A/N: WRITING THIS CHAPTER MADE ME SO SAAAAAAAAAAAD~!

But it had to be done.

Damn this feels trip!

Just a heads up. This chapter may confuse some of you. I suggest going back and rereading this story if that is indeed the case. If not, then by all means read on! Its good to be back again, now that life issues and school have been brought to a close.

SURPRISE! Request Year(s) have brought me back to the fore once more, and I aim to strike while the iron is hot! I'll try not to disappoint ya'll! I tried to make this chapter as entertaining as possible, so for anyone who has watched the episodes, prepare to be amused =D And again, I recommend that ya'll watch the show to grasp just what's going on here. Else, you might be hoplessly confused.

Also major credit to a Monsters V Aliens fan on deviantart for portions of chapters 3 and 4. You know who you are!

"I have lived for generations! I will never die! When this world grows dark and cold I will still be here!"

"Nice speech. Still killing you."

~Naruto and ?

Release the Fear

Everything was falling apart for Uzumaki Naruto.

First had come his sword.

Followed by his bonds.

Now, even his own mind was forfeit.

All he had to do was stand up.

"You left me."

Blue orbs flicked up through the spray of water, meeting eyes like ice. A beautiful face, framed by snow-white hair. Her mouth stood set in a stern scowl as though someone had taken a knife to it, the expression like an ugly rictus, one that seemed to twist her face into something unnatural. The blond felt the tiniest of twinges at the sight of the not-Susan, gazing upon her in her torn white wedding dress. She wasn't real. Just a dream. A ghost. A figmennt of his imagination. An apparition. Something that both was and yet was not, a potential outcome that had yet to be decided.

"I did not abandon you." he replied flatly, modulating his voice to prevent even the slightest trace of emotion from escaping. "I left for your own good. You're better off without me."

"You left me." the specter repeated, the words dripping with vitriol. "You hurt me and then you ran away. Like a coward. Is that what a demi-god does? Turns tail and runs at the first fear of commitment? You're a joke. You should have joined the rest of your people in death."

She'd never say those words. Never call him that. It only reinforced his certainty.

"If that's what you want to think."

"You-

Azure disks burned gold.

"Dispel."

The illusion vanished moments later.

He knew it wasn't real of course; Susan was back in the states, and had no way of following him here. No one did. That didn't make those words any less painful or potent. This place existed apart from reality. The ways of accessing this place were known to only a handful of individuals, and all but one of them had been lost to time, disaster, or simply old age. Time had no meaning here. Reality meant nothing. Past, present, future, the very meanings of the words were one; they each existed as one, a realm where anything was possible.

Visions aside, he was very much alone.

And for what?

He knew the answer, of course.

This was where it ended, and began.

He'd returned here for that very reason.

Subjected himself to this pain and madness.

All for a fucking sword.

"What the hell am I doing...?"

Naruto sighed aloud and pushed a hand through his damp hair, trying to reign in his thoughts and somehow failing spectacularly. The waterfall crashing against his shoulders did nothing to alleviate this, the constant deluge serving only to further flatten his ears against his head. It would've been easier to make himself appear human in this form, but he preferred to let his foxy bits show in the privacy of the wild. Not that privacy particularly mattered to the roaring torrent of water on his head, but he was fairly certain that this far out in the wild of Japan there were none but the birds to see his discomfort.

In the rain, no one could see his pain.

Or his tears.

"Why are you crying, daddy?"

Naruto froze.

On some level he knew what-who-was waiting for him. Even so, he found himself powerless to resist. Turning his head, unmoving from the seiza position in which he sat, Naruto Uzumaki, last of the shinobi, gawped. He looked. Blinked.

Saw.

A child.

His child.

Their child.

A perfect unison of him and Susan, a little girl who looked to be all of eight years old, clad in an orange sundress. Her cherubic face, those silver-blue eyes, hair pale as spun gold. Something in him lurched. He'd never given thought to how their daughter might look. Or any of their children, really. He'd been too preoccupied with keeping himself under control, preventing another slip. But she stood before him now, real to his eyes, a perfect angel. Sheer innocence personified. Absolutely wonderful...

Smiling, she danced closer, seeming to walk on the very mists themselves.

"You shouldn't be crying." she chirruped, taking his hand. "C'mon. Let's go find mommy."

Unbidden, he reached a hand towards her.

'You know its not real.'

Wisdom reared its ugly head and he flinched.

'You and Susan never had a child. You barely even kissed her. So why would this girl be-

"You're not real."

Her expression trembled.

"But I could be. You just have to stand up."

