Turned into Stone

-Fayetteville, North Carolina-

-January 20, 2008, 1900h local-

Fayetteville is a medium-sized city with a population not reaching 200,000. It's considered a military town due to it's proximity to the US Army installation, Fort Bragg.

Many trainees and soldiers visit the town to unwind or celebrate when they get time offs. The bars are particularly popular with the soldiers as expected. Tonight is no different than any other night.

A particular bar near the edges of the city is a favorite of some of the rowdier clientele. It has a good music, good atmosphere, good drinks, and good food. The perfect place to enjoy what little time off a soldier has.

Everyone inside the bar is enjoying themselves—drinking, singing, dancing, chatting—everyone except one. A lone man sitting on the edge of the bar is drinking his way through a bottle of bourbon. The weird thing though, is that everyone is going out of their way to avoid the man.

His name is Erik Stevens. The Lost Prince of Wakanda. He's a 6'0, 24 years old, muscularly built, African American man with short black hair and black eyes. The man can be described with one word, tenacity.

His whole life is base on his father's ideals. The night his father died, he discovered his ancestry. The ancestry of the most powerful civilization to ever exist. Reading his father's journal left an impression on him—the marginalization of his people, the injustices, the slavery, the oppression. He understands everything his father wanted to do. Use the power of Wakanda to change the world order. It's time for Wakanda to rule the world as it should be.

Erik planned out his whole life to eventually be the King of Wakanda. He studied hard and fast-tracked himself to college. After he graduated with honors at MIT, he joined the US Navy until he eventually joined the Navy Seals and assigned to the renowned team 6.

Erik had been able to complete 41 missions in the short span of two years and racking up 56 kill counts causing him to earn the fear and respect of his comrades. All his kills are marked into his body using the traditional crocodile scarification. His accomplishments finally led him into being transferred to the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC a week ago, which is based in Fort Bragg.

The reputation he earned caused people to avoid him as much as possible, that's why he's sitting alone and isolated inside the crowded bar.

Erik was on his sixth glass of bourbon when a blonde man wearing a burnt orange jacket sat next to him, causing the bar to quiet down in surprise. He studied the man for a moment, assessing if he's a threat. The man's posture is relaxed, which is opposite to what Erik's instincts are telling him. There's an underlying aura that could only be observed in war veterans, but the man looks younger than 25. The dichotomy of the man's presence caused Erik to increase his vigilance.

The blonde man sat there for a while before signaling the bartender.

"Shot glass, a bottle of Everclear, and the largest serving of cheesy fries you have. Add as much cheese as you can. Serve everything at once." The man ordered while sliding $200 to the bartender.

When the customers heard the man finally order, they slowly regained their energy until everything returned to normal. The bartender quickly fulfilled the order without questioning the man for his drink choices. It's not his job to babysit customers.

The man's order was served in under 5 minutes. The large tip he gave must have motivated the staff enough to deliver the order quickly.

"Damn. That hits the spot..." The man said after taking a bite of fries and taking a swig of Everclear. He then looked towards Erik and slid the fries closer. "You want one?"

Erik just grunted in negative. He still can't figure out the man's agenda and is hanging back just to observe him.

"You know you should use your words, Lieutenant Stevens..." Erik's alert level increased when he heard his name. "You might turn into an emo duck haired bastard when you just keep on grunting..." Erik just kept on eying him, not falling for any of the man's provocation. The man just kept on eating and drinking, not paying attention to Erik. "There's more to life than killing people and being the best. You won't be able to enjoy life if you keep living the way you are now..." The man somehow finished the whole bucket of fries and a bottle of Everclear in the short amount of time he sat there. "Follow me. You're going to want to hear what I'm going go to say." The man said before standing up and walking out the front door.

Erik debated to himself if he should follow. The man clearly knows who he is and what he does. From everything he gathered from the short meeting, the man may come from the CIA, NSA, Homeland, or any other agency out there. With nothing to lose, he got up his seat and left $50 on the table. He walked out of the door and saw the man walking inside a small park a block away from them.

