabulary…and they were as confusing as hell. What was this all about?

"Nanab Berry? Are those the pink bananas of the crops?"

"Yes. Azalea Town is an important producer of Nanab Berries on the Johto Region, considering that Berries are not usually grown and harvested" Bugsir sat on a couch at the corner of a guest receiver, and gestured Naruto to take a seat as well. The blond did as asked, and sat in another couch directly facing the man, Kyūbi following him and resting at the floor beside its Jinchūriki's feet. The shinobi didn't say anything to the Bijū on the matter, since he didn't know how the fox would normally behave outside the seal.

"Johto Region…" Kyūbi interfered after setting himself comfortable on the floor "I guess it's where we are now. It's sure an odd and different place"

The Jinchūriki agreed with the fox's opinion, but having read the altered seal formula and knowing Bugsir couldn't understand anything the silver fox tried to say, he voiced the question Kyūbi also wanted to ask, both curious of their new predicament.

"Johto Region?" Naruto pretended bewilderment "Where's that?"

This time, Bugsir was caught off guard by the question "You mean you don't know where you are?" surprise was clearly evident on his voice, as was in his face.

"Yeah…" the blond smiled sheepishly "Kyūbi and me kinda had an accident…I blacked out, and since then we don't know where we are"

"Uh…" Bugsir scratched his nose in exasperation " I suppose I could give you an idea of what is the Johto Region, since you…well, you'll be useless and get lost in an instant if I don't"

"Johto is a region located at the oriental part of a large landmass. Its extension is basically all the right half of the it, parting from the perilous ranges of Mount Silver on the east to the vast seas surrounding Cianwood City on the far west. From the mysterious waters of Lake Rage on the north, passing the magnificent Bell Tower and its downed sister Brass Tower, to the tranquility of the south's Azalea Town and the locally-praised Slowpoke Well" Bugsir had been gradually raising the tone of his voice until it sounded like he was giving a poem, but then he paused and blinked repeatedly as if he had snapped out of a trance.

"Oh…sorry" the purple-haired man murmured embarrassed "It's just that I have always wanted to be a poet, and I've traveled quite a bit…" Bugsir looked away for a second, and then scratched his nose.

"No, no, it's good. You can continue explaining that way" the blond was actually paying attention, and it helped that he liked the way Bugsir was explaining. Notwithstanding his focus, Naruto still couldn't piece things together because he didn't know the first thing about all these places. He needed more information and this was all right.

"So, is this town…Azalea Town, in the south?" Naruto showed that he was paying attention when he asked the location of town he was in.

"Yes. It is actually the southernmost human establishment in Johto. If you decided to head towards the south by foot, you would find open sea traveling just one day"

"And what is the Slowpoke Well? You made it sound like it's an important monument, and I read a sign at the town's entrance where the name appeared"

"Well, the Slowpoke Well is an important monument in Johto, but here in Azalea we care for it even more since it is part of our tradition. It is in there where Slowpokes reunite, and those Pokémon are specially appreciated here…"

"Anyway" Bugsir continued before letting Naruto talk, who was about to ask another doubt "Johto is mainly a rural region with towns like Azalea, although it also has large modern cities like Goldenrod City. Johto is also the fourth most diverse region in Pokémon biodiversity…"

"What is Pokémon?" The blond asked with clear curiosity and impatience from being denied to ask the question before.

Bugsir did a double take at the question and almost fell of the couch in disbelief.

'Is this person even from this world?' the purple-haired man looked at the blond like he was an alien "You don't know what a Pokémon is? The fox resting at your feet is one!" When Kyūbi heard the statement Bugsir made, the vulpine Bijū raised its head from its paws to shot the town leader a questioning look.

"What does he mean by that?" Kyūbi asked mostly to itself, knowing that Bugsir wouldn't understand anything the fox wanted to query. The Bijū wanted to restore its power to its former state, and knowing the state the Bijū was downed to would help along the way.

