"Uh, but Karin, you're all my cousins and stuff."
"Okay, your favorite cousin then?"
"Um." How could he say that she wasn't his favorite cousin without incurring her wrath? Hell, most of them didn't even claim him, and she only really did it suited her, like right then. Luckily, he was saved from such a fate by the vey children that he'd been watching play just moments earlier.
"Hey Karin!" One boy shouted as the rest of the kids seemed to be done with their game, "Nagato-sama is on his way up to the mansion! Let's go see him before he makes it in!" He and the other kids with him spared a glance Naruto's way before ignoring his presence altogether. Once again, something he was already used to.
This was basically their way of letting them know that he wasn't invited.
Karin's eyes lit up at the thought of the village leader and being around his absurdly powerful chakra. Without a second thought she got up and ran over to them to join them, but before getting too far she turned around to Naruto one more time, "Are you going to leave the village again tomorrow like you do every day?"
Naruto just deadpanned a stare at her before smirking slightly, "…Maybe."
XxX
(The Next Day – Uzu no Kuni Countryside)
It was harder than normal to get out of the house today without getting caught by Kushina, but he was just too clever for his mom sometimes in his own humble opinion, and made it back outside of the village and far beyond, having been travelling through the trees fairly quickly for four hours.
By now he'd been doing this for just around two years or so and he had to think he'd been everywhere that there was for him to explore in the wilderness of Uzu no Kuni. He didn't go to other towns that lay around the coast and things, but when it came to the interior of the island nation where his village was situated he'd seen his share.
But nothing was more interesting than what he'd come across more or less a year ago; the place that he was off to on this very day.
Upon finding a deep ravine that was hidden away by a substantial thicket, Naruto grinned and began tying the large amount of rope he had managed to sneak out of the house with him around a very sturdy tree before securing the other side snugly around himself so that he could safely lower himself down the hundreds of feet into the dark.
'Good thing I brought lanterns and stuff.' Naruto thought to himself as he pulled a light from the bag on his back. It allowed him to look around the dank place and find when he was getting close to the bottom. He couldn't free himself from his makeshift harness quickly enough for his tastes, doing so hurriedly before running over to the source of a low rumbling noise in the chasm.
Jumping up onto a rock where he sat down, Naruto turned his light forward to scan ahead of him, "Hello? You there?" His light bounced forward and revealed a gigantic red-orange wall that seemed to be moving as if it were alive, "Oh come on. I can see you. How could I miss you? You're the size of a mountain."
A sigh that sounded like a great wind tearing through the crevice sounded out before a booming voice filled the great hole in the ground, "Go away boy. You're useless to me. Far too weak to be any kind of a threat, far too small to eat and be worth anything more than a bug caught in my throat."
Naruto frowned and jumped up from his seat before walking around the long end of the big furry orange wall, until that wall broke off into a long paw, and then a gigantic head with pointy ears, lined with black that trailed over to a closed eye.
The light was shined on the eye until it popped open, angry and red. Naruto involuntarily took a step back at the intimidating sight, but just smiled and walked closer after the initial shock wore off, "Hi Kurama. Sorry I haven't been here in a while. I was busy training before my mom could come looking for me."
"I don't care. You could have been gone for fifty years for all I care and the amount of attention I would have paid to your absence would have been the exact same as right now. Go away."
"Why are you such a jerk fox? I know you're not that mean."
A dark chuckle came from the titanic creature that Naruto was conversing with as if it were a regular person, "You keep thinking that. I can guarantee you you're the only human being in the world that would think that. Such a foolish runt."
The novelty of talking to the biggest f'n fox that anyone else would ever see outweighed the constant insults and overall unpleasant attitude that Kurama had to life in general, at least for Naruto. His coolness factor more than balanced out the miserable bastard portion of his personality.
"I brought some leftovers from last night for lunch." Naruto said, pulling out a big bowl of ramen from his bag and taking the top off, "You want some? It's good. Miso ramen with servings of pork."