For a fleeting eternity, he actually considered the words of his not-daughter. This realm was oily in its temptations. Nearly alive. It had realized, on some level, that fear and threats would not work. So it had chosen honey instead, a sweet, sweet poison. This world was thought brought to life. He could have anything he wished for here. He had merely to wish for it. The cost was high of course; once he gave in there would be no turning back. He wouldn't be able to leave. But would that be so bad? He'd fought so hard over the years. Seen too much. Let someone else carry the torch. Did he not deserve a rest? Did he not deserve-

'Its never been about what I deserve.' an icy thought cut through the pleasant haze that had begun to overtake him. 'But about what's right. With great power comes great responsibility, and if I drift away here...

Slowly, painfully, he pulled away.

"I'm sorry for even saying this." And he was, truly, to the very depths of his soul. "But...you're not real, are you?"

Her lower lip trembled.

"Daddy? You're scaring me...

"No, no...I'm not trying to scare you, its just...I..." Naruto jerked his head down, unable to bear the weight of her gaze. Real or not, looking at her hurt. She was a vision of things that might once have been, events that could still be. In that moment he saw her every moment, every memory of her birth to her standing here now, before him. A false past, but still a past. His memories, yet not his memories. He saw her first steps. Heard her first words. Felt her tiny hand tug on his hair and saw her smiling face through every year until this very moment.

His "daughter" didn't reply. She didn't have to.

Her face said it all.

Without thinking, his arms closed around her.

"You're everything I ever wanted in a daughter." He murmured, cradling her head to his chest. "It feels like I've seen you're every moment. Every struggle, every breath. But I've got responsibilities, Sarah. There are people I need to protect. Wrongs I have to fix. That's why I'm here. In this place. And...I've...got to go now."

Incredibly, she nodded.

"I'll never forget."

That look of absolute heartbreak on her face nearly took his resolve and shattered it into a thousand pieces. But he held strong. Held onto her, even as she turned to mist and vanished. The sage exhaled deeply as the temptation faded, a long, shuddering breath escaping clenched teeth. On some level he'd managed to resist, and prevented himself from being lost in this fog of fantasy. That didn't make what he'd endured any less jarring, however. On the contrary, it made him ache.

'It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me. It does-IT BOTHERS ME ALOT!'

For a fleeting moment his emotions slipped their leash and he snarled.

"FUCK!"

The word exploded out of him in a snarl, a column of light burst from his prone form to smash against the crashing waters. Liquid turned to steam as the incredible energies snarled upwards, meeting and forcing the pounding water aside, summoning a geyser of sheer steam. Scarlet sparks arced around him, burning into gold as his chakra cloak engulfed his body. It hung there, writhing over him, ready to rip this reality apart if he so wished, eager and willing to do his biding. With an effort of sheer will, he banished it.

Trembling, he sat down.

This was all his fault.

Susan.

He'd refused her, in no uncertain terms. Broken her heart. Torn it out and stomped it into little pieces. Then he'd taken those pieces and run them through a blender. Repairing his sword was as much an excuse to leave as it was a necessity. In the beginning, before that beautiful disaster that was their kiss, he'd thought he could control himself. Walk a fine line. Attachment had been the last thing he wanted; and yet in his current state he was liable to do some serious damage to himself from something as light as simply standing up.

A dark image flitted through his mind.

"That battle is over." he muttered. "Release the fear."

He inhaled.

Exhaled.

In.

Out.

More images.

Susan.

Dead.

In his arms.

The world afire.

"That didn't happen." he reminded himself. "I left to avoid it."

Pain, grief, ready to be wiped away if he just gave in...

"Go away." he said as much to himself as he did his own fear, straightening his back beneath the blasting waters. Resolving to ignore his pain his sorrow, everything that was slowly eating away at him from the inside. Quietly praying that fate would acquiesce to his request. He wanted nothing more than the blissful peace and quiet that came with it. Solitude. A part of him hated it. Not just his own actions, not just the fresh loss of his sword, of her, but himself. His cowardice. The terrified realization that for all his strength and power, he was still so emotionally weak.

He hated it-him!-beyond all enduring.

It was agony to him that he hated it so much. It made him physically unwell. But there was nothing he could about. Like a wave of crushing depression, threatening to drown him, if he allowed it power of him, he could do nothing but ride the wave to its final destination.

It only got worse as he stared at blade strewn across the bank. No amount of heat or chakra on his part could hope to ever reforge it. Yet he had. No amount of violence, no matter how gratuitous, could gratify its absence. Yet there it lay, whole once more. Nothing could force him to forget what had been wrought by Coverton's blatant stupidity; the alien's greed had unwitting called out to the dark forces trapped within that cold steel now unleashed upon the world. Yet he would find them and trap them once more. He had no doubt they would take shape and form in the coming months, perhaps even target him, as they had done so once long ago in the war. Forces that made the Akatsuki look like a gang of schoolyard bullies by comparison.

No amount of anger could change any of that. The forces trapped in that blade where nothing the world knew-pure evil and vengeance twined in those beings.

