"Well," Naruto said as he stared at the amused – though slightly annoyed – nine tailed fox in front of him, "This is awkward."

The red fox stared at him with a smug expression on his face. "Admit it brat," the demon rumbled. "You are seriously hopeless."

"It's not like I wanted to die like that!" Naruto protested, running a hand through his short blonde spikes, his cerulean eyes flashing with his embarrassment. Kurama would be embarrassed too, if he had died like him.

"You defeat all your enemies, even the bastard Uchiha to die, by tripping on a pebble and cracking your head open," the Kyuubi deadpanned. "That's hopeless, not to mention extremely humiliating."

"Alright furball!" Naruto complained. "No need to freaking rub it in."

They were silent as they waited in his mindscape for him to die.

Then, of course, Kurama had to speak again. "You know, there is a way for you not to die from this," Kurama hinted.

Naruto sent him a glare. "And you didn't think to mention this before?" he huffed in annoyance. "You know, maybe when I was always freaking out about dying when you were being sucked out of me into a statue? Or when we were fighting the Juubi? Or in fact, any other time I was in a life threatening situation where I was going to be killed?" Naruto demanded.

"No not really," Kurama stated flatly. "I enjoy it when you panic."

"You're sadistic," Naruto complained.

"And soon you will be too," Kurama said amusedly. Naruto blinked and scratched his head.

"Eh…why do I feel somewhat apprehensive when you say that?" Naruto said nervously. Kurama smiled wickedly.

"Well, you'll become Kitsuneka Naruto, a fusion between us both. Which is, of course why I didn't bring this up earlier. To become one with a mere mortal…" he shook his large head. "The only thing worse is death."

Naruto looked at him dryly. "Thanks for the compliment," he said sarcastically.

"You're very welcome," he said, ironically in an honest voice.

"So I would become a demon?" he wondered aloud.

"Hanyou," Kurama corrected.

"Same thing," Naruto said dismissively.

"It's not the same thing!" Kurama protested hotly. "They are completely different! For one thing, Demons are above this world while Hanyou are tied to the six elements-"

"Five," Naruto corrected.

"No six," Kurama said impatiently. "Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Lightning and Dimension."

"Dimension? What the hell is dimension?"

"You know, Time, Space, Shadow, Life, Death, Reality…why am I even explaining this to you again?" Kurama wondered. "I mean, we're both dying and have less than a minute to live." Naruto rolled his eyes.

"So 'fusing'? How does that even work?"

"Well it's easy. I eat you," Kurama said cheerfully. Naruto just stared at him.

"You can't eat me," Naruto pointed out. "We are in my mind. This place is strictly of my imagination."

"And to this day I have never understood why you chose a sewer to be your mind," Kurama marvelled. "It really shows how dense mortals can be." Then he blinked. "Right, eating. I can eat your mind but since your body is still out, we should just merge."

"…Wouldn't that just make me brain dead?" Naruto enquired.

"You'd think so," Kurama said thoughtfully. "But I ate other shinobi and they turned out fine. They even turned into demi-hanyou's themselves. So I think you'd be pretty safe."

"Gee, I feel so much better," Naruto said sarcastically.

"Well, come over here," Kurama said impatiently. "I mean, it's not like we have all day."

"With the amount of talking we've been doing I find that very hard to believe," Naruto muttered as he stepped inside the cage.

"There will probably be some side effects of this, just to warn you," Kurama cautioned, "And it will take you a while to get used to your new hanyou status. But I'm sure you'll be fine. You're too stubborn to die." The Kyuubi paused before adding, "Well, at least before. I never really expected you to go down by your own clumsy feet. Mortals these days…" And before Naruto had time to process this information, he was swallowed whole.

o.O

Being swallowed by a giant fox aside, this was the weirdest thing Naruto had ever experienced. He could feel Kurama merging into him, him gaining all of the demon's powers. Soon Naruto found himself spinning around in circles, until he landed on his rump in the sand. How the hell had he gotten in the desert? Naked, for that matter. He put a hand up to his hair and froze when he felt something twitch that certainly wasn't there before. He felt them gently and there was no doubt about it, they were fox ears. "Furball!" he yelled into the desert loudly. "What the hell did you do to me!?" Well, at least he didn't have a tail.