(Naruto’s Subconscious)

Ever since Naruto and Kurama had become true partners, the area where the latter had formerly been contained had changed drastically. What had once been a sewer with a massive cage had soon transformed into a seemingly endless meadow surrounding a massive forest. It was within this forest that the nine-tailed fox dwelled when his partner did not require his immediate aid.

At the moment, the large fox was sprawled out in the meadow, with Naruto propped against his side, deep in a slumber facilitated by the gentle rumble of Kurama’s breathing. While in the past it would’ve been annoying, Naruto sleeping within his mindscape would allow Kurama to accelerate Naruto’s healing to an unimaginable level… had they still been in an environment rich with chakra. However, this world that they have wound up in after their battle with the Jubi did not seem to possess anything that naturally produced chakra, or even artificial chakra for that matter.

Not a scrap of chakra anywhere in this world… how could anything possibly survive, or even exist?

Yet, for some reason, something about this world felt… familiar.

At the moment however, Kurama’s main concern was healing his partner, not wondering about some vague sense of nostalgia. Without shifting the rest of his body, Kurama turned his head to look upon Naruto’s sleeping form. His face twisted in a grimace: while Naruto’s metaphysical body seemed perfectly fine, his real body was healing at a worryingly slow rate.

Believing it to be connected to the lack of ambient chakra, the vulpine giant could only theorize as to how long it would take before Naruto was back at full strength.

An impressively loud yawn roused Kurama from his musings: the young sage Jinchuriki had finally awoke.

Wiping sleepy tears from his eyes, Naruto looked up into the slit pupils of Kurama’s eyes and grinned, “Morning, you big carpet.”

Kurama snorted and retaliated immediately, “Hairless monkey.”

The two of them quickly broke down into snickering. Instead of the venom that used to accompany such exchanges, this was simply playful banter among friends and comrades: Naruto’s mysterious ability to eventually befriend just about any being he encountered was truly a powerful and magnificent thing to behold.

With that out of the way, Kurama steeled himself for what he knew was coming, “Brat, I’ve got a bit of good news and some bad news.”

Naruto blinked: that was quite a change in mood, even for the fox, “Alright? What’s up?”

“The good news is that we defeated the Jubi and freed the seven whole Biju that were trapped within it. I felt their presence after that damn beast was consumed by the explosion.”

Naruto nodded, “That is good news… Well, for them, anyway: not any nearby wildlife that they appeared on top of... And the bad news?”

Kurama’s ears folded back against his scalp in an attempt to further protect his hearing, “We got caught in that same explosion. We’re not dead, but we’re not in our world anymore.”

Silence… which was broken instantaneously by Naruto’s indignant screech of “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!?”

Kurama tilted his head: should he be worried that the sight of Naruto going into incoherent panicked rambling was rather amusing? Eh, whatever.

Tapping the top of the boy’s head with the tip of one of his tails to momentarily silence him, Kurama continued, “Not only that, it seems that whatever world we’ve wound up in has a seriously low amount of chakra.”

Eye twitching, Naruto managed to scrape out, “Exactly how much is ‘seriously low’?”

Kurama grinned weakly, “Uh… None whatsoever?”

He tried, he truly did. But the sight of Naruto burying his face into the fox’s fur in a vain attempt to muffle his scream of anguish was too much to remain silent. Kurama’s bark of laughter rang throughout the mindscape, echoing beyond the eternal horizon. Getting it out of his system, Kurama proceeded to gently nudge the near-hysterical Uzumaki into paying further attention, “We are not the sole beings of sentience in this world, Naruto.”

Taking a moment to compose himself after his little episode, Naruto looked into the eyes of the great beast, “What do you mean by that?”

Alright, Kurama’s patience was now officially used up.

“Just wake up, dammit!”

As one of Kurama’s nine tails swung down to send him back to consciousness, Naruto would always deny producing a high-pitched shriek of terror that would’ve made a pre-Chunin Exam Sakura both proud and irritated beyond belief.

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres – Big Macintosh’s room)

A pair of eyelids were nearly ripped in twine as the sapphire orbs beneath them sought to view the world… only to immediately shut again as their owner winced and let out a hiss of pain. Taking a moment to readjust, Naruto looked down to see that everything below his neck was covered by a thick red comforter. Steeling himself for the worst, he sat up and allowed gravity to pull the warm sheet from his body.

