Chapter 1

Sarutobi Hiruzen could feel himself aging as he sat here listening to another pointless council meeting that had nothing to do with himself or the various clans of Konohagakure that were present for the meeting. All of them were forced to listen to the current civilian plight that the citizens of Konohagakure thought they needed to voice to the leadership of the village. The person that was currently speaking was an overweight man with greasy black hair tied into a traditional pony tail. The man was dressed in a very expensive looking kimono which was dripping with sweat, as he had to exert himself to remain on his feet as he talked.

To be completely honest Sarutobi wasn't even listening at this point, he had heard every possible complaint in the book and he simply no longer cared as much as he used to. To keep his mind away from the mundane buzz in the council room, he busied his mind by thinking over how he should be enjoying his retirement by now. He was old and tired of this shit, but unfortunately he had no one that he trusted to take up the mantle at this point. Sure there were several candidates, such as Danzo, who was always putting the village first and was constantly trying to make the village better, but he was a war-hawk and only saw peace as being stronger than your opponents, so you could control them. Hatake Kakashi was a possibility in a few years, but he needed to learn to let go of the past and stop blaming things on himself. Tsunade, one of his students, had the similar issues as Kakashi along with a serious gambling and alcohol problem. Finally, there was Jiraiya but Sarutobi didn't want to get into his issues. Which in retrospect might have been caused in part by him.

Sarutobi looked over the council room and thought about how bland the civilians were, like a herd of sheep they all seemed to be the same. They dressed alike, talked with that similar arrogant tone because they were rich and to be honest he didn't know any of their names. They were thirty representatives for the civilian part of the village and most of them came from powerful merchant families and yet there was nothing extraordinary about any of them, and to make matters worse they seemed to be some of the most annoying people ever born. These people had no actual clot in the running in the village but thought themselves important because they held so much power among the civilians. Thesse people in a vain attempt to gain more power had appointed themselves the civilian council of Konohagakure. It was pathetic really but for some kami forsaken reason the rest of the civilians in the village seemed to listen to them and even backed the idea of a civilian council. Even going so far as to petition to make it part of the actual village council.

The shinobi council, however, was a different story, made up of all the clan heads of Konohagakure: the Aburame, Akimichi, Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Nara, Uchiha, Yamanaka, and of course his own, the Sarutobi clan; they made an interesting group of people that stood out in any crowd. Each had their own characteristic and were proud to be different. There was also places at the table for the Senju, Namikaze and Uzumaki clans. Unfortunately these seats were vacant as the only remaining Senju was Tsunade and the other two clans were believed to be gone but the seats were kept as a form of ceremony and respect to the Yondaime and the Uzumaki clan respectively.

The last part of the council was the village elders and Hokage's advisors, Homura, Koharu, and Danzo, his old teammates and former best friends.

Over the years they had become more and more distant until it got to the point they hardly ever said more than a few words to each other unless it was business. Danzo was against him at every turn in the council and Hiruzen felt a pang of regret for that. They used to be the best of friends, but now it was like they were little more than strangers that shared a past. Hiruzen knew that the distance started the minute he had been chosen to be the next Hokage, but at the time didn't know how much damage the title would do to their friendship.

It was while he was reminiscing about his old friends and the different parts of the council that he noticed for the first time that all of the Civilian Council seemed nervous. In fact, they seemed beyond nervous and they were border lining on anxious to be anywhere but where they were. As he observed them, he started picking up all the little things that had alluded earlier in his boredom; the way that some of them kept looking from the clock to him, the nervous whispers between two or three group members, and the fact that they all seemed to be sweating. His instincts were screaming at him and he tried to figure out why. He knew something was wrong, terribly wrong, but couldn't put a finger on why.

Then it hit him, like a punch from the taijutsu expert of the village, Might Guy. How could he be so stupid?

The air in the room began to fill with killing intent as Hiruzen Sarutobi became truly and utterly angry. With his hat covering his eyes, he began to stand as the civilian spokesperson fell silent.

"What have you done?"

His voice was barely above a whisper, yet in the silence that had settled in the room, it might as well have been a scream. He watched as his simple question caused most of the civilian council to flinch and become very nervous, while they all tried their best to avoid eye contact with the enraged Hokage. The room was completely silent, nobody wanting to be the first to break and risk the wrath of the man that could, without a doubt, kill all of them with minimal effort; Having proven that fact in the three Great Shinobi Wars.

Surprisingly, it was a member of the so call Civilian Council that broke the silence. He looked like any other male middle-aged civilian; he had brown hair, brown eyes and dressed in a simple, yet expensive, grey kimono. He stood up slowly, as if he was scared of making any sudden movements causing the Hokage's rage to be unleased upon him. The eyes of the room moved from the still enraged Sarutobi to him as he addressed the Hokage.

"What do you mean Hokage-sama?"

She stuttered out while shaking like a leaf, having had the focused killing intent of the Hokage set upon her.

Hiruzen laughed and said in a voice that held a sharp edge.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't notice? Did you honestly think I wouldn't realize something was going on? I may be getting old but I am far from senile. So why not just tell me what you have done!?"

During his speech, Hiruzen had gone from a soft whisper to shouting at the collection of wealthy civilian. The very walls seemed to be shaking at the unbridled rage in his voice. Slowly he moved so he stood in front of his desk, not raising his head to look at the terrified men and women in their seats; his eyes hidden in the shadows of his Hokage hat.

Homura, Koharu, and Danzo all looked at their old friend in both fear and surprise. It had been many years since they had seen Hiruzen with such a commanding presence, in fact the last time he had been this commanding was during The Third Great Shinobi War.

Finally, after a few more minutes silence, Koharu spoke.

"Hiruzen, what's wrong?"

It was at this point that Sarutobi finally lifted his head so that all present could see his eyes. They were not the soft, caring eyes of the old man that so many had come to know. They were as hard as steel, the pupils of his eyes black pits of death and rage. These were the eyes of someone that had seen battle, that had witnessed the lives of countless people end, both friend and foe. These were the eyes of the God of Shinobi, the eyes of The Professor, one of the most feared ninja to ever walk the Elemental Nations. At this point in time, his eyes were fixed firmly on the members of the civilian council. Many on the civilians looked away, afraid to look into the eyes that felt like they were staring into their very souls looking for misdeeds.

