Naruto Uzumaki had failed. He set out to seal Kaguya with the aid of his on again off again teammate Sasuke Uchiha. Having been granted half the power to seal her he was cautiously optimistic about their chances of success. Until of course the inevitable happened and Sasuke decided that the Eternal Tsukiyomi was not something that he should struggle against, as it would allow him all that he had lost back. Betrayed, Naruto was expelled from Kaguyas world and at the very foot of the Shinju. He landed amongst the very last group of survivors still reeling from his teammate's treason, not only against the Leaf but the whole world of shinobi this time.

It was only seconds later that roots started to engulf the last of the shinobi, to trap them in the dream world. Naruto, in a desperate last gambit called on Kuramas chakra cloak pushed the chakra to form cloaks on the people all around him. Kurama, understanding the wordless plea pushed all the chakra he could to try to delay or affect the engulfing roots. It was not to be however as one by one they were all captured. As the last of the roots began to cover his face, Naruto let out a scream of denial and tried with all the chakra and will he possessed to escape. In his desperate effort he called upon the gift of the sage of the six paths and pushed, seemingly to no effect, as the roots closed around his head and all his senses went dark.

Waking up was akin to being shocked by electricity as, suddenly, after an indeterminate amount of time of complete sensory deprivation, he could hear the sound of his breathing and feel the ground beneath him and the warmth of the sun on his face. Sitting up groggily Naruto shook his head to clear the last of the cobwebs and opened his eyes to see a veritable paradise stretching for miles around.

He lay upon a beach of sugar white sand and crystal blue water, with forest rising from the beach about a mile away. Birds trilled at the beaming noontime sun and the wind rustled over the tall grasses that stood between the forests and the beach. Snowcapped mountains loomed in the distance, as if watching over the land. Gaping in awe at his surroundings, Naruto stood up and turned a full circle, taking in the view of primordial beauty.

"Are you seeing this Kurama?" He asked of his tenant, only to frown at the lack of reply after a few moments.

"HEY KURAMA!" Yelling into his mind, in an effort to wake the lazy kitsune from his noontime nap. Receiving no answer yet again, Naruto dove into his mindscape and came upon the familiar sewer. At closer inspection however it seemed to be considerably better kept then the last time he remembered, the cracked and leaking pipes fixed and the water that pooled on the floor drained.

Wondering at the changes that had occurred he walked the familiar path to the seal room and stopped in shock at what he saw when he entered. There was nothing there, no remnant of the seal and no Kurama. Once his mind caught up to what he was seeing, he gasped and stumbled back in disbelief. His partner, the mightiest of the Bijuu was no longer sealed inside him. Fleeing the mindscape he deiced to look for answers in the paradise that he mysteriously found himself in. Deciding to move away from the water he headed to the large forest so reminiscent of the land of fire. Keeping alert as he moved swiftly across the trees he soon began to notice signs of habitation in one of the larger clearings that he came across. A smallish pond and a patch of cleared earth with a small cabin occupied the area and Naruto moved in to get a closer look.

Almost as soon as he entered the clearing though he was assaulted by kunai flying at him in a tight grouping and had to quickly dodge to avoid being skewered. Dodging to the right however seemed to be a mistake as he ended up with a foot in his face, that sent him careening into a tree ten feet behind him.

Dropping into a defensive stance and getting his first good look at his assailant left him with more questions than answers, because he definitely recognized the shaggy white hair and the blue fur collared armor that this man wore. It was none other than Tobirama Senju and he seemed to be getting ready to attack once again.

"Hey! Aren't you the Second Hokage!" Naruto exclaimed in surprise and watched as the eyes of the older man lit up with sudden recognition.

"Indeed I am Naruto Uzumaki and I have been waiting for you in this place for quite some time. I apologize for the hostility." the Senju stated as he watched confusion bloom on the face of the teenager.

"Uhhh okay…" Naruto trailed off dubiously as he recalled that the Second was most definitely dead and having watched the other Hokages dissolve into dust as the Shinju ripped their chakra out.

"Am I dead then? And what do you mean you were waiting more me for a long time!" he wondered aloud, much to Tobiramas amusement.

"No Naruto you are not dead, in fact I don't think you will be dying for quite some time. Regardless, come with me we have many things to do and I need to explain some things to you so save your questions for later." Tobirama stated, then turned around and strode swiftly to the small cabin on the other side of the clearing.