When Erik got inside the park, he saw the man sitting on a bench. He walked over and sat on the opposite side of it.

"Before we start, I think it's best if I introduce myself since I know 'everything' about you already. You can call me Naruto. I do not work for any government or organization. I'm just a lone wolf here to extend you an offer." Naruto said while holding a folder in his hands.

"Enough with all that bullshit. Just say your piece." Erik urged, nervous when he heard Naruto emphasize the word everything.

"I want you to quit the military and work for me. I'll send you to deal with all the worst scumbags in the world and, at the same time, help people held down by the scumbags. You're going to do all these things alone or with me..." Naruto laid out his offer. "The only catch is you could only do one mission a month. The mission could last half a day or one month, but you could only do one."

"Why the hell would I want to do that? I've just been transferred to JSOC. I could do all that shit while in there." Erik retorted, seeing no point in accepting the man's offer.

"Well, aside from the generous pay that might go as high as a million dollars for each mission..." Naruto reached inside his pocket and revealed a single Kimoyo bead. "I'll give you one of these things for every two missions. That way, you could have a complete working set by two years, Prince N'Jadaka."

Erik immediately noticed the Kimoyo bead when he saw it even though the only one he ever saw was his father's, and that won't work for him since it's already coded to his father's DNA. The name N'Jadaka, though, that's what alarmed him. The only way Naruto could know that name was if he read his father's journal, which is in a safety deposit box.

Erik drew a knife from his back and placed it on Naruto's throat.

"Who are you?" Erik asked in a dangerous tone, but Naruto just remained calm.

"I told you, I'm Naruto. Are you deaf or something?"

"Don't play with me motherfucker. I'm going to fucking slit your throat." Erik threatened, forcing the blade deeper to Naruto's throat.

"Don't say it. Just do it." Naruto said with a wide grin.

Erik, who's already on edge, pulled beck his knife and plunged it to Naruto's brain through his jaw, but to his surprise, the blade bent. He felt a tingling sensation running up his arm, similar to when you hit a metal bat at the pole.

"You done yet?" Naruto asked disinterestedly. "I think I introduced myself with the wrong name..." He said while fixing his jacket. "My name is really Naruto, but I'm more famous as Nine-Tails..." Naruto saw the same shocked expressions he saw with other people when he reveals his alias. "So, you want to accept the job?" He finally asked while handing over the folder.

Erik hesitantly took the folder and opened it. He saw a dossier of a British man. His shock is slowly turning into a justified rage as he reads through it. The fucker is one of the so-called Blood Diamond Warlords. People who are controlling the African diamond trade. These are the people he wanted to target but can't do inside the military.

When Erik got trough the folder, he closed it and looked at Naruto.

"Give me one week to process my exit papers." Erik said with finality.

-Natasha's Safehouse, New York-

-March 30, 2008, 1830h local-

Naruto has been assigned again to cook dinner. Natasha and Jessica had unanimously agreed to let Naruto cook as much as possible since his cooking is to die for.

It's been already a little over nine months since Jessica joined their with arrangement. A month ago, when the couple finally convinced Jessica to move into the safehouse/apartment. The decision was made since Natasha and Naruto are gone half of the time, and Jessica has been staying with them whenever one of them is present. There's just no point for Jessica to live in her apartment if she lives with them half of the time.

Jessica relented after Naruto used his puppy dog eyes at full power. The whole thing just added to Jessica's hypothesis that they are one crazy couple. It's one thing to have a threesome arrangement with the two but another for her to be their roommate.

Natasha and Jessica became close friends, almost as much as Natasha is to Laura. They've been able to talk to each other about some personal matters, which was a massive development for Jessica. Another huge accomplishment was they were able to convince Jessica to go back to college in the following semester. Slowly but surely, the couple was able to pull Jessica out of her depression.

Natasha and Jessica were chatting on the kitchen island while watching Naruto chopping some greens when they noticed he suddenly stopped mid chop.

"Solntse (My Sun)... Naruto." Natasha called in worry, but Naruto just remained standing still.