"What is Pokémon?" Naruto repeated the question, this time more insistently. Bugsir let out a deep sigh of desperation and sank lower into his couch.

"Well…um…I suppose I could explain to you briefly what Pokémon is. It is a large and complex concept, and I think that if I tried to explain it all to you then you would get a headache" The purple-haired man scratched his nose "So I will try to explain this the most summarized way possible, for me at least: A Pokémon is a living, sentient being that can move, eat, rest, communicate, feel and think to a high degree. The appearance of a Pokémon varies tremendously between species, since they can go from resembling a plant to be quite similar to a magnet or a mythological beast. There are hundreds and hundreds of different Pokémon species, so many that in fact we haven't discovered them all" Bugsir stopped for a moment to gulp some saliva and refresh his throat "All Pokémon have special characteristics and properties that make them akin to a certain nature type, like Fire, Water, Grass, Bug, etc. This affiliation makes them compatible with certain or moves, while incompatible with others. These moves can be used for many different purposes, be it combat or domestic ones. A Pokémon can learn different moves they are compatible with, but they have a limit to the number they can use at the same time, which is usually four, or otherwise Pokémon confuse their moves and can't use them effectively in any type of situation" Bugsir made a pause before pushing his glasses back at the bridge of his nose and then continuing.

"Another important facet of Pokémon are the Pokémon Trainers, which dedicate themselves to train the combat capacities of the Pokémon he or she has captured. Trainers use their Pokémon to battle using strategy and taking advantage of moves, types, and other facets of Pokémon. Among the Trainers there are those who are called Gym Leaders. All of the Gym Leaders have a strong set of Pokémon, which is why other Trainers aim to beat them to prove their Pokémon's prowess, and if they defeat a Gym Leader then they earn a badge. There are only eight Gym Leaders in Johto, of which I am one, and once you defeat them all you can fight the Elite Four, which as their name says, are four of the toughest top-class Trainers in Johto that you face in order to proclaim yourself as Champion"

Naruto was paying attention to all the explanation, and the more he learned the more he could understand about how these creatures -that were apparently a very basic thing- worked. Granted, the blond didn't absorb all of the information, but he felt like he could figure out what he didn't know with time, as this whole Trainer thing looked kind of similar to the Chūnin Exams of his youth. He kept paying attention right until he processed the specific bit of information when Bugsir said he was a Gym Leader (which sounded like quite the title).

"Wait!, You mean you're a Gym Leader?" So that's why he actually understood a good amount of the explanation. He had to, if a supposed Gym Leader was explaining it.

"Yes. I am in charge of the Azalea Town Gym, and as such I have trained strong Bug-Type Pokémon, which is the type I specialize in. Being a Gym Leader, I have experience with many things concerning Pokémon, but this Aipom problem has proven to be quite the difficult thing to handle, so I have been running an operation with the crop farmers to stop the Aipom from stealing anything, but so far it has been fruitless…" Bugsir stopped talking about his problem when he suddenly thought of something that might help his odd guest with his doubts "Wait here for a moment" the purple-haired man stood up from his couch and then paced towards a hall. The man opened a door at one side of the hall and entered, disappearing from the duo's view.

"So…what do you think, Kyūbi?" the blond took advantage of Bugsir's momentary absence to talk freely with the fox without someone thinking that he had lost his mind.

"I believe this world is a really odd, odd place, but I think I understood enough of the explanation about these weird creatures to manage myself here. On the other hand, I don't know if your pitiful mind could process all that information…"

Naruto scoffed.

"My mind understood enough thank you" he responded to Kyūbi's jab "But still, I don't think that even with all this information we've learned enough about this world, or the creatures for the matter"

"Then we will figure it out"

"That's what I thought"

Bugsir suddenly returned to the guest receiver bringing a thick book with him "Here" the purple-haired placed the book on the blonde's lap "This will help you. Pokémon and anything concerning them is quite the complex theme, so I am letting you borrow this book" Naruto took a hold of the book, which was entirely of black leather. He read the front cover.