His voice as cold as ice, Sarutobi spoke.

"Why are we here, why are any of us here? These aren't shinobi matters or matters that are urgent in any way, shape or form. So far all we've heard is nothing but civilian affairs that could have waited until the next official council meeting where civilians could voice their grievances. So, why are we here? I was told that there was an important matter that must be discussed and yet we have been here for four hours and all you have talked about is basic information of no real importance. So I ask you, why are we here?!"

Nobody dared to speak as even the clan heads were shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Nobody moved in the group of civilians due to the gaze of the Hokage still pinning them in place. But the tension in the room was becoming more and more intense with every passing minute as the civilians got more and more nervous at the gaze and killing intent that the Hokage pushed upon them.

It was then that he asked a question that had a unique effect on the room.

"What is the date?"

Those four words froze all those in the room, the civilians in fear and the shinobi in sudden realization as the topic of conversation became clear. Everything was quiet. Then the killing intent in the room seemed to increase tenfold. All the shinobi clan heads and, surprisingly, the three elders added their own killing intent to the Hokage's and focused it at the Civilian Council

Suddenly, not being able to stand the killing intent in the room any longer, one of the civilians stood from her seat to address the gathered people; a woman in her late twenty's, with pink hair; which is a common trait among the Haruno merchant family, and an expensive looking white kimono with the image of a sakura tree in bloom. The fear she felt at the combined killing intent making her voice come out high and shaky.

"We did what you were afraid to do! The Kyuubi is dead, all the people it killed that night have been avenged and the garbage that has plagued our streets has finally been done away with!"

It was then that an extremely pissed Inuzuka Tsume shot to her feet practical frothing at the mouth and shouted back.

"You are fools and are so blinded by your hate that you actually believe that a six-year-old boy is the Kyuubi! Did it ever occur to any of you that if what you say was true, then we'd probably all be dead by now due to the Kyuubi flattening the village?!"

The clan heads nodded in agreement with Tsume's logic and continued to stare down the Civilian Council.

Despite what many would believe, many of the shinobi in Konohagakure didn't hold a grudge against the boy. Some did, but they were mostly teenagers that lost everything in the attack six years ago. Even the ninja that did hate Naruto never acted beyond glares and harsh words. Every now and then a ninja would join in with the civilians if there was a mob, but those ninja that did participate never stayed ninja long after Sarutobi Hiruzen found out. If they didn't drop out of the shinobi program they always seemed to be killed in action while on a mission.

Before anything else could happen, the Hokage decide he had wasted enough time on the civilians and moved to the door of the chamber.

"I don't have time for this, I need to try and stop whatever is happening before it's too late."

That was all it took to snap the attention of the people in the room as the clan heads and elders all quickly moved to the doors, but before the Hokage pushed the doors open, he paused; looking back at the members of the so called civilian council, he left them with one more thing to think about before he left to stop whatever they had planned to do to Naruto.

"If anything has happened to Naruto, anything at all, I will come back here and kill every single one of you. Anbu! Make sure none of these worms leave this room before I come back."

Five animal masked ninja appeared in the room, positioning themselves in such a way that any and all possible exits were blocked off. With that he pushed the doors open, only to stop dead at the sound that assaulted his ears. A scream unlike anything anyone in the room had ever heard echoed around the chamber.

Hiruzen absently made a mental note that someone must have applied a silencing seal to the door and windows while they were in the room. It was the only way to explain why none of them had heard the bone chilling scream that seemed to echo across the entire village. Hiruzen rushed out of the room, flanked by the clan heads and the village elders, intent on ending whatever the villagers were doing. They managed to arrive quickly and when they got there it appeared the villagers were celebrating around a bond fire. But locating the source of the scream Hiruzen's stomach dropped as he realized that it was coming from the fire. Hiruzen quickly ran through a series of hand seals before he called out his jutsu.

"Water Style: Liquid Bullet"

The water bullet hit the flames and doused them with ease, the Hokage then rushed to the pile of smoking wood to see Naruto without any skin on his form. Muscle was showing all over his body and he appear to be charred. The Hokage turned to the clan heads and said in a grim tone, barely restraining his rage and killing intent.

"Kill them all, I don't want survivors, any person that would do this has no humanity."

The clan heads nodded and smirked as they turned on the civilian crowd that was watching them, the crowd stood no chance against the leaders on the various clans of the Leaf village.

As blood began to spill, Hiruzen stood up and body flickered to the hospital. He appeared right outside the hospital doors and quickly walked in holding Naruto in his arms bridal style.

"I need a stretcher and several doctors now!"

The nurses looked at him before they moved into action to do as their pissed off Hokage had ordered.

XXX

(Flashback: Hours earlier)

Naruto sat on his bed in his apartment, staring at the floor blankly. Today was his sixth birthday and, like all his previous birthdays, he was spending it completely alone. He had no friends or family to spend what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of his life with and it caused knots to form in his stomach.

His apartment was made up of just two rooms, the main room, which had his bed, a table and a small kitchen which he didn't know how to use. The once white wallpaper that cover the walls of the room was peeling off due to age and neglect, cracks covered most of the walls in the room where villagers either threw Naruto against the wall or broke it themselves using whatever they had on hand and the carpet was covered in reddish-brown stains from all the times the villagers had broken in and beaten him to a bloody pulp, there was even places where the carpet had been torn up and showed the sub-floor underneath. There was one window that looked out over the street, but it had several cracks and missing pieces of glass from where people had thrown rocks into his room.

The only other room was what the old man said was supposed to be his bathroom. It did have all the basic things that one would find in a bathroom, a toilet, a sink, it even had a shower. The problem however was that he never had any hot water, so whenever he took one it hurt because it was so cold.