Naruto sputtered at the abrupt dismissal of his questions and scrambled to follow the older man, eager to hear of the explanation for his current circumstances. As he reached the door that Tobirama left open he saw the inside of the cabin that was sparsely decorated with roughly hewn wooden furniture. Already seated in a well-worn chair, Tobirama gestured to the other chair in the room for Naruto to sit as well.

"I will do my best to explain our circumstances; try to contain yourself while I do so." Tobirama said as he saw Naruto ready to explode with questions, and calling on the experience he gained from his brother Hashirama, glared Naruto into obedience.

"This place, this world that we are in is not the elemental nations, nor is it any land that I have ever encountered a map of in my life. It is part of the infinite Tsukuyomi, but at the same time it is different than what the other shinobi will experience. Instead of living in a world created by Kaguya, we are in a space between reality and illusion, where she has no sway. It is my conclusion that the power of the kyuubi that you transferred to me allowed us to make it here instead." Tobirama hypothesized.

"Uhh.. well that's great but how do we get back? And how are we going to seal Kaguya without Sasuke's help? And uhh I might have done something with the chakra that the sage of the six paths gave me too."

"Firstly, you will be getting back by disrupting the flow of chakra in this world and then reverse summoning yourself back to Mt. Myobokuzan. Sasuke is now trapped away in the infinite Tsukuyomi and will not willingly leave, you will have to seal Kaguya yourself. As for the gift of the sage that is simply an expression of your natural predisposition toward Yang or physical energy. That is something of an imbalance that we have to correct." He explained.

"Wait a minute! Why are you talking like you won't be coming back with me to seal her? And how do I correct my imbalance?" Naruto questioned heatedly.

"I won't be going back with you. I am merely a chakra construct, the only reason I have lasted this long is because of the chakra that kyuubi transferred me at the moment of the genjutsu. We will simply have to whip you into shape to face Kaguya on your own before my chakra runs out."

"The imbalance is a bit easier to explain. You have always had a natural predisposition for shinobi arts that take advantage of your greater than usual amount of physical energy, like Taijutsu. In because of this and the sage's gift we have to bring you up to speed on the arts that require for Yin energy, like Genjutsu and Ninjutsu."

"So you are going to train me in Genjutsu! I'm terrible at those! Let's just do ninjutsu instead" Naruto exclaimed practically drooling at the prospect of learning new ninjutsu.

"I will be the teacher and you the student and as such we will work on genjutsu and teach you patience, something you clearly lack. Perhaps some kenjutsu because of the focus on finesse instead of power." Tobirama mused.

"Alright alright but I have to warn ya I am really really bad at genjutsu.." Naruto grumbled

"Oh don't worry about that by the time you are ready to leave you WILL be able to use any of the shinobi arts" Tobirama grinned wickedly, planning future training.

Training, as Naruto imagined it was difficult yet rewarding, having that feeling of pride you get when you work for something and you sweat and toil until you get it right. That was not however what kind of training that he was receiving from the second Hokage. They started with the basics, and an unenthused Naruto soon had his ass whipped soundly by Tobirama only using taijutsu and low ranked ninjutsu. During that spar Tobirama took the time to impress upon Naruto the necessity of a solid foundation in the most condescending tone possible. Needless to say he quickly got with the program. Luckily he had access to Shadow Clones to speed up training the same way he did when learning the Rasenshuriken or they would have spent more time on basics then he thought imaginable.

After basics chakra control was next. Another dreaded skill that he really didn't take the time to do properly. This took much longer then the basics firstly because of the sheer amount of chakra that he now possessed and because of the need for ridiculous chakra control for Genjutsu.

As Naruto was working on walking on his hands on the water while holding a plethora of different objects to his body, Tobirama was lecturing and teaching all of the academic and technical aspects of chakra and shinobi that his less than stellar academy presence suggests he missed.

"You may have noticed that you seem to possess more chakra then you did before being trapped here, and that is for two reasons, firstly because of the time that has passed in the world outside of the Tsukuyomi, and the natural development of your chakra coils. Secondly the kyuubi being ripped you of your system when we got trapped stretched and wore your coils out." Tobirama explained.

"I have no idea how much time has actually passed in the world outside, nor do I have any idea weather time passes in here slower of faster than normal…" Tobirama trailed off muttering to himself.

"I didn't say to stop!" He barked when he saw Naruto fall in the water.