For Pokémon Trainers

Types, Move Sets, and Abilities

"I don't know what you dedicate yourself to" Bugsir continued "But even if this book is for Pokémon Trainers, it will help you understand more about Pokémon" Just in that moment, Kyūbi caught traces of a peculiar aroma coming from somewhere at their left, and the Bijū did some sniffs to be sure about what was it was smelling.

"Is that food?" Naruto asked after doing some evidence sniffs himself. It certainly smelled good.

"Ah, yes. I told my wife to cook food for some guests. Also, don't fear about the quantity. I thought that you would be hungry, so I told her to cook a good amount. The kitchen is right here…" Bugsir directed them towards a door to the left, where the scent grew stronger.

The Jinchūriki-Bijū duo found themselves in an ample kitchen, where a black-haired woman about 5' 4", with brown eyes and fair skin was boiling a pot on a stove.

"She is my wife" Bugsir told the duo, before gesturing Naruto to take a seat in a dinette, and showing Kyūbi a space on the floor where there was a bowl. Bugsir's wife then grabbed the pot with her mitten-covered hands and served the blond some steaming soup in a bowl. She also filled Kyūbi's bowl with soup, before going back to the stove to cook more.

At the sight of hot, steaming food, both the shinobi and the fox threw themselves onto their bowls and devouring everything inside within a matter of seconds. Soon, the duo asked for more, and the black-haired woman refilled their bowls just for the pair to throw themselves at the bowls again. Naruto's lack of modals was justified -at least to himself- with the hunger he was carrying after absence of food in three days straight. He didn't know why Kyūbi was wolfing its food down though. But perhaps it was because it had been even longer since the Bijū had the possibility of eating actual food.

Bugsir also requested one bowl of soup, which he ate calmly in contrast with the starving guests. After the Gym Leader finished his bowl (the duo was on their fourth and counting), he stood up from the seat he had taken at the table.

"Well, I hope you enjoy your meal, but at the moment I must meet with the Nanab Berry farmers to check on the state of our operation" Bugsir bid goodbye to his wife and waved his hand in the duo's direction before getting out of the kitchen. Naruto watched the man until he disappeared towards the crops at the other side of the town, when he suddenly felt a hunch coming. The shinobi stared at his empty bowl of soup while considering in his mind the consequences following his hunch would imply, and debating whether to follow it of not.

The black haired woman that was cooking more soup was startled when the blond unexpectedly jumped out of his seat, dashing towards the kitchen's exit and vanishing a second later.

"Naruto!" Kyūbi shouted angrily "You stupid moron! Where in kami's name are you going? You could at least tell me before doing something stupid! I'm not your fucking babysitter, dammit!"

While the Bijū was complaining and cursing him, the blond had already gotten outside the house, where he saw Bugsir in the garden, a few meters away from the dirt path that would lead him to the crops.

"Bugsir!" the shinobi yelled to the man, who stopped on his tracks when he heard the blond calling him.

"What do you need?" the purple haired man asked a little rushed. He was getting late for his meeting with the farmers…

"Two days" Naruto said with more calmness, now that he knew Bugsir had heard him.

"What?"

"I wanna help you with your problem, but first give me two days before I do anything. Just two days…"

The Gym Leader thought about it for a moment before answering.

"Fine with me" the purple-haired man commented. More help didn't sound bad at all… "Take your time, and when you feel ready, I will tell you what we know about the Aipom and the situation we are in"

"Thanks" Naruto said before grinning "And don't worry, two days will be all it'll take for Kyūbi and me to be ready to do just about anything"

Satisfied with the answer, Bugsir nodded before resuming his walk towards the Nanab Berry crops. Naruto just watched him leave before muttering something.

"It'll be more than enough…"