He also learned that before he moved in someone, after hearing that he was moving in, had disconnected the water pipe that went to the toilet and sink. This meant that he needed to put water in the holding tank himself when he wanted to flush the toilet. The problem with that however was that he could barely reach the top of the toilet. This room also was not immune to the rage of the villagers, as the mirror above the sink had cracks all over it from a villager punching it. The sink had a chunk missing from a villager hitting it with what Naruto assumed would be a pipe or bat.

Naruto looked around his small apartment and even with the issues he felt he was lucky the old man could get it for him. Sure it was small, but it's not like he had much stuff anyway and the stuff he did have was old and, in most cases, moldy and it was far better than when he was living on the streets. The apartment at least gave him protection from some of the harsher elements that Mother Nature could dish out as well as provide a place to call home.

Two years ago, on his fourth birthday, the orphanage had told him that they didn't have room for him anymore and threw him out, literally. One of the care workers had thrown him out by the scruff of his neck right into a pile of rotten food. The first few weeks had been hard as he had no food or place to sleep, but he learned rather quickly which bins would have food and which alleys would have boxes that he could sleep in. He even learned to avoid people at night, as if they saw him they would take away whatever he had managed to scrounge up or would stomp on the boxes he was going to sleep in. But to the villagers that wasn't enough and that's when the beatings had started

Luckily, the old man had found him. He didn't trust him at first, it wasn't the first time someone had tricked him into trusting them, but over time his weariness of the kind old man in the strange clothes eased away. Sarutobi had been careful when he saw him, shocked as well. But after getting over it he took a shivering Naruto to the hospital and, after getting him looked at, brought him to the apartment in which Naruto now lived.

His distrust of people stemmed from one instance that he remembered, one time a 'nice' old lady had invited him into her house to eat when she found him looking through her garbage bins for food. The moment he was inside her door she locked the door and proceeded to beat him with her walking stick. Screaming and yelling at him, something about how he had killed her only son. Only after about ten minutes of cowering on the ground as she beat him, was Naruto finally able to get away from her by jumping through a window. He received several large gashes from that incident and learned to avoid the kindness of others, or at least to be wary of it.

It was also the first time he noticed that he healed very fast. When he had gotten far enough away he had stopped and looked at his arms, which were filled with shards of broken glass from the window he had leapt through in his desperation to get away. Then, right in front of his eyes, the glass was pushed out of his skin and the wounds started to heal. He didn't know what to think, but just assumed that it was the same for everyone and, putting it to the back of his mind, didn't think about it again.

That was about a year ago and since then he never left the apartment, at least not willingly. All his food was brought to him so he never needed to. Not that it stopped the villagers.

The old man would visit him every now and then, but he hadn't had time as of late. Naruto didn't know what he actually did but he knew it was important as he had seen several of the villagers give him respect.

Lost in his thoughts he didn't even realize that he had started singing to himself, his small, weak voice barely above a whisper.

"Happy...Birthday...to me...happy... birthday... to me... happy birthday... Naruto...happy...birthday...to...me...happy…birthday…dear…Naruto…happy…birthday…to me."

By the end of the song Naruto could feel the tears falling down his cheeks, but he still didn't make another sound. He just stared off into empty space, twin lines of water falling freely from his eyes. The tears washing away the grim on his face showing the clear lines on his face where the tears had fallen.

Why did he have to be alone?

Why did the villages hate him?

Why did they hurt him?

Why did no one love him?

"Why...why...why...WHY!?"

As he asked himself these question again and again out loud, Naruto barely even registered he had started to punch the wall next to his bed, his small hands bleeding as the skin split and the wall cracked, only for the wound to heal moments later.

The sadness finally became too unbearable and Naruto threw himself on his bed and sobbed into the bare mattress, as the villagers had taken the sheets and pillows the last time they had attacked him.

Meanwhile, Anbu Captain Hatake Kakashi was looking through the window from his perch on the building across the street from the small boy's apartment. He watched a six year old boy sing to himself as he cried, and punch a wall over and over again until his hand broke.

His heart ached at the sight and he wanted desperately to help the boy more than he had. No one should have to go through what that boy had, and defiantly not as young as Naruto.

Kakashi had been the boys guard ever since the Hokage had found him in a back alley. Naruto had been found half frozen from the cold and little more than skin and bones. It had been a miracle he was alive when the Hokage found him. When he had first seen the boy in the hospital the silver haired jonin thought he was actually dead and, after spending about an hour just staring at his weak form, the Hokage had called him straight to his office and told him what had happened. In fact the doctor said that any normal child would have succumb to starvation at the point in which Naruto had been found.

Originally, he had wanted to adopt him, but the civilians had argued that because Kakashi was an Anbu captain, his job was far more important to the village then looking after one child. The ninja council had refused his request, as they felt that the civilians had appoint. They believed that they couldn't show Naruto any sort of favoritism due the fact that he was supposed to be one of the hundreds of orphans from the Kyuubi incident. Of course the real reason was not to emphasize the fact that he is the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no kitsune, which was supposed to be an S-class secret.

So instead he had volunteered to be the boy's bodyguard, a job the Hokage had agreed to but had to set certain rules. The boy was still a civilian after all so he couldn't officially be given a guard. So they had come up with a solution. Kakashi spent almost all his spare time watching the boy; if he wasn't on a mission then he was on the roof across from Naruto's apartment. This meant he could stop anyone that tried going after the boy while he was here. The only problem with this was that he still needed to go on missions so nobody would realize that the boy actually had protection and not just a passing Anbu to help him.

Kakashi knew who the boy's parents were. Really, you would need to be completely blind not to, he had his mother's last name and hyperactive nature for a start and as for his father, well just look at him, he was a carbon copy of the Fourth Hokage. The only difference between the two was the malnourished frame and whisker marks on his cheeks.

So caught up in his thoughts, Kakashi didn't notice the black clad figure behind him and by the time he did it was too late. Kakashi felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and then nothing.

After an hour or so of crying Naruto had finally fallen asleep, his dreams full of faceless people, villagers. There was one thing they all had in common; they hurt him, they always hurt him. Why did they always hurt him?

