Konoha, the Village hidden in Leaves. An unusual name for a village that was in the Land of Fire, which really didn't resemble the land of Fire, more like the Land of Trees, Trees and More Fucking Trees. With more trees than you could shake a kunai at, Konoha was truly a hippie paradise, and the most peaceful ninja village of them all.

"GET THE LITTLE BRAT!"

Or maybe not.

In the main streets of Konoha, an ancient scene that to some villagers seemed as old as time itself played out again- namely, Naruto Uzumaki, unknowing Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi no Kitsune, the strongest and most malevolent of all the Tailed Beasts, was being chased by sticky ANBU, laughing like a hyena at his latest daring prank.

The prank in question was nothing short of ingenious to a five-year old boy starved for attention. In his child-like logic, he'd decided that, since ANBU often watched him when out of the orphanage seemed like they needed a little extra colour besides drab black and white, that he'd bless them by making them orange, like his favourite colour. To do this, he'd staked out a couple of ANBU who looked like they needed the sticks out of their asses, waited until they were assigned to him and then hurled two buckets of orange paint on them and bolted in the two seconds they'd been confused. When they'd tried to follow him out of the orphanage, a bucket of glitter had been tipped on them by a rather ingenious tripwire painted brown, in order to catch them off guard. Now glittery and orange, they continued to pursue the brat, looking for him form the rooftops, occasionally looking really hard for more tripwires. Sometimes, this actually saved them from more humiliation in the forms of large buckets of ditchwater, fake cockroaches and even a glue trap that, were they not on the receiving end of the prank, would have marvelled for its deceptive simplicity. As it was, Naruto was outrunning them, so they put on a considerable burst of speed in order to not embarrass themselves in front of the Hokage, who would probably give them remedial training with Anko and Ibiki. Shuddering, they sped up as their quarry rounded a corner. The little brat wasn't getting off easy. Thanks to Kakashi, they knew what route the Demon Brat usually took.

While the two ANBU were following him, Naruto made a split-second decision that probably permanently altered the timeline. Instead of taking his usual escape route and being caught by Dog-face, he instead took a different route to the edge of Konoha, in some abandoned old building with the Uzumaki spiral there. The ANBU, having just rounded the corner, took his usual escape route, hunting for him. Naruto poked his head out of the door, and cautiously looked around. Since there were still a couple of people around, he ducked back in quickly. For some reason, people usually didn't laugh at his pranks, even though to him they were pretty funny. It was probably because they were all butts who laughed at his dream to be Hokage. Well…

The creepy room he was in had some really cool looking masks on the wall. Although he knew about his family's legacy thanks to the Old Man teaching him about his history, he didn't know what this building was. A shame, as if he'd known he would have been much more cautious with his next actions. The building he was in was the Uzumaki Mask Storage Temple, where the Uzumaki stored masks for their forbidden sealing techniques. There was a reason why most ninja apart from Uzu's ally Konoha was afraid of the Uzumaki's sealing abilities, and even then Konoha was afraid of what would happed should the Uzumaki decide to fight Konoha. As a show of trust, the Uzumaki build the temple and placed the masks there, intended to show Konoha that there were ways to counter the seals. So far, only a couple of shinobi had realised that, just because you had the masks, you didn't know what sealing ritual they corresponded to, thus making them practically useless. Thus, the Uzumaki had technically pulled a fast one on one of their allies while pretending to help them. Pranking was truly in the Uzumaki blood.

Naruto, being completely clueless about this building and its contents, naturally decided to have fun with the masks, as any child of that age would. However, most of the masks in the weird temple-thing were way out of reach for his five-year old arms. Disappointed, he mooched around, looking for something to stand on. Eventually, he found a small box and pushed it over, standing on it in order to reach a really cool mask of the Shinigami. He pulled it off the hook and put it on, making scary 'rawwr' noises.

He jumped back when he heard a creepy voice go, "What the hell." Whipping his head around, he saw the Shinigami himself. Screaming in terror, he ran back even more, but the Death God followed him. Eventually, Naruto was pressed against a wall. In his terror, he felt his stomach stir, and he began to feel ill.

Shinigami looked at the idiotic blond Uzumaki. Honestly, he couldn't leave this realm until the boy did something or made him fulfil his function, i.e to seal or release souls. Suddenly, the boy fell on his hands and knees and started vomiting. As he felt his stomach reeling, only one thought went through the Shinigami's mind.

FUCK!

While Naruto was voiding his stomach of some extremely off milk and instant ramen, the Shinigami was vomiting up a Kyūbi-sized mass of Yin chakra and returning it to its proper owner. As he left the physical plane, he briefly wondered whether or not this would be interesting, or rather, worth the pain of vomiting. He was going to feel bad about this for WEEKS before he calmed down.

When Kurama woke, it was to the pleasant sensation of the missing half of his chakra returning to him. He relished in it, feeling his power grow to its original, magnificent levels. Now, to deal with this pathetic seal…

Naruto finally finished vomiting. Sometime during the vomiting, the Shinigami had run off, probably due to the vomit pooling in front of him.

"Y-Yeah! You run, ghost!" He laughed, a little too loudly, in order to cover up his shaking knees. Suddenly, he felt a lurch around his gut.

