My friend (A Naruto What-If Fanfiction)

Chapter #1 The Meeting

Naruto opened his eyes and found himself in what looked like a vast sewer. Not sure how he got there, Naruto started to mindlessly wonder forward, being led somewhere. As he continued to let his body take him deeper into the sewer, Naruto thought about the last thing he remembered.

Oh, that's right, he challenged Sasuke to a fight, certain he could win this time, only for him to lose quicker than he thought possible. Naruto was drawing a blank in between his one-sided fight with Sasuke and his waking up in a sewer. Wait, did Konoha even have a sewer system? Naruto didn't know.

Naruto's eyes widened when he came up to an enormous set of bars making a wall. Two bars were stuck together by a piece of paper that had the Kanji for Seal on it, Naruto didn't know what that meant. As he moved to get closer to the wall of bars, he saw a giant fox with nine tails swishing back and forth behind itself.

"So, finally come, at last, have you, Naruto?" The creature growled monstrously at the five-year-old blonde.

Naruto was amazed that the giant fox could talk, and that it knew his name. "Will you be my friend Inari-Sama?" Naruto asked the strange creature with a smile on his face at the prospect of finally having someone he could call his friend.

The Fox's eyes widened as it barred its teeth at Naruto. "Foolish Human, how stupid do you take us Bijuu for? The only reason for you to be here is to take my power for your own selfish intentions!"

"Why would I take your power from you? It's not mine to take. And I don't think you're stupid, that word is very mean to use so I would never use it on someone else. I'm just really lonely and wanted to have at least one friend. But you'll be my friend, right?"

The Fox analyzed Naruto with its huge red eyes with black slits. After identifying no malice or hatred in the boy, the fox deducted that he was being sincere. He laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes and gave out a sleepy grunt. 

As Naruto ran into the fox's cage, the bars being more than big enough for him to enter, the fox wondered if he should've killed the boy then. But the image of his creator flashed into the beast's mind, preventing him from doing such an act as Naruto slept on his soft fur.

Naruto would spend several hours every day talking to his new fox companion, happy to finally have a friend. The fox, who he called Inari-Sama as the fox had yet to give him his real name, had never really responded to anything he said, he just stared at him and watched him.

"Hey, Inari-Sama, why are you in a cage?" Naruto asked the fox, curious about his friend and why he was imprisoned, he didn't seem like a bad person to him.

"The Fourth Hokage put me in here when my last cage stopped working." The beast answered after several minutes of silence. "Why were you in that one?"

"The First Hokage titled me as a mindless monster capable of only destruction that needed to be caged. So he sealed me into his wife until she was too old to keep my power contained, then I was sealed into a new Jinchuriki that the one prior handpicked, who also died, bringing me to be sealed into her infant child, you!"

Naruto was speechless at his words. The First Hokage, the man that founded this village had imprisoned this fox and called him a monster, and instead of being able to have his freedom, he was instead sealed into two more people, who were his mother and himself. And he used to have the utmost respect for the Hokage name, but not anymore.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that. I'm sorry that I'm your current prison, but I hope to make it up to you by being your friend and being the best Jinchu-something ever."

"Jinchuriki, it means a human sacrifice, people that are selected to bear the burden of keeping their village's supposed demons imprisoned within them."