His dreams were always the same, at least when he could get to sleep. It was very rare for Naruto to sleep more than an hour at a time in part due to the paranoia and fear that dominated his life. He didn't know why; he just didn't seem to really need it, his body was just full of energy like it was constantly being pumped full of energy from some unknown source. He knew it was strange due to his time in the orphanage, the other kids just seemed to be able to go to sleep whenever they felt like it, but Naruto always felt like he was ready to go.

But on the rare occasion when he did manage to get to sleep it was always the same.

He would always have nightmares. Some of them, like the one he was having now, were of all the times he was beaten by the villagers. Other kinds of nightmares he had were of strange creatures, odd things that one would assume someone in a mental institution would dream up. Some of them didn't even seem to have a shape, nothing more than shades in the shadows of his dreams. Hiding at the edge of his mind, lurking in the shadows...waiting...watching.

The thing that scared him the most though was when he had a dream about it. He didn't know why, but it was always the clearest thing in his nightmares and it was the one thing that was always there. Whenever he slept, no matter what he was dreaming, it would always make an appearance.

A large fox, bigger than any building he had seen in Konoha, bigger even then the Hokage monument. With its blood red fur and teeth larger than a full grown man, each a giant spike that could easily pierce metal, it was the most frightening thing he had ever seen. But the most terrifying thing about it was the eyes.

Large red pools of moving liquid fire ringed in black, with a black vertical slit down the middle. It was like the two colors were fighting for dominance, a never ending battle between light and dark.

It was the eyes that haunted Naruto in his waking hours, they held no real emotion. No malice, no happiness, nothing, just a primal instinct, primal need, yet they shone with an odd intellect. The intellect of age, of things long past. It was like the fox was both a raging beast yet it held an intelligence as vast as the world.

Naruto was woken when he heard loud banging at his door. Instantly he knew what was going on, it happened all the time. Sitting up in his bed he just stared at the door...waiting…listening to the door strain against its assaulters. He knew from experience that there was no point in hiding, they always found him. He knew he couldn't run as they would track him down and he really couldn't outrun some of the adult in the crowd.

It didn't take them long to get through the door, as it had taken abuse before and was already partially broken, when they did Naruto saw a large number of people crowded in the corridor outside his room. He recognized some of them from previous mobs, the middle age fat man that had no hair, the old man with the long white beard and one eye.

Then Naruto's eyes landed on one of the most prevalent figures in these mobs, the woman with the pink hair, she was a regular when it came to his mobs, hell most the time she was the leader. With her pink hair and green eyes she normally stood out in a crowd. She wore an elegant red dress with a strange white pattern and looked like she was going out for a night on the town, not leading a mob to beat a small boy. They just stood there in the doorway for a moment; the pink haired lady had a smug look on her face, just staring at him.

"Take this piece of filth outside."

Her voice was cold and without sparing him a second glance, turned around and went to wait outside. With those three words she had broken the flood gates. The men lurched forward and roughly grabbed the six year old. Naruto could smell the alcohol on their breath, which was bad, it was always worse when they were drunk. After they dragged him outside Naruto saw more people. This was very bad, as there had never been this many people before.

For the next half hour the mob proceeded to beat, stab, and bludgeon the small boy until it seemed there was nothing left to hurt. Even through the pain Naruto found himself making mental notes of what was happening.

He was stabbed more times than he could count, but that wasn't saying much considering he was never taught past ten. He was bludgeoned with lead pipes, run through with farm equipment, kicked, punched, and slashed. Throughout the whole experience, Naruto never made a sound, not even to scream. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Even now he had his pride and he wouldn't let them take that away

This just seemed to make them angrier, but as soon as they stopped he started to heal leaving nothing more that faint silvery scars on his skin. Unfortunately after he was healed the mob would begin again. He didn't know how long they beat him, it could have been hours or minutes for all he knew. Every time Naruto was completely broken they would stop, wait a few minutes for him to heal, and then start again repeating the torture over and over again.

Eventually the pink haired woman came back into view, though it took him a few minutes to identify her because his eyes had needed to re-grow after they were stabbed and a rusted spoon was used to pull them out for the fifth time that night, not that Naruto knew they were doing this, as far as he knew he had just lost consciousness for a few minutes.

"Tie him to the post."

Naruto was hurled up and dragged to a post someone had stuck into the ground, a pile of wood lying around the base. Naruto could smell accelerant in the air and as they approached the post he realized that all the wood was soaked in it. Now, Naruto might be young and uneducated but even he could see what was going to happen here. If he could have put up a fight as they tied him to the post, he would have, but he was still weak and was currently healing from the last round of the beatings.

When he was secured to the post with ninja wire the mob moved back and five people clad in black hoods, stopping anyone from seeing their faces; stepped out of the crowd and stood there, surrounding the unlit pile of wood.

When the crowd had quieted down the pink haired woman stepped forward and stared at him with an empty expression on her face. After a minute of looking into his eyes she smirked, her eyes becoming filled with sick glee and turned to address the crowd.

"Tonight, we right the wrongs that have been done to us! Tonight, we take our revenge on this...creature!"

At this point she threw her right arm out towards Naruto. The crowd began to cheer as her words got more and more heated. Someone in the crowd got so worked up by this that they through an empty sake bottle at the beaten boy. After waiting for the crowd to settle down again she continued where she had left off.

"Six years ago, the Kyuubi attacked this village, destroyed our homes and killed our families! Tonight we take our revenge! This thing has the Kyuubi inside of it, therefore it is the Kyuubi! The Hokage may be fooled by its facade, but we are not! We see it for what it truly is and tonight we finish what the Yondaime could not! Tonight, we kill the Kyuubi no Kitsune!"

At the end of her tirade she turned to look at the boy, her face full of arrogance, self-importance and joy.

Naruto was shocked, he didn't understand, he was the Kyuubi? That was impossible, wasn't it? His thoughts flashed to his nightmares, to a giant red fox. What if it was true? What if he really was the Kyuubi? It made sense, he realized, the glares, the beatings, the hate; it was all because he was the Kyuubi. But if he was the Kyuubi why didn't he remember? If he had killed all those people he would remember, wouldn't he? All these thoughts and more passed through Naruto's head, but before he had time to think the pink haired lady raised her hands and looked at each of the five people around the fire.