Natasha and Jessica looked at each other, silently communicating about what they should do next. The pair know that Naruto is not exactly normal. Jessica is reminded of Naruto's power every time Natasha tells censored stories of Naruto's exploits, although she still can't connect the overactive Naruto to a sociopathic killer.

The duo walked around the island and slowly approached Naruto from both sides. They were about an arms reach away from him when he suddenly dropped down to his knees and shouted in pain.

Natasha and Jessica took a step back in surprise. This is the first time both of them saw him in any kind of real pain. Natasha saw him take a grenade launcher head-on and be on fire with the hottest flame in existence without even showing an ounce of pain. Jessica, for her part, had punch Naruto full swing a lot of times, usually after a corny prank, and only acted in pain while laughing his hearts out.

The pair don't know what to do. Every time they try to get closer to him, a small repulsive force pushes them back. That's when they saw him slowly turning to stone from the ground up.

Natasha is practically sobbing at this point. Jessica decided its more useful to hold on to Natasha, but tears are also streaming down her eyes. Naruto's screams of anguish are just driving the point of how helpless they currently are.

When the solidification reached his hips, Naruto pushed down his whimpers and started to do some hand signs slowly. He was able to push his hands towards the ground, and smoke filled the room. Natasha was still whimpering in Jessica's arms when the smoke finally cleared.

The first thing they saw was a solidified Naruto on his and his palms pressed on the floor. The next thing they saw are nine one-foot tall creatures surrounding Naruto. Each of them are different from each other. In a clockwise direction starting from Naruto's back; A brown raccoon with blue marks running around its body, a two-tailed cat made of blue flames with black marks running around its body, a three-tailed spiked turtle with a gray carapace and one eye, a four-tentacled ape with green skin and red fur, a five-tailed white horse with the head of a dolphin, a six-tailed slug, a six-winged blue and green beetle with a green tail, a brown minotaur with it's lower body turned into an octopus, and finally an orange fox with nine tails.

That's when Natasha remembered one of Naruto's stories. About the nine creatures of pure chakra that can destroy the world. Each of them are placed inside a human to be a weapon. She recognized Kurama, the nine-tailed fox, as the monster sealed inside him, but what are the other bijuu doing here. The other bijuu should be left behind in the Elemental Nations, but it looks like Naruto brought them with him.

"Stupid Kit." Kurama said in a whisper.

"Go to the Mates, Kurama. We're going to try and stabilize the Nature Chakra." The minotaur-octopus hybrid said.

Kurama nodded to Gyuki's suggestion and walked over to the girls.

"Follow me." Kurama said to Natasha and Jessica before walking towards the sofa set and sitting on top of the center table.

Jessica, being the one more composed of the two, led Natasha towards the living room. She also recognized the fox as Kurama in Naruto's stories. There's nothing else they could do, so why not follow the all-powerful demon fox.

"Sit down..." Kurama ordered. Natasha and Jessica sat down on the sofa in front of him. Both of them still red-eyed from their crying, especially Natasha, but she finally calmed a little. "Here's the thing. Naruto did something stupid as you might expect, but he would be fine. Don't worry."

"How could I not worry!? He turned into a fucking stone!" Natasha exclaimed, finally releasing some of her built-up tension.

"That's nothing. If he were still mortal, that would be a problem..." Kurama offhandedly announced, not realizing what he said. A ball of sand suddenly hit the back of his head, and he turned around. "What the hell, Shukaku!"

"You're not supposed to tell them about that, dumb fox." The brown raccoon, now named Shukaku, said.

Kuram suddenly has a deer caught in the headlight look and looked back at the two girls.

"Can you just forget about what I said?" Kurama weakly requested.

Natasha finally realized Naruto's big secret, why it feels like sometimes Naruto pulls back in the relationship. At first, she thought it was because of his insecurities as a child, but now the truth is revealed.

"How is he immortal?" Natasha asked in a dangerous whisper.

The minotaur-octopus hybrid decided to join takeover the conversation before Kurama can somehow screw it up more.

