Naruto did not tell anyone about the dream.
There was no one to tell.
The next morning he woke up irritated with himself for feeling shaken by it. He had seen strange things before. The cage. The fox. The red glow inside the darkness. Compared to that, a field and a quiet man in white robes should not have unsettled him.
And yet it did.
He washed his face in the small sink of his apartment and stared at his reflection longer than usual. His eyes looked the same. Blue. Sharp. Slightly tired in a way children's eyes normally were not.
"Just a dream," he muttered, though he did not sound convinced.
He stepped outside and tried to distract himself by doing what he always did when his thoughts became too loud—he trained.
The clearing near the trees was empty that afternoon, and Naruto stood in the center of it, fists clenched at his sides. He took a deep breath and tried to mold chakra again, remembering the steadiness he had briefly achieved the day before.
For a few seconds, it worked.
Then it slipped.
Frustration rose immediately, and this time he did not swallow it as cleanly as before. He kicked at the dirt, scuffing the ground, and glared at nothing in particular.
"Why can't I just get it right?" he snapped under his breath.
He hated that his chest felt tight again. He hated that whenever he failed, even at something small, it reminded him of everything else he couldn't control. The way people looked at him. The way shopkeepers shut their doors. The way children avoided standing next to him.
He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes quickly, annoyed with himself for even feeling the sting there.
Crying won't fix it.
That had become a rule in his head long ago. Crying had never made anyone come back. It had never made anyone kinder. It had never changed the way the village treated him.
So he swallowed the feeling the way he always did.
Inside the seal, Kurama watched the disturbance ripple through the boy's chakra network. The frustration caused a brief surge, not enough to break anything, but enough to reveal how tightly the child held his emotions in place.
The fox understood suppression. He had lived through ages of it.
Naruto finally sat down against a tree and leaned his head back, staring at the branches above him. He stayed there until exhaustion blurred his thoughts and his breathing slowed.
That was when the world shifted.
He did not fall asleep in the usual way. There was no gradual fading, no transition into darkness. One moment he was looking at leaves, and the next he was standing again in that wide field.
This time, the man in white was closer.
Naruto did not feel fear, but his heartbeat picked up anyway. He was old enough to know that mysterious strangers appearing in empty fields was not normal.
"Hey," Naruto said cautiously, crossing his arms in an attempt to look braver than he felt. "You were here yesterday."
The man turned slowly.
His face was calm, lined with age but not weakness. His eyes held a depth that felt heavier than the sky itself. There was no hostility in him, no pressure like the fox's chakra, but there was something vast beneath the surface that Naruto could not measure.
"I was," the man answered gently.
Naruto studied him carefully. "Are you from inside me too?"
A faint smile touched the man's expression. "In a manner of speaking."
That answer only annoyed Naruto more.
"You talk weird," he said bluntly. "The fox talks weird too."
At the mention of the fox, the field trembled slightly.
The stone floor of the seal bled into the grass, and the iron bars of Kurama's cage manifested at the edge of the dreamscape. The illusion did not fully collapse, but the boundaries blurred, and for the first time, all three occupied the same space.
Kurama rose instantly.
The massive fox's eyes widened, and his tails shifted sharply behind him as he stared at the robed figure.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
The presence was unmistakable.
For a brief moment, something like disbelief crossed the ancient beast's expression.
"You," Kurama said, and the single word carried centuries of memory within it.
Naruto turned sharply, startled by the sudden shift in the air.
"Kurama?"
The fox did not look at the boy. His attention remained fixed on the man in white.
The robed figure inclined his head slightly.
"It has been a long time," he said.
There wasn't a dramatic surge of power or a blinding flash. The air didn't grow heavy. Instead, the space just felt more stable, as if something ancient had finally come back to where it always belonged.
Naruto looked between them, confusion overtaking caution.
"Wait. You two know each other?"
Kurama's expression shifted from shock to something more controlled. The chains around him rattled faintly as he lowered himself back onto the stone floor, though his gaze never left the man.
"I know him," Kurama said slowly.
Naruto looked at the robed figure again.
"And I'm supposed to know you too?"
The man stepped closer, and though his movements were unhurried, Naruto felt his pulse quicken again. He did not feel threatened, but he did feel seen in a way that made it difficult to look away.
"You do not remember," the man said quietly, and there was no accusation in it, only observation.
"Remember what?" Naruto demanded, frustration creeping back into his voice. "I'm five."
For the first time, something warmer appeared in the man's eyes.
"Yes," he said. "You are."
The answer was not helpful.
Naruto clenched his fists. "If this is about the fox and why everyone hates me, then just say it."
Kurama's gaze flickered briefly toward the boy at that.
The robed figure's expression softened slightly.
"There are many things you will learn," he said, "but not all of them must be placed on your shoulders at once."
Naruto bristled at that.
"I'm not weak," he said immediately, the response too fast and too defensive to be fully controlled. "I can handle it."
Kurama's eyes narrowed slightly.
The man regarded Naruto with a patience that did not feel dismissive.
"I know you can," he replied.
The field shifted again, wind moving through the grass while the cage remained solid behind them.
Naruto's frustration slowly gave way to something else, something closer to confusion layered over loneliness.
"If you know so much," he said quietly, "then why am I alone?"
The question was not sharp this time.
It was small.
Kurama felt the shift in his chakra immediately.
The robed man did not look away.
"You are not alone," he said.
Naruto almost argued, but the words caught in his throat because for the first time since he could remember, that statement did not feel entirely false.
The fox was there.
And this man—whoever he was—had appeared twice now.
The field began to dissolve again, the edges fading into light.
"Wait," Naruto said quickly. "At least tell me your name."
The man's gaze held his for one steady moment.
"Hagoromo," he said.
The name settled into the space between them.
Kurama closed his eyes briefly, as if acknowledging something long delayed.
Naruto woke up on the forest floor, leaves brushing against his cheek and the late afternoon sun filtering through the branches above him.
He pushed himself up slowly, heart racing, mind spinning.
Hagoromo.
He did not know why the name felt heavy.
But he knew this was not just a dream anymore.