"Light it up!"

With that the five hooded figures started to make hand seals. When they finished five voices could be heard calling out.

"Fire Style: Grand Fire Ball Jutsu!"

Five balls of fire simultaneously struck the wood, and lit it instantly due to the accelerant. It didn't take long for the heat to become too much for Naruto. He tried not to scream, to keep to his personal vow of silence, but he just couldn't. The pain was too much for him to bear and with one deep breath...he let it out.

All the years of pain that these people caused him, all the things they had done...he just let it all out.

He screamed...he screamed so loudly that it actually made them stop cheering for a moment, but then the moment passed, and they started again. Soon he started to feel his skin bubble, melting off his body. It was indescribable; he was in so much pain as the skin slid off his body. Then he noticed, in his pain fogged mind, that he was healing while he was burning, the thing that had kept him alive was at work trying to heal him as fast as his body burned. For three hours he screamed as the torture continued, but to him it seemed like a life time, a life time of burning, writhing in agony...nothing but him, the flames, and the sound of laughter from the crowd that enjoyed his pain.

Eventually, he felt the fire stop, but that just caused a new pain to arrive, he felt cold, very cold. He had become so used to the heat of the fire that he couldn't stop shivering and the more he shivered only caused him more pain as the nerves screamed at him to stop moving. The last thing he saw before he was finally able to slip into the abyss that was his mind was the old man, looking down on him with a look of absolute horror and rage on his on his face.

XXX

When Naruto next woke he didn't know where he was, and frankly he didn't care, there was no more pain. He was numb, as though he had been sitting out in the cold too long; he felt nothing. He started to notice his surroundings, though his head was still a little foggy. Wherever he was, it was huge, some kind of underground cavern, solid stone walls all around him and a barely visible stone roof. To one side he noticed a giant gate in the place of a wall, but that wasn't what was weird about it. The strange thing was that it seemed to be held shut with nothing more than a piece of paper. Naruto also noticed that there were pipes running along the walls coming from the cage.

As he stood up he realized that he was knee deep in some kind of strange water, which seemed to be flowing out from the cage. It took him a moment before he recognized that it wasn't water at all, it was blood.

Yet Naruto still didn't care as he'd seen blood many times in his life and held no fear of it, especially since he dreamed of becoming a ninja and knew the harsh reality of his chosen career path.

It was then that he heard it, a low rumbling sound off in the distance. At first he thought it was thunder, but then remembered he was underground or what he thought was underground. Whatever it was, it was getting louder. Turning towards the gate he grasped what he was hearing.

Growling, very feral growling.

How did he figure that out? Easy, by looking at the giant red fox on the other side of the gate. Naruto stared up into its face, into its fire like eyes, the eyes that had haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember. For the first time they didn't scare him, he felt empty…a shell…numb.

The two just stared at each other for what felt like hours, until finally.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

It was strange to see a fox laugh; its voice was so deep he could feel the vibrations all around him.

"I have lived for thousands of years, seen civilizations rise and fall, but I have never known a human, a child no less that could look me in the eye without fear. Maybe you won't be such a bad host after all. For you must be either as foolish or as brave as they come. Hahahahaha!"

Naruto just continued to look at the giant beast before him with a blank expression on his six year old face, showing no sign that he had even heard or cared about the fox's words.

"...So it's true. You being here must mean the things the pink haired lady said were true. Though I can't tell where we are, it does seem oddly familiar..."

His words made the fox's laughter stop instantly, a look of mild surprise crossing its face. The boy's voice just sounded...wrong, it held no emotion, no feeling. It actually sent a shiver up the Kyuubi's spine to hear such an empty tone in a child's voice. It was then the fox took a good look at the boy.

Naruto had on a plain white t-shirt that looked like it had come right out of the trash, a pair of black shorts with too many holes in them to be considered usable. His spiky blonde hair going in all directions, and three whiskers on each cheek that gave him an innocent but feral look, not that it had helped him with the villagers. But what really caught its attention were his eyes. His large blue eyes that were normally full of life no matter what life threw at him, eyes that could brighten up the room just by being there, were now dead.

They held no light in them, no shine of happiness, no flash of anger...nothing. They lacked the spark that one would see in the eyes of the living. Now…they were like the eyes of an old man that had seen too much and had given up, waiting for death to come and take him away.

The Kyuubi didn't know what to think of this. It had seen eyes like that before, but only in people that had lived their lives and had endured great loss. Kyuubi had never seen it outside of that situation, especially not in the eyes of a six year old boy.

"...We are in your Mindscape, a place in your subconscious mind. At the moment we are using it as a...well you could say a bridge of sorts, in order for us to communicate. What you see around you is a representation of both our minds."

Naruto thought about that for a moment, seeming to be getting his thoughts in order as he took his time looking around him.

"I see, I'm guessing the blood is you, which means that my mind is a sewer…or a boiler due to the pipes running through it? Interesting."

That made the fox laugh again, it was starting too actually like this kid.

XXX

Naruto just stared at the giant fox in front of him, his face completely devoid of any emotions as he met the beast's burning gaze without fear.

"Why?"

The fox just looked down at the boy in front of it with an amused gleam in its eyes.

"It would amuse me, what other reason do I need? Let's face it, you need all the help you can get. You're weak, it pathetic really."

"I'm six how the hell am I supposed to be powerful at this age."

"...whatever, in your circumstance you need as much power as you can get to protect yourself."

"So you'll just give me a new bloodline with no strings attached?"

The fox looked thoughtful for a moment before its eyes took on a slight glimmer.

"Well I guess you'll just have to owe me one, won't you?"

The fox paused here, to see how Naruto would react. All it got was a blank look for several minutes before...

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Naruto thought about it for a moment then agreed, what harm could it do?

"Okay."