His eyes widened: a good amount of his torso, as well as his arms, had been cleaned and well-wrapped in medical bandages, though they had a slight tint of red from leftover blood. Peeking out from beneath the bandages, Naruto could see the telltale signs of chakra-induced burn scars: a sort of morbid trophy of their victory over the Jubi. He let out a soft sigh: at least he didn’t lose any limbs or was horribly disfigured from the explosion. Or was he? He could very well have suffered nasty burns to his face that he couldn’t see.

He attempted to leap to his feet to search for any sort of reflective surface, only to come crashing down to the floor on his front. The pain was, well, painful, so nobody could blame him for letting out a shout that easily got the point across. Naruto pressed his face into the floor in a vain attempt to soothe the now-throbbing pain, his ears failing to register the sound of… hooves?

Lifting his head as little as he did, it was easy to mistake the equine-like creature in front of him to be larger than it truly was.

A yelp of surprise later, Naruto was crawling backwards as fast as he could… before he realized that the creature that startled him was actually rather small. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, ain’t you a sight ta’ see?”

Okay, that was a voice he didn’t know. And what was that strange accent?

A closer inspection revealed that the only living things in the room at the time were him and the horse-thing. It was small and obviously young, and the mane, decorated with a big bright bow, reminded him of brightly colored raspberries. The coat was pale, with a light grayish olive hue to it. And the eyes, those big bright gamboge eyes. All in all, this thing was adorable. If he knew whether or not it was dangerous, he would probably be cuddling it right now (followed by having Kurama swear not to tell anybody).

A rather cool breeze from the window caused Naruto to realize that, while he still had his pants intact, his jacket and mesh shirt were nowhere in sight. He opened his mouth to ask where the other half of his outfit was, only to produce dry coughs that brought him to his knees.

The small horse, a filly judging from appearance alone, gasped, “Poor thing! Yer’ throat must be drier than a well in the desert! Ya’ll wait right here, and Ah’ll get a glass a’ water.”

As the filly disappeared through the doorway, Naruto couldn’t help huffing in indignation: ‘poor thing’? He was a ninja, a sage! He (and Kurama) beat down the Jubi, the primordial demon, for crying out loud! He was anything but a ‘poor thing’.

Though, when he thought about it more clearly, he was in an unknown world that seemed to have nothing that naturally produced chakra: that meant that he would have to limit his usage of chakra until he could develop some form of alternative accumulation of the life energy. With this realization, he blanched: no Nature chakra meant no Sage Mode, one of his best ways of fighting apart from using any variation of the Chakra Shroud. His attempt to yell in frustration only led to another coughing fit.

As if indirectly summoning her, it was at that moment that the filly returned to the room, balancing a tray with several glasses of water on her back. Carefully making her way across the room, she made a motion with her head towards the tray on her back. Interpreting it easily, Naruto reached out and gently relieved the filly of her cargo and setting it on the floor in front of him. Forgoing any sense of decency for the moment, he grabbed one of the glasses and swiftly downed the much-needed cool liquid.

So absorbed with the need to soothe his dry throat, Naruto was unaware of the look of sheer fascination on the filly’s face as he downed another glass. She seemed quite interested in his hands, particularly his fingers that were able to grasp objects with ease. The filly lifted one of her front legs and brought her hoof to her face, appearing to contemplate the difference between her and the thirsty lad. She was brought from her musings by a loud sigh of relief from the creature that currently held her interest, and had to stifle a giggle at the look of pure satisfaction on his face. She spared a glance at the exposed torso before elaborating, “Some a’ yer clothes were pretty messed up, what with the blood and all, so my big sister Applejack took them into town to see if anypony could clean and fix em’ up for ya’.”

She got concerned and a little defensive when a look of absolute shock and awe made its way onto the thing’s face, “What’s the matter: don’t ya’ll know how ta’ talk?”

“Yes, and I can understand you perfectly. But that itself is the matter.”

The look of surprise on the filly’s face pretty much forced Naruto to explain, “I’m not from around here: that means that not only should I not understand you, but you shouldn’t understand me.”

The filly looked puzzled, “But Ah do understand ya: yer speakin’ exactly the way Ah am.”

Naruto chuckled, “Not exactly like you are. Anyway, do you have a name?”

The filly grinned, “Apple Bloom! Nice ta’ meet’cha, Mister…?”

“Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki. Now, Apple Bloom, could you please tell me where I am?”

“Yer at Sweet Apple Acres, located in good ol’ Ponyville!”

“…Pony…ville?”

