-THE RETURN- REOPENED FOR REASONS

:

Wind blew gently, prompting the leaves to dance beautifully as they stood stuck on branches of trees. Peace and calm. Two words to describe the village and its surrounding situation of the day. Things had been the same for the past, who knows? Not for this man in silhouette, he would not have known for how long had the village been so.

Well, to his relief, the day was almost the same as the day he left.

Many occurrences took place while he was gone. Occurrences that happened on him, near him, and the village itself. But of course, he would be clueless as what happened to the village during his absence, except for what happened to him.

But again, seeing the village as it is, he was glad that things actually went well. And even if something as bad would have happened, it seemed like whatever happened had been taken care of. Well, the village did have such potential protectors after all. Not forgetting the mighty Kuraikage it had as the village’s head.

Taking his first step into the wall after ages of absence away from the view of playful kids running around and adults working their hardest for living, he sighed as he looked at the hokage monument. There were wild eyes looking at the man, his figure raising awareness. He looked familiar to the village. That figure, that look, albeit a bit shrouded under his clothing. He wore something like a wanderer’s outfit. He looked around, feeling glad to be this close to the village.

Well, if anything bad happens to the village, this time around, at least he would be there to protect it.

“Finally, after so long, eh?” The voice from the none other but the nine tailed entity echoed from his inside world.

The man nodded. The man was back in village.

Gray has returned.

Gray took a few deep breaths before taking another step; it was a preparation to embrace all the changes that might come slamming on his face. He was gone for a bit too long, and so was left out pretty bad. But all things aside, he, at least had someone he would look for now, and so set to do so.

But his one step came to a halt.

“Oh, I-“ He turned while talking, and froze, cut short.

“Woah!” He jumped a bit at the sight of a female... Goat? “Did you just, talk?” Gray comically looked here and there, observing the goat’s physique. Might be rude, but well, he couldn’t help it. Who in the world would expect that one day goat, standing on its 2 legs would come up to you and ask ‘the way around these parts’ all so casually, like a human?

Welp, Gray didn’t, that’s for sure.

“Did a nuclear missile hit the village? Mutation?” Gray put his one hand on his chin, all the while still observing the goat, thinking such while he did.

“You’re a bit too taken aback, and rude, Gray.” “Am I? I mean, it’s a talking GOAT, for god’s sake!” Gray replied, having a short conversation with the 9 tailed fox residing in him. Kurama sighed, “Well, it’s actually as normal as the fact that you have a huge ass fox with 9 tails sitting on its butt, right inside you. That is, if you think you’re normal in any way anyway.” Gray thought for a while. His friend’s got a point there.

“Right, I’m sorry for the whole i-got-shocked-cause-a-goat-just-talked-to-me thing.”

He smiled, in an attempt to restart the conversation with a good start.

“I don’t know much either, unfortunately.” Gray chuckled, scratching his head a few. “Well, you see, I just got back here myself. But anyway, it’s Gray.”

He muted for a while.

“My name, I mean.”