With that the Kyuubi sent as much of its chakra through the bars of its cage as the seal would allow, slowly it made its way towards Naruto, who stood there, staring into the fox's eyes, seeming to ignore the bubbling red chakra as it slowly started to climb up his small legs, and after a moment covered his entire body.

After a few minutes it started to soak into his body until nothing was left.

"It's done."

"So what can I do?"

"You can be anything."

Naruto looked at the fox for a moment.

"Isn't that just crap parents tell their kids to make them feel better?"

The fox looked at the boy, trying to tell if he was serious, a large sweat drop appearing at the back of its head.

"Well...yes...it is, but in his case it's literal. I gave you the ability to shape shift, its only limitations are your imagination and size. The bigger or smaller the thing you change into, the more chakra it will take."

Naruto thought about that for a moment, it did sound useful to be able to change into practically anything...

"How does it work?"

"It's simple enough; just picture the form you want to change into in your mind, and channel chakra through your body."

"I can be anything?"

"Pretty much...oh, I should probably warn you that if you're not careful you could lose control of the form, and go on a killing spree, slaughtering everything in sight. Sounds fun right? I personally hope that happens at least a few times."

Naruto just stared at the fox for a moment. It made sense, and he didn't really care one way or the other anymore.

"...That seems like a fair enough trade off."

The fox just stared at the boy in front of it for a long moment, before bursting out in laughter.

"Hahahahaha...they...haha...they really did break you didn't they...ha. Kami this is the most fun I've had in centuries...hahaha. I mean, I thought the Romans and the Mongolians were brutal but this village just topped them"

Naruto just stood there, staring at the fox as it continued to laugh. When the Kyuubi calmed down enough to stop laughing it turned back to the boy.

"Thanks for that...woo, I needed it. Anyway I think it's time for you to wake up, see you later kit."

Before Naruto could reply he felt dizzy, and fell back into the water. When he opened his eyes he could see the old man leaning over him.

XXX

Sarutobi Hiruzen had been sitting at Naruto's bedside for three days straight; luckily, his old friends had stepped up to run the village for a few days. He had been skeptical at first of letting Danzo anywhere near his office, but it turns out he wasn't against him as much as he had thought. He had been, in his own words, 'trying to bring back his Will of Fire'.

It seems that he had taken it onto himself to try and challenge him, hopping that by going against what he believed in it would force him to regain the fire that he lost at the end of the Third Great War. Sarutobi had been so happy when he heard that, that he actually hugged the old cripple. Danzo still didn't agree with his ideals, but he did admit that he respected them, even if he couldn't believe in them himself.

Homura and Koharu apparently knew about this from the start, but not having the heart to do the same, started to distance themselves from him, not being able to see him that way. When the three had seen the look in his eyes at the meeting they had seen their friend again, the man that had lived through wars and countless battles. They had come to him the same night of 'the incident', as it was now being called, and told him everything. Since then they had been handling everything while he waited for the boy in front of him to wake up.

They had caught most people from that night, at least the ones that were left after he let the clan leaders take the crowd down, but some had still gotten away. They had stopped four of the five ninja that had been involved and they had been nothing more than a few no-named chunin that had lost their families in the Kyuubi's attack six years ago. The rest that they had caught were just civilians, mostly drunk, and had all been sent to Ibiki and Anko in T&I.

Three days...three days, and there was still no response from Naruto, not a twitch or a groan, nothing, he was completely and utterly dead to the world, if it wasn't for the heart monitor Hiruzen would have thought Naruto a corpse.

Hiruzen heard the door to the room sliding open and turned to see Hatake Kakashi entering the room.

XXX

Kakashi had been in a deep depression ever since 'the incident'. He wasn't wearing his Anbu uniform any more, only his normal attire of a black body suit, his mask, his flak jacket, and his left eye covered by his forehead protector.

It was all his fault, if he had been paying attention this wouldn't have happened...and to have been jumped by some no-name chunin. If nothing else this whole experience had shown him that he had become arrogant, relying on the Sharingan and letting his other skills fade, which had left him vulnerable, and now Naruto was the one to pay the price.

By the time he had come to it was too late, the damage was done.

He had woken up just in time to see the Hokage go berserk, slaughtering the many people gathered around the burning six year old. He was found a few minutes later on the same roof he had been sitting watching over Naruto, with his hands tied in ninja wire, by one of the ANBU that had been gathering up the few villagers that had gotten away.

After discovering what had happened, and a quick talk with the Hokage, he had come to the Memorial Stone, and just stood there, staring at the names of his old teammate, and sensei for three days.

"I'm so sorry Minato-sensei, Rin...Obito, I've failed again."

He whispered to the air. He decided that it was time to see if Naruto was awake; turning his back to the stone, he took off towards the hospital.

XXX

The first thing Sarutobi thought when he saw Kakashi was that he looked even more tired than he did, the bags under his visible eye only seemed to emphasize this fact. His clothes were a mess, and his hair, which would usually be sticking up, was flat against his head. His shoulders were slumped towards the ground, he slowly walked in to the room, and stood next to the Hokage, looking at the boy lying in the bed.

"I don't blame you Kakashi, it wasn't your fault. They got around all of us and you couldn't have known other ninja were going to come for the boy."

The silver haired ninja didn't react to the Hokage's words; he just stood there, staring at Naruto. Eventually he replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I appreciate that Hokage-sama...but it was my fault. I let my guard down. I became complacent and he paid for it. I will never be able to make this up to him."

Sarutobi was afraid this would happen. "Kakashi they tricked us all, including me. At least we don't have to deal with those damn fools anymore."

It was true, while Naruto had been in surgery Sarutobi had gone back to the council room, and repeated the actions of the clan heads when they had found Naruto. The only difference being that he killed them all. Since then not a single civilian had approached the Hokage as word had spread of the massacre and the civilian part of the village was in no rush to organize a new group of advocates to go to the village council.

Kakashi still didn't move his eyes from Naruto's form.

"...I guess..."

Before another word could be said between the two of them; one of the machines connected to Naruto started beeping rapidly. Startled, Sarutobi shot to his feet, and leaned over while Kakashi ran into the hall shouting for a doctor.