So he'd come home to fix it.

Bathed in the purest of water.

Reforged in flames born from the very sun.

In exchange for the torment he'd suffered, so too was it made whole.

Naruto held up his restored sword, smiling softly, tears still fresh in his eyes. He hadn't thought it possible but here it was; in all its glory. Coming here had been the right decision after all. Now, he just needed to find a way to entrap the force he had unleashed upon the world once more, and all would be well-

"I didn't expect you to resist this long, Naruto."

"...!"

In that instant there was no thought.

The sudden pain in his shoulder was far too real to be mere fantasy, and so was the anger.

CRUNCH.

Without looking back his fist snapped up, clenched knuckles barreling into the intruder's visage. The satisfying crunch of bone told him he'd hit a man made of flesh and bone, not mist. The blood on his hands was fresh, and real, dizzyingly so, as was the red haze falling over his vision.

"Do you have any idea what you did to me?"

He didn't give the mysterious intruder time to respond.

He descended on the man's shadow without thought, without pause, without hesitation.

"WHAT YOU MADE ME GIVE UP JUST NOW?!"

Something moved in the fog and immediately he moved his weapon between his shoulder-blades. It saved his life. Steel struck steel as he spun away, the forged energies of his katana glittering wrathfully against the sword that would've surely pierced his heart and ended his life. Blue sparks skittered in the dark of the ancient forge, illuminating a face he hadn't seen for several centuries. Another spin launched him away as a lance of lightning carved through the space he had just occupied, skipping backwards in retreat as spears of pure chakra tried to skewer him to the ground.

Despite the dread he felt, despite the anger, his heart soared.

Success.

He'd lingered in this phantasmal world for two purposes; the first, to reforge his sword. The second, to lure an old enemy out of hiding. An enemy-one of many-who'd been trapped in the blade. A blade that was once an angry shadow of its former self, now reforged. Pivoting on one heel he turned, slowly, regarding the one who had spoken. Angry onyx eyes bored into his. Despite that murderous expression written into the face of his former comrade, the blond couldn't help but smile. His ears flattened against his skull, tails twitching furiously behind him.

Oh, the anger was still there. Still fueling him. Burning in his chest like a furnace, white-hot and angry.

But he was a ninja.

He tempered that hurt and gave it focus, channeling it on the scowling man before him.

"Did it hurt?" the shadow of his old friend challenged. "I'm sure it did, meeting the daughter you never had." he must've seen the twitch in his face; because that cruel sneer only deepened. "It must've felt like tearing off your own arm. And all this just to lure me out of hiding. Bravo." he clapped, "Wonderful job. Now just how to you plan to beat me?"

"Stab you full of holes and shove your soul in the blade." Naruto hissed. "It worked last time after Kaguya corrupted you; it'll work again."

"But will it work for the others?"

"I'll make it work."

"Doubtful."

"Let me guess." Naruto snarled back. "You're still pissed about me sealing you away. That's why you keep questioning me."

"Something like that, yeah." the man cocked his head aside, frowning. "Say, you look...different."

"Meh," Naruto shrugged. "When you've been exposed to as much demonic chakra as I have your body goes through a few changes. I'm probably not even human anymore. Speaking of changes, did I mention that I've acquired a fascinating new ability since our last fight?"

"I don't see how that's going to save-what the hell."

"And now I'll use it to grind you into the ground!"

The corrupted Uchiha's jaw dropped as the blond shot up to a whopping seventy-five feet, his head scraping the vaunted ceiling. He towered over him, boot raised high. Two hands rose and the wind rose with them. A keening shriek of chakra and air, as the giant twin Rasenshuriken formed. Gale force pressure rose around them as the giant concentrated the chakra into his palms, the towering spheres swelling with each passing second, ever sliver of existence serving only to fuel their wrath and majesty.

Mercilessly, he hurled them down.

It was then that Sasuke realized.

He'd fucked up.

And the world burned white.

A/N: And there we be! Drama is abound, and not all is well in our favorite base. Despite my ills, I was so fixated on the idea that it just came to me, the idea of a genuine Naruto/MVA crossover was simply too appealing to ignore. To clarify matters in any case, this Naruto has been around for some time, having become one with Kurama, and lived on well into the present day in Japan. Needless to say, he's going to be a bit out of his elements in times to come now that he's being brought to Area Fifty-Something.

All hell's about to break loose here people! There are stormclouds on the horizon...

So in the Immortal Words of Atlas...

...Review Would You Kindly? And of course, enjoy the preview! Drama incoming! You'll see just why Naruto was so intent on leaving...

(Preview)

Naruto reluctantly raised a hand.

"Yo."

That was all he managed before Susan tackled him.

"You...shouldn't be here."

"Make me leave?"

He sighed.

"Never."

R&R! =D