Work Text:
Beyond the Horizon
Naruto sagged on the hard plastic chair and sighed. Then he yawned. And then he sighed again.
Jiraiya gave him a stiff poke in the shoulder that made him yelp and almost flop out of his seat.
"Knock it off, kid!" the white-haired man grunted. "Don't forget that you're here with me to represent everyone back home. We've got to make a good impression!"
"Yeah, yeah," Naruto grumbled and scooted back upright in his very uncomfortable seat, and then yawned again.
Jet lag, he decided, is awful!
The flight here—his first flight on a plane!—had been brutally long, brutally boring, and the single longest section of the trip. They'd departed the airport in the capital of Fire Country around noon, and had landed in this foreign land in the morning just before noon. But his body had been convinced that it was the middle of the night after all of the time zones they'd crossed. Jiraiya had nearly had to carry him off the plane, and he'd fallen soundly asleep on the shuttle bus ride to their hotel.
They'd had a day to rest and adjust, but that just wasn't enough time! He wanted to sleep when the sun was up, and he felt wide awake when it was dark outside. His mother assured him that he would get used to it when he'd called home (voice-only, the phones here didn't support video) to let her know that he'd arrived safely, but he couldn't imagine it at the moment.
"If you're bored, why don't you look at that brochure again," Jiraiya suggested as he jotted notes for his next novel in a little notebook with a stub of a pencil. "Make sure that you've made up your mind on which one you want."
"I've already looked it a hundred times!" Naruto groused and rolled his eyes, but he fished out the wrinkled brochure from a pocket on his backpack, unfolded it, and looked at it again anyway.
Stupid thing, Naruto pouted, rubbing at his scarred cheek. Why do they have to use a completely different alphabet? I can't read it! At least it has pictures…
Everything was so strange about this foreign place! All the writing was in this stupid alphabet that he couldn't read, even with the cheat sheet that Jiraiya had given him before leaving home. All the people spoke with strange, thick accents that he could barely understand, and had weird sayings that he couldn't figure out. The buildings were strange, the clothes were strange, the food was strange (the "burger" that he'd tried wasn't bad, but it wasn't ramen—which no one had ever heard of around here!), and the pokémon were strange.
He'd seen at least a few monsters that were familiar. The front desk lady at their hotel had owned a friendly pikachu that wore a little coat modeled after the hotel uniform, and helped to greet guests. Another guest at the hotel, a wealthy old woman, had a collection of eevees that followed at her heels wherever she went. And some unfamiliar celebrity that he'd come across while channel-surfing on the hotel TV had displayed his charizard that had a fancy collar with a strange smooth stone set in it for the cameras while doing some kind of interview.
And then there had been a few pokémon that he'd first seen back in the Safari Zone of Grass Country, or as specimens at the professor's lab. He'd glimpsed a few flocks of wild pidove flying around outside the hotel room window. Pansage, pansear, and panpour, the three monkeys that Professor Sarutobi had ordered for his lab that often ran wild when they got bored, roamed free outside in the surrounding forest. He'd spotted a sewaddle caterpillar clinging to a tree trunk, and locals walking lilipups on leashes as pets. The hotel gardens hosted petilils and patrats, and the decorative pond had tympoles (along with more familiar magikarps) swimming in the water.
But most of the pokémon that he had seen so far since landing here were strange creatures that he'd never seen before in his life. Along with the wild pidove were other bird monsters like small gray birds with red heads and black-and-white-striped tail feathers, and tiny round blue birds with angry little faces, instead of familiar birds like pidgey, spearow, or starly. Besides the sewaddle he'd seen a few other caterpillar monsters, like one that had been dark gray with square pupils and a ruff of pale fuzz around its neck that had dark bits of dust or insect scales on it, and a pair of pale grubs with huge pincers that had been fighting each other while a purple caterpillar that looked like it was wearing glasses and a little bow-tie sat off to the side and watched them squabble. The garden had also contained tiny little plant bugs that looked like baby mantises in pink and green, and little flower creatures that had huge yellow blooms on their heads and red petals that grew like hair that reminded him of his mother (and briefly made him homesick). And at the hotel's pond there had also been a few turtles with angry glares, huge mouths with a buck tooth, and a spike on their heads, and weird little bugs with yellow legs and bubbles around their heads that skated over the water's surface.
He'd glimpsed dozens of other strange monsters on the TV and on the ride to the laboratory complex, too. A floating chunk of gray rock spangled with pale blue crystals with beady blue eyes. A yellow spider wrapped in white silk so that it looked like a ball of yarn with legs. A gray and brown rabbit that dug into the dirt with the tips of its long ears. A brown dog with a yellow neck ruff, incredibly short legs, and a little lightning bolt tail. A red apple with green eyes poking out of the top and a lizard tail poking out of the back. A tiny yellow-and-black floating tadpole with a smiling face that looked like a light-bulb.