"Naruto!? Naruto, can you hear me!? Naruto!?"

Slowly, the young boy's eyes started to open. When they did, Sarutobi's, Kakashi's and the just arriving doctor's eyes all widened in a mixture of horror and shock, all three of them taking a step back, not even realizing it. They were the eyes of a corpse, lifeless, without the slightest hint of emotion in his once bright blue eyes. They were still the same shade of blue, but something was just...missing.

"Dear Kami, Naruto...what have they done to you?" whispered Sarutobi under his breath.

Getting over his shock the doctor quickly made his way over to the boy's bedside and, after taking a moment to check the many different machines that he was hooked up to, shone a small light in his eyes to test their reaction, trying to figure out what was wrong with them. When that was done he stepped back, shook his head, and then turned to the other two men in the room.

"He's conscious, and there's nothing physically wrong with his eyes. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do at this point seeing as he is at full health."

With that he left, leaving the men in the room with the poor boy.

A few minutes later Naruto started to whisper something; it was so quiet that the two shinobi in the room had to lean in towards the boy to hear him.

"Why...didn't you just let me die? Why?"

Those words broke both men's hearts, to hear such words coming from a six-year-old boy was just wrong. Not able to stand it anymore, Kakashi left the room without a word, though the old Hokage could clearly hear the sound of something being thrown against a wall out in the corridor.

"Probably going back to the memorial stone."

Thought Sarutobi.

XXX

It was a week later before Naruto was discharged from the hospital. He didn't say a word to anyone, not even the Hokage after that first sentence, just stared off into empty space. It worried Sarutobi greatly. There was also the fact that he hadn't slept at all for a week straight, and didn't show any signs of changing any time soon.

Kakashi hadn't come back.

As Sarutobi lead him to his apartment Naruto absently noticed that the people were still glaring at him whenever the old man wasn't looking. He was covered from head to toe in bandages again, although there was now an opening for his mouth and eyes. The old man had found him some basic clothes to wear on the way. Ironically, they were the same clothes he had when in his mindscape talking to Kyuubi, only new. Sarutobi had tried to talk to him about the Kyuubi several times, but Naruto would just stare off into space, not saying a word.

When they got to the apartment the old Hokage stayed with him for an hour or so, making sure the boy was ok. Naruto just went about his business as if Sarutobi wasn't even there. Moving around the room, picking up the things that had been knocked over when the villagers had dragged him out, throwing away what they had broken and trying to fix what was salvageable.

"At least one good thing came out of this."

Thought the Hokage, He finally had the drive and complete power to do anything he wanted to help Naruto.

Meaning, starting tomorrow night, Naruto would get a full Anbu guard watching over him twenty-four/ seven. He had asked Kakashi to be the team leader, but the man had refused, saying that he couldn't look after him anymore when he had let him down and had caused him so much pain.

Eventually, Sarutobi had to go back to work; he had been away for too long as it was, so saying goodbye to the unresponsive boy he left the apartment, shaking his head at the thought of what had happened to the boy.

XXX

As the day turned to night you could find Naruto in the same spot as the night when they had come for him, just sitting on his mattress staring into an empty corner of the room. He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, and he didn't care.

It was at this point that his door opened, he hadn't locked it, he didn't see any point, it never stopped them before, and it wouldn't now. He just kept staring at the wall. After a few minutes of nothing happening he slowly turned his head toward the door, still showing no interest at what was going on around him.

Stood in the doorway, an insane grin stretching across her face, was the pink haired lady. It seemed that she was one of the few that gotten away from the old man. For a few more minutes he just sat there, staring into her wide, deranged eyes. Then he saw the knife in her hand. It looked like a simple eight inch long kitchen knife, the same thing someone would use if they were preparing dinner.

"Why didn't you just die!? It was all planned out; I was going to be the one to lead the people of Konoha to the destruction of the Kyuubi! I was going to be a hero, but you just wouldn't die!"

Her voice was high, almost a screech, and as she was saying this she had moved further into the room. By the end of her speech, he made a mental note that she seemed to really like monologues for some reason; she had stopped right in front of Naruto, and stabbed the boy in the chest. He felt the pain as the blade pierced his skin, slipping through his ribs and puncturing his lung as a cold sensation started spreading around the wound; but Naruto didn't react at all, he didn't flinch, he didn't blink, he didn't even gasp. He just kept staring into her green eyes. This just made the woman angrier, so she kept stabbing, each time repeating the same word over and over again.

"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!"

It was while she was stabbing him over and over that something inside Naruto just snapped.

Before the woman could stab him again, he grabbed her by the wrist seizing the hand that held the knife, and with the same emotionless expression he had been wearing until to that point, broke it in one quick movement. She was in such shock that she stood there, staring at her wrist for a full minute, before she started to scream.

Before she could get to a decent volume Naruto leapt from his mattress, and pushed her to the ground, placing a hand over her mouth to silence her. Slowly leaning down so that his mouth was right next to her ear, Naruto made the first sound he had in a week.

"Shush...shush…shush…"

When he pulled away again, his hand still placed firmly over her mouth, she looked up into the young boys eyes; what she saw made her stop struggling, and instead she froze in terror. His eyes weren't empty anymore. They were filled with predatory glee at what was about to happen.

Then he started to giggle, then chuckle, then laugh until it reached full blown hysterics. After about a minute of laughing, he stopped and once again leaned down so that he was next to her ear and said, in a voice so full of childlike innocence it made a cold shiver run down the pink haired lady's spine...

"Will you step into my parlor? Said the Spider to the Fly."

And with those words, the small boy's body started to change before her eyes.

XXX

He could feel it, the way his body shifted to his will, his muscles ripping and knitting back together under his skin. The way his bones were breaking, stretching and reforming into something different. The way his clothes just melded into his body, as if they were never there. It was excruciating, almost as painful as the feeling of being burned alive for hours on end, but more than that it was euphoric. He had never felt so alive.