(Ponyville: Carousal Boutique)

Applejack stood outside the (in her opinion) ridiculous-looking building, tattered clothing safely secured within her saddle-pack. Time and again, whenever she was required to travel past this particular structure, she constantly told herself that she would never set hoof in that frou-frou fortress. Today, however, she would have to make an exception: it wasn’t like she could just send that critter away with the injuries it had without some sturdy clothing to protect it from the elements. After all, the only hair it had was on its head and one other spot down by its legs: with such an undeveloped coat, it was no wonder that he (after what she saw, there was no doubt that whatever he was, he is male) wore so many clothes!

With a deep breath, Applejack swallowed her pride and entered the building.

Sweet Celestia, it was even tackier inside than outside! She just wanted to find the owner, get these clothes fixed, maybe get something tougher made for the critter, and be on her way. With this mindset in place, she let out a holler, “HELLLOOOOOO?! ANYPONY HOOOOOOOME!?”

A yelp of surprise, accompanied by multiple crashes, rang out from deep within the boutique. Applejack, being the Samaritan she is, did not hesitate to rush toward the origin of the disturbance in order to help a pony in need.

Arriving in what she assumed to be the primary work area, Applejack was greeted with the sight of a squirming pile of mumbling fabric. Now even AJ knew that fabric didn’t mumble, so she quickly began to unravel the cloth to free the pony contained within. After about half a minute, the resident seamstress was freed from her designer dungeon.

The Unicorn took a deep gulp of the air she had been temporarily deprived of, before taking an analytical look at the farming Earth pony, “And what can I do for you today, besides give you a complete makeover?”

Applejack, taking the high road by ignoring Rarity’s barb, rummaged through her saddle-pack before withdrawing the clothing that was previously worn by the mysterious visitor from the sky. A screech of outrage was the mare’s only warning before the clothes were yanked from her possession by the fashionable Unicorn’s magic, “What in the name of Celestia happened to these?” As she laid them out to survey the damage, she noticed their unusual shape, “And just what in Equestria wears them?”

Applejack tapped sheepishly at the tiled floor with a hoof, “To answer your first question, their owner kinda… fell from the sky.”

Rarity’s jaw dropped, “The sky?!”

Applejack smiled weakly, “And as fer the second, Ah don’t know jus' what he is. All Ah really know is that he’s male and looks like he moves around on jus' his hind legs.”

Shaking herself from her stunned stupor, Rarity levitated the foreign clothing in front of her, “Hmm, it may take me a bit since I’ve never worked on something like this, but I should be able to finish before tonight.” She gave the orchard mare a smile, “Any other requests?”

Applejack mused for the better part of a minute before a giant grin threatened to split her head in half, “Well, he needs something tough for daily use…”

As Applejack gave the details for her idea, Rarity’s smile slowly morphed into a determined grin: if she could pull this off, she would be immortalized in the annals of fashion!

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres – Outside the Apple home)

Apple Bloom was ecstatic at what she had just seen, “How did you do that, Naruto? Huh? Huh? Huh?” She kept repeating “Huh?” as she bounced in a circle around the individual in question until he physically halted her intent of endless orbit.

For you see, after Apple Bloom had described Ponyville and the ponies that lived there, Naruto decided that he wanted to see it for himself. However, he knew that going out looking like he did would cause either a panic or a ruckus, or at least a fracas. So what did he do?

He asked Kurama to use a special Transformation Jutsu on him, since he was trying to preserve his own chakra for any emergencies that might occur.

A concealing cloud of dark smoke later, and Apple Bloom found herself staring at an Earth pony, falling just short of her big brother in height, with a rust-orange coat. His mane was blond, and it spiked out all the way down to the tip. His tail, the same rust-orange as his coat, resembled more of a fox tail than that of a pony, though it was almost as long as he was and, considering how he halted her, prehensile as well. His ears were rather long for a pony, and had black markings that stretched from the inside of his ears to surrounding his sapphire-blue eyes.

Naruto blinked as he thought of something to say, “Uh, magic?”

Apple Bloom gave him a stern look (which failed spectacularly because of how cute it made her look), “But Earth ponies can’t use magic like Unicorns can.”

Naruto gave the filly a grin that caused him to look far more vulpine than equine, “Then I guess I’m special, huh?”

Apple Bloom turned her head to call out to old Granny Smith, sleeping in her rocker on the porch, “Granny, is it alright that I take my new friend on a tour of Ponyville?”

The near-ancient mare simply continued to snooze away, muttering unintelligibly in her sleep.

The filly turned back to Naruto with a cute-yet-sly grin, “She didn’t say no.”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“Still counts!”

With that, the filly took off giggling as the shinobi-turned-stallion raced after her, laughing just as joyously.

Neither of them knew, that by going into Ponyville that day, they would begin a series of events that would forge new bonds of friendship that would last for eternity.