It was overwhelming. It was intimidating. It was exciting. It was…a lot.
He was far from home now; farther away from home than he'd ever dreamed of being. Farther away than either of his parents had ever gone in their whole lives. The far side of the world was as alien as the moon and it felt just as remote. The only person he knew here was Jiraiya. His mother, and his dad, Professor Sarutobi, and all of his friends were back home, thousands of miles away.
And all of his pokémon were back home, too.
Because the countries far across the ocean were so strict about foreign pokémon, and since he'd been added to this trip at nearly the very last minute, there had been no way for Naruto to bring them along. Their pokémon storage systems were incompatible and the quarantine period was lengthy, so it would be a long time before any of his creatures could catch up with him. It would be lucky if he got any of them back by his side by the end of the next month, but he'd been warned it would probably take even longer than that.
So to start off on his pokémon journey here, he'd have to start completely from scratch.
It's not fair! Naruto pouted as he stared at the incomprehensible brochure. They're good pokémon, and perfectly healthy! They won't cause any trouble or bring any weird diseases with them!
But it wasn't up to him, so he had to follow these stupid rules so that he could join old pervy Jiraiya in visiting these stupid foreign countries to learn about their mysterious pokémon and hopefully convince them to share even more of them someday with the nations back home.
Originally, Jiraiya was supposed to take this trip alone, on behalf of the Pokemon League of Fire Country. But he'd had the bright idea to bring Naruto along with him at the party celebrating his parents' marriage. His parents had agreed to it, and Naruto had been eager to explore and meet new pokémon (before he'd known about the quarantine trouble ahead, anyway), and also to escape the unwanted attention he'd been pelted with once the stupid tabloid story had made the whole world know that he was the son of the Fire Country Champion.
So far, it seems that Pervy Jiraiya is right about this place, he thought as he folded up the brochure and put it away again. No body knows anything about Fire Country or Minato Namikaze. They don't recognize me when they see me. The only stares I get are from my whisker scars, and I'm used to that!
The return to anonymity was a relief. He was free of the stares and whispers and nosy questions from complete strangers that had plagued him since his return from Whirlpool Country after the little detour through Water Country. No more questions about his dad that he couldn't answer, or rude requests about getting autographs, or super-weird pleas for 'souvenirs'. He was just Naruto Uzumaki, pokémon trainer of Fire Country (and future Champion!).
A woman's thickly accented voice startled him from his thoughts and Naruto almost fell off the plastic chair, making the pretty science assistant lady giggle at him.
"Sleeping with your eyes open, eh, kid?" Jiraiya laughed. "Looks like the professor is finally ready for us." He put away his little notebook and stood up. "Let's get going."
Flushing in embarrassment, Naruto trailed after the tall white-haired man as they followed the lady assistant through a small maze of hallways. The place kind of reminded him of Professor Sarutobi's lab, but it was much bigger, the walls were covered in patterned paper, and the tile floor was more elaborate than he was used to. They ended up in a small fairly plain lab room that had a single table with a few pokéballs resting on top, and the local chief pokémon professor standing beside it.
"Welcome, welcome honored guests!" the professor, a balding man with thick glasses, greeted with a wide smile. "I hope that your journey was an easy one?"
"Long, but uneventful," Jiraiya replied cheerfully.
The two adults exchanged some small talk and Naruto tuned them out to stare at the pokéballs waiting on the table. They looked just like basic pokéballs back home, even though he was sure that a different company produced these. Each one had a different elemental symbol painted on them, thankfully the same as the ones he was used to, not like the weird alphabet everything was written in that made him feel like an idiot.
Man, I still really can't decide, he pondered as his blue eyes darted between two of the spherical capsules. The water-type or the fire-type? Both of them look so cool and—
Jiraiya's hand reached down and snatched up the ball marked with the elemental symbol for water-type pokémon, marking Naruto jump in surprise.
"You're picking one, too?" he squawked in surprise.
"Of course I am," Jiraiya snorted. "I was promised one of these when this trip was approved months ago, in case none of my monsters had cleared quarantine in time. Lucky for you they agreed to let you pick between the leftovers when you signed on."
Before Naruto could respond, Jiraiya tapped the button on the ball and released the creature inside. It was a light blue frog-like creature with yellow eyes perched on top of its head, and it had a bunch of white foamy bubbles on its shoulders and upper back. Jiraiya grinned and patted it on the head.
