IV.

Naruto was just supposed to meet Shikamaru at Ichiraku's. The shadow mage had a few ideas for the dragon event and mainly wanted to show off his new girlfriend. When the ninja got there, the couple was already there studying something in a book.

A shadow mage was sitting there with a girl in clothing from the land of sand with her blonde hair tied in four ponytails. The ninja sat down with them and Shikamaru introduced them.

The girl's name was Temari and she was an NPC. That was probably the biggest shock for him because he thought that this kind of relationship with NPCs would not work. As you can see, the opposite was true. NPCs behaved like other people here, and sometimes you couldn't tell the difference.

"Before we even get to the dragon, we have to defeat two mini-bosses and get their badge," Shikamaru explained as he was about to show him in his hero book. In his, he already had both badges revealed. He was about to show him the empty windows in the book that contained a hint of where to find them when he was in for a little surprise.

"You have met everyone? Even the dragon?" Shikamaru wondered as he flipped the page and noticed that Naruto had earned a badge for defeating the Puppet Lord.

"Seriously? Look, I struggled with that. But I don't know about the rest… Wait, is that you?" he wondered and looked at Temari who according to the book was the second mini-boss.

"Are you waiting for someone else? How is it even possible that you met everyone when you only just ran into me now?" Temari wondered. She could understand that he defeated Kankuro, but how could he get to the dragon when only players who passed through her could get to it?

"I do not know anything about that. I was just working on side quests with Gaara," the ninja shrugged. To be honest, it didn't bother him at all.

"With Gaara?" Temari asked in surprise.

"You know him?" Naruto wondered as he had the impression that Gaara was too much he did not search. Except maybe him. However, Temari shook her head.

"Just talking," she replied. Then the conversation transferred back to the event and the Master of Wind badge. Shikamaru was fine as he had already defeated her. Moreover, he defeated her in such a way that he immediately attracted her.

"If you think I'm just going to give you my badge like my brother, you're wrong," she replied with a confident smirk.

"I told the puppeteer, I'll tell you. I wouldn't even want that badge for free," Naruto replied with determination.

"I like it that way," Temari smiled and sent Naruto a request to fight. Of course, he accepted her and the two of them teleported to where Temari normally is. Shikamaru teleported there too to watch the fight. He wanted to see what new attacks the ninja was capable of.

The duel began and Naruto had trouble getting close to the Wind Master at first. After some time, his stamina started to run out and he was starting to feel like he was going to lose this fight.

He had the impression that the next attack would finish him when before his eyes appeared a giant fox. He felt her anger and her power. He had no idea why, but the longer he looked into fox eyes, the more he felt how he grew stronger. He felt supercharged with energy.

In the next few seconds, the whole fight was over with Naruto the winner. Temari was on the ground and it looked like the ninja was going to finish her when Shikamaru intervened and used the shadows to stop him.

This allowed Naruto to calm down and felt the terrifying energy leave him. When the shadow mage released him, he slumped to the ground next to Temari, panting heavily. This was more difficult than it seemed at first glance. He'll have to avoid that fox somehow next time. or learn to transform her dark energy into his own and not let it consume him.

"What the hell was that?" Temari asked as she scrambled to her feet and looked from Naruto to her boyfriend. Even Shikamaru looked like he would like to know what happened.

Naruto scratched his hair before telling them about his clan. About the strange fox that he sees in his dreams and that he saw even now. About the strange ceremony, he had confided in the mage about before and actually about everything to do with it.

"They have always been shrouded in mystery. Not much is known about them other than they are very dangerous and only eight players and one NPC who disappeared have joined them," said Temari. She didn't know much about them either.

After that, the topic of conversation again drifted to the dragon event. It was something of a family thing for Temari. As the mini-bosses were supposed to be from her family. The first was Kankuro, the puppet master. Then the players had to go through it.

She had one more brother. The youngest sibling. However, she didn't know anything about him since they were assigned roles in the game. She had no idea if he was still in the game. However, the conversation with Naruto confirmed to her that there might have been a chance.

In addition, she warned them that the position of the dragon in the desert will change from the next update. And that the desert here was huge. To be able to find him at the right time, they will need a special map.

With this realization, their small team began to think and consider how to get the map as soon as possible.

After their meeting ended, Naruto received a notification that he opened new missions and went to check them out of curiosity. For these missions, he should have received a huge amount of experience, money and new equipment.

When he thought about how sick he felt after the last mission in the guild, he hesitated. In the end, however, he decided to accept.

That was one of the mistakes he made. During the mission, he met several interesting players who also joined his guild and even personally met the fox inside him. He thought that the game system had finally settled down and he wouldn't have any side effects from it again.

That's what he thought. After completing his last mission, making peace with the fox named Kurama and befriending the players who also had the monster in them, he logged out of the game. in the real world, he was once again plagued by nausea, stomach pains and nightmares, which slowly became manageable.