When it was done he stood up and stepped back from the pink haired woman; she was so scared of what was in front of her that she couldn't scream. Standing in front of her, in all its eight foot glory was...she didn't even know what to call it, something out of a nightmare maybe?

If only she knew.

It actually was from a nightmare, one of Naruto's to be precise. His very skin was covered in an ivory white shell, the only clothing he had was a torn black cloth that covered his waist down to his knees, held up by bandages tied to his waist, his body covered in muscles reminiscent of a body builder. Long spiky blonde hair went down to his feet, and strange red markings covered his entire body, huge hands with long, boney fingers tipped in vicious scythe-like claws. He had what seemed to be white spikes with red tips growing out of his shoulders pointing in random directions and a long tail coming out the base of his spine, the end of which was a deep crimson, as if it had been dipped in fresh blood.

But what really scared her was his face and chest.

A demonized skull like mask covered his face with long, sharp teeth spread in a horrifying grin with more of the red markings on the left side of its face. Cold yellow eyes ringed in black with a sickening glee shining in them as they stared down at her, and a hole in the center of his chest where his heart should be.

Naruto just stood there a moment to admire himself in the reflection of the broken glass that was in his window. This was one of the creatures he had seen in his nightmares, right down to the last detail. He laughed, he couldn't stop himself. He absently noted that his voice had a strange echo to it, as if more than one voice was talking at the same time. The irony, for years this creature had haunted his nights; now it would be the image he would use to haunt others as well.

Without saying a word he bent down and grabbed the pink haired lady by her throat, lifting her up easily with one hand above his head and, with no effort at all, threw her through the broken window onto the street outside. Jumping out after her, he then slowly made his way over to her broken body.

She was covered in cuts and glass shards from the window, both her arms were bent at odd angles, obviously broken in several places; she was still conscious, if only just. He couldn't have that; he wanted her fully aware for what he was about to do. Quicker than most eyes could see he speared her through the abdomen with the end of his tail, and held it there for a moment, listening to her gargled screams as blood rose in her throat.

It was music to his ears.

He then sent a small pulse of his chakra through his tail and into the woman on the ground at his feet. Instantly her eyes shot open; she started to scream as loud as her abused lungs would allow her, causing Naruto to stop yet again to listen to her screams. When he had enough of that he lifted up his right foot, and brought it down on her, mostly uninjured, left leg, shattering the bone.

He tilted his head to the side in fascination as her screaming changed pitch, so he did it again with her right leg, then each of her already broken arms. Each time he did this she made a new sound.

XXX

A platoon of five Anbu that had heard the screams and came to investigate, were watching in stunned silence as they saw some…thing, mutilating a woman; but what shocked them more was that it was the woman they had spent the last week looking for. She had somehow managed to get away on the night of 'the incident', and had avoided them ever since.

A cat masked Anbu turned to another with a dragon mask, asking in a clearly feminine voice.

"What should we do, captain?"

The now identified captain remained quiet for a moment, staring at what was happening in stunned silence, before replying.

"You go and inform the Hokage, we will stay here, and try to subdue it, hurry." With that she was gone in a swirl of leafs.

The four remaining Anbu jumped off the building they were stood on, running towards the creature.

Spotting them out of the corner of his eye, Naruto grabbed his limp prey by the throat and held her to his chest to use as a human shield as he turned to face the Anbu, still cackling insanely. They stopped in their tracks, not expecting the...creature to have seen them coming. Stepping forward the dragon masked Anbu spoke.

"Drop the woman and get on the ground, do you understand me?"

The creature just laughed at him.

Then, slowly reaching around the woman's stomach dragged his free hand; Naruto used the claw on his index finger to slowly cut a line across her stomach. For a moment nothing happened before a red line appeared, followed by a burst of blood, and the pink haired woman's intestines fell onto the floor with a wet squelch.

The Anbu were shocked at the act of brutality, but what was even worse was that the woman was still alive; but not for long, just before the light left her eyes, the creature reached a hand around her neck, and with one quick jerk, pulled her head from her shoulders. What little blood was left in her body spurted out of the hole where her head once sat, covering Naruto's face.

What he did next shocked the ANBU as, in his echo-like voice, he started to... sing?

"Ring, a round the rosie,

A pocket full of posies,

Ashes, ashes,

You all fall down!"

At the end of the song he started to laugh again, the sound of his voice, echoing across the village as he threw his head back, and laughed.

One of the Anbu, a large man in a bear mask, ran forward.

"No! Stop! We have to take it together!" called out the captain, but it was too late.

The bear masked Anbu started to run through hand signs as he ran straight towards the beast, but before he could finish, the creature appeared in front of him, grabbing his arms just below the shoulders. The Anbu let out a scream as the hands got tighter and tighter; the arms falling to his sides limply, getting number by the second until, with a quick jerk, both his arms were pulled off just below the shoulder; but before he could get over his shock at the loss of his arms, Naruto used the one in his right hand as club hitting him in the face so hard his head exploded in a shower of blood and gore; his laughter never letting up for even a second.

Without further ado, the remaining three Anbu sprang into action.

"Wood style: Tree Binding"

Instantly long pieces of wood shot out of the ground and wrapped themselves around the beast's arms, legs, neck, and chest.

"Fire style: Great Fire Ball"

"Wind style: Great Breakthrough"

The two jutsu joined together, the fire being fuelled by the wind, turning white from the increased heat, stopping the laughter as soon as the attack hit. The Anbu released a sigh of relief, only to take a step back in fear when the laughter started again, if weaker than before.

Nothing had ever survived that combination, nothing.

When the smoke cleared they could clearly see the creature still standing, if only just. Its body was covered in what seemed to be cracks; as they watched the shell-like skin started to move, like millions of maggots were curling under it as its body started to shrink.

The Hokage arrived with the cat masked Anbu, just in time to see the beast before it disappeared, leaving an unconscious Naruto with a large crazy grin on his face, his small body almost completely covered in blood. Looking at the bloodbath before him, then to the six year old boy, Sarutobi Hiruzen could only say one thing.

"Dear Kami, Naruto what have you done?"