"In any circumstance your coils are more developed then they were and you don't have a constant pulse of demonic chakra running through your system preventing you from mastering chakra control this time so I expect you to pick this up quickly!" Tobirama said exasperated as Naruto fell yet again.

"Now, elemental affinities! There has been much misconception about what they actually mean, but they are generally a pretty meaningless piece of trivia about your chakra once you get trained up enough. Your elemental affinity is simply the type that you are naturally predisposed to use nature transformation toward, wind for wind affinity and such. I call it meaningless because once you learn how to use all of the transformations it won't matter which you are predisposed to, your chakra will adapt to the new circumstances."

This pattern of chakra control and lecturing continued until he was deemed passable, barely andso they could begin what Tobirama considered the real ninja arts, Genjutsu and Kenjutsu.

"There are two types of Genjutsu, targeted and widespread. Targeted is Genjutsu as you probably know it, chakra inserted into the brain of the enemy to produce effects that generally deal with alteration of sensory input. This is the type that requires extreme chakra control and concentration on the changes you are forcing them to perceive. Widespread is much more chakra heavy and produces more of a blanket effect. The illusion is locked to an area and affects all that enter its radius, like for example the Bringer of Darkness that my brother invented that simply shuts off all input for the enemy." Tobirama looked over at Naruto to see if he was getting any of this and was delighted to see that he was slowly making progress, based on the expression of comprehension he saw there.

Kenjutsu, the blade fighting arts, were not someting that Naruto had any real experience with outside of basic kunai combatives. After a few sloppy swings with an average length ninjato, Tobirama proclaimed him hopeless and started with how to hold the weapon before they even got into fighting with it. Alongside this came the philosophy of blade fighting and the attitude with which he should approach it.

"Kenjutsu is the art of murder, there is no second guessing that. Drawing your blade is a declaration of resolve to finish your enemy permanently. Before you even consider using it understand that there are relatively few nonlethal ways to disable someone with a blade." Tobirama explained as he put Naruto through a pattern of basic strikes and parries.

Genjutsu was slowly getting easier as he got the concept of putting his chakra into another person's brain and Kenjutsu was something that he found he was really beginning to enjoy. The smooth flowing forms that Tobirama showed him and the swift and precise movements that it required.

After what felt like months and months of Genjutsu training and theory being crammed into his head, Tobirama told him that he had balanced his chakra enough to begin creating the seal needed for Kaguya. What followed was Fuinjutsu training and theory.

Naruto struggled to believe that he could enjoy something so scholarly and so calming but Tobirama said that sealing was in his blood from both sides and that he was progressing quickly through the lessons. Included in Fuinjutsu was Calligraphy and mathematics so as his mental acuity was sharpened by the necessity of the lessons he began to see the well rounded shinobi he was becoming.

While Naruto did all of this training personally he had Shadow Clones constantly rounding out his other areas of lacking. The other elemental transformations were achieved and his grasp of stealth was strengthened.

The last part of training that Tobirama gave to Naruto personally was the mentality of a shinobi, that one should strike swiftly and silently and leave no trace. Not to give out any information that could be possibly aid his enemies. That the shinobi existed only in the darkness while they were on the job, and that morals have no place on the field of battle. This was a particularly hard pill for Naruto to swallow but after being browbeaten with hypothetical and historical situations he accepted its necessity.

Conversely Tobirama also impressed upon him the need for activities that were separate from his shinobi lifestyle, that the mental fatigue and emotional turmoil that inevitably came with such dangerous situations needed to be balanced by calm and enjoyable pastimes.

After an uncountable amount of time had passed in the place in between that Naruto and Tobirama existed came the time to leave. Tobirama was merely a shade at this point and knew his chakra would run out in a matter of hours.

"You are prepared to the best of my ability in the time we have in this place, and I want to reaffirm that you have a the capability to complete the sealing, however there are jutsu that i have taught you that many not be used except in the most dire of circumstances and only then if the requirements are met, you know which i speak of" Tobirama said sternly, trying to impress upon his the gravity of his statements.

"Thank you Tobirama-Sensei for all you have taught me, please give my parents my love when you see them in the next world." Naruto said as he began the hand seals for the Reverse Summoning jutsu and prepared to pulse his chakra to disrupt the remaining Genjutsu on him.

On the last seal he pulsed his chakra as hard as he could and felt the illusion cracking around him, pouring what he had left into the reverse summoning jutsu he prepared himeself for Kaguya and to save whomever was left.