"You'll do perfect!"
"What was the point of me looking at the pictures if I wasn't going to get first pick?!" Naruto sputtered.
"You earned my badge, kid. You know what sort of pokémon I prefer." Jiraiya fished a fresh pokéball out of his pocket for his new monster. "You should've guessed that I'd pick the froakie."
Naruto glowered up at the man with a nasty scowl. If he hadn't had a long talking-to from his mom about being on his best behavior for the foreigners to make the best impression possible, he would've at least kicked the old man in the shin. But he swallowed his frustration and turned away to snag the ball with the symbol for fire-type pokémon.
He weighed the sphere in his hand for a moment, rolling it around a little on his palm. Because of his failure to earn his trainer license the usual way, he hadn't had the opportunity to choose his first pokémon the way that his classmates had. So this was almost like a second chance to have that special experience.
"So, you choose the fire-type pokémon?" the professor prompted in his strangely accented voice when Naruto didn't immediately release the creature from confinement.
"Yes," Naruto nodded, and tapped the button.
With a flash of light, the pokémon materialized on the table top. It was a yellow fox with enormous ears that had orange tufts of fur growing from them. It blinked large orange eyes and scrutinized him warily.
"You're going with the fennekin, eh?" Jiraiya remarked as he put his new froakie away into the pokéball that he'd brought. "I kinda thought you'd go for the chespin."
"Why would you think that?" Naruto snorted and offered his fist for the little fox to sniff.
"Well, it would be different from what you started with before," the gym leader shrugged.
"Fennekin isn't the same as vulpix," Naruto shot back. "I would've picked the froakie if you hadn't grabbed it first!"
Upon hearing that, the fennekin froze mid-sniff, made a dramatic sneeze, and turned its nose up at him.
"Aw, c'mon! Don't be like that!" Naruto pleaded while Jiraiya snickered at him. "I still hadn't made up my mind!"
The big-eared fox turned its back to him with a huff and sat stiffly, fluffy orange-tipped tail twitching in irritation.
"Man…" Naruto sighed.
"You'd better smooth things over quick," Jiraiya remarked. "I've already got a route planned out and we need to get going right after lunch."
"When'd you do that?" Naruto frowned.
"While you were sleeping in this morning," Jiraiya grinned.
"Stupid, dumb jet-lag!" Naruto muttered under his breath.
He frowned, mind racing, as he stared at the fennekin's back. Great, just great! It's a sensitive little fox… He briefly glanced at the untouched ball that held a chespin before refocusing on the pokémon that he'd chosen. Gotta say something…
"Hey…" He leaned against the edge of the table and tried to peer over the fennekin's shoulder to meet its gaze, but it quickly turned its face away from him. "Hey, I'm sorry. That came out wrong. You're not my second choice. I was just mad that he picked first. I think fennekins and froakies are equally cool!"
The little fox scoffed and curled up and pretended to go to sleep.
Stubborn! he pouted. At least it's not mean like Demon was at first.
"Giving up already, huh?" he sighed. "Do you really want to stay in this boring lab and miss out going on an adventure? We'll have lots of fun if you come with me, I promise!"
The fennekin's large ears didn't so much as twitch.
"Hmm… How about a name?" he tried. "I thought of a really cool one. It's from one of my favorite books from when I was little. There were like three books that I'd always beg my mom to read to me at night, and one of them was about a lost fox pokémon. Do you want to hear about it?"
The fennekin's eye might've cracked open a little, so he continued.
"In the story, the fox pokémon wandered too far from home and got lost," he said. "And no matter what it did, it kept get more and more lost. Then it ran into a human, who offered some help. Together they were able to retrace the fox's steps and get home at long last. But the fox pokémon got attached to the human and decided to stay with him, and then the human gave the fox a name."
He paused and saw that the fennekin was definitely watching him now.
"It was a very cool name," he told the fennekin. "I kinda wished that I'd thought of it for my first pokémon back home, but he was so grouchy that I called him 'Demon' instead, and it seems silly to change it now even though we get along much better."
The fennekin had both eyes open now, though they were narrowed as they peered over at him.
"The name is 'Kurama'," he continued hopefully. "It's some old traditional name from folk tales and stuff. Do you like it? If you come with me, that's what I'll call you."
The little fox stared at him for a long minute before slowly sitting back up, facing him this time, and looking him up and down critically. Naruto held his breath and kept his expression friendly as he waited to see if he needed to do more begging. Tentatively he offered his fist again for the fennekin's inspection, and this time it put its tiny paw on his bare knuckles.
"Okay!" he grinned broadly in relief. "Let's go on an adventure, Kurama!"