Caterpillar

Prelude

"Is Naruto still in meditation?" the hologram of a white and gold-armoured woman asked. It was Wonder Woman.

"Mhm, still there." answered the deep voice of a male. It came from an elephant-sized nine-tailed fox. Currently, that giant fox's large tails were stirring up gales of wind as they wagged in the air. The reason for his happiness was the still-warm carcass of an enormous beast lying at his feet. His powerful jaws were crushing through its bones and ripping entire chunks of meat from it effortlessly.

"Is that a dinosaur?!" Wonder Woman asked startled.

Kyuubi licked a large amount of blood staining his whiskers before answering:

"No clue what a dinosaur is. But it's so tasty and it's huge!"

After that, he went back to devouring his prey. Though the beast's body was 4 times larger than his, Kyuubi needed less than 2 minutes for the rest of the dinosaur-like creature to disappear into his stomach. With his hunger satiated now, the fox became significantly more talkative.

"He might not look the part but that idiot is a Sage. Staying a few days or a week immersed in his connection with Nature is nothing much to him. In that state, his body recovers more easily, gets purified, and it becomes more attuned to natural energy."

A sound of surprise came from the hologram emitted by the drone flying next to Kyuubi.

"If it's so good for him, why didn't you go directly to that place and came to Earth instead?" she asked curiously.

Instead of Kyuubi, it was unexpectedly someone else that replied:

"Be it pure or be it polluted, natural energy in its raw form is poisonous to humans. I don't use only natural energy. I combine natural energy with my own chakra to create senjutsu which is an amalgam of both. Back then, I was hurt too badly and in no condition to properly manipulate natural energy. If I had absorbed any more of it at that time, I would have died. Going to Earth seeking sanctuary was a much better option because I knew the bleeding heart of the Justice League would not turn us down if we came there while I was wounded like that. I didn't have fuel to come to this place even if I wanted anyway. This planet is extremely far away from the Vega System. It's several galaxies away."

After he said that, the newcomer revealed a smile and said teasingly:

"How are you, Diana? Do you miss me already?"

At the sight of him, Wonder Woman involuntarily mirrored his smile but she tried to say nonchalantly:

"I'm just checking up on you to see if you're ok. It's been a week, after all."

A snort came from the huge fox behind Naruto.

"Yeah, it's been a week... As if you totally didn't call me 5 times until now, starting from the very first day."

Wonder Woman's stoic face suddenly flushed.

"Kurama! You said you wouldn't tell!" she half-yelled in embarrassment.

Kyuubi laughed out loud at her expense, very pleased with himself.

"Haha. I'll leave you two lovebirds by yourselves," he said and left.

Meanwhile, Naruto gripped with a hand at his heart. Hearing Kyuubi saying that Diana tried to contact him 5 times already while he had been meditating filled him with warmth. The gap between how serious and stoic she was generally and how she acted when she was flustered was too much.

'Ah, my heart! This is no good, she's cute as hell. Any more than this and I'll go back to Earth this instant.'

Even after the source of her embarrassment left, Diana's normally pale cheeks were still marred by a rosy colour.