"Hello. I'm Gyuki. The eight-tailed ox. I think I'm better suited to answer that question..." Gyuki said. "Naruto's immortality is a complicated situation that occurred due to multiple unlikely events coming together, but a simple phrase can explain it, he became immortal when he became a God." He dropped the bomb without any preamble.

Natasha and Jessica's mind froze hearing Gyuki's explanation goofy but sociopathic Naruto is a God?

"Your definition of a God is a little different than ours. With our definition, we are basically Gods ourselves." Kurama explained, seeing the gears running through the ladies' minds.

Natasha slightly calmed down enough after hearing Kurama's explanation and was able to focus on something more urgent.

"What happened to him?" Natasha asked.

"When he first traveled the world, we noticed that the natural chakra pathways running across the planet were a little... constipated. Without the Nature Chakra flowing freely across the Earth, one of Naruto's abilities was sealed. His ability to control Nature Chakra allowed him to sense everyone in the world if he likes, and that's just one of its benefits. He also can't summon us without fixing the world's chakra network without causing a disaster since the moment he summons us, we would connect to the Chakra Network." Gyuki explained.

"So he finally fixed it since he 'summoned' you guys, but why did he turn into stone?" Jessica asked.

"Pure Nature Chakra would cause any human to turn into stone. That's why he was pushing you two away..." Kurama explained, finally answering the question of why they can't get close to him. "He continuously pumped his chakra into the world to start its motion. When he succeeded in letting nature chakra flow through the world freely, a burst of nature chakra flowed out of the hot zones where Naruto's clones are facilitating the flow. Without any intervention, it would cause disaster in those areas. That's why his clones decided to absorb all of it into their body. The problem occurred when one by one, clones filled with Nature Chakra popped, sending it directly to Naruto, who's unprepared with the sudden assault of foreign chakra. We tried to combat it with pushing demonic chakra or youki to his body, but that might cause significant harm to you two. That's why Naruto just decided to take the Nature Chakra." Kurama finished.

"He summoned us to make sure we can manage to release him from the Nature Chakra's effects faster and to have someone explain the events to you." Gyuki added.

Natasha tried to file away all the information the two bijuus told her, but the number of stresses assaulting her mind right now is just too much to organize. Jessica saw Natasha slowly getting overwhelmed by the situation again, and she decided to take over.

"When will he get out of that?" Jessica asked while pointing at Naruto.

"A day at most. Tomorrow morning the earliest." Gyuki answered.

"Alright. Thank you. I'll just take Nat to the room. We probably can't eat after all this." Jessica replied before standing up and leading Natasha to the bedroom.

"Of course. We'll handle cleaning up the mess here. Have a good night." Gyuki said before Jessica could close the door.

-Kamar Taj, Kathmandu, Nepal-

-March 31, 2008, 0500h local-

The Ancient One was watching over the morning practices when a wave of energy washed over the world. It was so powerful that even the apprentices took notice.

Mordo immediately ran over to her side with worry in his eyes. His unbending beliefs about sorcery are now slightly tempered. The Ancient One's decision to let him read her journals and make him understand that rules are sometimes meant to be broken was enough to prevent Mordo's desertion in the future.

"Master! What should we do?" Mordo asked the Ancient One.

The Ancient One remained silent, trying to think about what could cause the surge of power. It took her honing her senses and focusing down on the Earth before she identified what happened.

"The Earth's Chakra network is restored." The Ancient One stated.

"How!? I thought Sorcerer Supreme Agamotto had invariably closed off the network when he created the eye." Mordo asked.

When Agamotto forged his ultimate weapon to battle Dormammu, he had to utilize all of the power of the world to create a vessel that could control an Infinity Stone. He was, of course, successful, but it caused the Earth's chakra to deplete, causing it to stagnate.

"The fox healed the world..." The Ancient One said with certainty. There's no being strong enough that could kickstart the world's chakra circulation. "We need to find him before the New Year. Some things need to remain the same." She said with urgency.