"Oh no… not agaii-" Naruto was knocked unconscious by the strange sensation.

"FUCK!" The Kyūbi snarled, thrashing at the seal. Even though his power had doubled, he was still imprisoned in this lousy seal. The only consolation was that he could now reach his pathetic host with much more ease than he could before. Maybe it was time to have a talk with his unwitting jailor. Speaking of which, the reaction that Kyūbi had tried was going to pull his rather stupid Jinchūruki into his inner world, where he could get a nice, long chat, and maybe get him to rip off the seal.

As Naruto woke up, he noticed that he seemed to have gone to a sewer during the time he'd been unconscious. Weird. Then again, weirder things had happened, like the old man and the little orange books that caused his brain to bleed out of his nose. He'd tried to get some med-nins to look at it, but most of them just ignored him. But these weren't any sewers that Naruto had seen, not that he'd had any experience in such matters. The area around him was flooded by water, and there was what looked like some kind of giant prison cell in front of him. Normally, you would be cautious of such things, but since Naruto was a five-year old, he had none of this knowledge or, indeed, of any tact whatsoever, so he wandered over, curious about it.

The Kyūbi scowled. This was the host of so magnificent a being as himself? The last Jailor, Kushina, was more imposing. Then again, he'd been changed to a ball of fire and practically crucified, so any jailor was a welcome change. Still, he was slightly thankful, if only for the return of his Yin-chakra. As the host approached the bars of his cell, he decided to make himself known.

Naruto examined the cage. Whatever was meant to be here was big. Very big. So big, in fact, that it could probably be the size of Konoha itself, no doubt. As he wondered what was so big, a mighty rumble from within the cage sounded.

"Welcome, brat. I've been expecting you." The thing within was-

Actually, Naruto didn't really know what it was.

The Kyūbi looked as the brat looked up in awe, then… confusion? His size certainly brought about other reactions- anger, fear, determination- but never confusion.

"An orange rabbit?" Kyūbi nearly attacked the little blonde for that. Actually, if there hadn't been a seal and it probably wouldn't have killed him, the blonde would be a red smear along the ground.

"Oi, brat! Are you brain-damaged or are you just stupid?" In response, his jailor screwed up his eyes and glared at him from behind the slits.

"OI! I' NOT STUPID!" The Kyūbi just glared.

"As any fool with eyes knows, I'm not a rabbit. I am…" It paused itself for the moment when the little brat's world came crashing down on him.

"THE KYŪBI NO KITSUNE, STRONGEST OF THE TAILED BEASTS, DESTROYER OF MOUNTAINS, CAUSER OF TSUNAMI'S! NO CREATURE IS MY EQUAL IN ALL THE WORLD!" Smirking a little, he looked at his little jailor…

Who was shaking his head.

"Nah, the Yondaime beat the Kyūbi five years ago, so you're nothing but a big rabbit!" At this, the Kyūbi's temper overboiled. He drew himself up with as much dignity as he'd learned over the centuries, and said, in a voice of ice and fire,

"Brat, you cannot kill the Tailed Beasts. You can only seal them within your own, pathetic kind. We are of a different existence to you pathetic humans. We are the original chakra of the Jyūbi itself, the source of all chakra, removed and named by the Sage of Six paths himself!"

Naruto looked up in appreciation at the giant fox. Not only was it orange (the best colour in the world,) but it was also really nice. The Kyūbi continued.

"You pathetic humans have only sealed me three times. While these quarters are better than my last confinements, there are prisons even worse than my own or any I suffered while you humans try to seal us away. And then, you humans mock you, because of us. How does that make you feel, brat? To know that it is the Yondaime who is responsible for your ostracisation?" Naruto tilted his head to one side.

"Oh for crying out loud! Ostracise means not to accept! It's thanks to the blonde bastard who put me in you in the first place that you're so alone!" Naruto just looked away. Seeing this as his jailor breaking, the Kyūbi continued.

"It's your foolish human values that make you so alone."

"That's where you're wrong. The Old Man… Teuchi… They care for me."
"Care? You know in your heart of hearts that they only want you on their good side." Naruto then blinked as he realised something. He turned back to the giant fox.

"Hey, you said that the Sage gave you a name. What is it?"

The Kyūbi was thrown for a loop. Never, in all of his life, had he been asked his name by one of his jailors. They'd either been busy angsting about their status, or just getting angry at him. But this boy had been the first since the Sage himself who had even bothered considering the name.

"Er. Um. Why do you care?" Naruto looked him straight in the eye.

"Because we're alike."
"Alike?"

"Yeah. We're both prisoners of each other. And prisoners should know each other's name, right? So what is it?"

The Kyūbi was stunned. He'd never liked the jailors, and he never liked them since the Sage himself. While some Tailed Beasts got along well with their jailors, he'd never seen the appeal. Until now, that is. He looked at the conviction in his jailor's eyes, and decided to answer.

"The name's Kurama. Don't you forget it… brat." Naruto nodded, and held his fist through the bars of the cage. Kurama looked at it inquisitively.

"It's a fist bump. You do it… to understand people with your fists."
Two fists met that day, and the fate of the Ninja world was changed forever.